Hammer and Nails

Some days you're the hammer and some days you're the nail. Today I was the nail.

- Lance Armstrong

It's been a long hard weekend that included a disappointing long run, endless loops of a hospital trying to keep two rambunctious boys entertained (and contained), comforting Gavin when he was witness to things I would rather he hadn't seen and heard, changing a punctured tire on the big Yukon in 100F+ temperatures in the middle of nowhere (literally), purchasing new tire for said Yukon, a sleepless night, an about-to-get-sick toddler (who thankfully seems to have fought it off), and a good old-fashioned bit of British-style ear bashing (wherein we enclose biting sarcasm and blunt honesty within the facade of politeness - reference Simon Cowell and Ann Robinson - very hard to counter).

And across all of that, a continued admiration for my wife who has the patience of Job, takes things in her stride, handles them with strength, compassion and dignity, and always says and does the right thing. She is the calm within the storm, and I will continue to do my upmost to be her safe harbor.

But this blog is focused on running, so I'm going to try and keep it to that.

I gave up my coaching spot with Round Rock Fit over the weekend - the season is only a couple of weeks away, and I'm just not going to be able to commit to the weekly group runs to the extent that they deserve.

Saturday morning I got up super early to run 14 miles with Clea before driving to Brownwood, and just felt drained. We kept up a pace in the mid-8s up and down the hills and enjoyed catching up with each other, but I was struggling and I bonked around mile 11. Mile 11? Come on, that's just ridiculous. But my heart really wasn't in it and I was running on empty, so I convinced Clea to go on and I was going to run the last few miles slowly. And they were slow - I walked for a bit, ran for a bit and then walked again before sucking it up and managing a 9 minute mile for the last mile.

Clea had left some gatorade and some homemade blueberry cake on my car, which was super kind (as well as super delicious).

And I have to give a big shout-out here to all my friends who commented on my last post, called me or emailed me privately, offered to babysit the boys while I ran, or to help in whatever way they could. You know who you are, and your kindness is much appreciated.

Anyways, I got home and weighed myself (which I do after all of my Saturday long runs). I've been holding steady at 152lbs for the last few months, which is the ideal running weight for me, but when I hopped on the scale I was down to 146lbs. That's not good, and probably explains why I felt so drained.

I'd told Nancy off during the week for not eating enough and not taking good enough care of herself while she was at the hospital, but I could have applied the same lecture to myself. Thinking back, I was so busy making sure that the boys were fed and watered (and running around after little Dylan), I'd been skipping a few too many meals myself and walking around constantly hungry (and I know I haven't been drinking anywhere near enough water).

A bit more planning this week should fix that (going to make a huge batch of beef korma (how's that for fusion cuisine!!!) with pilau rice and naan bread tonight), but I wonder how many calories you burn constantly chasing around an adventurous and mischievous 1 year old, and shoulder pressing a hyperactive 5 year old???

Apparently quite a few.


I promise my next post will be much more upbeat - I have a great story about a very surreal experience I had at HEB last night that put a big grin on my face. It was too good not to share :-)