Cav's Place

After feeling quite out of it over the course of the day and also being worried about having been bitten by something, possibly mosquitoes, the day before that, and in a spot where there was trash, just when the West Nile virus was confirmed to exist here, I did manage to get some sleep on the evening of July 29 and gradually started feeling better at night, while working on dinner. On the other hand, boiling carrots and radish leaves, which meant selecting and washing them, also washing two pots in order to make some room, especially since dad meant to cook, and then not finding the piece of bread that I wanted to eat that night and taking most of my bread out of the freezer and then struggling to put it all back when I didn’t remember just how it had been arranged before, led to only eating dinner between 3:55 AM and 4:30 AM, with peanut butter on all of the bread, since the plan for July 30 was to run a half marathon distance. And I got in bed at 5:25 AM.
Despite waking up when dad got back in the morning, and again when Liza started meowing after he went to sleep, and a few more times to pee, I always got right back to sleep and slept quite well until dad got up and started making noise, getting ready to cook, so I stayed in bed a little longer but, since I wasn’t going to get back to sleep, I eventually got up a little before 2:45 PM, turning off the alarm, which I had set to ring at 3 PM, to be safe. Then I did my best to get ready while dad was using the kitchen, accidentally dropping a teabag, which I had to throw away, but having the usual stuff, though the yogurt was a nice one and I also mixed raisins in dark chocolate in it. Then I washed and cleaned to some extent in the kitchen, while dad still cooked, so I’ll have somewhat less to do later, also ate that expired bar taken after the Dream Trek, with added honey, and drank most of the tea. Another reason for concern was that I felt some pain in my abdomen, or upper abdomen, maybe in my chest as well, but it might have been reflected from my back, or a mix between that and gas, and I couldn’t really do much about it at that point, so I left just after 5:45 PM, wearing the full running gear and one armband and taking with me the slip of paper with the emergency information and one of the shots taken after the Dream Trek, which had also expired. The reported temperature was 31-32°C when I started, and 28-29°C when I finished.
The time was 1:45:50, with sector times of 4:30, 5:08, 5:57, 4:33, 5:06, 6:04, 4:33, 5:13, 5:56, 4:39, 5:18, 6:17, 4:52, 5:18, 6:08, 4:43, 5:24, 6:17, 1:55, 6:02 and 1:57, making for lap times of 15:35, 15:43, 15:42, 16:14, 16:18 and 16:24, plus 9:54 for the final portion. I didn’t really have a target time at first, fearing that I’ll go over 1:50, and while towards the end I forgot that I was assuming up to 11 minutes on the final portion and was really surprised when I saw that I had ended up being under 1:46 instead of 1:47, the fact that it’s over 1:45, even if by far less than I feared, especially considering the temperature, still makes it a useless time…
During the first lap, I set my mind on at least completing it in less than the 15:45 that’s the target lap time for 1:45, which I managed by some margin. Then I just wanted to keep the average for the first two laps below 15:45, but after two sectors of lap two it seemed that I might just squeeze under 15:45 on that lap as well, which I did, the target then becoming to maintain that average over the first three laps, and when it seemed that it might be rather tight, I pushed harder on sector three of lap three, surprising myself by staying under 15:45 on that lap as well. But I was sure that I’ll get slower after that, so the next target was to keep the average for the first five laps under 16 minutes and stay under 1:48 at the end, and that lap four time seemed pretty much what it should be. However, sector three of lap four was concerning, and I was also going to drink that shot at the start of lap five, which ended up costing me some ten seconds. Still, lap five was less bad than I expected it to be, mainly thanks to its third sector, and if by then I had been sort of thinking of 1:47:30, after that lap I switched to wondering whether staying under 1:47 was possible while still allowing for 11 minutes on the final portion, so I pushed on lap six, even if the times may not exactly show it. And then I just kept pushing, pretty much forgetting about the minutes and just focusing on the seconds, being surprised by that time on the final portion’s second sector, so what’d otherwise be a sector three of a lap, and continuing to push all the way to the end. I might have lost just a little because I didn’t get the steps right at the end and couldn’t do that little jump, but I knew that I had plenty of seconds to spare at that point… Or, as I already mentioned, those seconds plus one minute, compared to what I thought.
