Back again

Yesterday morning I woke up with a major pain in the upper right part of my back. I was looking to run six miles that morning since I had plans for the evening.

I started running and it just plain hurt. I immediately downgraded the run from six to three miles. No way in hell I could go that long with that much discomfort. It felt better when I was running slow, so that’s what I did. I ended up with the worst pace ever. Seriously. It was even slower than my pace for my two 20-mile training runs last year. Total suckage.

Today my back is improved, but still not great. I’m set for an hour swim lesson this afternoon and hopefully a three mile run this evening to have this month’s running mileage beat last month’s. We’ll see how it goes.

Farewell, my friend
Today my one sane flatmate is vacating the house. She’s moving on to greener pastures and leaving me with the two f*cktards in The House That Crazy Built Rented.

Over the past twelve years, I have lived in various apartments and houses with numerous different flatmates. From friends and colleagues to people I didn’t know at all. From all of this I’ve realized one universal thing—it is the luck of the draw finding someone you can live with harmoniously. And it is a very rare thing indeed if that person is also a friend.

Canadia is just such a person.

I will miss her common sense, directness, cooking and wine-fueled musings. But most of all, I will miss her sanity, which is a very rare commodity in graduate living.

Happy trails, buddy. And thank you for promising to visit me in the nuthouse when I get locked up for murdering the nitwits. Should be any day now.

Swords, sweat and sex
All right, enough of that sappy shit. Let’s send off the weekend in style, shall we.

My friend Ellen emailed me this video promo for a new tv show that will air in January, I believe. It’s another sword and sandals epic series with lots of T and A. Love how we’re doing the ancients proud.



This show is a combination of Gladiator, Rome and 300. Literally. Originality, thy name is not Hollywood.

That’s it for me, folks. Have a great weekend. I’ll catch you again next week.

Later gators.

Defiance

Yesterday after my morning run, I headed to the pool for some swim practice. There were three other people already in the pool by the time I got there, so I found a strip of water that was relatively unoccupied and did my thang.

I had the feeling I was violating some pool rules. Nobody said a single word to me, but the looks I was receiving felt kinda condemnatory. I found out later that I was supposed to wear a swim cap. Okay, fine, but that doesn’t require that you give me hate-looks, you uppity bastards.

I have now purchased a condom-like cap for my next trip to the pool. It’s so not comfortable. Is having long hair really that much of a sin? Come on, people.

Weighty issues
So the other day I stepped on the scale to see what the damage was. Then I had some private time with the porcelain throne and afterwards, for shits and giggles, decided to weigh myself again to see how much my evacuated poo weighed. (Editor’s note: Don’t act all shocked by this. You know you’ve done it too.)

I weighed in a pound heavier than I had before I pooed.

What. The. F*ck.

My poo wasn’t even weightless. Somehow it had defied gravity with a negative mass. How is this possible?

One of you scientific folk need to explain this to me. Because if that happens again I’m going to set fire to the damn scale. That’ll teach it to toy with me and the laws of physics.

All right, that’s it for me. Have a happy hump day, everyone.

Sink or swim

Friday I had my first swim lesson. And as you can tell from the appearance of this post, I didn’t drown. Woohoo!

My instructor is fabulous. We worked on breathing and proper kicking. This week we’ll be moving on to the various strokes. So far so good. I need to hit the pool a couple of times on my own this week to practice what I’ve learned so far. I’m hoping to do so at the least busiest times for the pool because I feel like a bit of a tool having to break out one of those foam noodle things to swim with. Eh, the trials of the beginning stages.

My running has also been going well lately. I’ve been getting in just over 20 miles for each of the last two weeks. I need to get in at least 12 more miles by Friday in order to beat last month’s total of 64 miles. Perfectly doable, so I’m not worried.

In other running news, France’s President Nicolas Sarkozy was taken ill during a run yesterday.

Sarkozy (right) followed by conga line of bodyguards.

He was rushed off to hospital to have a million and one tests done to find out what the problem was. Apparently, it was nothing other than his being a douchenozzle. Can we say weak? Yes, we can.

The only reason I bring this up is that this incident will inflame the hysteria of the ignorant about the perils of running. Every once in a while I come across someone who warns me about how running is bad for me and will grind all my joints to dust, damage my internal organs, etc, etc. Now I’ll probably hear it more frequently thanks to this little news item.

