Posts Tagged → feeling mental

A Post-Mood Headless Rabbit

After a few days of stewing in my own fecal-scented depressive juices, I finally started to climb out of The Bell Jar sometime on Thursday.

While I know what put me in the mood, I don’t know exactly what got me out of the mood. I had an appointment with the OG Mindbender on Wednesday, and that helped a good deal, but sometimes I think I just need to let a mood take its course until I find the will to push that shit down real deep and forget about it. Like the saying goes, “Time heals all wounds, but it also kills everyone and everything.” Or something like that.

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Avoiding The Ditch

I needed less than 5 miles to hit my 30-mile goal last week. Didn’t.

I aborted Friday morning’s lumber due to snow and ice coming down and promises of better conditions on Saturday morning. Until I woke up Saturday and had no desire to lumber.

At this point, I could wax nostalgic about a weekend of suck and the want to lie down in a ditch on the side of the road for a long nap, but I will save that for another day.

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At Slack’s End

After a few days spent with my slack turned blissfully up to 11, I woke up Monday morning with not one ounce of desire to lumber on what were either going to be extremely slushy trails or extremely icy trails. Either way, I knew I didn’t have the brain power to deal, so I didn’t. Giving up is so easy, I really should get back into the routine.

Fast forward to Tuesday morning…

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Winter’s Knock Out

These days, I’m not so much hiding from winter as I am beat down by winter like an aging heavyweight boxer lying on the mat, dazed, confused, with blood and spittle running from my slackened jaw as my eyes struggle to focus on what is happening around me before accepting fate, and closing them. *cue soundtrack*

But hey, it’s February, and like the saying goes, “new month, same old cold, miserable, bullshit.”

Obviously, I am riding a wave of hyperbole and caffeine this morning, as I recap a week of nothing. For that, I make no apologies.

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Making Choices, Avoiding SAD Naps

Since I traded bikes for hiking shoes, I have mentally survived the winter months way better than before. Along with losing the anxiety of smashing my blood-thinned body on the ice (again), proper equipment—much of it left over my from cycling days—for the long winter has helped a ton; proper jacket, base layers, GORE-TEX shoes, gaiters, trekking poles, micro spikes, and snowshoes, if necessary, have all made venturing out into the snow and ice more tolerable and downright fun at times.

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Still Not Back

Out of The Woods, Day 7

The freezing rain and winds have finally diminished, and in their wake have left numerous trees down and some side roads (including our street) a snow and ice-packed mess.

Since I try not to be too big of a self-serving outdoor prick, I figured I would stay out of the woods another day to give the park workers a chance to clear the downed trees and the mess that the storm left behind. I don’t think they need a fat hiker with a camera getting in their way.

With that, I was in the Not So Stankment for another 3 miles of intervals.

My plan was just to do a long-ish lumber, but once I got warmed up, that seemed stupid, and a real mental nut kick, so I turned up some old DJ mixes on Soundcloud and got to the intervals.

There was much sweat, and the realization that staring straight into a replay of an EFL Championship match is NOT a proper replacement for woods and critters. And despite the music making want to attempt to twerk whilst running, thumping bass and breakbeats are no replacement for birds chirping or the babbling of the running river.

This is my second 3-mile interval session in four days, and while I am not a fan, it has helped keep me relatively sane and once again has me wanting to get back to trail running again. Well, at least my Fat But Fit version of trail running that involves plenty of gasping, winded cries of “fuck, oh fuck,” and flirtations with hurling myself onto the trail in a heap of pain.

Trail running (or a shambolic, belly-heaving jog in the woods) is always a great reminder to me that I DON’T RUN! But it also serves as a strange on/off-again goal that has frustrated me for years, yet still has me longing to do it consistently. I might not ever say I DO RUN! But I’d be stoked with I CAN RUN! I just choose when I want to do it.

Later.