I’m going slightly mental these days from cabin fever, and have little tolerance for anything that annoy me. This is not good, because a lot of things annoy me of late. The worst part, which personally I find troubling, is that instead of dealing with the annoyances, I just walk away. Problem there is I’m walking away a lot more than dealing, and it adds up, which annoys me, and you get the rambling picture about how the cycle renews.
Compunding the problem is the fact that my foot, despite orthotics and stretching and rehab and all that happy crappy the doctor suggested, still hurts. Some days are good, some suck. I can run, but I can’t run for the distances or times where I feel good. There’s nothing quite like running for 60 minutes straight to clear your mind and just feel better about the world. Endorphin releases are the best tranqs in the world, I suppose. Not having this avenue available has made me a really unhappy camper.
So, last night, I signed off in a reasonably foul mood, and karma stepped in. My office is downstairs and I wanted nothing to do with it so upstairs I went. My living room is upstairs, and the table in it has well-defined corners. Because I was in a not-so-good mood I was moving at a good clip and not really paying a lot of attention to where I was walking. Enter karma, stage left, to remind me of what I should be paying attention to. While walking through the living room, the path of my right knee intersected squarely with one of those table corners. Fucking ow. Once I could breathe I swore a lot more at considerable volume (it’s a good thing the place next door is vacant). I also bled a fair bit, as my table appears to be a carnivore, and had a little snack from my knee.
I had moved from reasonably foul mood to really-nasty-foul mood. I wanted to run, but couldn’t. I needed to purge, so I did the next best thing; I got on my excercise bike, loaded up a high-intensity program I hadn’t used in well over 18 months, and pedalled for over an hour. After I finished pedalling, I discovered that pretty much everything had loosened up, and that I felt pretty good. So, instead of doing the smart thing and quitting while I was ahead, I went for a 30 minute, light jog. Amazingly enough, I didn’t die.
It was awesome. I lost 3lbs of water from the combined activities. This is a good thing, as it means I’m working. After that, I went out and had dinner with the Wed night crew, and felt a whole lot better about the world.
I don’t just like to run, I need to run. If I have to loosen up for an hour beforehand, so be it, because I haven’t felt that good in way, way, way too long (and the foot feels pretty good this morning, so if it feels as good tomorrow, I’ll repeat the process).
Good for you kev, I know exactly what you mean. Climbing saves me from the winter blahs over and over again.
I also find that if I’m tired or have a cold while climbing I can recruit energy in my body to attain an “active” state long enough to get some satisfaction and feel “normal” for a while. A pleasant island of relief when otherwise your body seems to hate your mind.