The week after the Christmas holiday, I was back on the Dreadmill in the Not So Stankment, pounding out daily 3-mile lumbers and intervals. After what seemed like months of being ill in one form or another, it felt great to get my heart rate up and to sweat again without a 101˚ fever.
So, after 21+ miles of lumbering nowhere slow, I was stoked to get back on the magic Zwift machine last Monday and get my legs back to doing what they do best. Or at least do better than running.
We all have fond holiday memories, at least that’s what marketing departments around the world tell us, so it must be true.
Here are a few of mine; whether they are fond memories is up to you. At this point in my life, I just laugh, shake my head, and mutter some 21st century swear words I find more fitting than Ebenezer’s “Bah Humbug!”
Today is hopefully the last in a shit show series of posts that went on way too long dedicated to me being ill in one form or another. — Management
Saturday brought Day 7 of Crud 2021 to me and Day 5 to Wifey. I would include B, but he’s 17, and his immune system got rid of his Crud roughly two days after he got it; if he had it at all, he still maintains that he was never actually sick, and it was an allergic reaction to a friend’s cat. Discrepancies on who was Cruded first and for how long aside, it’s been a long week/few months, and I’m happy to see the end of it.
I’ve spent the last few weeks months grappling with a level of holiday-induced anxiety that I’ve not experienced in some time, mostly because this was the first holiday since I-don’t-know-when that I wasn’t on some form of antidepressant. All that anxiety finally came to its anti-climactic conclusion on Thanksgiving (Thursday to the rest of the world) when I unveiled the newer, fatter, older, even more, unsuccessful version of myself to my family for the first time since Christmas Eve 2019.
Imagine playing a Hindenburg disaster-level shit show over and over again in your head for months, only to have the reality be a flaccid leftover birthday balloon found behind the couch. That, my friends, is my anxiety in a nutshell.
I got out Thursday morning for a ride, but it soon became apparent that I didn’t have it in me. I was riding right into a steady wind that combined with overnight rain and morning sun to make things an un-fun, sticky mess. I did 15 miles, and that would have to scratch my workout itch for the day.
For better or worse, I was on a bit of a roll with posting. Then I didn’t for a few days; now I don’t know where to begin. Shit.
From what I can remember, I’ve been balls deep into watching my food intake and working out every single blessed goddamn day like I’m an Olympian as I try to lose the weight that so cleverly attached itself to me via years of being on the antidepressant hamster wheel.
There has been no ride since my last ride. That’s a bummer, but I’ve tried to keep moving with six nine miles of Dreadmill lumbering over the past two three days. Me walking/jogging on a treadmill is not exactly blog-worthy1, but as I so often say here on these ill-written digital pages of digital suck, “yet here we are.”
In my last post, I rode my bike. Since then, I have been limited to one short trainer session and some random hikes when time allowed.
We’ll start this unneeded post back on Friday, ’cause that was the next time I did something since the last time.
As I sat and sipped my A.M. coffee on, I started to get the itch to ride. Knowing that I am full-on mother fucking out of shape and the heat outside was some real swamp-ass type stuff, I knew it wouldn’t be a long ride, but I wanted outside. The plan was to ride the paved mid-Michigan pathway (or whatever the fuck it’s called) from MP towards Shepherd, then jump off for some dirt roads and then back. All in all, it would be about a 20-mile lollipop of a loop with a dogleg left and a cul-de-sac.
But it never happened.
I type this with one goal in mind: get to the end. Fast.
