A Day I'm Never Getting Back

Monday sucked. Hardcore. I hated Monday with a deeper passion than I do mayonnaise, screaming children, cleaning the bathroom and Cameron Diaz.

Entry for the 2010 Virgin London Marathon ballot began at 9 am on Monday. I made sure I was awake and the laptop fired up by 8:30. I wanted to make sure my ballot was in asap since I didn’t know how soon the ballot would fill up. I also wanted to get it out of the way so I could get on with the rest of my day.

Yeah, that would have been nice.

Obviously I was not the only one with this genius plan. To say the website was slow is an understatement. Hell, just trying to get on the website was the problem. The refresh button on my web browser and I became well acquainted with one another. Slowly, but steadily I was making my way through the entry process. My dedication was so strong I even brought my laptop with me into the bathroom for my potty breaks and into the kitchen for meals. Yes, that’s meals, the plural. Thankfully we have wireless at the house or that could have been really awkward.

Moving on...

During this time, I also managed to get some work done—Italian study, organizing my to-do lists, etc. A couple of times I even fired off emails to a friend to let her know why I wasn’t in the office. She wrote back wondering if she should try to enter the ballot as well. I replied with a ‘Hell yes!’ but with a warning about how cruddy the site was being because of the demand. She wrote back saying she probably shouldn’t do it, because she should be focusing on finishing her dissertation so no time for training. Eh, it’s not stopping me any.

At the 5 hour 38 minute mark, when I was two clicks away from finishing my ballot entry, the entire website shut down and displayed this message:

‘Due to unprecedented demand for marathon places, this website is currently unavailable. Please try again later today or tomorrow.’

You’ve got to be f*cking kidding me. I wasted all that time to just about get to the end of the process and the whole thing shuts down?!? Bloody hell! The kicker was yet to come though. Immediately I emailed my friend to let her know the sitch, but see she has already written me. Her email said this:

‘It took me an hour, but I got in the ballot!’

I cannot express to you the amount of rage I had coursing through my body at that moment. One measly f*cking hour and she’s in the ballot. Five and a half hours for me and bupkis. What. The. F*ck.

I then packed up my gear, left the house and headed to the department. As per my luck for the day, the once clear skies decided to not only dump buckets of rain on my head for the jaunty six block walk, it also threw in some hail as well. I entered the door of the department a sopping wet, angry mess, my jeans plastered to my legs all the way to the tops of my thighs. And it was all capped off with a humidified afro atop my head. (I was wearing my hooded rain jacket, hence the hair-do.)

I proceeded to spend the next three and a half hours there trying to get some work done but also checking the website every few minutes to see if it was back up again. Nada. Finally, I caved and left, grabbing some not too healthy chinese food before heading home.

I bitched with the flatmates about the shitey-ness of my day and finally headed up to my room for one last go before hitting the sack.

So finally, at 10:20 pm that evening, I completed and submitted my ballot successfully for the London Marathon. And it only took me 13 hours and 20 minutes. I could run three marathons in that time. Most of you could run four or more.

I better f*cking get in.

The truly sad part for me though? The ballot isn’t full yet and the website is working perfectly today. I could have saved myself all that trouble and just waited. But as you can see, patience is not one of my virtues. More’s the pity.

So there. Whether it was karma or just plain bad luck, that was the shittiest Monday I’ve had in a long while. Whatever the reason I was cursed with that day, I hope my slate has been wiped clean now. Otherwise, I’m going to have to kill someone. And Richard Branson, you’d be target #1. I’ve given you fair warning.

Happy hump day, everyone.

Crazy Eights

The humiliation challenge is now officially over. Here’s my final week’s breakdown:

Monday – 5 miles
Thursday – 3.1 miles
Saturday – 5.1 miles
Sunday – 4.5 miles
Total – 17.7 miles

Overall I hit my minimum mileage mark of 17 miles for 4 out of the 5 weeks. Not bad if I do say so myself. Now all that remains is to find out the results of my competitors to determine who is the ultimate winner of the challenge. Just a reminder, the winner gets to write posts on the losers’ blogs as a show of their superiority. In the event of a tie, we’ll leave it up to you, the readers, to decide who the winner shall be.

