UGH
Everything hurts.
Have a butterfly pic.
The Leg (not the one you’re thinking of)
So.
I did something to my OTHER leg now.
Over the past week or so, when I’d start out on a walk or run, I’d feel this sharp pain in the middle of my quad, but the pain would diminish (relatively quickly) as I kept walking/running. It had started to last a bit longer each time, but it would eventually get better.
Today, however, after getting back from my run, I noticed that the pain was really lingering…to the point that it wasn’t going away at all.
I tried to ignore it as we went to Walmart and did other errands and stuff, but now it’s late at night and it hurts SO FREAKING BADLY.
Like, the pain is at a level where I almost wonder if I have some sort of stress fracture or something in my femur.
It really, really hurts. And I consider myself to have a pretty high pain tolerance.
So yeah. That is SUPER discouraging. Unless this magically gets better, I’m going to have to go to a doctor once we get back up to Calgary.
Edit: I think the pain started not too long after I bit it on that one run. Maybe I really twisted my leg more than I thought I did.
Edit 2 (from later in the month): LOL IT’S JUST A MUSCLE STRAIN WHY THE HELL DOES MY FEMUR FEEL LIKE IT IS GOING TO CRACK IN HALF
HAWK IT UP
Y’all, I got swooped by a hawk FIVE TIMES on my walk this afternoon.
Story time: I’m in the ‘Scow, so basically the only walk I ever do is to Pullman and back because it’s exactly 18 miles round trip from my mom’s house. I’ve done this walk (and run) every day since I’ve been here now and haven’t had any issues.
But this afternoon, coming home along the Guy Wicks’ Field stretch of the path, I felt a bonk in the back of my head and looked up to see a giant hawk ascending back into the sky.
Weird, thought I. He must have been diving for something and misjudged his timing/aim. No big deal.
Then it happened again.
So I looked up and saw this hawk make a deliberate turn followed by a SUPER FAST dive right back at me. I had to duck to get away from his talons.
This happened twice more before I could get under the cover of the trees by the parking lot across the street.
It was super wild. If I hadn’t been wearing my hat I’m sure the back of my head would be all scratched up. He must have thought I was a rabbit or something based on the color of my hat, which I think he was wanting to snatch. Now I’ve got talon marks in the back of it.
Evidence:
(Okay, they’re hard to see on camera, so I put circles around them. I also put circles around the little threads that got pulled out.)
FUN!
Get GU’d
Yo.
Today is a MARATHON DAY, so I used it to try my first GU.
I chose the Salted Watermelon flavor.
So I ran to Pullman, ran around the backside of the captive bear area and golf course, then ran on that path that kind of goes along the flat part of Bishop Boulevard. At the end of that path, I tried my Gu.
Flavor: Great!
Texture: Snot!
Seriously. Snot is not the most accurate thing to compare that texture to, but it’s the closest I can think of. It’s like snot mixed with Elmer’s glue. I had to hork up a big wad of it when I got back to the drinking fountain because it felt like it was gunking up my throat. I had about half of the packet in Pullman; I rolled it up, stuck it in my running pack, and had the rest at the drinking fountain by Guy Wick’s Field once I got back to Moscow.
Did it help? It’s hard to tell. It was a rough run this morning. I felt nauseous for the first six miles or so, then it was really hot for like the last eight miles. But maybe I would have felt much worse had I not had the Gu.
I’m terrified of that flavorless one I got now, haha. It’s going to be like dumping straight gluey snot into my mouth.
It’s LEIBNIZ DAY!
As always, the best day of the year.
Take a moment to pause and reflect on the greatness that was Gottfried Leibniz!
On a completely unrelated note, it’s the halfway point of the year, so let’s check my mileage, shall we?
*looks at spreadsheet*
I’m at 3,085.98, which means that if I keep the same pace as the first half of the year, I’ll get to 6,000 miles by the end of December!
However, I am NOT currently on pace for 10,000 kilometers, so that might be a goal for another year.
I guess we’ll see.
I have acquired THINGS!
OBSERVE!
I guess technically I got these books yesterday, but today we went to Fleet Feet in Coeur d’Alene and I got new shoes plus some energy GUs that I’m going to try on my longer runs (especially as I build up to the 37-mile ultra next year).
WOO!
BRO MY TOENAIL FELL OFF
Jesus Christ, FINALLY
Okay, so it didn’t actually fall off. I was putting my shoes back on after my run this morning and noticed that the toenail could basically bend all the way back while still attached to my toe by the cuticle. So I thought screw this nonsense and just started twisting it the way you’d twist a stem from an apple.
And it finally, FINALLY came off.
BEHOLD:
Look at that monstrosity. I’ve been carrying that around for…well, technically my whole life…but in monstrosity form, it’s been YEARS. Like, if you look at the “feet” tag on my blog (please don’t), you’ll see this bugger’s been giving me issues since like 2018.
Now I’m…I’m free.
I’m free.
Now I know how the genie in Aladdin felt.
It’s disappointing, really
Does anyone wear masks here anymore? I don’t think I’ve seen a single masked person except for myself and my mom.
That’s…that’s kind of sad.
