Monday ride in TGP: more Hugh Laurie for LA

 BIKE 20 miles in about 80 mins: 17, 17.5, 17.5

COMMUTE 9.2 miles

Up early for the Monday ride, the times were better than last week. At least we didn't get a full minute slower on the last lap! I think we're slower on the loops that I'm talking more.

BE likes to pick his next movies based on finding an actor or actress he likes and chaining his way through their works. We got talking about TV shows, and I mentioned LA's binge watch of House MD. And his binge of the Brit Com Are you Being Served?, and his like of the Mr Bean guy. Then to how we found Hugh Laurie in a Mr Bean guy war show, by total surprise.

BE had a suggestion!! Wooster and Jeeves (Jeeves like the old internet search engine butler) and Wooster as played by Hugh Laurie. Brit Com + HL -- this will have to wait until LA is on break, otherwise I'll distract him with this. 

So begins week 2 of the solo life in STL. The first week went fast and felt short. I didn't get much done either. Hopefully I can plan better this week. 

Just do what you can -- 2x TGP, Zoom, and Indianapolis

 BIKE 14 miles in TGP, 2 intervals

Travel stresses me, rushed schedules stress me, and as I'm finding out so do Airbnbs. The plan this weekend is to meet in Indy, since mom is presurgery and isolating so she isn't exposed to COVID. He's done this Airbnb thing before (I think I knew he was using it, but I didn't realize what it was) so instead of a hotel we're staying in someone's house.

Someone else's house. Ugh, that alone stresses me. I'm not comfortable in my friend's houses. I'm mostly OK in my sister's house. I'm afraid to touch anything, I sit on the edge of chairs, I won't look at or touch their stuff....so to SLEEP OVER and stay in a strange home is, as I joked, beyond my pay grade.

So with this stress overhead, I didn't get out the door on schedule Friday morning to finish a full 3 intervals. I wavered on going at all, my usual "all or nothing" mentality -- if I can't get 3 full loops why go? I'm better with that than I used to be. The ride was great, LOTS of people in the park!

Some work, lab meeting on Zoom (decidedly do NOT like that either, feels invasive), then rush home to pack and leave. I'm mostly pre-packed but I'm still like hurry-hurry-hurry. I don't like to hurry, I make mistakes. 

Uneventful drive to Indy with the dog, listened to more of the Biblical series of my Jordan Peterson podcast. He can explain religion in a way that I understand it, years of Sunday school failed, so did wikipedia and attending church. I arrive after LA to learn that we are staying in the house AND SO IS THE OWNER. Not a private apartment or house, just the bed and bath. 

I hate to say it, but my stomach and nerves went from OK to awful in just seconds. I couldn't stop the free fall into the stress. My gut locked up and refused to relax, it wasn't until Monday back in StL that it finally unwound and started to recover. My head spun from nervousness, a vague nervousness that couldn't find anything to focus on. 

JBP says that meaning and growth occur when you have one foot in order and the other foot in chaos. My order was LA, the chaos was all around me.

Almost no sleep Friday night, better Saturday. We visited a park Saturday and just relaxed -- I needed that break as I didn't want to return to the house. Way too creepy. I was more comfortable hanging out in the driveway than I was the house. 

Sunday was like it never happened, all of the sudden we're leaving and driving back. 

I'm writing this on Wednesday after, and I'm still a bit sick from it. Ugh. 

The Thursday Run is Back!!

RUN 4.5 miles in about 45 mins

Our first group run in months, my first since last year pre-Badger 100K. First I was injured, then I was recovering, then COVID. 

This felt great, and next week we get to see Dale!

The Voice is quiet again. For how long?

COMMUTE: 9.2 miles

A rest day! That's a fun thing to have, it means I'm working on other days and need to rest before it's a too-much-too-soon situation. Again. 

My tentative plans given the weekend travel: Bike Monday and Friday. Run Tues and Thurs. Rest Weds and Weekends. This is funny too because any previous year I was peak training on Weds and Weekends. Flip-flopped.

I had much indecision this morning on whether I should bike to work or not. I had driving errands to do, I thought I'd "save time" and drive, but that's also a common cop-out excuse for me. True, my legs need rest. True, my sit bones and tissues are sore. But -- it's also true that I've ridden in much worse condition. And -- I've been wanting to ride for months, the weather is great, and as soon as I detect mental bullshit like this I tend to force the issue being avoided. So, ride it was. 

