Saturday

I've still got this cold/dog flu. I was coughing yesterday evening and I considered calling in sick, but the coughing went away. They have masks at work, anyway.

At any rate, I woke up feeling muscularly tired. Everything was kind of mildly sore. I'm not sure if it was because of the cold, or because I had a good run on Friday, or because of dragonboating and all those miles on Thursday....at any rate, I did 1.5ish miles with the dog, and then jogged to work. Just 3 miles total.

I had hoped to get over 60 miles this week with a longer run today, but it didn't happen. I felt too tired, and ended up napping nearly two hours before going to work.

I should cut back a bit next week, in preparation for Emilie's Run. I feel so flat so my expectations are pretty low, but it would be good to have a few light days before the race.

Meanwhile, a weird side effect of my sickness is smelling what I think is myself. I should explain, my sinuses were majorly blocked earlier in the week. And then they cleared and my olfactory sensors too, and I started smelling this certain smell wherever I go. I've had this happen before, after getting over a blocked nose, but just in Korea. The smell is somewhat similar to their red pepper paste, and Korea does tend to uniformly smell like this, at least my old neighbourhoods did. When I first moved, I smelled it in the air, on bread, on clothes, etc, and then I stopped noticing until after I got rid of nasal blockage. I'd get a cold, get rid of a cold, and then smell this red pepper smell again for a couple of days and then it would go away. I forget what this mechanism is called, adapting to a certain scent and not noticing it anymore.

It's been happening again; however, it's been more than a couple of days and the smell I'm smelling STILL smells like Korea. It's a faint red pepper/paprika smell. It's got to be me and not Korea after all. I don't eat much red pepper paste or paprika anymore, so I'm rather mistified. I hope it's not an offensive smell. I've been showering enough--the past few days, twice a day at least because of multiple workouts. Yet I am still smelling this Korea smell on me. I left Korea in 2005. It's really quite odd. Unless I was smelling myself and not Korea all along. Another cause could be my choice of soap smell: pine. I was using a lot of that in Korea, but it's been only recently that I've found pine soap here. Maybe pine soap, once it hits my sweat glands or whatever, turns into Korea.

What's even more odd is that I didn't smell it at all at work. I guess that means that there are plenty of competing scents. I could go into much more detail. My stomach actually did a small flip today at one point. That's no mean feat.

And, as for work, or at least that particular job, today was my 2nd last shift. My husband's on his way home! Yeah, I miscalculated a bit when giving my notice several weeks ago and so my last day is a bit early, ah, well! I liked the job at first, but the work keeps piling on, the residents/patients keep deteriorating, and so forth, and so I'm really anxious to leave before something bad happens on my shift. Fingers crossed nothing bad happens on Monday.