After Friday’s 10-mile lumber at Mid, I spent the weekend doing next to nothing. NOTHING. I ate lots of carby goodness, watched too much footy, and drank some excellent beer.
However, despite completing a week filled with many firsts for me (my fastest ever 5-mile run and completing my first 10-mile lumber), I found myself in an unexplained, deep, misanthropic funk on Sunday that I could not shake.
It was all too reminiscent of some years past (2016-ish thru 2021-ish?), and from the time I woke up, I found my mind racing with long-perfected self-loathing and a wish to be someone else, anywhere else, doing anything else.
I ended the day by “dark sitting” (Wifey’s term) on the back porch in the warm summer-like night, waiting for a socially acceptable time to go to bed, hoping that when I woke, those wishes would be true.
They would not be.
Big as your face fungus.
I begrudgingly got out of bed early Monday morning, tended to the dogs, had some coffee, and then eventually set out for lumber at Deerfield.
I know my mood is dark when I drive to and from anywhere without music playing, and despite getting 5+ miles in my legs to start the week, the drives to and from the trails were completed in complete silence. Just my dark thoughts and un-granted wishes.
After I got home, I shoved some eggs and toast in my face and then grabbed my pill box (welcome to 53), threw Monday’s pills in my mouth, washed them down with cold coffee, and set about my day.
A bit later, as I cleaned the kitchen, I moved my pills out of the way and noticed that each day’s compartment seemed a little different. It was then that I realized that when I filled the box early Sunday morning, I somehow failed to include the most important pill I take— my Lexapro.
This means the last time I took one was Saturday at 6:30 AM, and my brain was now in its 52nd-ish hour (give or take the med’s half life) without Daddy’s Little Helper.
My brain wasn’t happy about that, but it did reassure me a little that I wasn’t on my way back down into the hairy, stinking, gaping wormhole of unchecked self-hatred and a return to The Bed of Torment.
I was back to feeling almost like a normal person by late afternoon and woke up Tuesday morning feeling my old self—the one that keeps his hate for himself, half the country, and most of society just under the surface enough so as to not be a dick to the ones I love and for some reason love me back, unconditionally.
With my mood improved, I was on the trails around 7:50 AM to do my first “run” of the week.
Parking lot sock.
It was another wonderfully cool morning, and the rising sun had created copious amounts of mist on the river as I panted, spit, and flailed my way over the bridge and into the woods.
I felt pretty good for most of the run, but I kept thinking my periods of actual running were too short (as an old-ass trail-running newbie, it’s hard for me to keep running over the entire loop, not to mention the terrain is too difficult in spots). But, it turns out I was right on pace, kept all the miles under 12 minutes, and once again completed my five-mile “run” loop in under an hour, coming in with a new fat guy P.R. of 56:45 (my last was 56:56).
I’m freakin’ stoked about continuing to improve my runs, but I am way more stoked to have my brain back on track. Fall is the precursor to a time of year that is always tough for me mentally, and parts of the weekend brought back a lot of bad memories from the Bed of Torment years and beyond. But I’m back, feeling good, and dealing with the shit in my head as best I can, mostly by pushing it down deep, and living a near-solitary life void of any human interaction, much to the O.G. Mindbender’s sympathetic chagrin.
Later.