Red Mosquito

I bet your knee feels better when it's not constantly so fucking cold out. I've been doing barely enough to keep some fitness, mostly short runs on my wife's annoying treadmill. Keep the faith, brother. When the weather breaks we will be fine.

im a little disappointed. had a good time of 26 minutes with 2.5 miles yesterday and i forgot to start strava

ive had a callous on my outter ball of my left foot for a while and did the strips to get rid of it. makes a world of a difference

verb_to_trust wrote:I bet your knee feels better when it's not constantly so fucking cold out. I've been doing barely enough to keep some fitness, mostly short runs on my wife's annoying treadmill. Keep the faith, brother. When the weather breaks we will be fine.

I wrapped it in a heating pad for two hours last night and this morning it feels 100% better. No "grabbibg," no crunching. I don't know what's going on anymore.

My hip still hurts. I just run through it. We are old.

the ball of my foot is fucked after skating 55km on monday. gonna skate 30ish today and then go for a record on Sunday I think.

Happy to see you guys are all doing pretty well on Strava right now.

Sorry I'm so late with the kudos sometimes.

I think I'm close to returning to some normalcy. I wanted to give my left hammy some serious healing time.

Ordered a pair of those Tesla shoes that are clones of Merrell Vapor Gloves for $22.

Elon makes shoes now?

Mina busted out 20 miles today

First run in the $22 shoes and I'm pretty impressed.

Will 30.1 be enough to take the top spot this week? Depends on Mina and Rob I think...

Update: Mina got me

You've been putting in good work, verb.

So the last month has been interesting. Had a lot of time to reflect and get all existential on why I run.

I started running 23 months ago as part of a weight loss/maintenance routine. Noticed immediately that it had a positive effect on my mental health, so I kept it up.

Then about a year ago work started to get really stressful. So I ran even more, took training more seriously, made friends with other runners, etc. Then a bunch of horrible family shit happened, and I ran even more. Marathons, 50ks, couldn't get enough miles.

It seemed like the more I ran the better the good times were, and the more manageable the bad times were.

I had a sense that running and stress relief (and maybe anger management, too) were linked for me, but I didn't realize how strongly.

Fast forward to mid-February. I feel the tendinitis setting in on a Thursday. Friday I have a meeting with my boss which, if I didn't have a kid at home, would have ended with me calling her a **** and walking out. So work has reached maximum stress, and I can't run. Great.

The following Monday I do a quick scroll through Indeed.com and see that, hey, what do you know, my dream job (within this particular industry, at least) is available. So I apply. Within 8 days of applying they offer me the job, which includes a slight raise, matching the PTO I've accrued, and better benefits. I accept. Five years of stress, anger and spite melt away.

Yesterday I go out for my first double digit long run since getting injured. I'm excited. I have a plan to get up to 20 miles at least once before the marathon in May. I start running and...something feels different. I get about 4 miles from home and it hits me: I don't want to do this anymore. I don't NEED to do this anymore. And I'm totally at peace with that. Whatever problem I was using long distance running to work through has been resolved, at least for the time being.

I'm still going to run but I'm going to cut back to 20-25 mpw and take a break from the long stuff for a while. I'll do the half instead of the full in May. Marquette 50K is a no-go. Maybe a late fall marathon or 50K instead.

Unless the new job sucks, in which case, see you all back out there next weekend.

Looks like I'm moving on up that leaderboard from here on out

In all seriousness congrats on the job. I relate a lot to what you said about using running as an outlet for pent up rage towards soul sucking employment. I often wonder what being happy professionally would do to my drive and I actually suspect it would make me perform better, not worse.

verb_to_trust wrote:In all seriousness congrats on the job. I relate a lot to what you said about using running as an outlet for pent up rage towards soul sucking employment. I often wonder what being happy professionally would do to my drive and I actually suspect it would make me perform better, not worse.

For me happiness and contentment always lead to apathy. Every major turning point in my life has been predicated on anger and spite. In my 20s it led to a lot of self-destructive behavior but now I'm figuring out how to make it work for me. Like the Hulk.

Nice run today Joey

verb_to_trust wrote:Nice run today Joey

Thanks.

Hey guys

Out of nowhere with that 13 miler today friend