Cav's Place

Leaving the earlier odds and ends that I still haven’t written about aside, I’ll start this post with March 28, when I got up when the alarm rang, at 2 PM, and stuck to the idea of running, since the forecast wasn’t going to allow it during the following few days, despite still being exhausted and also having no hot water, the site stating that it won’t return until at least the morning of March 30, though it actually returned the next day. So I had the usual stuff plus almonds, with the sweet thing being a slice of cozonac, with added honey, and left a little before 4:35 PM, wearing the full running gear, the reported temperature being 17-18°C, holding steady or even increasing by 1°C by the time I finished.
The time was 48:24.52, with sector times of 4:29.92, 5:10 (5:09.28), 6:01.41, 4:34 (4:33.75), 5:09.12, 5:53.25, 4:27 (4:26.44), 5:06.22, 5:52 (5:51.78) and 1:43.35, making for lap times of 15:40.61, 15:36.12 and 15:25 (15:24.44). At first I was thinking that staying under 50 minutes would be good enough, after planting trees and sleeping so little two days before, and the first sector made me worry even about that, while seeing over six minutes on sector three of lap one added to the reasons for concern, yet the first lap’s overall time seemed all right, and I was thinking that if I’ll stay under 16 minutes on all laps I should just manage 49:30. But lap two was better, which made me aim to stay under 49 minutes and push from the start of lap three, which resulted not only in that lap being the fastest, but actually in each sector being the best of the day. That made me think that I might even have a shred of a chance of getting under 48:30 if I gave it absolutely everything on the final sector, and while it seemed crazy to even consider it, I pushed every step of the way and managed a great time on that sector, and to be safely under 48:30 at the end. It was still the slowest time over this distance in over two months, but nevertheless much better than expected under those circumstances.
I first had to briefly stop because of roadblock almost right away, just as I got to the bridge on the first sector, while a second brief stop, in order to avoid a cyclist, was on sector one of lap two, actually in the same spot where I had barely avoided one the week before. There were some other moments that made me question the threshold between slowing a lot and briefly stopping, but I’d say that I did briefly stop again on sector two of lap three, when a woman with a pram was walking next to the lane, on one side, and the guy who was with her looked either terribly bored or upset and was lazily weaving on the lane. And, in general, there were plenty of people, dogs, children, often blocking the lane, so I had to do a lot of weaving and going the long way around, squeezing through and slowing plenty of times, and it seemed to get worse from sector two of lap two. But at least just a couple of small areas were still actually fenced off, though the fences hadn’t been moved in the areas which had been fenced off the week before, usually just those from the ends of the areas being taken away and the ribbons being torn, so I picked what path I could, sometimes using the lane, sometimes going around, occasionally even off the path. As for physical issues, I felt tired at first, but then I actually seemed to feel less so as I went along. And my nose felt irritated right after the run, but the feeling quickly went away… At least at first, since it returned the next day.

After getting back, I had lunch, changed, and left again a little after 7:40 PM. After very briefly entering a smaller Profi on the way, I went to Obor, first checking Carrefour and getting a discounted bread for dad and some discounted apples of a kind I had never heard of before, Pinova, again being charged for the bag even though they force you to take it when it comes to spoiling fruits and vegetables. Then I went to Kaufland, put those purchases in a cabinet, washed my hands, but saw no evening discounts even though it was a few minutes past 9 PM. So I wandered around until the bakery discounts were announced, I think at 9:15 PM, then waited along with a few others as the employee placed the labels and got two of those breads, the price having indeed increased yet again, plus some buns and sweet pastries. Then, seeing big evening discounts there as well, I also got five bundles of green onions, plus mushrooms and a few parsnip roots. Then I also grabbed two more breads for dad, at the regular price, and a pack of some yogurt I hadn’t tried before. But it was the last one and I wondered why it had been left, so I tried to open it and an employee saw me and told me to not do that if I won’t take it. I said I wanted to take it but wanted to see why it had been left, whether any of the cups was cracked, and she said none were, not that she could know that… And then she went on to open other packs of yogurt, priced so one was free, and place them to be sold individually. Either way, I also got some sour cream and then went elsewhere and opened that pack, seeing that there were no cracks… Though I ended up worrying that some might have appeared when it fell after I got to the self-checkout. But that didn’t happen, and there were no problems with the machine, and I was just paying when the store closed.
