A great word, but a poor feeling

I’ve been feeling rather discombobulated lately, and this is part of the reason for my relatively long absence from this blog. I am hoping that our upcoming vacation (two more sleeps!) will set things straight.

This feeling started, perhaps, early Saturday morning, which went something like this:
6:30 am (this is a Saturday, let me remind you) – alarm goes off
6:40 am – alarm goes off again
6:45 am – Jodi brews Tim’s
7:00 am – Jodi and Zdenek change in to sexy cycling gear
7:20 am – out the door
7:30 am – at the Park!
7:31 am – Zdenek gets a flat (no joke)
8:00 am – Zdenek is still trying to change his flat tire in Central Park
8:15 am – Zdenek gives up after realizing that the replacement tube, which, to be fair, we bought for $2 online, has a faulty valve. You most certainly get what you pay for
8:30 am – Zdenek begins walking home (again; this is about the third time in two weeks). Jodi valiantly cycles home ahead of him to retrieve his flip flops and bring them back, so that he need not ruin his cleats any more than they already are
8:50 am – Jodi has been back and forth between the Park two and a half times, searching everywhere for Zdenek. After the third try, she heads home to find him sitting on the porch
9:15 am – Jodi and Zdenek go for a 5 mile run. The most serious mishap is a small pebble in Zdenek’s shoe

Because we were both exhausted by noon, Zdenek and I watched movie and then took a long, 90 min snooze in the late afternoon. This was not a good idea, because when I woke up at 6 pm, I felt like it must be 6 am the next morning, and it took several hours (and a long walk in a deserted, drizzly Central Park) to reset my inner clock.

The rest of Saturday night was spent with good friends but was filled with far too much imbibing. Sunday morning saw me doing an 11 mile run at 11:30 am – something absolutely unheard of in my normal training schedule. When I returned home 90 minutes later, Zdenek was like a caged animal, desperate to get out of the house (I had neglected to take my keys on my run). Later in the afternoon, he and I spent several hours on our back patio, yelling (as much as we are capable of yelling, which isn’t very much) about the most effective way to remove the half-inch of mildew from the cement (turns out bleach is best).

The entire weekend seemed like a bit of roller coaster in terms of schedules and emotions, and while I never look forward to Mondays, I was relieved to see Sunday night come to a close.

The rest of the week, however, hasn’t been much better. Work has had its fair share of stress, my swollen second toe is starting to make a reappearance after two weeks of running without my orthotics (they’re back at the lab), and my running has been all wrong. This morning, I neglected my usual pre-run coffee, and instead got my fluid intake in the form of dense, soupy air that only a New York City summer can bring. I started out aiming for a tempo run, then downgraded this to a “cruise tempo” (in which I take a walk break every 10 minutes) once I realized how heavy and tired my legs were feeling, and then just downgraded it, unintentionally, to a “run.” My fast pace was slow today, or the other way around.

The point is that nothing seems to have gone smoothly in the past week, but I am hopeful that a good vacation can set things straight. Aside from the opportunity to use the word “discombobulated” in a sentence, which is a treat unto itself, this feeling has not been a good one.