Frankly, my money’s on XC2.

Retribution
Poor Vanilla. I emailed him for a few pointers on the proper way to sell my soul and in the end I didn’t follow his advice, retained my soul and took a couple of potshots at him in the process. He then tried to be a smartass, so now I’m going to get in one more dig before I finally let the whole thing die. To be fair, I think I’m the twit who brought up Star Wars in the first place, but that’s not going to stop me from torturing him with it a bit more.

Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you...Vanilleia. (Editor’s note: Sounds like an STD, no?)

The Photoshop work is courtesy of a friend since I’m completely clueless with that program and don’t even have it on my laptop anyway.

Vanilla, you make a hot chick. You know, except for the fact that you're a butterface. :) FYI, there’s another non-Star Wars Photoshop creation involving both you and Nitmos, but that’s being saved for another time and another post. Prepare yourself.

You’re never going to get into an email exchange with me again, are you? ;)

It’s all about me
The lovely joyRuN tagged me for the 8-meme. I’ve done so many of these by now, I’m pretty sure you all know almost everything about me so I’m going to have a little fun with this one. Here goes:

8 Things I Did Yesterday
1. Ran
2. Went to the bathroom multiple times
3. Thought about doing some work
4. Decided not to do any work
5. Picked my nose
6. Picked a wedgie
7. Passed gas
8. Reveled in my hotness

8 Things I Wish I Could Do/Want to Do
1. Make a living doing absolutely nothing
2. Poop fruit
3. Fly so I don’t waste so much money on airplane tickets
4. Scratch that last one. Make it teleportation. That way I can bring luggage.
5. Eat anything I want and not gain weight
6. Re-enact all the running scenes in Run Lola Run
7. Smack people who irritate me without fear of retaliation or incarceration
8. Lick the Spartan cast from the movie 300 (pre-battle, of course)

8 Shows I Watch
I’m skipping this entirely since I don’t watch tv often and I can’t be bothered to make this section funny right now.

8 Things I'm Looking Forward To
1. Officially being diagnosed with Tourette's
2. The day I’m not afraid to admit I had a huge crush on Russell Crowe (during the Gladiator days, of course)
3. Getting knocked up by a kilt-wearing Scot and explaining to my future child that no, contrary to appearances, daddy is not a cross-dresser
4. Retirement
5. Hitting people with my cane
6. Running people over with my wheelchair
7. Pooping myself and having it be acceptable
8. Three words: Early Bird Special

8 Things I Want to Know More About: Tag You're It!
I wasn’t going to tag anyone in particular, but then I thought of Razz. God knows, he needs the blog material. So...
1 – 8. Razz

Have a great week, everyone. Catch up with you when I can.

Celebrate good times

This week has been stellar weather-wise with temps in the low to mid 60s F and loads of sunshine. On Wednesday I ate lunch picnic-style with friends in the park as we watched what is possibly the most boring so-called sport in the world – cricket. Seriously, people, if part of the uniform calls for you to wear a sweater vest, it’s not a real sport.

Anyhoo, that hour in the sun resulted in me getting sunburned. No, not on my face. (Thank you moisturizer with SPF.) Instead, I managed to burn the skin on my upper chest exposed by my v-neck shirt. It is of course in the shape of a downward pointing triangle. Truly a classy burn. And apparently quite noticeable since my sister could even see it when we video-chatted later that night.

That’ll teach me to take the English sun for granted. Contrary to popular belief, it does work here. At least sometimes.

They say it’s your birthday...
This weekend is a major birthday milestone for my best friend, Ellen. Sports fanatic that she is, she’ll be spending her b-day watching overpaid baseball players ‘earn’ their keep. It makes her happy though, so I’m all for it.

In honor of Ellen, here’s a David Letterman-esque top ten list of why she is my best friend and ‘adopted’ sister.

