Tag Archives: mistakes

Long Rainy Run

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I haven’t gone on a long run in the rain in a long time. Today I broke the streak. I ran eleven miles, hills and cold and all, in rain all the way. This was fine with me. Running in the rain is peaceful, mesmerizing even, and it means I won’t get too hot. Not only did I get in eleven miles but I also hit the 30 mile mark for a week. That also has not happened for a long time. I felt good, although I did run slowly, mentally and physically. But there was one problem.

Once when I ran the Vermont City Marathon in Burlington, it rained. Not the whole time and not all that hard, but it was a wet day, rain on an off. At every aid station volunteers hand out water. At some of them they hand out snacks. On this day some volunteers were handing out Vaseline. They do this on sunny days as well, although I hadn’t really noticed it before. It helps with, well, chafing, if that happens to be a problem. I declined the oily goo. Who needs that stuff, I thought.

At the finish line that day I saw a man with a bloody shirt. He hadn’t cut himself. Nothing so easy. The rain had made his shirt wet and his nipples had rubbed against that wet shirt and there were streaks of blood originating from those two points. He had rubbed his nipples raw. That, I remember thinking, looks painful. The thing is, it has since happened to me. Not nearly to that degree, thank Jehovah, but enough that I had to be careful what I wore for a few days. It happened on a rainy day when I was out running for a long time. Kind of like today…

Look, I’m not proud to admit that I have this particular injury here. I can’t say it is embarrassing, exactly, but it does open one up to the possibility of ridicule. Being a tenderfoot is one thing, but a tendernipple? That can’t look good on a resume.

It isn’t all that bad. I’m just a wee bit sore, and I’ll need to be careful what I wear. No heavy duty work shirts on the old bare torso for me. It goes to show how long I have been out of the habit of running. I didn’t even think of the fact that I might run with a wet shirt for, I don’t know, a couple of hours. Sheesh. I’ve got to learn this stuff all over again? I thought I knew how to learn from my mistakes. Apparently not.

I don’t plan to run at all tomorrow. I need a day off and it will give me a chance to heal up, if you know what I’m saying. At least I’m not really injured. I feel pretty dang good, actually. I could run tomorrow if that felt like the right thing to do. As it is, I will stay away from my chosen fitness activity for at least one day. And even if I don’t sleep in later than usual, I may just hang out in pajamas well into the morning. I mean, it will be Sunday, right?

Rough Day

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At 1:00 AM I woke with the thought that I had missed a presentation I was supposed to, well, present, on Saturday.  Sunday night is a bad time to remember such a thing.  Saturday morning would be much better, at least for me.  So I descended the stairs in the dark, checked my calendar and, ouch, I had indeed missed it.

My brain was already spinning, and I hadn’t gotten much sleep, so at that point, forget it.  I read for a while, did a few crossword puzzles, and lay awake cursing myself.  It wouldn’t have been so bad if a whole crew of students and parents were not waiting for me to show up, but they were.  I called the guy with whom I had coordinated things and he was forgiving.  He was more forgiving than me, that’s for sure.

After a while we all went skiing.  I forgot my spouse”s skis.  Great.  One of us can’t take both the children on the ski lift, since they both still need assistance.  So I took our daughter while the other two farted around.  We only took one run before my daughter was tired and cold and wanted to quit.  This was because I had dropped a ski pole from the lift and had to walk uphill to get it. No one helped us out with that.

I went for a run this afternoon.  I had eaten two slices of toast and a muffin.  Oh, I did have a couple crackers.  No sleep and little food.  I was out of energy pretty quickly.  I put in a few miles, and it was beautiful, but I was tuckered and brain wouldn’t shut off.  Too tiring.

Friends are coming for dinner.  I have soup well underway (potato leek) and fresh bread just about ready to hit the oven.  Hopefully that will all work out.  I need something to call good today.  Sheesh.  I’m getting senile a little early.  Those crossword puzzles aren’t doing the trick, but maybe doing them at 2:00 AM doesn’t count.

I am hoping tomorrow offers better luck.  Otherwise, I will need to conclude that something is wrong.  My confidence is taking some blows lately (I forgot a couple of other important meetings earlier this week as well).  It won’t be long now before I turn into a grumpy old man.