I'd Rather be Running

I'm officially dropped from the McKenzie River Trail Run 50K in September. My foot, while feeling a bit better (but it is so hard to tell when progress, good or bad, is so gradual), has not made the sort of miracle recovery that would allow me to step up my training to the point where I'd be accomplishing anything good, or even fun, by running it. Also, I'll probably not be fully recovered then...

Saturday morning I ran the counterclockwise Selwood Bridge to Steel Bridge loop on the Willamette, my favorite flat pavement run in Portland. It's 10.5 fast miles, with dramatic changes of scenery every two miles or so, from the contemplative path by Oaks Bottom to the buzzing eastside esplanade or the rapid high-rise construction zone of the South Waterfront. The loop would be a little bit...

It has been brought to my attention that I haven't blogged in a bit. It's been a busy week at work, converting a huge codebase over to using a new IDE, compiler, and libraries, having skipped two previous iterations of the same over the last ten years. Or three, if you count VC++ 7.0 (2002) and 7.1 (2003) as two different releases. In any case, it's been a lot of upgrading. You would think, ten...

I ran six miles tonight; the last time I ran before that was last Wednesday. (Unless if you count a half mile run between bars on Saturday as MeetIN Portland held its annual tribute-to-slash-simulatio n-of The Running of the Bulls.) I enjoyed running tonight. Even if it was hot and muggy, even if I ran slowly, six miles is still a lot better feeling than no miles....

I was out and about yesterday, wearing sunglasses, since my eyelid was pretty bad to look at. It was swollen all over and the area right around the spot where I usually get the lump ("ground zero") was especially red, angry, tight, and protruding. As time went on, it also started hurting more and more. There was a lot of pressure, plus frequent sharp pain. Then something new happened. I'm not sure...

It's been one of those weeks. The eyelid is still swollen and occasionally painful. The antibiotics seem to affect my digestion, energy, and mood. The foot still hurts. I'm strongly considering dropping from the 50K in September. In sum, it's been hard to keep an upbeat mood. I've been working at it and mostly succeeding so far. So consider this post a vent rather than a whine....

In late April, my recurrent chalazion (a painless lump within my eyelid) had gotten pretty big... then it disappeared on its own. This prompted me to cancel the procedure I was scheduled for (cutting out the chalazion and its containing "capsule") since it wasn't even clear if the doctor would be able to locate the right spot to cut, without the lump there. This procedure wasn't going to be done...