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March 15, 2008
the way my mind works, part II
Yesterday morning I was running along in dee-lightful upper-50s, pretty much on top of the world. My legs felt great; recent aches and pains - all minor to begin with - had subsided into memory. I did quarter-mile pickups every mile, and had fun with the very short very fast strides at the end of the run. In non-running life, we were getting our kitchen sink fixed after something like 18 months of not-quite functionality, and you will just have to trust me when I tell you that is a huge wonderful thing, something to get very happy about. It was Friday, and since I work a normal week it was *really* a Friday, with some rest ahead of me. I was about to complete my third week at the new job, and was busy, tired, and happy, and earning about double what I earned at the job I left. My private practice had one client this week (break-even, yay!) and will have two-countem-two next week, and one of those may become semi-regular. Top of theeeeee world.
Top of the frickin' world, and then I thought: what if they fire me? On the heels of that thought came: you idiot, why do you do this? If this weren't so funny it would be sad, but luckily it is pretty funny, so it's not sad. When I told my husband about it, he said "why do you do this?" (very diplomatically leaving out the "you idiot" part). I don't know why. It's completely involuntary, and unwanted. Used to be that a rogue thought like that would bug me for hours or days. Now something - middle-age or somesuch - allows me to laugh and blow it off.
This morning I paid for yesterday's good run. Nothing terrible, but some of the aches were back today and a warm front made things hotter and stickier. Back when I played regularly in a band, we used to say "bad practice, good show." I hope today's mediocre run presages an ok race tomorrow morning.
Posted by joe positive at March 15, 2008 10:47 AM
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Comments
You know what I find to be the most disturbing portion of your post: that you lived sans sink for a few months. First it's Chelle's oven, now your sink. Jesus Christ, how do you people survive???
In all seriousness, I think a good race is probably in the cards. Usually before a terrific race, the run before feels like a bomb. Then again, the run before feels like a bomb too...
I actually thought about you a couple days ago when my wife had left the Velvet Underground in the car's CD player and on blared "Heroine". God, I love "When I'm on my run/I feel like Jesus' son" (Jesus' Son might be my favorite book of fiction).
Posted by: tuscaloosarunner at March 15, 2008 4:12 PM
Did you ever consider that William Shakespeare might have been a Sicilian immigrant...?
Posted by: corrado giambalvo at March 15, 2008 6:50 PM
corrado wrote:
Did you ever consider that William Shakespeare might have been a Sicilian immigrant...?
no. Should I have considered this?
Posted by: joe positive at March 15, 2008 6:58 PM
I used to have awful runs before races. I had this amazing breakthrough race in 2004 (4:45 1500). The day before, I ran three miles in about 26 minutes and felt like I hadn't run in months. It's only races that count. Good luck tomorrow.
Posted by: Adeel at March 15, 2008 11:36 PM
Good luck today!
And don't beat yourself up too much about the self doubt. We all do it. When things are great, it is human nature to worry that it may end. I do it all the time too and have to tell myself to stop - just enjoy it while it is there and hopefully it will only get better. yeah, I'm a cheeseball. But it works for me!
Congrats on the new sink!!
Posted by: mindi at March 16, 2008 8:46 AM