Thanks a lot, you philandering French twit.

To end, I need to mention a little bit of site news. In a month’s time I will be taking off to do fieldwork. That means Diggin’ It will be going dark. I’ll be away for at least six weeks but possibly longer. Just thought I’d let you know early to help minimize the hysteria my absence will inevitably incite. And by that I mean Glaven having (another) mental breakdown. Be strong, buddy. I’m not pulling a TFH, I promise.

Okay, that’s it for me. Hope you all had a great weekend. I’ll catch up with you when I can.

Later gators.

Anatomy of a Bikini Wax

The process proceeded thusly this morning:

Greet random stranger.

Get told to take off my trousers.

Hop onto table and get awkwardly positioned as instructed.

Random chit-chat is commenced by waxer as she proceeds to violate my nether region.

I respond with short, terse replies as I grit my teeth each time she yanks back on the waxing strip.

She finishes one side and asks me if it looks all right. I look down and notice I’m bleeding where she just waxed. Since this doesn’t seem to faze her, I assume it’s normal. I reply that it (assuming she meant the carnage) looks fine. She proceeds to torture my other side.

I’m to the point where it hurts so much I fear I’ll have permanent lockjaw. Trying to stop audible sucking in of air through teeth as each strip is pulled because it makes me sound like Hannibal the Cannibal talking about eating someone’s liver with fava beans and a nice chianti.

I joke about being too scared to get a full bikini wax. She, in all seriousness, replies, “Well, it does hurt a lot.” Sweet baby jebus.

Left alone in painful glory to get repantsed.

Pay her for the honor of torturing me then leave, relieved to have gotten my run in early this morning so as not to have to worry about chafing my now sensitive crotchal area later today.

There endeth the bikini wax.

- - - - -
Last night I had another long-ass workout at the gym. Body Combat followed by two miles on the mill then a 30 minute strength training class. I cranked out 3 x 400 m at 8:31 pace and proceeded to demoralize the weightlifter dude on the treadmill next to me with my bursts of speediness. I was sure he was going to give himself whiplash with the number of times he kept looking at my machine’s console. Heh.

My first swim lesson is tomorrow afternoon. I’ll let you know how it goes next week. That is if I don’t drown.

Have a great weekend, everyone.

Validation from sketchy 'scientific' studies

Thanks to today's Cranky Fitness post, I've discovered that I'm a freaking genius, but will always be a slow runner.

I can live with that.

So, which are you--an intellectually superior blue-eyed wonder or a speedy brown-eyed athlete? Or are you one of those sad bastards with hazel or green eyes? Since you weren't included in the study, I'm assuming your eye color provides you with no discernible advantage. Sucks to be you.

Monday Miscellany

Here’s a little bit of everything for you.

Despite the weather being a little nasty, I managed to run both days this weekend. Take that Mother Nature! (Dear Mother Nature—Just kidding! Please don’t punish me for that.)

Bean soup + vegetarian lasagne = significant gaseous emissions. Sorry, Ozone. My bad.

A little while ago I was just stepping outside my front door to go for a run when my neighbor saw me. Noticing my attire, he asked, “Going for a run?” I answered in the affirmative. He then made a face that clearly expressed his dislike for running. I laughed and went on my merry way as his wife proceeded to berate him for trying to escape to the pub.

I need to set up an appointment with the waxer this week as my first swimming lesson is on Friday. Must remember to down copious amounts of ibuprofen in preparation for onslaught of pain. Wah.

Last week, I texted my (one sane) flatmate this: “Went 2 bakery & bought iced cookie man. Just took him out of bag & he only has one arm. I got gypped!” While at the bakery, I also picked her up a gingerbread man (I hate to get fat alone) and left it on her desk with this note: “Your cookie dude has all his appendages. Lucky bitch. –X”

All right, folks, that’s it for me. Hope you all had a great weekend. Here’s to a non-sucky week ahead.

Later gators.

Fetch, Fido

I thought I’d throw you all a bone and try to put up a real post for once. I know your lives have been desolate without me recently, as is to be expected, so here goes.