10 – Bitched out the desk staff at a London hostel who were going to make me sleep on skanky unwashed sheets.
9 – Shared in my giddy, conspiracy theory-induced fear when we saw a very full body bag being smuggled out of the hospital loading dock across from our dorm by two secret service guys.
8 – Did not mock me too much when I kept watching A League of Their Own for about a month straight. [Editor’s note: In my defense, HBO was playing that movie around the clock at the time. You couldn’t avoid watching it if you tried.]
7 – Was the sole exterminator of the roaches that lived with us sophomore year because I was a total pansy and just ran away from them.
6 – Actually got me interested in baseball for a time.
5 – Sends my mom a Christmas card every year. It’s the first thing my mother shows me when I arrive home for the holidays.
4 – Is the only person I know who can consistently beat me at the movie game.
3 – Stalks celebrities on the streets of NYC and calls me (at least when I lived in the states) while she’s doing it.
2 – Knows and can perform the choreography to almost all ‘N Sync videos. (That’s talent, my friends.)
1 – May actually get to see Colin Firth in the flesh sometime soon and has promised to try to get something for me as a memento. Classy girl that I am, I have asked her to dry hump his leg for me should the opportunity present itself.

Happy birthday, Ellen. Enjoy your day at the ballpark.

And to everyone else—have a great weekend.

Appearances can be deceiving

So last week, TFH called me out on her blog for my double standard when I requested more pics on her blog, specifically those from her wedding. Then both she and Carolina John made various noises on Monday’s post for me to post an occasional pic of myself or, according to TFH, at least a random appendage.

As you may have noticed, I don’t post photos of myself on this here blog. Well, that’s not entirely true. I have posted three photos of myself as a young whippersnapper (here, here and here) and one of my blistered palm from last summer. So I’m not that much of a hypocrite. Right?

Besides the fact that I’m a typical woman and am never happy with my appearance, the main reason I don’t post current photos of myself is because I desire bloggy anonymity. It’s the same reason why I try never to mention which university I attend though I’m sure some of you have already sussed that out from the various details I’ve let slip. Basically, I don’t want anyone here to find out I write this blog otherwise I wouldn’t be able to bitch about them so much. I also don’t want to screw up my future job prospects anymore than I already have.

If it helps any, the only thing of note about my appearance, as you can see in my childhood photos, is that I don’t look Greek. I take after my mother’s side of the family—run-of-the-mill white Americans with English, Scottish, Irish and German ancestry. So when people hear or see my surname and then look at me, I often get: ‘You don’t look Greek.’ Really? Thanks, Captain Obvious, I’ve never heard that before.

So yeah, that’s my deal. I hope that satisfies your curiosity. If not, tough. :)

Hurts so good
Last night I attended yoga again for the first time in two weeks. The regular instructor was away on holiday so instead we had a guy teaching the class. It was definitely interesting. He had us doing more dynamic poses—twists, contortions and precarious balancing. I felt a lot more twinges and aches in my body because of him but it felt good. That sentence has the possibility of being interpreted in a dirty way, but rest assured that was not my intent.

Maybe.

Okay, back to work for me. Have a happy hump day, everyone. I’ll catch up with you when I can.

Later.

Exploring England

This past weekend my travel companion and I logged in over eight hours of driving and nary an accident occurred, though there was copious amounts of swearing and general vulgarity being tossed around. And that was just when we were talking to one another. All in all, it was a great trip though too short as is often the case.

The whole point of the weekend getaway was to attend a friend’s wedding bash up north. Because I don’t travel nearly enough within England, I tried to see if there was any place fun to visit near to our destination. And by fun I mean anything hella old and British. And there was! And no, it wasn’t the Queen.

We spent Saturday afternoon traipsing around Lyme Park, an impressive English mansion set amidst beautiful gardens and the vast expanse of the Peak District National Park. The place was simply gorgeous and had some of the best views I’ve ever seen. And, for my fellow Austen fans, this was the location where they filmed the Pemberley scenes in the BBC version of Pride and Prejudice. Here are some pics:

Sadly, I did not catch sight of a wet shirt-clad Colin Firth while walking around the lake. Bummer.

