I posted this last night to Facebook after we landed in Orlando. It sums up the flight:
When there’s a screaming kid, a supposed service dog who is amongst the worst behaved canines not named Cujo, and the large man next to you should have had to buy an extra seat given that he’s taking up half of yours, the solution is sometimes found at the bottom of an adult beverage.
After some typical MCO luggage snafus that only further evidenced the effect of Kevin’s Law, I got home and grabbed a shower to wash some of the travel off of me. I stepped on the scale, confident I had at least maintained or really probably lost a few pounds due to tight portion control and eating decisions, save for the deplorable botched food intake at the finish of the Harpeth Hills race. And yet… the scale showed I’d gained five pounds. I felt defeated and depressed and wound up binge eating in that angry, “well, what difference does it really make then?” manner. That only further contributed to my stomach ills and depressed state.
So this morning I thought I should do a slow tempo recovery run. It was slow all right but at least I did it. I got back and sorted through some of the backlog of mail, separating out the bills and property taxes and correspondence that was most pressing to deal with later in the day.
I had already planned to drive out this morning to pick up my race packets for this week’s running — a turkey trot on Thanksgiving that’s being held downtown and Year 4 of my 5-Year Mission at the Space Coast Marathon series out in Melbourne. Despite my car being serviced very recently, the dashboard warning lights lit up like the 30 Rock Christmas tree ceremony. The ABS brakes were malfunctioning, the check engine light was lit and the big emergency exclamation mark flashed incessantly in case I didn’t understand there was a problem.
Something cataclysmic must have happened between the time the car left the Toyota dealer’s service plaza and got back into my garage, a slow burn that only took full effect when I turned it on. I’ve got a call into the mechanic but could only leave a voicemail message.
Trying to salvage the day, I’ve tried to sort the problems from the mailings. But alas certain tax authority numbers are disconnected or not available from my calling area (?!) meaning bureaucracy is killing me by a thousand tiny cuts.
It seems so many of my assets are merely liabilities. I had hoped the desert runs would help me clear my head and get right for the close of the year, always a tough time for me emotionally. But if anything the runcation has only put me ever farther behind the proverbial eight ball and even more perfectly equidistant between the rocks and the hard places.
There’s always a bit of a mess of a catchup when coming back down to reality. But this feels like a particularly hard re-entry.
I had considered a similar solution to the flight last night but am opting instead to go out for a second run. It’ll still be way less mileage than I’ve been averaging the last few days. And it’s probably a better use of my time than opening a bottle of wine. Besides, the night is still young — there’s always time for wine later.
