I hate the treadmill, I hate the treadmill, I hate the treadmill. Last night the rain slowed down, but it was so wet and chilly, not to mention still slightly drizzling, so I ran on the treadmill after watching all my silly TV. I managed to get in 4.75 miles of a planned 6 before I realized I had hated every minute of those 4.75 miles, and decided I’d had enough torture for one night. I read articles about people who do all their marathon training on treadmills, and I just don’t get it. Outside, there is fresh air, and scenery, and sky. Inside, it’s hot, and stuffy, and there’s TV that I can’t hear over the racket of the treadmill, and I feel like a rat in a cage. Outside is good. Inside sucks.
Last night was weird all around. After the dreaded treadmill, some reading, and hitting the sack, sometime around 3 a.m. the full effect of Monday night climbing hit me, and my arms began to burn “with the fire of a thousand suns,” as I related to Rich this morning. Anyway, it was painful to even turn over or alter my position in bed, so I slept the rest of the night flat on my back with my arms limply at my sides. Fortunately, by the time I woke up for good at 8:00, the soreness has subsided.
So I have work to do today. Unfortunately, it involves showing that our methods are correct, despite the fact that we got the “wrong” answer while some other guys totally lucked into the “right” answer. Sigh. Is it Friday yet?
This weekend I’m running the Austin Half Marathon (on Sunday). It’s funny. I had such a combination of anxiety, excitement, and apprehension before the Houston Half a month ago, and I have hardly been thinking about this one at all. I guess having done one takes some of the mystery out of it. I know I can go that far. I know I can finish. I’m not going to try to beat my time from a month ago, because Austin is hilly. If it happens, it happens, but I’m not going to go in with any expectations. I am both excited that Buzz is going to be doing the full 26.2 miles, and also a little jealous that I couldn’t try the full thing with her. But I’ll try this fall. In the meantime, after Austin, I think I’m going to switch gears to biking.
Yes, I have a new goal: to ride the MS150 from Houston to Austin in mid-April. A coworker of mine did it last year and is doing it again, and it turns out there’s a NASA sub-team, part of the larger Dow Chemical team. So I would have a large group of people to ride with! I may just do it. If I decide to, you’ll know because I’ll post a link on this page asking for sponsorship. 😉 I’ll need to raise $400, but that’s only 20 people giving $20. Or 40 people giving $10. Or…well, you can do the math.
I don’t know when I started going insane with my athletic goals. But it’s sort of fun.