Cav's Place

In the early hours of April 25, after dealing with the two breads that I still had to deal with and moving the remaining peanut butter into another jar, I ended up eating dinner between 3:35 AM and 4:15 AM, with peanut butter on all of the bread. Then I set the alarm to ring at 2 PM, but when I woke up at one point and really had to pee, I decided that if it was past 1:30 PM, I was going to turn it off and get up… And it was 1:31 PM, so I did just that, which also meant that I had time to shave without problems, after having given up on the idea of doing so before going to bed. And then I had the usual stuff, though the yogurt was a “Greek” one which had just expired and wasn’t quite what you’d want before a run, having 10.1% fat, of which 6.9% saturated, and only 5% protein. But I also added raisins in dark chocolate in it, and another sweet thing consisted of some more of those wheat things, putting jam and bio (organic) honey between them. And I also took another of those somewhat better supplements for immunity, drank most of the tea, and then decided to wait to see the temperature at 5 PM, which was about 24°C at the station inside the city, and that held steady but, oddly, at the other two it was 26-27°C when I left and 25°C when I finished. Either way, I left at 5:05 PM, wearing the full running gear, including returning to the better shoes, and also taking one armband.
The time was 1:50:28, the sector times for the first four laps being 4:31, 5:15, 6:12, 4:40, 5:20, 6:16, 4:46, 5:26, 6:20, 4:55, 5:34 and 6:26, making for lap times of 15:58, 16:16, 16:32 and 16:55, while I covered lap six and the final portion in 17:16 and, respectively, 10:29, the sector times being 4:58, 5:40, 6:38, 2:01, 6:36 and 1:52. The problem is that, while I know that I covered lap five in 17:02, the sector times seem to have completely slipped my mind, so much so that I skipped over them without realizing it when I wrote down the times, and I did so in a hurry, without checking what I had written and only at night realizing that I couldn’t remember those times and noticing that they weren’t in the file either. I eventually worked out that the time for sector three of lap five was 6:30, since I did clearly remember 13 seconds at the end of a sector two after I had gone over one hour and the hundredths were no longer displayed, so it must have been on lap five, since after sector two of lap six the time was 1:33:21, and in fact there was no other point where I had 13 seconds anyway. That leaves the first two sectors, and I know that I checked and calculated the times, but when I try to remember them, I just can’t. A likely explanation is that my mind eliminated what seemed like duplicate entries because the times matched some of those from laps four or six, but while 4:58 and 5:34 would really fit that, and another, less likely, option would be 4:55 and 5:37, I’ll just go with 4:52 and 5:40. With big question marks, but I have the impression that sector one of lap five was less slow than that of lap four and actually keep finding myself thinking that I had a 4:52, while on sector two I lost some time, and then there’s something that my mind did on the following run. Not that it matters, this being the worst time since 2021, before the hospitalization…
And to think that I meant to start at an unsustainable pace and then see if I’ll have any chance to get under 1:45. Considering how I felt, managing that was pretty much out of the question, but I did initially hope for a time that was similar to that from a month and a half earlier, or at least under 1:48… But after the first sector it was already pretty clear that I had to aim to just stay under 1:50, and after just squeezing under 16 minutes on that first lap, with a sector three that was already bad, it was hard to see how I was going to even manage that… And when I calculated the target lap times, I once again made a mistake, so I was yet again off by one minute. So, after resigning myself to just stay under 1:50, it seemed that laps two and three were fine, and while lap four was a concern, at first it seemed that it shouldn’t be that much of a problem… But it was around that time when I realized that mistake and tried to correct it, yet I failed to actually do so, maybe also because there was no way to gain that minute before the end and I wanted to at least avoid embarrassing myself in such a manner badly enough to fool myself into thinking that the realistic target times were still enough. So, under those circumstances, I was actually rather content with lap five, and on lap six I tried to push in order to give myself a chance to squeeze under what I thought would be 1:49:30, thinking that I might just have a chance to do so after the end of the lap. But the first condition was to cover the first sector of the final portion in less than two minutes, failing to do so being a really bad sign even if I did lose a little time on it. Yet I just kept pushing after that, and really gave everything on the final sector, thinking that I had made it… But then I also looked at the minutes…
Sure, past the typical weaving and going the long way around, because of both people and the lane, the people did cause me to lose some time, starting with hesitating on sector two of lap one, then on sector three of lap two briefly stopping once, hesitating two more times, and then also needing to go on the grass for quite a few meters, then slowing or hesitating a little once or twice on pretty much every sector after that, more notable being sectors two and three of laps five and six, when I probably briefly stopped or otherwise clearly lost a bit of time. I’ll leave the details aside otherwise, especially since I couldn’t match the events to the sectors anymore, but the biggest loss of time in a single spot was when a kid on a wheeled vehicle cut in front of me just as I was about to use the one available bit of space to pass another runner in a spot that was otherwise blocked by other people, causing me to have to slow to a walk for quite a few seconds, and while I’m not entirely certain, I believe that this was on sector two of lap five. But, considering how short sector one of the final portion is, needing to go both long and wide, and around a small tree, instead of turning right away to go down the bridge also had a particularly notable impact on that sector’s time.
