One-track mind

I feel like I owe my Facebook friends an apology. My status updates are pretty often about running, or my knee, or something related to running. But as sick as they might be about reading about me running? I guarantee I'm more sick of doing the running.

I cannot wait for this marathon to come and go. (Just over a month left!)

I feel like our entire lives revolve around running, training, and training runs. It seriously affects everything: our diet, our schedules, our sleep, our weight lifting, our sex life, our weight, our house, my ass. Everything.

We have to particularly watch what we eat (and drink) on the nights before our long runs, which we typically do on Saturdays (and now that we're nearing the marathon, Wednesdays too). And we're always hungry; considering I've always been a snacker as it is, I pretty much eat all day every day.

We have to be careful how much we plan on weekends, because we have to get in a ridiculously long run at some point. We're always tired. We haven't been going to the gym as much (see previous sentence); my arms have lost a little definition (yay, sweater season).

As for the sex life, the desire is there, but the energy is not (dislike). Both K and I have noticed our weight is always fluctuating, probably due to the ridiculous water intake and then the sweating during the run. I've actually gained a few pounds through this whole ordeal, and I think K has too (it's actually common to gain weight during marathon training -- who knew?).

The house isn't as spic 'n' span as it usually is because, frankly, when we're not running, I kind of don't give a damn about cleaning. I made it around to the toilets and sinks last weekend, and K vacuumed. That's good enough for me right now, so the dust bunnies will remain.

But my ass? It's spectacular. And so are my legs. Just in time for the end of swimsuit season. Go figure, huh? And I know, K is the one who will get the most benefit out of this, and he gets to see them all the time. However, with all this time, effort, and energy, it would be nice to just parade around in a bikini on the beach and show it off. No such luck.

Now for blurbs, because it's been forever since I updated.

I'm a real runner now
(Guess I owe you guys an apology along with my FB friends ...) A week ago Saturday, K and I were 3 miles into our 16-mile training run when I realized I was going to have to make a pit stop. Then, I did something I've never done before in my life. And that milestone makes me feel like I can finally say that I'm a real runner: I shit in the woods.

Hey, when you've gotta go, you've gotta go. Thankfully, K had found himself in that situation a week or two before, so he made sure to bring toilet paper from then on. Thank goodness!

But imagine our surprise when we emerged from the woods, rounded a corner, and saw two portapotties on the side of the road. Evidently there was a fundraiser walk of sorts going on, so as we continued on our route, we continued to pass portapotties every few miles.

Oh well. The woods made me feel much more like a badass.


Work
Still here. Gonna stick with it, obviously. I've kind of learned to not let it get to me so much anymore. There's only so much I can do, right?

Actually, I have so much to do that I've been assigned a volunteer to help me. This woman has an MBA from Boston Un!versity. She has held management positions. And I am making her help me with piddly tasks I don't have time to get to.

It's nice to have the help, but I don't like being in charge of someone. It makes me uncomfortable.


Mom's visit
It went well, but I was glad when it was done. I'm a lot less patient with my mom. Things my dad or anyone else would get away with fine somehow annoy the holy hell out of me when my mom does them. And she's terrible at following directions. Terrible. At one point I experienced a little déjà vu from her failed Dallas trip to go wedding dress shopping with me (that fight resulted in us not talking for over a year). The woman drives me f*ing insane sometimes, really.

The first couple nights I was driving home, I just felt completely stressed out. Anxious. And I didn't know why. I talked to K, and he told me he wasn't surprised that way. That I was probably on eggshells because my mom was there, and he could understand that. I talked to ER. She listened to me vent for a bit when I had to make a quick trip to the grocery store.

But the times actually spent with my mom and her husband were all good.

Well, except for the part where we toured the White House. See, my mom had scheduled a tour for her and her husband, K, and me. We were supposed to get a private 2-hour tour. Only something came up that day, and they had to move our tour to the following day. K and I adjusted our out-of-office days at work, and we headed up to D.C. for the tour. What we didn't realize was that because our date got moved, we no longer had a private tour. In an effort to get two days' worth of people through the White House in one day, we'd get the standard walk-yourself-through tour. Hugest waste ever. We were done in 20 minutes.

I don't ever want to look at the White House again.

(For the record, if you're already in D.C. and plan to take the tour, it's perfectly fine. But do not travel to D.C. specifically and solely for the tour. Trust me, you'll be pissed. And your feet will hurt because you thought you were supposed to dress up, but there were punkwads touring the White House !!! in baggy jeans, flip flops, and hats.)