The last thirty-six hours have kicked my [word redacted because my mother scolds me for obscenities and, based on the comments, she is 68.73% of my reader base].
Yesterday morning started when I jolted awake early after a disturbing dream about chugging Coronas at a dive bar while crying because I’d just met this waifish, creepy little girl named Lindsay who was into brutally slaughtering people and eating them. I have NO IDEA where this came from, but I woke up completely freaked out. Dive bars are gross!
Then came an exhausting day at work. I’m managing a big proposal right now and sometimes I want to climb into the paper shredder, if only to make the emails and the phone calls and the questions stop coming. I understand that work is not supposed to be fun – people pay to do fun things, so it stands to reason that if you are being paid to do something, it is not supposed to thrill and delight – but sometimes work is more un-fun than the usual level of un-fun-ness. Don’t get me wrong; I actually like what I do sometimes and am lucky to work with a bunch of great people. There are just days when an hour long meeting takes like five years to crawl by and it’s really draining. Yesterday there was this guy from another company participating in my proposal review and at the end, he would not leave. He seemed to have put down roots in his chair and, while I was grateful that he’d come, I had writers awaiting further instruction and a long training ride waiting for me at home. So I finally had to stop beating around the bush and told him to get out and, as he packed up his stuff (FINALLY), he commented to the group, “This is the most politely I’ve ever been kicked out of a place.”
Was that bad? I can’t tell if the takeaway is that I was polite (which, frankly, I wasn’t) or if he was noting how he’d clearly been given the boot. Whatever. The point is that it was the kind of workday where that sort of nonsense happens and drains your soul until you are an exhausted, depleted carcass schlumping around in uncomfortable heels.
Then I went home and it was time to ride. Here is the summary of the ride: it was long, it was painful, my heart rate would not go up to the intended zone, my power was fluctuating in and out of zone during the intervals, all of this made me angry, I cried (and my heart rate STILL didn’t increase), I took out my anger by making the intervals longer, riding harder than I should, and ending with a tantrum sprint. It was awesome.
After the ride, I had just enough time to eat and shower before it was time to go to bed and have more batshit crazy dreams. Then this morning rolled around and it was time to do another set of intervals before work. This time there was no crying, but that was probably because I didn’t even wake up until somewhere around the sixth one. I think I was awakened by the sound of every muscle screaming.
Now I’m back at work and things are better. I wore jeans today, which is exciting because my company does not allow jeans. HA! TAKE THAT! My silent rebellion roils onward in the form of belligerent pants. After a meeting this morning, I returned my office, closed the door, laid down on the floor, and elevated my legs to help alleviate my post-ride soreness. Not two minutes later, the head of the division working on my proposal barged in without knocking to ask me a question. It was awkward to be caught laying there like a starfish, but I was too tired to care and instead appreciated the fact that he seemed more embarassed than me. On the whole, I’d say the experience brightened the day.
The original intent of this point was going to be to highlight the struggles faced by a wannabe-pro amateur athlete balancing the demands of intense training and work, but since it’s already pretty long and I’m not feeling a ‘deeper meaning’ moment, let’s wrap up instead and call this a day-in-the-life story with a decently happy ending.
I would be remiss if I didn’t also mention that in the middle of typing this post, I drooled on my shirt.