I felt that toenail jabbing the toe pretty much from the start, and there was a little blood when I got back, but much less than I thought. Otherwise, I think that it was right from sector two of lap one when I needed to snap my back, and from the next sector when a slight pressing need appeared, and from the start of lap two when my right knee and left calf muscle started giving some warnings, but all of these might have happened a lap later, I’m not certain. Either way, they never went away, just the intensity varying. And by sector three of lap five the pressing need was intensifying, becoming even more noticeable on lap six, when the warnings from various parts of both of my legs worsened as well. And by sector two of the final portion my arms were going numb and my legs were burning. On the other hand, there were some windy areas, but that also brought a cooling effect, which must have been at least part of the reason why the heat didn’t bother me nearly as much as I feared.
As for the problems caused by people, on sector two of lap four I first had to take a tight turn and go all around a group because another guy used the only other way past them right in front of me, and then, at the end of that same sector, under the bridge, I hesitated and slowed because of a girl on a bicycle. Oddly, I was particularly slow on the next sector, not that one, but I have no idea why. Either way, on sector two of the final portion I had to briefly stop when a girl on roller skates went across the lane to throw something in a garbage can and then froze in front of me when she realized that I was coming. But, speaking of the lane, it was damaged in all sorts of ways, including quite a number of spots that created a risk of tripping, so I avoided what I could. And, as I already mentioned, on sector one of lap five I stopped for a few seconds to drink that shot, after trying to unscrew the cap while still running and spilling a fair bit of it on myself as a result, so I then tried to wipe the worst of it off with that armband, losing some more time.

After getting back, I ate watermelon and the expired walnuts with pepper that I had, changed and left again a little before 9:20 PM, first going to Carrefour and getting a number of things, including a shrink-wrapped carton of 20 expiring eggs, so I just hoped that they were fine. I’m not sure whether I was still waiting in line at the self-checkout or had started using the machine when the closing announcement came, but I obviously didn’t charge myself for the bag that the spoiling potatoes which I had also bought were in and a third, firmer, announcement came while I was rushing to arrange the purchases.
With that Kaufland closing at 10:30 PM, I then rushed there, putting the purchases in a cabinet, washing my hands, entering the store at 10:10 PM, and just grabbing one more expensive bun from the bakery area, with the 50% discount, since no cheaper ones were left. And the only other thing that caught my interest was the evening discount for watermelons, and while not that many were left in their normal place, there were many, in several large boxes, next to the information desk, so I started knocking on some of them and had more or less settled on one when the information desk employee told me that they were closing soon. But it was only 10:22 PM, so I told her that I still had seven minutes, rounding down, and she confirmed that, so I could calmly take that watermelon and was once again either at the self-checkout or still waiting in line to use it when the closing announcement came. Either way, I helped the person who was ahead of me a little, and as I was about to finish using the machine I even ended up helping an employee, since she asked a coworker how to enter something, was told to hit search and enter a certain code, but couldn’t even find the search button, and that other employee told her a couple of times where to look but wasn’t actually going there, so I just stepped over and hit it… But then I had a problem, the watermelon not fitting in the backpack, so I wondered how to carry it, ending up splitting the purchases from Carrefour between the backpack and a smaller bag after retrieving them from the cabinet, and putting the watermelon in the bag that those purchases had been in.
I still had a little time to also check that Mega Image that closes at 11 PM, so I did, putting the bags into two cabinets but leaving the one with the watermelon unlocked, since I only had one 0.50 RON coin, entering with the backpack and finding chickpeas discounted by 90%, so I took all four bags, two kilograms, and also some cookies that were discounted by 50%, and the cashier asked what was I doing with the chickpeas and whether I was making hummus and I said that I was, the next day, though in fact I intended to use them sort of like beans, and while the plan to cook the next day was true at that point, I ended up changing my mind. Either way, I then retrieved what I had in the cabinet and arranged the purchases a little before stepping out.