After retrieving my things from the cabinet, arranging everything in bags and making another little change after walking out, I was back at 11 PM. Then I put some things away and ate one of those apples, finding that they’re very good, and the sweet pastry bought for myself, the other two being for my mother, while heating water to wash myself with. It was after midnight when I went to the bathroom, and as I was washing my arms, bent over the side of the bathtub, I decided to also go to the toilet again, then got back to washing, using cold water for my arms, legs and private parts and mixing the heated water with the cold one to have warm water for my torso, back and underarms. Still, after struggling to get myself to do it for a while, I did use the shower on my upper body as well, just a little, to get the soap off somewhat better. And I managed to do all of this quite quickly, being back in the kitchen before 1 AM. There were things to wash, however, and a few still to put away as well, so I only started eating dinner at 3:25 AM and finished at 4:05 AM. Not good at all…

To also cover the period until the next run, I’ll now get to the early hours of March 31, since it was 1 AM when I finally managed to finish peeling those mushrooms and removing the bad bits, so I stopped at that point to have a can of sprats and a bun as lunch, then just managed to stick to the new schedule for dinner, returning to cooking after that and going to bed at 6 AM, after finishing… And then I took a very long time to get back to sleep after waking up to pee just after 10:05 AM, and soon after I finally did so I woke up again because of the noise made by dad and the cats, after which I’m not even sure I managed to catch another very brief nap or two by the time he left, at 1 PM. And I couldn’t get back to sleep after that either, despite staying in bed for another hour, so I eventually got up and had lunch in the early afternoon.
I went out at 7:25 PM, also taking the recyclables, which I dropped off in a bin on the way to the Carrefour from the park, from where I just got some more yogurt. Then I again stopped at that Mega Image on the way to the newer Kaufland, put the yogurts in a cabinet and found some cheese with the 50% discount applied despite not expiring soon, maybe because they wanted to get rid of it, probably being the last, since the normal spot was empty. Then I retrieved the yogurts, put everything in one of the cabinets at Kaufland once I got there and went right in, not washing my hands since I didn’t mean to go to the bakery area, mainly looking for evening discounts for vegetables I could use to make salad. Only found some wild garlic, however, and as a little free bonus also grabbed two lettuce leaves that still seemed usable out of those left scattered in the crate. Then I got some bread for dad, deciding against also getting some for myself when I passed by the bakery area, and then returned to the vegetables and managed to find a few larger potatoes that weren’t that bad among the deeply discounted ones, weighing all of them together as red, since they were a bit cheaper, though I think two were white. Also got a few onions, without an evening discount, since we were running out, and was looking for expiring products when I heard the announcement that the bakery discount had increased to 75% and rushed back there. Still didn’t get anything, however, since that bread was already gone and a man grabbed the few remaining sweet pastries right in front of me. But when I returned yet again to the fruits and vegetables I saw an evening discount for bananas as well and grabbed some that were still quite good, after searching carefully through all the crates. Then, after another look around, I made my way to the self-checkout, the only problem being that I again had to take an item, the potatoes, back off the scales to be able to continue.
I was arranging everything in the bags when the store closed, and then I rushed back, getting quite sweaty, since I hoped to still catch dad. And I did, finding him just outside the building even though it was just past 10:30 PM, so I told him that I had bananas and he took one. Then, after getting back here, I found that he had left plenty of things to wash, so I did that, put the purchases in their place and had a banana and some of the apple pie from my mother. It was just after midnight when I got to the bathroom and just before 1 AM when I got out, but instead of focusing on dinner, especially since I had wild garlic to deal with and also some things to move and mix, I first sliced two of those breads for dad and washed another pot that was still in the sink, so I only started eating dinner at 3:35 AM, admittedly after licking some of those things that I was moving and mixing. Either way, I finished at 4 AM.