As for running, well, things haven’t been going so swimmingly. I’ve been pretty busy lately and with the weekend away, I only logged two runs last week for a total of six miles. Instead of employing my fuzzy math again to justify myself for the humiliation challenge, I’m just going to take a big fat fail for last week and start fresh for this last week of the challenge. We’re supposed to be having some great weather here for the next few days and I plan on taking advantage of it.

Other than that, I have huge amounts of work to do, so I better get back to it. I hope you all have a great week ahead. Please think happy thoughts for our fellow runners taking on the Boston marathon today like Carpe Viam, the Laminator, Frayed Laces and Nitmos’ friend (yes, it would appear that he actually has one) the Hello Kitty Runner.

Later gators.

Holiday, celebrate

Running has been pretty good lately with the exception of the sucky English weather. I squeezed in another run yesterday with Canadia, but we had to take a short walk break in the middle because I was bitch-slapped with shin splints again. I did end up getting orthopedic inserts for my shoes a few weeks back and they’ve been working out really well for me. I guess that particular pair of shoes is giving up the ghost though which is depressing since they haven’t quite reached 300 miles yet. Poopsicles.

I’m hoping to get in another quick run early tomorrow morning before I head off for the weekend. I’ll be at the wheel of a rental car again, so this is fair warning to all the Brits I meet on the M6 tomorrow. The last thing I have on my to-do list for today is to make a sign for the back window of the car that says ‘I’m sorry, I’m foreign.’

And for anyone who is of the orthodox persuasion, happy Easter this weekend. Unfortunately, the celebration I’m attending this weekend is not of the Greek variety, so no lambs on spits, no cracking red-dyed eggs, and no eating mounds of delicious Greek food until I’m in a coma. However, Viper kindly left me a link to an amusing video which I’ve embedded below. My favorite part is the comment section below the video on the YouTube page. Greeks, they’re not happy unless they’re bitching about something.

Please to enjoy, everyone. (Thanks, lush.)



Have a great weekend, everybody.

Say My Name

Yesterday, I ran 5K with my friend Canadia. I’ve somehow convinced her to join me along with some other friends of ours in running the Blenheim 7K next month. She’s even asked me to devise a mini training plan for her since it’s been a while since her last run and 7K will be the longest distance she’s tackled in almost eight years. It’s kind of weird being asked for running advice, but also rather flattering that people think I’m that knowledgeable. Poor bastards. Little do they know.

What’s in a name?
For some reason, I’ve been thinking a lot about names. Could be because a lot of my friends seem to be spitting out children like Pez dispensers recently. Or maybe because I keep up with celeb gossip and am appalled yet entertained by which monikers celebs saddle their children with. I mean, really, Petal Blossom Rainbow. Lay off the bong, Jamie.

Seriously, celebrities have to be the most self-absorbed people if they don’t realize how a name can totally affect a child’s life. Some of the worst offenders, in my mind anyway, are Shannyn Sossamon, Jason Lee, Penn Jillette and Nicolas Cage. Their children are named, respectively:

Audio Science
Pilot Inspektor
Moxie CrimeFighter
Kal-El (i.e. Superman’s real name)

The one possibly worse category are the poor little bastards who are supposedly named after the location of their conception, like Michael Jackson’s alleged daughter Paris and David Beckham’s son Brooklyn. Imagine having to explain the origin of your name to people when you got older. Yikes.

I know Julia Roberts got some flack for naming her twins Phinnaeus and Hazel, but I actually like those names. Phinnaeus more so than Hazel, but at least they both have a history of being actual names as opposed to Marijuana Pepsi. Seriously. I’m not kidding.

You would think someone like me—a half-Greek archaeologist who grew up fixated with classical mythology—would probably be all about naming her potential future children something kind of funky like Theseus or Andromache. Not so much. I tend towards traditional if old-fashioned names, although sometimes I like the really old-fashioned ones. Like Isolde. I’d never torture a little girl with that for a first name though. Middle name possibly.