Once I got outside, I wanted to arrange the purchases much better… And the carton of eggs tipped over after I took everything else out of that bag. Fortunately, it stayed on that shelf from that florist’s place from there, not falling on the sidewalk, but it still took a bit of a hit, so I was worried. And, while I put more weight in the backpack, carrying that watermelon remained a problem and I struggled on the way back, needing to stop several times. It was better while I carried it in my arms, part of the way, but even after I started doing that I switched back to carrying the bag in one hand for a while, then back to having it in my arms, then back to holding it in one hand for the last part of the way, after picking up two bottles with the deposit symbol and throwing them in that bag, over the watermelon.
I got back at 11:50 PM, with a little over 17 kg, and I only weighed exactly 45 kg. I was just exhausted, couldn’t regain my breath, but after cleaning the litter box I went to drop a bag of trash down the chute, then checked the eggs and found just one cracked one and it had clearly been cracked all along, seeming to have mold or rot on the crack, so I threw it away in another little bag… Which dad picked up from the bottom a little later, when he wanted to put some more trash in it, at which point that egg broke completely, and it didn’t actually look bad inside, so maybe it didn’t have to be thrown away after all, but it was too late at that point. Either way, I then drank the last shake taken after the Dream Trek and put most of the purchases in their place… At which point I noticed that one of the bags of bagels from Carrefour was plain, not with caraway, and while I can’t figure out how I failed to notice that in the store, so be it, the price was the same and I’ll make do with it.
I finally went to the bathroom, to use the toilet and wash, a little before 1:20 AM, being done just before 2:05 AM. And then I still had a few more things to put in their place, the notable problem being the new watermelon, which required rearranging plenty of things in the fridge, and I also washed and cleaned some of what was left after dad had cooked, still leaving quite a number of things for another time, moved and mixed something as well, and finally ate a combined lunch and dinner between 4:55 AM and 5:50 AM, though I had licked some of what I had mixed earlier, in the kitchen. And that lunch also contained eggs, which aren’t the best thing to eat right before going to bed, but that was that… And I went to bed at 6:50 AM, without getting on-line, after making another tea… And I was also noticing that the bite from my arm looked really angry, so the stopwatch might have been right on it after all, though I had thought that it had been below it.

Well, as it pretty much always happens after making such effort, I couldn’t sleep. This time around, I actually did catch a very brief nap at first, but I quickly woke up and couldn’t get back to sleep, and at 8:25 AM I got back on the computer. It was past 9:45 AM when I got back in bed, after going to pee one more time… But dad also got up at that point, and while I probably wouldn’t have managed to get back to sleep anyway, that settled it, so I just stayed in bed until a little after he left, but then, a little after 10:50 AM, I got up again. And early in the afternoon I finished Heretic Kingdoms: The Inquisition, and then I got back in bed and finally fell asleep… Only to be woken up almost immediately by an SMS from my provider. But then I did manage to get back to sleep and got close to two hours, and another short nap in the evening.

I was obviously hoping to recover some of that lost sleep the following day, but I woke up a few minutes after 8 AM and went to pee, though it might have actually been noise that woke me, since I wasn’t even back in my room when some particularly loud drilling started. It didn’t last long, and I ended up falling asleep again, but more noise woke me mere moments later, at which point I pretty much decided to get up and go out, since it was dad’s birthday and I wanted to get him some black beer. I couldn’t quite manage it and think that I fell asleep yet again, but once again for mere moments, and when noise woke me one more time, I did get up. It was 8:40 AM at that time.
At 9:40 AM I went out, first checking this Mega Image and this nearby store, just in case that beer or a similar one would be cheaper than at Penny. And I also wanted to look at the cabbage from this nearby store, since I had seen four days earlier that it was cheaper than in the stores that I usually go to, but the price had doubled! Either way, I then picked up two cans with the deposit symbol on the way to the nearest Penny, but one had a wrapping from something, I think a chocolate bar, and a lot of cigarette butts in it, so I pulled out the wrapping and then spent some time shaking out almost all of the cigarette butts into a garbage can. And the recycling machine from Penny wasn’t working, and while an employee was trying to fix it, he didn’t seem to be able to figure out what the problem was, so I had a look through the garbage bins from there and picked up two more recyclables with the deposit symbol… And it seems that I was once again bitten by something on my hand while I did so, though it was on the hand in which I was holding those two cans which I had picked up earlier, so I’m not sure what that was, whether one of the flies that were buzzing around or something else.