Gettin’ Mugged
Why the hell does Moscow feel like a swamp right now? This kind of mugginess isn’t normal, is it? I don’t remember it being this muggy in the summers when I lived here, but I may just not be used to it because Calgary is like the driest city ever.
UGH.
I NEED PROZZAK
So I’m 100% addicted to this band now, haha. All of their songs are ridiculously catchy. Plus, most of them have a cute little animated music video with Simon and Milo. Here are some examples:
How have I never heard of this band before I found http://www.nevergetoveryou the other day?
My Life Here
I was born in Moscow. I grew up in Moscow. I went to elementary school, junior high, high school, and college in Moscow.
Because of this, I obviously have a ton of memories here. And I think I’m more appreciative of those memories thanks to being away from Moscow for a few years thanks to Covid.
This evening, for example, my mom and I were doing our nightly drive around town (which is something we’ve done for YEARS) and we turned down this one street we’ve always turned down. It hit me how many different memories I associated just with that street. All the different thoughts, obsessions, worries, and phases of my life that I’ve gone through and that I’ve contemplated on car rides past as we’ve driven this street.
It’s actually pretty wild to think of how much I’ve experienced here.
I really miss the past sometimes.
Moscow!
My mom and I got back to Moscow today, YAY!
I don’t have much to say ‘cause it’s late and I have to get up early tomorrow and walk, but YAY!
Sub
So I guess they found the remains of the imploded sub now, which was probably the best way for them to go anyway, given the available options.
Not a fan of the jokes people are making, honestly. You can hate on the idea of the billionaire and hate how much time/resources was used to try to rescue these five people, but I think joking about their deaths is pretty tasteless. They had people who cared about them.
Anyway.
Live Reading
This is FANTASTIC. This is what I ALWAYS wanted to do with movies (well, and also act them out) but I never had anyone who’d do it with me.
Love it.
Pumpkin Splice Latte
This is the catchiest song I’ve heard in a while.
Love the animation, too. Prozzak is a Canadian band that started in 1998. Has anyone else heard of them? I feel like I recognize that name, but I definitely don’t recognize this song.
Why “The Titan,” Though? Like, Really?
So this missing submersible that went to view the Titanic? This is 100% the plot of one of Cape Cod Radio Mystery Theatre’s episodes. Specifically, my favorite one: “Mr. Hugo’s Night to Remember.”
It’s actually kind of scary how similar the two stories are at the surface level (OH MY GOD NO PUN INTENDED), though I suspect a lot of the specifics of the CCRMT episode were drawn from the rescue of the Pisces III that happened in 1973. Though that’s not mentioned in the liner notes.
Freaky.
OUCH
Okay, so good news first: today was absolutely FANTASTIC weather for running. I did a marathon and it felt like my typical 16-mile run. Super easy. Super relaxing.
Now the bad news: at mile 23 of said marathon run, I totally bit it and tore up my knees, shoulder, and hand. Not sure exactly what happened – I think I just lost my equilibrium – I was just suddenly skidding along the pavement, haha. Luckily I was starting to go up a hill, so it wasn’t too bad. But I’m not sure what was worse: the family riding their bikes who saw me and asked if I was okay (super kind of them, but also super embarrassing) or the fact that I still had three miles to run and had to do it with a very bloody knee and a road rash shoulder.
Pics or it didn’t happen, you say?
(These were taken on Tuesday after I took the initial bandages off)
Killer road rash.
I don’t know how I managed to get my shoulder so badly, but I did. The funny thing is that my OTHER shoulder is the one that hurts and that didn’t touch the ground at all.
Ignore the bandage residue. Also ignore the other scars. Also ignore how FREAKING DEFORMED my leg looks at this angle.
Fun times!
Another summer without…
Polymorphous Light Eruption symptoms.
That’s not supposed to just resolve on its own, so I either had something else going on in the summers of 2019 and 2020, or I did and my body’s just being the weird thing it always is and was like “K we’re done!”
Odd news.
Visibility
Um…
In other words, “screw you, anosmics!”
Bro, milk tastes fine to me up until it actually has clumps in it. Like, that’s the only way I can tell if milk has gone bad: it has clumps in it. And I’m sure it reaches an actual unsafe level of badness before the clumps even appear.
So this is a really dumb idea. Like, I know there aren’t that many of us compared to people with other sensory issues, but we’re out there.
And we don’t like old milk.
TWO THINGS!
Item One: I reached my year-long streak with French on DuoLingo! I’m really enjoying it. Duo definitely helped with the vocab when I took that French class last semester; hopefully it’ll help with the next one as well.
Item Two: I am now officially signed up for the 2024 Calgary Marathon’s ultra marathon!
Time to freak out, hahaha.
UGH
So I had every intention of running a marathon today, but:
1. It got smoky. Like, super smoky. Our scale up here goes from 1 (clean air) to 11+ (you’re going to die if you go outside), and we hit a 9 while I was out running.
2. It’s muggy as all hell. For whatever reason, it’s super humid here today and there’s nothing worse than muggy hell when trying to run.
3. It’s windy as all hell. I’m always down for a little wind while running, but it was obnoxious today.
All these components resulted in a pretty miserable, difficult run that was only 21 miles long.
UGH I hate cutting my distance short, but I also don’t want to get lung damage, so.
Eigenblogger 