Tuesday night was a horrible night’s sleep, and I found myself wide awake at 2 AM and unable to get in the temperature zone: too hot, then too cold, then needing to pee, then falling asleep, then repeating the process until 6 AM when I could finally end the cycle and get out of bed.
As I stood in the backyard looking skyward, giving Jake (the dog) some privacy while he braced his weary hind legs for his morning dump, I inhaled the dank, humid morning air now further laced with dog turd and let out a long sigh, “Ffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffucccckkkkk,” as I rubbed my eyes.
I had no desire to do anything other than find a place in the yard void of dog shit and lie down. Instead, I pulled up my man gutchies, hoisted Jake onto my shoulder, and got on with feeding the mutz and getting some coffee before forcing myself out the door and onto the trails before 7:30 AM, hoping the early start would help me beat the heat. It did not.
My knee is feeling nearly 100% again, but the plantar fasciitis in my left foot really flared up Monday night, and as soon as I started picking up the pace to a run, I knew I was in for a painful morning.
The pain started at mile 0.1 and (sort of) ended at mile 4.03, and I can’t even imagine what my already heinous running form looked like (OK, that’s a lie; I can imagine it looked like a wounded flesh-colored bitter buffalo looking for a cliff to hurl itself off of). And at the time of writing this pointless drivel, my heel is still throbbing.
Having said ALL that bullshit, I actually had one of my better overall times, completing a 4.03-mile loop in a nugget’s hair under 51 minutes, AND the first mile was my fastest outdoor mile time ever at 11:52. It just doesn’t make sense; I mean I was gritting my teeth in pain with every step! Cheers to pain tolerance and self-loathing.
Lumber/Run!! Old habits, etc.
Today also marked the end of July, and my Garmin files tell me that for the second month in a row, I failed to hit 100 miles, coming in at 93.29 on the month. However, it is an increase of 60 miles from a horrible pain and deck-refinishing month of June. I guess I should, at the very least, be happy about that and the fact that I have been combining running into my lumbers more consistently than ever. Of course, the ability to walk like a normal human being for the rest of the morning would be nice, but whatever, normality is overrated.
My current 2024 milage is at 600.23. If I can stay healthy, I hope to be able to match last year’s 1,288.75 miles and hopefully exceed it.
No photos today due to running and not seeing shit to photograph.
Later.