Feeling Punchy

On the off chance you don't know what feeling punchy means to me, here is a Urban Dictionary definition.

Can also be induced by sheer poop-my-pants terror.

With the half marathon race coming up in a couple of days all my bad habits concerning performance anxiety are popping up.  My list of bad behavior include:

1.  Thinking and planning excessively.  (The highlighted times are an estimate since I only ran 11 miles.)

2. Telling myself there is no way to meet my goals.  I tend to get super dramatic and feel that even a hair off my goal would be a complete and utter failure.  For example, my goal is to be under 2 hours, therefore 2:00:00 would be just as much as a failure as a 3:30 time.  Heads up for the next blog posting, it's going to be all about excuses.  I imagine something like:

                        1. Race day was too hot
                        2. My shorts chafed
                        3. My re-fueling gave me stomach cramps
                        4. I had to visit the port-o-potty every other mile
                        5. I didn't get enough sleep the night before

3. Making myself physically sick
4. Snapping at people who irritate me and right now that is just about everybody.

In the back of my head I know that everything will be fine and I'll have fun watching all the costumed people run around.  When the run actually starts I'm sure all the planning will go out of my head.

In other news I made a bubble dress for the B.  It was my first experience with ruching.  I think it's pretty cute but my reluctant model did not approve in the photo.  She did actually like it though, she spent 10 minutes twirling in front of her closet mirror.

I just twirled to make you feel better Mama.  I think this dress is ridiculous.  Can I take it off now?

Am I Stinky?

Yesterday during my long-for-me run of 11 miles, I approached a lady that was going at the same pace as me. Since I had already done my first 6 miles and exhausted my self entertainment possibilities, I thought it would be a nice change to run alongside someone for the next 5. We wouldn't even have to talk. She probably wouldn't even notice I was there, I thought.

As I pulled up to her, she sped up. So I sped up, and she sped up. I did this in increments of 10 secs pace decreases until she got to 8:15 which is just too fast for me to go for 5 more miles. Since it wasn't a big deal to me (I'm in my pseudo 2 week taper), I backed off. Oddly enough, so did she.

Since I'm that weirdo, I decided to experiment on her. After 4 more miles of varying the following distance, the final conclusion was that she was okay with me matching her pace 7ft behind her. As soon as I broke into that personal bubble she would speed up until she got 7ft ahead of me. I still can't decide if I'm the stinky-noisy-weirdo, or if she's the odd ball.

Regardless of my stinky/noisy/weirdo status, it got me thinking about what really ticks me off when I'm running.

1. People who don't stay in their lane at the track. That's what the painted lines are for!
2. People that leave their dog poop lying around for others to step in.
3. Running in humidity and heat. Bleh.
4. Carrying a water bottle.
5. Having to fuel midrun.
6. Running into the sun.

Regarding #3, I know that others outside of coastal CA have much worse weather to deal with and I feel a little bad about complaining. However, I don't feel THAT bad. So on my list it goes. I find that the few degrees of heat slows me down by at least 15-30 seconds per mile.

I imagine #1 on stay-7ft-behind-me lady's list is having stinky-noisy-weirdos latch on to her during her solo runs.

Later in the afternoon, the B and I gave her a mani and pedi.  Too bad it was just playdoh and ended up getting ground into the blanket we place on the floor.  It was so worth it to see her tottering off to show Daddy.  I've never seen the kid walk so carefully before.  I couldn't get both her head and hands in focus at the same time, so here are 2 photos of our girly afternoon.  Yes, that is a toilet seat in the background.  We bought the fancy kind that has also has a kid's toilet seat you can flip down. 

Look at my beautiful fingers and toes.

In case you couldn't tell, my mom is a bad photographer.

Since I am going on about bathroom matters, there is a bathroom war taking place on my floor at work.  There is some lady that:

1. Does not flush the toilet
2. Does not wipe down the toilet seat
3. Pees all over the floor. 

I'll spare you the photos of the unflushed toilet and the dirty toilet seat.  However, I had to share the photo of the floor around the toilet.  See all the shiny spots?  Yup, that's sticky pee.  HOW in the world does someone get spray that far?! 

What you can't see is the the spray spots extend all the way to the toilet on the left as well.

Since they haven't caught the person pee-handed, some people have been putting up signs around the bathroom.  People are so gross, I didn't realize we had to tell them to clean up after themselves.  Really though, I shouldn't be surprised since you see wash-your-hand signs in restaurants. 

A little angry.

Then there is the angrier sign.  If you can't read it, the sign says," If you have no cortesy to flush the FRICKING toilet, PLEASE go to anothe floor!!!"

Because the solution to any problem is to inflict it upon others.  Yes, we're all a big happy team.  Still, it really is super gross.  Sometimes I go to bathrooms on the other floors when all the toilet seats on my floor are covered with pee.  In case you were wondering, it's not me peeing on toilet seats.

To cleanse your palette of grossness, here's a photo of the super cute B.

If I smelled really bad, would you tell me?

Hey Stupid, Stop Eating Crap

If it were possible to have a conversation with my body it would probably go something like this:

Me: Why do you hate me so much I have to get the trots before AND after runs?
Body: Because you put crap in me.
Me: But it tastes so good.
Body: No it doesn't, you just watch too much TV and are easily swayed by commercials.  Don't deny it, brain told me so yesterday.
Me: Whatever, I'm having a snickers bar for lunch.  Take that.
Body:  Fine, but then you're going to spend lots of bonding time with the toilet at work.
Me: Dammit.  Oh well it's worth it.

While consuming my daily dose of crap last night, I snorted up some BBQ chips when we saw track cycling on the Olympics.  Really, Track Cycling?!  For this event, my husband had the funniest comment.  This was our conversation during the first part of the race where the bikers stall. 

Me and Jason: What is this?
Me: I don't get it, look up the DVR info, what is this called?
Jason: It doesn't say.
Me: What are they doing?  How do they win?
Jason:  . . . the guy that can go the slowest without falling wins.

Ok, it's not as funny in the morning.  But trust me, it was hilarious last night.  Also, the internet is devoid of track cycling memes.  Internet, you have let me down.

In other whiny noises, there needs to be a way to combine the entertainment factor of listening to an audio book and the pace boosting factor of music. I've been dreading my long runs because they are becoming exceedingly dull.  50 laps around a track can do that to you. 

In an effort to entertain myself and shake out of this funk, I listened to The Importance of Being Ernest.  The only Oscar Wilde I had read was Picture of Dorian Gray.  While I loved the novel, it felt pretty dark.  On the other hand, the Importance of Being Ernest, is hilarious.  It certainly made the run more entertaining.  If there were other people out at the track at 5am, they would have found me entertaining too since I was laughing like a lunatic.  Unfortunately for them, they missed out on that particular pleasure. 

At the same time it did felt harder.  I suppose the beat of the music helps move my feet along.  Looking back at my splits, they certainly reflected that I was going slower than usual.  Since I'm slow to begin with, this isn't great for improving my time.  Turns out I'm not skilled enough to listen to audio books and keep a pace at the same time. 

Yes, I am aware that I'm being melodramatic.