And as usual, the ride was fine :)

In other news, and as per post title, I'll mention that once again that Voice in my head is silenced again. Refer back to May/June of 2019 for the last time this happened. That lasted I think two weeks? It's like the constant chatter is just turned off. It leaves an empty calm. There's no voice over my shoulder. I think it's due to rapid change, over-whelming change, stress, etc. This time the change is LA being gone. 

How long will this last? Will I like it? 

ETA brief voices Thursday in the mouse house. Old patterns. 

Your choice: Dissociate. Or Associate.

RUN 3.5 ish miles in about 27-30 mins

COMMUTE to track n back, to work n back. about 13 miles

BE wanted to vote today, so we started at 6:30 instead of 6am. By then the sun was up and my sunglasses weren't enough. Needed a hat! I asked what was being voted on. Turns out it was City primary stuff. Not the big primary stuff, the battle going on in the background of all this between the old white guy who can't stay on topic versus the old white guy who can't remember it.

We decided on a 1-2-3-3-2-1 lap ladder with a 100 m walk rest interval. This didn't seem hard in thought, but by the end of the first 2 (half mile) I was thinking different.

The first lap was 1:59 and too fast. I settled into a 2:10/lap average. To my surprise I was able to hold it through the end, finishing the last quarter in 2:10. However the workout seemed much harder, physically and mentally. Sure, I'm gasping a bit for air and feeling heavy and slow. My cadence is 169-ish but feels ploddy. But round and round I go, holding steady. 

I realized in the 2nd 3-lapper that I was focusing on those negative feelings - I need to slow down, I'm going to get injured, I'm not going to finish. Yet, as I said, round and round I go. So something was keeping me going.

The time on the Garmin. BE running ahead of me. My expectations of what I know I'm capable of. All kept me going. So I focused on that. My breath. My legs turning over. My shoulders as a counterweight. My eyes seeing the white line on brick-red track. The wind against me then with me, against me then with me. I focused instead on what I love about this -- and that's how I kept going. Lap after lap at a steady pushed-pace, not slowing and not quitting. 

When I mentioned to BE that the 2nd 3-lap felt better for having my mind on the run instead of what else I think about, he said "oh yes, associate instead of dissociate". So practical. 

In the subsequent 2-lapper, I thought about how I could derive a chemical equation for the associate rate and dissociation rate (rate? what is the metric?) and the arrows and energy values -- but after a 100m my mind went back to the run. Where it was supposed to be.

Felt awesome!

Back in the saddle of Monday morning TGP ride

RIDE 20 miles in about 1:28: 3x TGP as 17:00. 17:34, 18:00

Yes, we got slower. Or more accurately, I got slower as I'm the rate limiting factor in our speed.

I rolled out of bed at 4:45 and after realizing where I was and who wasn't where I was I knew I couldn't fall back asleep. So as per plan, I got dressed to ride. I didn't tell BE I was joining, after arriving late last night and having trouble falling asleep, I wasn't sure I'd wake up and want to ride. But of course I did. I love this stuff and I need the distraction.

Gorgeous morning, really when you think about it, most mornings and days and nights really are gorgeous in their own right. If you compare a winter morning to a winter expectation and a summer to a summer expectation and etc, you'll find that those ugly days are far and few between mostly. 

Ugh, back to the ride. He arrived just ahead of me, and we set off right away. The topics, as usual, ranged far and wide. Ann Arbor. BE's scabs and scars from his petal snapping off on his commute 2 weeks ago. A theater production in the COVID era. BE's family drama continuing in Florida. I talked the most in the 3rd lap, might account for the slacking pace we held!

I drove to work so I could get the dog from the kennel on the way home. And I was tired! I didn't walk much at all during the day so I had 4000 steps due before bed. I left the worn out doggie at home and took off, seeing the streets I last walked or ran with LA and realized that I just didn't want to be in the house where he wasn't.

Wash dog, hummingbirds, clean up garden, Russian studies. Keep busy. That's the ticket. Lots to do!

In other news, in a discussion about starting up the Thursday morning run, we learned that DCs mom died Sunday, and he would be moving to Wisconsin in a month or two. Later that night, we learned that by cruel coincidence, ITs mom also died Sunday. Puts things in perspective for me. I left LA and my family behind Sunday to return to St Louis. Doesn't seem like such a tragic ordeal, now seeing what my friends are going through.

FULL Sturgeon Moon at 11:59am today. Got to see bits of it Sunday and Monday nights as it passed over the southern windows on my bed. 

Two weeks off, lots to say but don't want to stay here thinking on it

How to type all this up?!

