Ugggghhhhh just enough already.

I really hate writing blog posts that read mostly like a list of excuses for why I've pretty much been a lazy slob lately. For me one of the reasons for continuing to update this blog in what feels like the twilight age of blogging is for some sense of accountability, and, a lot of times, it works. But the downside is that sometimes there are periods where things just feel completely out of your control, and no amount of public accountability is going to magically change the central facts of your life.

At this point I feel like whatever meager amount of fitness I'd managed to build up by early October has now slowly melted and curled up into a corner where it continues to twitch only occasionally. A couple weeks back I had a decent week of 30+ miles--no workouts but at least getting some miles in. But since then it's been the perfect storm of injury & illness & travel & natural disasters & Just.

Enough.

Already.

The last two weeks don't even merit their own training logs since they involved a grand total of 8 miles. The week of November 5, I was traveling for work. On these trips I never expect to get particularly long runs or high mileage in, just because of how busy I am, but I can still usually find time for 5-8 easy miles a day. So I was pretty pissed that Tuesday when I got all kitted out in my running clothes after work, only to find that the hotel fitness room was under construction.

In some areas I go to for work running outside is an option, but where I was this time was neither particularly safe nor particularly convenient. Like, if this WERE truly high stakes, sure, I could have jogged up and down the same three-block stretch, stopping at red lights every 90 seconds, or maybe done laps around the hotel. Yes, those are things I technically could have done. But it sounded so completely awful, and if there is one thing I need right now it's for the running I do to be at least somewhat enjoyable, so, hard pass.

So that sucked. Then Thursday we flew to TX to see my family, which is often really great for running outside. But the days were packed enough that I would have needed to do it at 6 or 7 am, and for the first couple of days I was so exhausted from traveling & jet lag that that was just not happening.

And then I got sick. And then California caught on fire, so when we got off the plane in SF the following Wednesday you could barely see your hand in front of your face through the smoke. The Dept of Public Health was recommending not going outdoors at all and if you absolutely had to, wearing a N95 mask & changing them out every 8 hours. They were sold out in the Bay Area, but we were smart enough to grab a box at the Home Depot in TX before flying out.

A guy who works on Alcatraz Island posted these two photos from the same vantage point side-by-side, the top one from Oct. 28 and the bottom one from Nov. 10, two days after the fires started. It's that bad.

On Thursday I was still sick but feeling so gross & sedentary that I still got up early to hit the gym before work, & then that afternoon put on my mask for a 1.25 mile jog to the gym, 5.5 easy miles on the 'mill, & 1.25 miles back home. (Probably still not a great idea for someone with asthma & a head cold.)

Yuck.

I had plans for something similar on Friday but by then was feeling even worse (and the air quality had, amazingly, also somehow managed to get worse), so instead I took a half sick day & just tried to get some sleep. Which was just as well, since after Thursday's 8 easy miles the plantar fasciitis was back with a vengeance in the left foot & also some BONUS!! out-of-the-blue Achilles tendinitis in the right foot. I spent Thursday night & Friday mostly hobbling around like a cripple, so, GOOD TIMES.

This past weekend we were out of town again. Again under normal circumstances I could have made a couple short, easy runs happen, but, y'know. Sick. And half-crippled. And air quality only marginally better than the Bay Area. So a little extra sleep it was.

Such is life. You do what you can do. Shit happens, and right now it kind of seems like there's a whole lot of shit going on.

Still, there is always the jerk-brain voice on the back of my head, the one saying, "Well. But if a 20-21 minute 5K was really that important to you, if you really, really cared, you would have found a way. You would have made it happen."

Which, I dunno, maybe?? I probably couldn't have magicked away all my physical ailments but maybe there were days I could have sacrificed more, gotten up earlier or gone in to the office later or taken just a tiny bit more risk with my health or safety. Sure. It's possible.

But there's also a point where a recreational athlete has to ask themselves where the line is for someone who is not making a living off their athletic talent, in terms of what else is being sacrificed for a few more miles or one more workout, when the only real stakes are the ones in their own head.

Man, I'm just so over it this year. I'm tired of being sick and broken and traveling too much and my state being a dumpster fire and the Universe just generally giving me the finger in terms of running. Part of me really wants to just throw in the towel, tell my Garmin "Peace out, catch ya in 2019" & just eat pie for the rest of the year.

Still. I know that would only make things worse in the end, so I'm trying to make some very gentle end-of-the-year resolutions for myself.

• Finally book a sports chiropractor & figure out what's going on with my back.
• Finally book an appointment with the sports podiatrist & see if there is anything else I could possibly be doing for my plantar fasciitis.
• Keep faithfully doing my strength work, 2-3x per week whenever possible, so as to get ahead of that stuff for whenever I'm able to reliably start running again.
• Do some amount of easy jogging and/or cross-training whenever possible, if only to stave off the feeling of melting into a lazy sedentary slob.

With any luck that'll get me through the end of the year without a meltdown.

Tell me something happy, people!!!