Then there are the people who take common names and change the spelling to make them unique. I have several cousins who’ve done this. Personally, I’m not a fan of doing that. Sometimes the change in spelling is a total accident though. I had a friend in high school whose parents misspelled his middle name on his birth certificate. Instead of Brian, his name was Brain. I wonder if he ever officially changed it.

So yeah, that’s my rant on names. If you want to see some lists of horrendous celeb baby names check out this article or even this blog which is devoted entirely to the topic. Feel free to contribute your favorite best/worst names in the comments. I’d love to hear them.

Happy hump day, everyone.

Half Fail, Half Win

All right, I didn’t get four runs in last week. I got in three for a total of 17 miles, but I had to apply my fuzzy logic again and include yesterday’s run in last week’s total. This again is half-assedly justified since last week’s running didn’t start until Wednesday.

Here’s the official breakdown:

Wednesday – 5 miles
Saturday – 5 miles
Monday – 7.1 miles
Total – 17.1 miles

To break the cycle of my asinine justifications, I promise to run four times this week (not including yesterday’s run) by the end of the day on Sunday. That should catch me up and set me up well for the last week of the humiliation challenge. Not that I’m worried since my partner in crime is kicking ass and taking names whilst our competition is floundering and whinging like the little pansy that he is. Haha!

The Win portion of last week’s running refers not only to me getting in my minimum of 17 miles for the week, but also because I experienced a breakthrough with my running. On Saturday, I kept putting off my planned 5-miler because of the crappy weather. For once my dithering paid off and the sky cleared by late afternoon. Even then my morale was still rather low so I dropped my expectations down to getting in a quick three-miler. But once I got out there, everything fell into place. I felt great, the weather was fabulous and there weren’t that many people in the park for me to want to maim in one way or another. I felt so good I decided to go the full five and even ran a half dozen fartleks. This is the first time I’ve done speedwork since the beginning of February. I had such a runner’s high that day and it only got better afterward when I figured out my mile pace. One of my fastest all year. Amazing.

Sadly that high didn’t translate to running on Sunday as I was overstuffed with Easter lunch and too much chocolate, but eh, you win some, you lose some. I also spent a good deal of time on the phone on Sunday talking to the family back home and getting grilled about when I’m finishing my degree and moving back to the states. Ah family. Can’t live with them, can’t slap them upside the head through a phone wire.

Okay, that’s it for me. Back to the world of deadlines. Hope everyone had a not-too-painful Monday. I’ll catch up with you all later.

P.S.—I’m working at home today and watching one of our crackhead neighbor’s friends perform his morning tai chi ritual in the back garden. Is it wrong that I wish a bird would fly by and poop on his head? Probably.

Product Review: Sony W Series MP3 Player

The fine folks who advertize for Sony contacted me a couple of weeks ago and asked me if I wouldn’t mind trying out a new MP3 player that’s being marketed to runners and creating a playlist that gets me pumped and running. I of course gave the request due ethical consideration and then jumped on the chance like a fat kid in a candy store.

I’ve had an ipod mini for the last four years, but I was willing to set aside my loyalty and give the Sony W Series MP3 player a try because this player is just a headset. Take a look at it:


There is no annoying earphone cord to get caught on something like my hand or elbow and then have the earbud yanked unceremoniously out of my ear. One of the things that annoys me immensely during races is when my earphone cord gets caught on the safety pin holding my race bib in place. The Sony W Series Walkman is one solid piece. No cord, no annoyance. Awesome!

I’ve worn the new player on my last five runs and I have to say I like it. Here’s a quick pro and con list for you:

Pros:

• It’s small and compact.
• No earbud cord.
• No longer have to worry about armband chafage.
• Earbuds fit easily into my ears.
• The neckband is plastic yet flexible and doesn’t rub against my skin at all.
• No problem wearing both the player and sunglasses.
• It has a shuffle feature so you don’t get stuck in a playlist rut.
• Wearing it makes me feel cool in almost a sci-fi kind of way. Yes, I know I’m a dork.
  