With April 2 already covered, I’ll now move on to April 4, when I left a little before 7:40 PM, going to Obor. I first got some kefir for dad from that Auchan, then just checked Carrefour, not getting anything and entering with the kefir, so the guard stopped me when I left to check the bag, but it was clearly from Auchan, which was why I hadn’t bothered with a cabinet. I did put it in a cabinet when I got to Kaufland, but went in without peeing because the men’s bathroom was closed for cleaning, so I just quickly washed my hands in the women’s and tried to hold it, though it was going to be a serious problem. It was just before 9 PM, but the evening discounts were already applying for vegetables, so I got some carrots and the one lettuce I still found, in a crate that was underneath another, and also some potatoes. Then I got the other things I wanted, but also meant to pick some more deeply discounted grapes and simply couldn’t, needing to pee too badly to be able to stand in one place long enough to pick through the small pile of loose ones left in the crate. I did, however, manage to pick three good bananas, when I saw an evening discount applying for those as well, despite the repeated recalls of bananas from Ecuador from Kaufland that I saw… And of the fact that they don’t even display the notification there, as they should. Then again, with those notifications coming even up to two weeks after the products are sold, they’re rather pointless when it comes to such things that quite clearly can’t be kept that long.
Either way, despite the desperate situation, I wanted to wait a little longer, to see whether any discounts would increase at 9:45 PM, only then finally making my way to the self-checkout… And having a guy walk past me and to the first machine that freed up, which added to the waiting time. But I nevertheless somehow just managed to still hold it until I finished scanning and paying, and even managed to get back to the cabinet where I had the kefir, and then to put my purchases in another when I couldn’t unlock that one right away. That one also seemed to have problems, as it wouldn’t immediately lock, but I just left it unlocked and rushed to the bathroom… Only to feel those muscles giving up during the few seconds it took me to get there and a little starting to spill out, and then I likely let loose before aiming after I got to the urinal, but in the end what I got on myself wasn’t as bad as it might have been. And the next embarrassing moment might have also been worse, since I retrieved my things, arranged them in the bags, managed to walk out before 10 PM, but stopped around the corner to make sure my jacket was fully zipped up and my attention was grabbed by an arm I saw through a window, so I stared in surprise and a woman stepped back and peeked back at me, having apparently been changing. She frowned and tried the door, probably thinking that I had stopped to spy on her while she was changing and meaning to tell me off, but the door seems to have been locked, so she turned off the light instead… And I probably made myself look even more suspicious by standing there a little longer, to wipe off the dirt I had noticed on my jacket, probably as a result of digging through those crates of potatoes.
At least there were no other incidents by the time I got back, at 10:50 PM, though those muscles were weakened and I really needed to pee again at that point, again starting before managing to aim properly. Then I had a banana and some of that apple pie from my mother while putting the purchases in their place, washing what dad had left and moving something in a smaller pot. It was past 12:10 AM when I went to the bathroom, wasting time on the toilet despite having put that other thing off all day, then showering and being back out just before 1 AM. I first went to my room to clip my toenails, however… And moments later, just after 1 AM, the power went out. And when I called, a few minutes later, the recorded message stated that it was a scheduled outage, for some work that was being done, though there had been no notification at the entrance. So I made dinner by candlelight, with some help from flashlights, but while that message had stated that the outage was supposed to last until 5 AM, the power returned at 2:40 AM and that helped me stick to the dinner schedule, though I had to put off a few things in order to do so… And I was in the kitchen, taking care of those things, when the power failed again, a little before 4 AM. It returned seconds later, but the fridge again sounded strange after that and worried me, though that keeps happening after brief outages and I’m thinking that it may actually be some protection system it has. And everything seemed fine when I plugged it back in before going to bed, after having unplugged it again after that brief outage.

