Scatter my ashes here...

Scatter my ashes here...
scatter my ashes in the desert...

Thursday, January 24, 2013

Power!

This is the view from the bottom of the Power Trail where it hits Trilby Road, looking at Longs Peak. I've been spending a lot of time on it lately, because of the ice on the streets. But we lucked out with a streak of warmer weather this week. I actually ran in a t-shirt today, for part of my afternoon run.

I don't know what happened to the weather forecast but we were supposed to have a warm day, nearly 70 degrees on Wednesday. It never got there, not even close. But maybe I missed it because I took a long nap in the afternoon.

Wednesday I started out by running 5+ miles with the girls and after that I could no longer function. Laundry and dishes were the limits of my cognitive abilities. And Wheaties Boy was unfortunately sidetracked last night for our tempo. So I went out after my nap and put in another 11 miles but didn't run hard. I ran easy, did a lot of thinking and obsessing about silly and not-so silly things.

It was probably good for me to take it easy. I've been busy with a lot of things. Work has been kind of snarly lately. Morale isn't all that good. One thing they sprung on us at our staff meeting on Wednesday morning, that really irritated me, along with everyone else, was that they are going to limit vacations in May, June, and July this year. It wasn't so bad at first when they told us that would be the case for the month of July this year. So then everyone made their plans to do things in May and June.

But because we are switching over to a new computer system, and they need to do the training in May and June, it will take extra hours off the unit. So then they need to be able to staff for that in the unit, and that will require us to work extra to fill in for the people who are training. So now people are PISSED.

I'm sorta pissed too, because back in November I put in for time off at the beginning of May to go run Cornbelt. I don't know when I'll find out if I can have it off. I'll wait to sign up until I hear. But a lot of people put in for real vacations too. May and June are full of family events, weddings, school graduations, etc. Like I said, people are pissed. Plus I already know that going out to Badwater might be a problem this summer, too, with the no vacation rule.

There have been so many changes, and they are asking us to do so much more with less, and people don't deal with change very well anyway, so it's really hard to be at work these days with so much griping. I try not to add to it at work, I just think of it as surfing, riding the waves, but sometimes you start to feel taken advantage of. Especially nurses.

So, I was pissed about that and processed it through my head as I was running last night, and then I was also thinking about this article I read in the paper, that Felix posted to my Facebook page. Yesterday I touched on the gun arguments in my blogpost and I never read the paper until late in the day but what a coincidence when I discovered this.

You know, it can be pretty scary to walk through Walmart with Spongebob lurking around every corner. If someone has a concealed weapon I won't know about it. But walking around with a visible rifle? That's dumb. I was thinking about that while running.

So my mood had not improved much last evening. I came home after the run, went to bed, and woke up too early today.

This morning I took the girls out for 2 1/2 miles around 9:00 and again I was worthless. I wanted to do hills, but I couldn't function. So at 10:00 I went back to bed and then woke up around 12:45 and went out for my run. I did 18 1/2 miles of short rolling hills, on the Power Trail and south of town on the way to Loveland.

I pushed hard on all the uphills, and after 13 miles I was hurting. I kept going, and pushing the hills, but those last 5 miles at the top of every hill I'd get a little past the crest and then I'd have to stop and catch my breath while my legs burned until I recovered some. I'd be doubled over, trying to breathe, and my legs were on fire.

It took me just a little over 3 hours to do that run. It gave me 21 miles for the day. I followed the run up with picking up freshly thawed dog poop in the yard. Gotta stay ahead of it when we have the thaw, otherwise we'll be buried in dog poop by spring.

That's my life this week. Sorta feels soft but cold, like freshly thawed dog poop. I hope it's just the hormones.

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