Well, start like usual:

Tuesday July 28th: RUN 6 miles in A2, in about 1 hour. North from apartment and around NE edge of town.

Thursday July 30th: RUN 7 miles in A2, in 1:12! Out-n-back on trail along river, met an MD/Scientist runner working on TBI genetics in mice. 

And that was it. No HIIT, or plyos, or strength. Some walks, but not many.

I should include the driving, to put this last two weeks in perspective. 

Monday July 20th: DRIVE 223 miles to parents house

Tuesday July 21st: DRIVE 310 miles to A2, unpack

Wednesday July 22nd: DRIVE 310 miles back to parents

Thursday July 23rd: DRIVE 450 miles to STL and back to parents

Friday July 24th: DRIVE 310 miles to A2.

Saturday July August 1st: 310 miles to parents

Sunday August 2nd: 223 miles to STL, alone. 

That adds up to 2136 miles. To drive across the US, it's 2500+ miles depending on route. For Siberia, it's 6800 miles. So STFU, right?

Anyway. Damn that's a lot. And all in his truck! And he had the extra trip from St Robert where he started. But this is my blog, so it's just my miles, haha. And to be more accurate, it should say that I RODE ALONG, instead of DRIVE. 

So Monday I'm up early to finish packing and prepare stuff for his arrival from St Robert with the flatbed. It's raining, and plans changing rapidly. We load/unload/hurry and leave for my parents.

Tuesday we drive to A2, and with the god-sent help of his neighbors get all his heavy stuff carried in. Our plans to drive back this night are delayed due to fatigue.

Wednesday back to my parents, talked about what vehicles we need in the future. I say 2, he wants 3. 

Thursday we take the Event Pros trailer to STL and back for the rest of his stuff. A stop at the Russian store, and we leave STL once again.

Friday another drive to A2, now we're both short on sleep and low on patience. But we get there. 

The next days -- unpacking and settling in. His M1 classes Launch on Monday, I keep plans open around his schedule but manage to get to Aldi for foods, Target for errands for house stuff, and get to great runs in. 

I send messages to his mom. Work on my Russian studies. Stay quiet, fix meals, clean up. Really I'm just happy to be around him. The impatience early in the week dissipates and we go back to normal, until again the stress ramps up around the end of the week. The stress is all on me this time, and looking back his explanation of it is correct. I was stressed and sad to leave. I felt bad, and looked for reasons to explain why I felt bad. Like a which-comes-first argument - the physical or the mental symptoms. In this case, I felt bad and mentally filled in the gaps.

First, I though we were leaving Friday and packed up as per my plan. He's delayed by classwork, I get in my Uncertainty Mode of waiting, and we in the end unpack and plan to leave Saturday. This sets me off. Why? I felt the Uncertainty. The floating-waiting-wasting feeling I get with no plans, or without plans going as planned. I leave for a walk, my reset button, and come back to him watching the TV. Ugh. This re-sets me off again, this time for the memory of years ago, feeling ignored for a screen. Now I can't undo the feelings and they simmer. I know it's not him, so I internalize it. But it spills out later when he asks. See above paragraph for how this seems to have come about. And don't ask my gut what it thought of all this. The multiple awful trips to the bathroom Saturday morning as we prepared for the drive back, and the rest of the weekend, ugh. 

Anyway, I mention all this only to say that the stress of this weekend, the events and changes and upcoming Uncertainties will continue to build and peak and build more. I need to get settled into my patterns for comfort and keep occupied!

Our plans to visit on most weekends is a stress-relief and at the same time a stress-inducer. It means I miss my weekends at work, have to re-arrange experiments, have to drive instead of garden and tend house, we lose so much time. But it's once-in-a-lifetime-sorta-kinda in that the weekends we can't visit will accumulate due to exams and mouse schedules and weather. So we have to live while we can, in a way. 

In the background of all this. COVID. Mom's upcoming surgery. My niblings quarantined with my parents while my sister is sick, potentially COVID. Jess's dad's upcoming surgery in STL. My nervousness about having The Talk with my Boss. I haven't touched on these topics here! It's enough for another multiple posts, and I'm sure I'll have ETA sections as I think of more. 

But for now, the segment of my life with LA, which is 8 months as of Sunday the 2nd!!, is over in StL. We'll now live apart longer than we've been together. Next is the challenging year apart, which he promises will go by fast. He's usually right, so I'll accept that as fact and keep rolling on. For now, I'm going to have to manage my stress without unloading it on him, keep my end of the world together in the rush to visit and support, and start the slow shut-down of life here in preparation to move on.