And now I’ll get to the main point of this post, the new personal best time over a half marathon distance, managed on April 6. I kept changing my mind about setting the alarm to ring at 2 PM or 2:30 PM, even changing it when I was waking up to pee, but it was set to 2:30 PM when I woke up again and saw 2:14 PM, so I got up and turned it off. Then I had the usual stuff, but with both almonds and peanuts in dark chocolate mixed with the yogurt and cereals, and also two pancakes, one with the last of the honey and the other with jam, and drank most of the tea. With light no longer being a problem, I left a little after 5:10 PM, wearing the full running gear, with a few things in the pocket of my tights. The reported temperature was 21°C, supposed to drop by a couple of degrees by the time I’ll finish.
The time was 1:42:20, with sector times of 4:23, 5:07, 5:51, 4:27, 4:56, 5:41, 4:22, 4:58, 5:48, 4:32, 5:06, 5:54, 4:38, 5:11, 5:59, 4:34, 5:12, 5:59, 1:50, 5:58 and 1:54, making for lap times of 15:21, 15:04, 15:08, 15:32, 15:48 and 15:45, plus 9:42 for that final portion. That makes it a new personal best over this distance, 32 seconds faster than the previous one, along with a personal best on that final portion and a new fastest lap six. And it’s not just that I never aimed for this, but I never even realized that it was possible, being quite shocked when I saw the time at the end, since after the time went over one hour and the seconds became smaller on my stopwatch I was focusing on seeing and remembering those properly and also stopped calculating how much I was gaining compared to my initial targets, just continuing to be surprised that I kept gaining.
Those initial target times added up to 1:45, starting from 15:20, slowing by ten seconds per lap, and with 10:30 on the final portion, but I didn’t actually think that sticking to them was in any way possible, just hoping to not do worse than the previous time. And losing a second on the first lap after controlling the pace on the first two sectors and then pushing on the third made me quite certain that I’ll have to really push to manage that. So I did push on lap two, and was increasingly surprised by the sector times, so much so by the last one that I thought I had exhausted myself and had in fact been a minute slower, having to recalculate several times to first realize and then really believe that I had in fact been so fast. And then I kept it up on lap three and started to actually hope for that 1:45, but I was still wondering when I’ll start losing compared to the target times and only hoping to still gain a few seconds on lap four in order to afford to lose a minute after that. But I gained a little more than I hoped on lap four as well, and then finally realized that I might just avoid losing time at any point and meant to just stick to the target times on laps five and six. However, I continued to gain, in fact lap six even being a little bit faster than five, and I guess that, knowing that I was over a minute ahead after four laps, at some level I must have thought that I was aiming for 1:43:30, but I just didn’t know anymore and was still so certain that I was going to lose time that I ended up thinking that I needed to push on the final portion to stay under 1:44. So I did, but despite seeing that I kept beating the sector targets, just focusing on the seconds made me end up thinking that I was pushing for 1:44:30, simply unable to believe that I was doing better.
Being able to push so hard obviously meant that I had no notable physical issues, but my right knee started giving warnings on sector two of lap four, later my ankles did as well, and throughout the second half there were occasional moments when I started feeling the need to crap. But that feeling came and went and was never a serious issue, the ankle warnings were faint and the knee didn’t get worse, even having moments when it no longer bothered me, though it’d do so again a little later. The big toe from my left foot had also been bothering me ever since the power going out just when I was clipping my toenails had caused me to take too much out of that one, but it was fine while running.
In terms of the route, there were no more fenced areas, and while there were some windy areas at first, including on straights, the wind largely went away after the first three laps. There were plenty of people, however, and they caused plenty of problems. More of those seemed to be on sector two, and that was where I had to both take to the grass and slow to squeeze through on lap one, then do one of those things on lap two and the other on lap three, though I couldn’t remember which was which by the time I finished. And there were plenty of lesser issues as well, but maybe the first actual brief stop was on sector one of lap four, caused by a cyclist coming towards me through the only space left through a roadblock. And there definitely were actual stops at the end of sectors one and three of lap five, the first because of a small dog that was off the leash and went for my legs and the second because of a kid on a bicycle weaving all over. And two more were right at the end of sector two of the final portion, so that last sector three of a lap, seconds apart and both caused by little kids running towards me with little coordination.

