tough week

I won't lie to you. It's been a tough week. I haven't felt very good all week; I have been sleeping poorly (waking in the middle of the night and having trouble falling back to sleep, something which has never been a problem for me before in my life), I have felt very fatigued, and my muscles have been extraordinarily sore for the paltry activity I've been doing.

I took a depression inventory yesterday, and gee, guess what? Yeah, apparently I'm "moderately-severly" depressed. Hmmm, big surprise. Forced inactivity, weight gain, fatigue, poor sleep, and muscle pain have combined to make life more interesting. I'm trying not to let my mood suffer too much (and I actually don't FEEL terribly depressed most of the time), but it's an uphill battle.

Monday, Tuesday, and Friday I did the elliptical at the gym, but only for about 25 minutes each day. My body just wasn't interested in more. Wednesday, I took a rest day (I didn't rest last Sunday, so was overdue), and Thursday I didn't plan to racewalk, but changed my mind. The dog needed a walk, and I went out (sans HR monitor) to walk her, overdressed for racewalking and in a street shirt and bra rather than sports bra and technical shirt. I was wearing tights and my RW shoes, though, and once I got going, I decided I'd racewalk a bit and see how it went. I alternated RW and casual walking, slowing down for a break every time I felt tired. That actually went OK, and I did 5K in 35:11 for 7:02/km. Slow, but at least I was out there.

Today, my friend Nancy talked me into taking Calvin down to a USATF track meet in Highland (40 min drive south), along with our friend Kathy. Stevie was RW in the meet as well. There was a 3000m racewalk on the event schedule, and for a measly $3 you could enter. Awesome. I didn't feel at ALL like racewalking, honestly. I was tired, and my muscles were achy though not terribly painful. I only did 2 laps of warm-up with some strides, because my muscles started to hurt and I figured I'd better save it for the race. My coach told me to take it at 80-85% effort, but after my first 500m in 2:49, I felt decent and pushed a little harder (though NOT all-out). I probably put out 90% effort. I kept telling myself to not push too hard, and that worked OK. Mostly. I ended up with a time of 17:33 (by my watch; have no idea what the official time was yet), and I'm very happy with that as I figured that I was looking at 19+ minutes. Best of all, my muscles only have a bit of the weird soreness now. I'm going to take a nap and hopefully will feel good after that.

Immediately after the 3000m racewalk was the 1500m run, which was the only event Calvin wanted to do. I wish I'd timed it, because I have no idea how fast he was, but he finished in 3rd place in his heat! I think it was ages 10 and under in his heat, but I'm not sure about that either. He's 9, so one of the older boys, though the winner was 10. The winner beat Calvin by about 20 seconds, so it wasn't close, and 2nd place was perhaps 10 seconds in front of him. Still, Calvin doesn't train at all except by playing soccer, so I figure he has some talent. He enjoyed it a lot and we plan to attend another meet in two weeks. Grace might try the 1500m racewalk at that meet :).


Here are some more photos.