Otherwise, I was already sweating after two sectors, so it was a good thing that from lap two it got cloudy… But bad that it also got windy on sectors two and three, and in some places I felt that I was fighting against the wind. And the dark cloud that came right at the end, as I was on sector two of the final portion, brought some pretty bad gusts. But the worst problems were physical, starting from the fact that I wasn’t feeling well in general, and as I started running there was pain from my back, which was certainly also responsible for part, but probably not all, of the pain that I also felt in my diaphragm and abdomen, which obviously affected my breathing. And then there were my leg muscles, which felt rather stiff from the beginning and started to hurt if I tried to push through it. All of that did eventually lessen, maybe from lap three, but I was obviously not in a good shape for such a run and couldn’t go any faster. And I guess I should also mention the lesser issues, such as the pressing need that started to appear from sector two of lap two, but which came and went and wasn’t particularly notable until the start of lap six, when it actually seemed like it was going to become a problem for a while before lessening again. As for the usual warnings from the right knee, I think those appeared from sector two of lap three, and later on they did turn into somewhat more notable pain, though it didn’t actually reach a concerning level. And I also stepped in a hole that was under the lane at one point, on sector three of what I believe was lap three, though there is a chance that it was actually lap two or lap four, and either way it was just jarring.

From now on I won’t mention that the recyclables that I grab have the deposit symbol anymore, since it should go without saying, so I’ll just say that I grabbed two of them on the way back… And then, after taking off the t-shirt and tights and opening the door again to shake the remaining bugs off them outside of the apartment, since I had been just covered in those annoying little bugs after the run, I weighed myself and found that I only had 45 kg… So I changed, drank the remaining tea and made another, and ate what was still good of a spoiling banana and a bag of peanuts, getting 950 calories just from those peanuts, before leaving again, at 9 PM, with the recyclables with the deposit symbol.
I picked up two more of those small oddly-shaped bottles on the way to Kaufland… And once again had the machine from there just “eat” them, since after it happened with the first I decided to try the second as well, just to make sure that this is what happens. So I decided to recover that amount from Kaufland soon enough, but I didn’t do so that evening, using the room for disabled people to wash my hands, since a cleaner was in the men’s, entering the store at 9:30 PM, and getting two lettuces with a good evening discount, some onions, the price being significantly lower than the regular price had been in quite some time even though the label didn’t list it as being discounted, and one of those cheap yogurts, then rushing to the self-checkouts after the closing announcement and cashing in the voucher received for the recyclables after paying for the purchases. And then, since I had dad’s metro card, I took the metro to that non-stop Mega Image where expiring products discounted by 90% appear around 10:30 PM, but I got there some ten minutes too late, so I just put my things in a cabinet and then retrieved them, but at least I then looked more carefully and got back here with a bag that was almost full of recyclables.