After giving up on the idea of using the recycling machine, I put the recyclables in a cabinet, without locking, and got that beer for dad and some tofu for myself, getting the total above the 30 RON required to use that voucher which I had received a few days earlier, when I had participated in their coins campaign, which was active once again… But it didn’t work, and the cashier asked two coworkers about it and was told that it won’t work with alcohol, even though the small print states that it doesn’t apply to spirits, specifically, not all alcoholic drinks. But the fact remained that it wasn’t working and the other cashier said that it won’t work with alcohol at all, so I just paid in full, then thought that I hadn’t been given back the voucher and turned around to ask for it, but the cashier said that I had taken it and put it in a pocket, so I checked and found that he was correct, just that I had placed it in another pocket without realizing it. And I’m yet to try to use it again, so I hope that the problem really was the fact that I was buying that beer and not that it won’t work at all, especially since things didn’t exactly go smoothly when I received it. But, to return to that day, I then put the purchases in the backpack, saw that the recycling machine from there still wasn’t working, picked up another recyclable with the deposit symbol on the way back, put all of them in the recycling machine from the nearby Mega Image, and cashed in the voucher.
I got back at 10:55 AM, and it was quiet and it remained so after that, so I managed to catch another two hours or so of sleep in the afternoon. But I continued to feel just exhausted, obviously, and my throat also started feeling somewhat sore and it felt like there was something in my chest, which was a reason for concern, and another was the slight burning sensation that I felt in the hand where I had been bitten, and which later started going up the arm as well. But all of the local symptoms caused by the bites eventually went away, and so did that slightly sore throat, though the feeling that there’s something in my chest keeps returning on plenty of days. But, to once again return to that day, or more exactly advance to that night, that was when I did the squats as well… And I’ll also mention here that there were no visits that day.

In the early hours of August 5, I ended up eating dinner between 3:25 AM and 4 AM, and getting in bed at 5:25 AM. But the alarm was set to ring at 3 PM, just to be safe, and while I kept waking up, the intervals becoming ever shorter after noon, I always got back to sleep almost right away and meant to only get up after the alarm rang… Only for dad to call just after 2:50 PM, so I got up then, had the usual stuff, with the sweet thing consisting of two nicer but expired biscuits, with added honey, looked some things up on-line, and eventually left just before 5:55 PM, wearing the full running gear. The reported temperature was 29-30°C, basically holding steady, since it was 29°C when I finished. But it was cloudy, which helped.
The time was 48:23.95, with sector times of 4:20.45, 5:06.25, 5:54 (5:53.93), I think 4:28.07, then 5:10 (I think 5:09.90), 5:59 (5:58.97), 4:31.25, 5:06 (5:05.94), 5:57 (5:56.34) and 1:52.85, making for lap times of 15:20.63, 15:37 (15:36.94) and 15:34 (15:33.53). I realized after sector two of lap two that I couldn’t recall the exact time after the previous sector, but I believe that it was because the hundredths were the same as at the end of lap one and my brain mixed up the times, so I’ll go with that, and either way the seconds are definitely correct.
I once again hoped to get back under 48 minutes but didn’t believe that it was possible, and having that time on the first sector despite really pushing from the start made it quite clear that it wasn’t, but I still hoped to squeeze under that 15:20 that’s the target lap time for 48 minutes on the first lap… Yet I failed even that, albeit by less than two thirds of a second. So I then started wondering whether I’ll at least manage to stay under 48:30 and kept pushing, being relatively pleased with the time on sector one of lap two, but the next two sectors weren’t quite at the required level and at the end of the lap even that goal seemed unlikely, since I had to be faster on lap three. But I went for it, pushing harder from the start of the lap, and even more after the first sector, still thinking that I was going to fail, especially after stopping for probably two seconds, to see the time properly, but wanting to at least know that I did my best. And after sector two of lap three it seemed like I might just have a chance after all, while at the end of the lap it was quite clear that I was going to make it, which I did, by a safe margin. But that’s still a poor time.
