citizen of the planet

Yes, indeed, it’s too early to panic.  The bruises and the strain that I picked up yesterday are still with me today.  My knees have some large dark areas that look like they’re about to turn purple by tomorrow.  I haven’t yet taken any time to apply ice over the areas, but I will.  It’s not that I can’t run with them, but they’re just far too distracting.  I don’t want to end up racing while being constantly reminded of my tender areas.

As for my right calf, I knew that I had a tube of some Motrin Active Pain Relief in my bathroom cabinet.  The cream was a full-sized sample that came in the race kit for last year’s Angus Glen Half Marathon.  Seriously, that’s one cool thing about Angus Glen (besides their awesome lunch offerings): their kits usually have full-sized samples of useful stuff.  Well, I popped it open and rubbed it into my right calf.  The thing smelled like a cross between toothpaste and a medicine cabinet.  It certainly worked rather well.  My calf isn’t feeling quite so bad, but I still feel the issue there.  Word of warning: if you ever use a muscle cream, make sure to wash your hands afterwards.  I didn’t after applying, and minutes later my was feeling both warm and numb.

On top of all of this, I picked up a strained left shoulder this morning.  I was talking to a colleague about my exploits last night, and during a moment of enthusiastic re-enactment I pulled something.  Honestly, I can’t help but feel like my whole body is sort of rebelling against me.  Sure, that’s kind of an exaggeration, but all of this pain is just poorly timed.  I still have tomorrow to rest and heal myself.  I have to trek over to Burlington to pick up my kit.  After that I have to get to my improv class.  I need to make sure I don’t over do it like I did last night.  No more mistakes.  This is it: I have to take things seriously!

All this time I’ve been saying that I need to be careful with my legs such that I’ll be rested and uninjured for my big race.  And yet, here I am lying in bed with a sore left knee and a strained right calf.  What the heck happened?  Well, really it’s been a rather full night.  Again, I wasn’t really intending on it being a full night, but hey, what are you going to do, right?

After work, I went over to an Irish pub close to Yonge and Bloor to meet an old colleague.  I hadn’t seen him in months.  It was good to get a chance to bitch about the state of work and how everything is becoming a strange stage play of intrigue, possibilities, in-fighting and backstabbing.  Oh yes, indeed.  I started out with a pint of Strongbow, which was nice and mellow.  I didn’t intend on drinking all that much, but after we finished our first drinks I ordered a pint of Sapporo.  My colleague did the same.  After a while, my colleague peered over and saw a guy at the bar drinking from this big-ass mug.  We were both so taken by the size that we asked the server what the deal was with the mug.  She corrected us and informed us that it was a stein.  She said that we could order one of three beers with it.  I think my colleague was reluctant, but I decided to dive right in and egged him on to do the same.  Well, when the steins arrived we were in sheer shock over how big the damn things were.  Sure, they didn’t look so big when the other guy had it, but to us they were enormous.  To our Asian sensibilities it was perhaps a bit more than we could handle, but we were determined.  Those steins were our Everest.  We did eventually conquer them, but only after some hesitation.  By the end of the steins we decided to just end it.  After paying our bills we parted ways.  I decided to walk eastward to at least burn off some of what I had just ingested.

So what happened after drinking?  Why am I slightly sore and injured?  Find out more after the jump!

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Today ended all of our training runs for this cycle.  It’s our taper week, which means that we’re all supposed to be taking it easy.  Our mileage should be cut back and we shouldn’t be doing anything to strain ourselves.  All this allows our legs to be fully rested.  Really, by the time race day comes around, we should be raring to go.  According to schedule though, we’re supposed to be doing our two weekday runs at race pace.  To me that just doesn’t make sense at all.  By going at race pace, aren’t you just thoroughly wearing your legs out right before the race?  I decided to turn that on its head for my group.  I encouraged everyone to do tonight and last night’s run at a really relaxed pace.  Frankly, even then I could feel that my legs were a little bit heavy.  At the very least, there are still a few days until the race.  I;m sure it’s enough time to allow my legs to recover.

Just a few days more.

I’m actually pretty nervous about this race.  It’s not really the act of racing itself that’s causing me stress, but more the set of expectations that I’m placing on myself.  Now that I’m lighter, and that I’ve successfully pushed myself harder, I just don’t want to come out of the race with a lack of improvement.  I realize it’s not good to put such pressure on myself like that, but I need to do this.  I’ve worked too hard and made too many sacrifices to just be complacent about it all.  Nope.  Complacency is just lame.

I really wish this awkwardness will just go away.  After all, I don’t want this upcoming month to just drag on.  I really can’t blame you for taking the option.  However, that doesn’t mean I have to be happy about it.

…

Just don’t ask me (jokingly or otherwise) “what have I gotten myself into?”  You know very well.

Ugh.