citizen of the planet

This whole half marathon training thing is such that I’ve got things quite figured out for myself.  Actually, I’m sure that there are a couple of discoveries that are still out there waiting to be found, but for the most part I have a good sense of what I need to do and when I need to do it in order to get good performance out of myself.  Once in a while though, I need something like a small kick in the pants to remind myself to stay vigilant.

So, last night I ended up getting caught up with various distractions.  Next thing I know, 1 a.m. came and I knew that even if I couldn’t get some proper sleep I’d need at least a few hours down.  I totally forgot my usual routine of drinking a couple of glasses of water prior to heading to bed.  I do that to help me stay hydrated.  Anyway, I set my alarm to use the radio at 6:15 am.  I had by iPod docked there earlier, but I decided that radio would serve me better for a wake up call.  Morning came.  When I took a peek at the clock I was shocked to find out that it was already 7:30 a.m.  I had half an hour to go to the bathroom, get my gear on, and head out the door.  Somewhere in the rush, I completely neglected to eat something.  Usually I have a piece of toast with some sugary spread of my choosing on top.  This time though I was running on empty.

After all of these misfires, the run itself just didn’t feel great.  I was running somewhat normally, but I just felt like something was a little bit off.  I became hungrier earlier.  I went through my bottle of water pretty quickly, forcing me to conserve my fluids for the last few kilometres.  My hips were aching earlier than they really should have.

All in all, I should have known better.  Yes, I should have done all of the necessary pre-measures to prep myself for being out there for more than two hours.  At the very least, now that I’ve done this I’m more likely to be more careful.

You know, as I was writing last night’s post I was passing in and out of consciousness.  OK, so maybe that’s making things sounds much more dire than they actually were.  I was just really tired and actually had difficulty just completing the entry.  At the bar, by the third Strongbow Erika was telling me that I had the sleepy eye thing going on.  Yeah, I’ve actually noticed that before.  It seems that when I have alcohol I tend to just look fatigued.  I don’t go Asian red, but I just look like I haven’t slept in 36 hours.  I guess it’s true though: I really was tired.  And walking over to Yonge and Bloor after a long night out probably didn’t help me out either.

Anyway, in yesterday’s post I meant to post pictures of the foie gras poutine as well as the remnants of the Belgian chocolate fondue that we shared. Unfortunately, my sleep baked mind just couldn’t manage that.  So here they are.  Yes, they were both awesome and tasty.

I just got home a couple of minutes ago.  I’m really quite exhausted–I was at a bar for 5 hours tonight.  All things considered, that’s something that I don’t do all that often.  I actually spent the evening catching up with a good group of Toronto based members of the 20 Something Bloggers community at the King St. W location of Bier Markt.  Yeah, part of me still says that this, meeting people I met on the Internet, is something that I wouldn’t normally do, except that time and time again I find myself doing it.  I’d like to think that I have a good sense of whether people are total kooks online, and so far it hasn’t led me too far astray.  Especially with this 20SB group, everyone seems to be genuinely awesome.

Upon looking at the menu for the place, I was sort of determined to get something a bit strange and different for my meal.  I ended up getting the foie gras poutine.  In terms of drinks, since we were sitting at the bar I had a good view of all of the different things on tap.  I couldn’t decide what I wanted, so I just named what was on the tap that was right in front of me.  Turns out that was Strongbow Cider, so I stuck with that drink throughout the night.  I honestly didn’t know Strongbow is a cider.  So, when I first tasted my drink and got something fruity I was sort of surprised.  I had 5 pints of that tonight, and frankly I’m still feeling a little bit drunk.  All the same, my typing seems to be pretty bang on, so I’m doing well. The only drawback that I can think of right now is that with the poutine my caloric intake for the day is way off target.  Oh well: one day of less than stellar eating isn’t so bad.

Today I was fortunate enough to have the client compliment me and tell me that I’ve been on top of my game lately.  How nice, right?  Thing is, in my mind, I haven’t done anything different outside of my usual effort levels.  Nope, nope, nope.  So what’s so different these days?  Well, without as many people on the team to help out, a lot of the responsibilities lie directly on my shoulders.  There just aren’t that many people there now to spread out the work such that the load is sensible.  A while ago there were enough layers of separation allowing me to focus on doing my thing while maintaining a low visibility.  Now, I’m on the front lines fighting the good fight.  This late in the game, it seems like this is the time for me to shine.  Question is, do I want to burn that brightly?  Don’t I need to save some energy in reserve for those special times?  I think, given the fact that time is ticking down to my impending doom, I might as well just go for it when it makes sense.

You can’t accuse me of not working hard enough.

Nope, nope, nope.