Other than occasionally having to weave or go the long way around, the notable problems caused by people were on sector one of lap two, when the runner who was ahead of me suddenly stopped to pick up a toy dropped by a baby from a stroller and I had to step on the grass to get around him, cutting a turn but slowing a lot in the process, then on sector one of lap three, when I slowed to wait for an opening in a roadblock, and on sector three of lap three, when I hesitated and had to quickly avoid a kid on a scooter who was turning in front of me, both of us aiming for what was pretty much the only opening between the people who were filling the rest of the path and another runner who was coming from the opposite direction, on the lane. But the biggest loss of time was when I stopped for those two seconds or so, on sector two of lap three, in order to see the time properly, and I might have lost a little more time before that, while I was struggling to see the time without stopping. Otherwise, much of the lane was once again wet, and there was obviously a lot of damage, including some places that created a risk of tripping, so I avoided what I could. As for physical issues, the one specific thing that I can mention may be the usual pressing need that appeared from sector two of lap two, when I was pushing, but it wasn’t particularly notable, so the main problem was that I just couldn’t go faster, because I definitely tried…

After getting back, I ate a lot of watermelon and a large doughnut, with added jam, changed, checked some more things on-line, and left again at 9 PM, taking the recyclables with the deposit symbol and picking up one more on the way to Carrefour, where I put all of those that were accepted in the recycling machine. And then I saw some more which had been left there, managing to put one of them in and taking two that weren’t accepted by that machine but which I thought were going to be accepted elsewhere. There were more, but the bar codes were slightly damaged and I left them there, even if one might have been fixable and the others might have been accepted at this nearby store or, as I later learned, even at the information desk from Carrefour, though I didn’t know that at the time. Either way, after putting the remaining recyclables in a cabinet that didn’t lock, I just cashed in the vouchers, then had a very quick look in a bookstore. I thought that I still had a little time when I walked in, but the guard told me right away that the registers were going to close in a few minutes, and when I repeatedly, and rather pointedly, glanced at the time in surprise, she said that they’ll close at 9:50 PM, though the store’s closing time is 10 PM, so I said that I was mainly looking, but moments later I just walked back out.
After retrieving those recyclables, I ended up putting them in another cabinet that didn’t lock when I got to Kaufland, since the recycling machine from there was out of order. Then I washed my hands and entered the store a little before 10 PM, finding that the cheap buns had no discount labels, so I took the price labels to a price checker and found that the better ones did actually have the 50% evening discount. So I took some, and also two breads of another kind, even if they’re mostly white, and just after I had done that the employee came to place more discount labels, including the ones for those buns, so it’s possible that the discount for those only started to apply right at 10 PM. Either way, I then also took some plums that had an evening discount, retrieved those recyclables and continued to that Mega Image, putting the recyclables and the plums in a cabinet, entering with the bag that hangs from my neck, with the bread and the buns, but not finding anything to get, so I then retrieved what I had in the cabinet and made my way back, picking up another recyclable with the deposit symbol on the way.
I didn’t check the time when I got back, but it must have been around 11:20 PM, maybe a little earlier, and after cleaning the litter box I went to drop a bag of trash down the chute and grabbed two more recyclables with the deposit symbol from the garbage room. Then I put the plums and the buns in their place, talked to dad a little, washed a few of the things that were in the sink, ate lunch, and went to shower a little before 1:20 AM, being done a couple of minutes before 2 AM. Then I talked to dad a little more, washed the other things that were in the sink, dealt with my bread, moved something into a jar, and ate dinner between 4:15 AM and 4:50 AM. I got in bed at 5:45 AM. And there were no visits that day either.

The original plan for this post also included the following run, but since I managed to finish the part that’s actually about the run from August 5 before midnight and then, less than an hour later, before going to the kitchen, I edited the post in order to add the part about the rest of that day, I decided to stop here, changing the post’s title as a result.