Cons:

• The Zappin feature, which is a track search feature that plays recognizable clips of each song in quick succession, is a bit useless for me since I can tell what song is playing within the first three notes anyway. But I don’t need to enable this feature, so it’s fine.
• The volume controls are two buttons while the play/pause/ff/rewind feature is a pushable dial. This seems counterintuitive to me and I wish they were switched around.
• The player controls are located on the underside of the right earphone part. I’m left-handed. Annoying, but it’s a predominantly right-handed world so I understand. I’ll get over it.
• Having my entire musical library in iTunes is a bit of a problem, since the Sony player hooks up to Windows Media Player. In order to make my iTunes files compatible, I have to burn them onto a CD and then recopy them into WMP. Time consuming and a bit of a pain in the ass, but to be expected.
  

The Sony advertizing peeps loaded up a playlist for me to try out. I warned them that my musical tastes tended towards corny pop and dance. They did a decent job, but the playlist just wasn’t cheesy enough for me to push the pace, so I loaded the player with a bunch of my music and things picked up from there. If you’re curious to know how bad my musical taste is, here’s my playlist in its entirety:

Where The Streets Have No Name – U2
Everybody Wants To Rule The World – Tears for Fears
In A Big Country – Big Country
I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For – U2
Bizarre Love Triangle – New Order
Big Time – Peter Gabriel
Pride (In The Name Of Love) – U2
Personal Jesus – Depeche Mode
True Faith – New Order
Like A Prayer – Madonna
Cradle Of Love – Billy Idol
If – Janet Jackson
Gonna Make You Sweat – C+C Music Factory
Move This – Technotronic
Rhythm Is A Dancer – Snap!
Jump – Madonna
Harder To Breathe – Maroon 5
Say My Name – Destiny’s Child
Numb/Encore – Linkin Park & Jay-Z
Forbidden Love – Madonna
U + Ur Hand – Pink
Hot N Cold – Katy Perry
What Is Love – Haddaway
Sun Is Shining – Bob Marley
Tribulations – LCD Soundsystem
Insomnia – Faithless
Don’t Mess With My Man – Booty Luv
Sunchyme – Noize Masterz
Cry For You – September
Infinity 2008 – Guru Josh Project
Some Kinda Rush – Booty Luv
Saltwater – Chicane
Hip to Hip – V
The Weekend – Michael Gray
No Good (Start the Dance) – Prodigy
Halcyon + On + On - Orbital

I listen to various chunks of this playlist during each run—whatever fits my mood that day. The player has 2 GB of memory and can hold up to 500 songs, so I’ve got plenty of room to add more incredibly bad yet entertaining and motivating music. Hooray!

In all honesty, I really like the Sony walkman. My ipod mini will be relegated to only non-running activties from here on out. Wearing the Sony player while running is hassle-free and since there’s no screen for me to obsess with or an armband to straighten up, I can concentrate more on running and my thoughts. And that can only be a good thing.

If you all have any specific questions about the Sony player, leave them in the comments and I’ll answer them. I’ll ignore all comments on my spectacularly bad choices in music. To each her own.

Later gators.

Minor technicality

So, yeah, I got in my 17 miles for the week but I required today to complete them. Considering I didn’t start running until Wednesday last week, I’m still technically within the guidelines of the humiliation challenge.

Yeah, I know, that sounds weak even to me. In my defense, I've had deadlines to contend with and I also had to spend a good junk of my weekend giving a thorough cleaning to our pig-sty of a kitchen, even cleaning out the cabinets and chucking out anything that was nasty, useless or both. At one point I put the vacuum hose into a very remote and dark corner of the cabinet underneath the sink and something big was sucked up into the tube. I’m praying it wasn’t a mouse, but I wouldn’t doubt it.

Another factor in me not running both days this weekend was because Aunt Flo is just about to visit again. Right now I’m dealing with the other aunts – Crampy, Bloaty, Hungry, Sleepy and Bitchy. See, they’re like the dwarfs just worse since these gals are fecking useless and cause me severe pain.

