Tuesday, October 24, 2023

!!?! kinda spicy, kinda salty

I'm still running, though! Maybe one day I won't be able to try, and some days it's a bit too much. To be honest, my fitness has dwindled to the point that almost every run sucks and it's appalling how high my heart rate goes up even when my effort is minimal, but it's still going on.  I'm still hopeful, I suppose.

Anyway, let me sum up the last year and a half.  After that 10 mile run in April of 2022, I caught some sort of non-COVID thing that made me cough a lot for a few weeks (my money is on human metapneumovirus (read why below)), and THEN I caught COVID just before a vacation.  I'm still and increasingly more bitter about this.  At least I found out before I spread it to the other participants of the race I was going to run.

Unfortunately, I caught it early enough that I was out of quarantine early enough to not extend my vacation.  Even more unfortunately, I then had a particularly grueling month with persistent nausea. Fortunately, also anosmia. Meanwhile, it turns out that the test I was then ordering multiple times a day costs a couple of thousand bucks--it changed practically nothing in terms of patient care, but at least it identified an apparent human metapneumovirus surge. What is this virus? Who knows? Maybe I'm the only one who cares because I got fingers to point--maybe I would've fought off COVID without a preceding nasty cough that necessitated sleeping propped up for three weeks. While I'm at it, let me jab my index finger at hospital visitors hurriedly pulling their masks up when I walked into the room. It was so common even during COVID surges. Like, huh? You think all of your respiratory droplets instantly retreat back under the mask somehow? Long story, but this is probably how a certain elderly patient and I caught COVID. This was soon after I'd downgraded to a simple mask in non-COVID rooms, bless my innocent heart.

Well now I wear just a simple mask in COVID rooms too, not always intentionally but "Oh, yeah, I/he/she tested positive for COVID yesterday." Because several screening questions including one that specifically asks about most recent COVID testing/results aren't enough.  But maybe these have been phased out so I should stop whining and just wiggle my jaw in that way that makes my mask gap. Like I maybe did again yesterday. 

Because, to sum up my life after COVID...I've learned a ton and made some really good friends and my family is doing great too, and I've gotten faster at documentation by disdaining 90% of articles, possessives and proper grammar in general*, and I'm kinda tired and really want those 5 days off before those are phased out too. In the meantime, I'll stay hopeful and I'll keep trying to run. 


*it feels really weird to re-re-read/correct something like this post. 


 

Friday, April 1, 2022

Ten miles!

Ok, 9.7. Close enough!

My planned route fell through due to flooding by the river, so I detoured, but then I ran out of interesting roads (definitely not the worst problem, mind you!) so I turned another way, bought and chugged a Vietnamese coffee around mile 8, which hit my GI tract kind of hard shortly before mile 9. That surprised me because I've been having Korean coffees before long runs, including this one, without issue. Both have milk, both have 30-odd grams of sugar and at least some caffeine. Maybe it was a cumulative effect. At any rate, I'm finding it hard to eat much supper afterwards, but fortunately I also bought this lychee coconut drink and that's going down fine. Lesson learned!

Thursday, March 31, 2022

asdfjkl;

 Typing from my new keyboard! yeah, I finally installed it. Did you know that there are 51 screws securing it into place? I found out today!

But it all rocks because because I have the day off!!! I got comped for working on holidays. So instead of working, I was at home dropping screws inside my laptop.

And outside running too. Only 3 miles today, but I did 8 on Tuesday and I'm hoping to attempt 9 or 10 tomorrow, weather permitting.  And maybe another decent run on Sunday.

 Props: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xAHtxNVOXZI


Thursday, March 10, 2022

! It's back!

Amazing, I have time for sleeping, eating, studying for that 14?16? hour exam in about a week, and this...and running too.

I've actually had a decent normal humane schedule this whole month, plus I've been on vacation this week.  So I've been running again! Not much, but almost every day. Today, I ran 5 km and it went really well. I'm even feeling exercised-induced endorphins for the first time in a while.

Maybe I'm starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel? Can I keep this up?


edit: I hadn't realized I haven't posted since last July! I've been jogging on and off throughout...some months have been too rough though. 



Saturday, July 31, 2021

:)

This past month has been a bit rough, and not entirely in a constructive way.  

Pro: I've learned a LOT. 

Con: I've been glutened. Mix in stress-induced nausea = eating has been hit or miss.

Pro: I've dropped approx 10 pounds of extra weight, and so running this morning felt almost like old times again. 5 easy miles. EASY! 

I have tomorrow off too and will see what happens!

Saturday, May 1, 2021

!!

I'm still barely running these days: a few short runs a week, and usually one or two 15-20 min tempo runs per week too. Long run tho...hahaha.

It is what it is, right? I'm just forcing myself out there these days, but sometimes running is like this.


Thursday, December 31, 2020

!

 Happy New Year!

Amid everything that went down this year, I've resumed recovery jogs and tempo runs: I've found a decent route without hills by our new place. It's not the most convenient option because it crosses a busy road, and so it took me a few months to find it, but flat terrain really makes a difference. I jogged it yesterday, and actually felt that it was restorative, not just easy.

Meanwhile, my stamina has been crap so I've put one particularly long hill to use too: I've also found a short tempo route that goes up and down it twice (and more if I repeat the loop but I'm not quite there yet). It's also mentally easier to get to the top of the hill if I run it clockwise; it's brutal counterclockwise. Funny how that works. It doesn't seem that visually misleading. Anyway, I've been doing this at least once a week for a month and I think I'm starting to feel less out of shape. It's been a long haul, and I can't be too hard on myself because I've still been running fairly regularly, but it would be nice to enjoy it more sometimes. And have "long" runs that are longer than 5-6 miles.

On the plus side, I ran 5.5 miles two days ago and have NOT gotten sick since.  I'm thrilled, knock wood. After my last "long" run a month ago, I got a cough and slight fever and other symptoms. It was probably just allergies again, but this year is special. I subsequently missed half of my clinic make up time (for a rotation that went online thanks to COVID), felt q-tips probe the depths of what I presume was my sphenoid sinus (seriously, it goes way back), and quarantined myself as best as I could with a small child whom I also kept from school until my results were negative, yay. And I had to re-remake up that clinic time during my holiday, super yay. 

Here's hoping for a better 2021 for everyone!