Well my friends it's been too long. My personal life has been quite busy for the past two weeks and the amount of free time that I felt I needed to write something of value just wasn't to be found. But tonight, I found some quality time in front of the old fireplace. So here goes...
As I said before the dynamics of my home life have changed substantially. My wife has switched her shift at her new job to the 11:00 PM-8:30 AM platoon. Which means lots of changes in how we do the normal day to day activities, getting the little guy to school, dinner time, family time, work out time, etc. In addition to those typical activities, the amount of sleep that I'm able to get has decreased a little too. Which has made me most cranky indeed.
All this week that frustration has fueled my running to the extreme. I've not really paid much attention to my mile split times and have run mostly everything WAY too fast. Very satisfied with what I've been able to run this week. But when you dip into the well too much you pay a price. So yesterday I was planning on throttling back on the gas pedal.
Just when you think you're OK, life has a way of throwing a random hill in your way. A while ago I'd put in for vacation at my job for this Friday and Saturday. My wife had orchestrated an amazing opportunity to go with a biologist while he did some field work with local black bears in our area. We were even going to take the little man out of school for this incredible learning experience. But unfortunately the supervisors where I work look at individual people as cannon fodder and enjoy the idea of looking like a leader but rarely acting like one. I was notified yesterday with an hour and a half left in my shift that I wasn't going to be able to have the days off even though there were vacation slots available. Apparently me taking off would create a need for overtime. No amazing experiences for me or the little man. It's frustrating to be a very good employee at your job for almost 13 years who never asks for anything special and gets regularly abused. Well dad, you were right. Never should've gone into the family business. Rest assured that the little man won't follow in our footsteps.
Went to work today with completely the wrong attitude. I stewed all night long yesterday and ate really poorly. I was exhausted. If you happen to be one of the unfortunate fellow coworkers that I was an asshole to today, I apologize for being that way and acting so lazy.
Another thing that's worth mentioning is that it's been a long winter for me. As my friend Steve Runner mentioned in a recent podcast the effects of seasonal effective disorder or S.A.D. are real for those of us who live in this part of our country. If you're unfamiliar with what it is there is a lot of material on the web you can refer to. I'm no stranger to this problem. My wife typically gets this every winter. But this year our roles are reversed. I have seem to have come down with it. In a nutshell it's something that can affect an individual during the winter months when sunshine is lacking. It causes mild depression, anxiety, sleep loss and frustration. It's not something that's permanent thank God and has many available treatment techniques. Two techniques that I'm currently using are exposing myself to as much natural lighting as possible and continuing to exercise. Some of my coworkers would frown on me blogging about this. Weakness in my profession is not popular. But I think it's important to note that nobody is Superman, even distance runners like myself. If you suffer from S.A.D. go see your doctor, do some research and get moving. It helps and you're not alone.
After a pretty awful day I decided to scrap my scheduled cross-training and easy three mile run. To hell with it! I was just going to go home and take a nap. But, as a pulled into my driveway the sun poked through the clouds. It was a brisk 35 degrees but it wasn't snowing, sleeting or blowing. OK, maybe an easy mile?
The run started out fine. But after the first mile it was apparent that my body had something special in mind for me today. I looked down at my Garmin and was surprised to see myself maintaining a faster than normal pace without much effort. That's when I decided to put the fatigue in a box along with the frustrations of the grind of my life and have some fun. A half marathon later I felt exhausted, drained and happy. Amazing that two hours of good effort can free you of your worries.
I'm beat and it's been a long day. Managed to get tomorrow off after some cajoling. Which is a good thing for an Irishman on St. Patrick's Day. Get out there and discover what running can do for you. Run for your life my friends and forget the frustrations....
Oh, and yeah, at least someone got to hold a little black fluffy baby bear today!
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