After the run, I rushed straight to Penny, hoping to catch that store that’s also there before it closed. And I did that, but the price of the regular cheese had increased a lot there as well, almost matching the current one from this nearby store, where the buffalo cheese oddly has that same price, so I decided to just buy some of that again and just got the sweet thing I wanted from Penny and what I meant to get for dad, except one product that they seemed to already be out of… And, as I was reading the ingredients of another product, another customer asked whether I worked there, making me pointedly glance at my running clothes after saying no… Which I had to do again in Carrefour, where I went on the way back. I put those first purchases in a cabinet, turned back after a few steps to retrieve a bag I realized I had also left in there, then started looking for some other things I could reward myself with and, actually just when I was in the section with bars and shakes and similar products for those practicing sports, which should have made my clothes state even more obviously that I was there as a customer, a man asked me for the price of something. Either way, though I had meant to reward myself with 5 RON per minute below that previous time and doubled that amount for those 32 seconds below the previous personal best, I decided to just add a bag of popcorn and one of Bake Rolls to that sweet thing from Penny, keeping the rest in order to consider the peanut butter I was planning to buy later as part of the “reward”. Then I retrieved my things, arranged everything in the bags, also got the buffalo cheese from this nearby store, and got back at 9:50 PM.
After eating a banana, the popcorn and some of that sweet thing and taking care of some of the things I had to take care of in the kitchen, I went to the toilet and to shower, being back out at 12:20 AM. I still had to wash the pot for mamaliga, however, so I only set the water on the stove at 12:30 AM, then also ate the Bake Rolls before doing anything else, and only started eating dinner at 3:15 AM… At which point I realized I had forgotten about the garlic, having set it aside but then putting off adding it in the salad until I ended up putting what I was discarding on top of it and throwing it away along with that. But that was that and I didn’t take some more. And I eventually stopped eating at 4:20 AM, and I should have done so sooner, leaving more for the next day, because by then I had stuffed myself to a painful point.

It was past 5:20 AM when I finally got in bed… And couldn’t sleep. I might have napped for just a moment, but there was too much adrenaline, my heart was racing, I was too stuffed, and also likely dehydrated, so I eventually got back up at 6:50 AM, made tea and spent some more time on the computer, only getting back in bed at 9 AM… And I was getting up again at 1 PM, after having again been awake for a while, so I probably only got some three hours of sleep. Unsurprisingly, I felt increasingly out of it as the day progressed, and the lunch I had in the afternoon and the grapes eaten in the evening actually seemed to make things worse, improvements only coming while having dinner at night, though something still felt wrong in my abdomen even after dinner.
Did catch up on some sleep the following day and felt much better. But in the evening I noticed that the earpads on my headphones started flaking. Still, more than two and a half years since purchasing them, I can’t complain that much, and I guess it’s not a reason to make use of the extended warranty. Either way, then it was almost 5:20 AM when I got in bed, and after happening to wake up just after 9:30 AM and watch most of the qualifying for the race while cleaning what dad had left in the kitchen and eating an orange, I got back in bed, but had another bad and very realistic nightmare that made me wake up at least whimpering if not screaming, and still just whimpering as I felt like crying. Had to hug the teddy bear and hold it tight, eventually getting back to sleep like that, but was again crushed when I woke up again, and again felt tired throughout the day.

And this is how far I got by midnight, and it’s actually as far as I initially meant to get in this post. Since then, seeing as this week’s run was also a particularly fast one, the second fastest over ten kilometers, I had decided to add it here as well, still meaning to do so even when I posted this, but after thinking about it for a few more minutes, while writing this paragraph, which I added a little after midnight, I decided to stick to that original plan and leave it for another post after all. It makes this post’s title somewhat less adequate, but at least I mentioned what it’s referring to, and I’ll consider this good enough for now… Though, since I started checking the post at night, I’ll also mention here that I started eating dinner at 3:05 AM and the very fact that I spent some time with this and having a look on a couple of other sites while eating meant that it was a couple of minutes after 3:40 AM when I finished.