Yesterday I was in the changing room of Primark (a cheaper, lower class version of Target) trying on some potential dig trousers when a gaggle of American teenage girls invaded the area. They were louder than a foghorn and annoying beyond belief.

I did honestly consider advising them to tone down their idiocy, but I knew the likelihood of me being able to do that without being a sarcastic bitch was pretty much nil, so I decided against it. I don’t need the cops called on me in this country for creating a disturbance. At least not again.

This entire town has been invaded with summer school students—primarily US college kids and hoards of teenagers from various European countries here for English language study programs. It’s enough to make us year-round residents wish the annoying undergrads were back instead.

The little continental cusses travel in ginormous packs and are as inconsiderate as all get-out. I’m forced to play the most perilous game of Frogger as I have to weave in and around the groups on the sidewalks and eventually onto the roadways, subjecting myself to irate cyclists and motorists. Good times.

These kids are a boil on the butt of humanity and I wish their parents had seriously considered other methods of contraception besides pulling out.

Oh yeah, this is supposed to be a running blog...
Last night I attended two classes at the gym, Body Combat and Body Conditioning. However, there was a sizeable time gap in between them even with the first class running over. With every kind of gym equipment at my disposal, I of course chose to use the treadmill. It is the least offensive of all the machinery and that’s saying something seeing as I hate treadmills.

Not only did I decide to get a couple of miles in, I even made it into a speed session by knocking out 2 x 400 m at 8:47 pace. I haven’t done intervals in about a year and I haven’t attempted a tempo run in weeks, so I expected to feel like five kinds of shit after this, especially after having just suffered through an hour of mock combat moves. But in fact I felt great. Like I could have got in a few more or at least have run those two intervals much faster. Huh, will wonders never cease.

In total yesterday I worked out for two hours and I felt fabulous afterward. I credit my mojo not to regular exercise, but to the new pair of panties I was wearing which had a cartoon monkey sitting in an inner tube plastered across the ass. In my (fashion) defense, they were on sale at Primark and I desperately needed to replenish my utilitarian-but-not-granny-panties undergarment stock. Sue me.

All right, folks, that’s it for me. Hope you’re all doing well. Catch up with you when I can.

Later gators.

Taciturn Tuesday

Hanging out in the garden.

Hope you're all doing well.

Later gators.

Horizon

There are no races on my calendar for the rest of the year, but not for lack of trying. Nothing is going on around these here parts when I’ll actually be in residence which kinda sucks for me.

So with nothing to train for, I’ve just been going about my business. Running a bit, a little cross training here and there, the occasional pushup, and so on.

All this is to say I have nothing to blog about. There’s other stuff going on in my life, but that’s not for blog fodder, so basically I’m tapped out. The only interesting contribution I have for you all right now is a literary one. If any of you are Jane Austen fans, I would recommend you read Linda Berdoll’s Mr. Darcy Takes a Wife. It’s a continuation of Pride & Prejudice and quite entertaining. At least I think so. If for nothing else, I suggest you pick it up because at one point the ...er... excited male member gets compared to an enraged squirrel. That’s just plain awesome.

Hope you’re all doing well. Catch up with you when I can.

Later gators.

Celebrating independence with the colonial oppressors, Take 2

It’s hotter than hell here. Er...or so I’m told.

Actually, I know most of you are suffering worst temps than I am, but you need to take into account that the four years I’ve spent living on this island have not only increased my tolerance for bland food and broadened my vocabulary, they've also weakened my ability to withstand high temperatures. It’s only in the 80s here and I’m bitching. If it cracks into the 90s I’m probably a goner.

Not much else to say from here. Working, hanging out, apparently giving myself a higher chance of melanoma with increased sun exposure.

So as not to leave you without any inanity, I thought I’d enlighten you all with a bit of brilliance. A couple months ago I read The Amazing Adventures of Dietgirl. Of all the heartfelt and touching moments in that book, the one thing I took away was this.

If someone around you farts, particularly a significant other/friend/family member, say this:

“Shall I reply?”

Best. Line. Ever.

All right, folks, that’s it for me this week. Hope all you Canadians had a great Canada Day yesterday. And for my fellow Americans, have a happy 4th this weekend. I’m gonna try to hunt me down some wieners and set something on fire on Saturday. That sounds promising, no?

Later gators.