And since I’ve already made all the guys who read this blog cringe, I might as well keep going. I’ve noticed a lot of the female RBFs complaining of Aunt Flo and who can blame them. There’s nothing worse for running than having sore boobage and a pelvic area that feels like it’s been kicked multiple times. Then said nether region decides to spew grossness at an alarming rate. We lady runners need our own blogospheric Red Tent of sorts. I have no idea what it should be called though. Suggestions are welcome.

All right, all right, enough of the period talk. Here are my running stats for last week:

Wednesday - 3.1 miles
Friday - 3.1 miles
Saturday - 4.5 miles
Tuesday - 6.4 miles
Total - 17.1 miles

That’s pretty much it for me. I’ve got a busy rest of the week ahead including my first official product review which I hope to post tomorrow or maybe Thursday. A fun non-work related bit of this week's busy-ness involves me trying out a new recipe which I hope to bring to an international Easter potluck this weekend. Since the little devil children who sell the original cookies don’t inhabit England, I’ve got to see if I can make the goodies myself. Hopefully they don’t turn out too bad. If all else fails, I’ll just bring my standard potluck dish.

All right, later gators!

My achy breaky body parts

Just to clear up any confusion remaining from the last post—the whole thing was a joke. There was no doctor’s appointment, no pregnancy scare, nothing. It was all the creation of my overactive imagination. Except for the lack of speed and me feeling rundown. That actually was true.

I’ve run only twice this week for a total of 6 miles. Stellar, no? I did manage to attend several classes at the gym, but as with the preceding weeks, my energy levels are completely depleted by Thursday morning so I’ve done sod all since then. It doesn’t help that the muscles in my butt and upper thighs are screaming today. Body Conditioning class on Wednesday night really did a number on me. Also, my upper back is experiencing some discomfort too. I’m not sure if it’s the result of the strength training or if I’m sleeping in a bad position or what, but I don’t like it. I feel like one big blobby bruise right now. Bleh.

And because I’ve just been such a Debbie Downer, let me end this post with something funny. If you missed it, this was Fail Blog’s April Fools post and a nice compliment to Carpe Viam’s post from last week.


Have a great weekend, everyone.

Revelation

Today has been one hell of a day.

This morning the weather was amazing. The sun was shining, there was nary a cloud in the sky and there was also a nice breeze. Perfect weather for a run. Time was a bit of a factor though so I limited it to three miles.

Everything was perfect...except for me. I was so damn slow! This has really been bothering me lately. Not only is my running slow, but I’ve been feeling a general malaise for weeks now. Fed up with feeling like sludge, I called the doctor’s office and luckily they had an opening for late this morning.

So I went in and chatted with the doc. Being a woman and having been to the doctor’s office on a regular basis throughout my life, I wasn’t phased by the first question I was asked which was ‘Are you pregnant?’ My automatic response was, ‘No, of course not’ followed by a moment of silence and then a much quieter ‘Oh f*ck.’

I get sent into the bathroom with a plastic stick and my not-so-full bladder. I hover over the toilet to do the deed and accidentally pee on my hand in the process. After cleaning myself up, I walk back into the examination room and wait with the doctor to find out the results.

Please don’t be blue, I chant in my head. PLEASE!

Three minutes later I see a strip of my once favorite color on the plastic stick and promptly pass out.

I came to a few minutes later. The doctor was really kind and gently told me a bunch of information I have now completely forgotten about vitamins, what I’m not supposed to eat and the like. Thankfully she wrote it all down. The whole time all I could think was now I know why my running has sucked and why I haven’t been able to lose weight recently. Followed quickly by, holy shit I’m going to get even fatter!

Right before I left her office, the doctor turned to me and said...

“Happy April Fools' Day!”

Seriously, people, there’s no way in hell I’m getting knocked up before my PhD is completed. My uterus is officially on lockdown for at least another year and a half if not permanently.

Happy hump day, everyone. :)