I was back a couple of minutes before 11:30 PM, then put the yogurt and onions in their place, ate a small mini cake and lunch, did the day’s squats, and it was past 1:10 AM when I went to the bathroom, mostly wasting time on the toilet and then washing, and almost 2:10 AM when I finished. Then I washed what was in the kitchen, selected some of the worse lettuce leaves in order to also use them for the salad before putting the lettuces in the fridge, and ate dinner between 4:25 AM and 5 AM. I got in bed at 6:15 AM.

After getting up I finally washed that thing I had bought for my chair to some extent, by hand, while at night I ended up eating dinner between 3:15 AM and 4:05 AM, after washing what was in the kitchen, which included a large pot, also cleaning a little, and moving the remaining mamaliga into a smaller bowl. And I got in bed at 5:20 AM. Then, after getting up, I decided that I had time to go out before the handball match, so I rushed out a little after 3:05 PM, with the recyclables with the deposit symbol, picking up a few more on the way.
Despite going on the other side, I decided to go to Carrefour first, entering through that mall’s parking lot… And seeing that I should have at least kept going to Kaufland’s recycling machine, since the one from Carrefour wasn’t working, so I entered the store with the recyclables and just grabbed one of those mini breads from the discounted products, being surprised to see that they still had the regular discount as well. Then I continued to Kaufland, putting the recyclables in the machine and entering the store with that mini bread in the backpack. Since there was a 30% discount on all spices and sauces, I first looked for some black pepper of their store brand, finding three 100g ones left and taking all of them, and then also grabbing some discounted products, plus some mozzarella, which had a regular discount those days, and another one of those cheap yogurts. And then I also used the voucher received for the recyclables when I paid, took some time to arrange the purchases, and then jogged back.
I got back at 4:55 PM, getting annoyed that dad had again cleaned the litter box and took away a lot more of the “sand” than he should have… But then I just took that little bag of trash and dumped it down the chute, watched the handball match, ate a sweet thing and lunch, with a small bag of bagels instead of bread, did 200 squats, since I had forgotten to do them the previous day, started taking all of the supplements that I usually take before races, and then shaved my head… And the following morning I was woken up at 9:45 AM by the sound of mowing from behind the building, though when I looked outside I saw that they had almost finished clearing the plants from that fenced area, so I had slept through most of it, but I guess that at one point it was just too much. Either way, I did get back in bed some two hours later and slept some more.

Moving on to the early hours of April 29, I wasn’t feeling well. There had actually been some irregular heartbeats over the previous few days, and more notably that evening, when I curled up in bed to read some more, but when I went to the kitchen, after taking a late nap, my stomach, or digestive system in general, didn’t seem happy either, and while making the salad my heart seemed to be beating really erratically. But at least things seemed to more or less get back to normal after eating dinner, with peanut butter on all of the bread.
Then again, it definitely didn’t help that I then slept poorly again, waking up several minutes after 9 AM to pee and then being mostly awake until a little after 11 AM, initially having a hard time getting back to sleep and then sort of drifting in and out after dad got up, a little after 10 AM, got ready to leave and left. And after that point I kept switching between being asleep and awake every few minutes, and from the second time I woke up I was thinking that the alarm had to be about to ring, yet it was only a few more such brief naps later when I actually checked the time, finding that it was only 1:05 PM. Interestingly, it’s possible that I then slept for most of the remaining time until 2 PM, when the alarm rang and I got up. Then I had the usual stuff, but what I was noticing was that my vision kept sort of clouding over, or more exactly making it seem that I was looking through tears, but mainly while wearing my glasses, seeming better if I took them off. Either way, after basically wasting time on the toilet, which didn’t seem like much of a problem after having crapped before going to bed, taking the supplements, and eating the sweet thing, which consisted of a slice of cozonac, with added honey, I once again decided to wait to see the reported temperature at 5 PM, which was 19°C, holding steady or maybe dropping just marginally by the time I finished. And I left at 5:05 PM, wearing the full running gear and also putting the slip of paper with the emergency information in the pocket of my tights, just in case.
The time was 1:19:33, with sector times of 4:19, 5:14, 6:12, 4:38, 5:12, 6:01, I think 4:37, I think 5:22, 6:07, 4:44, 5:24, 6:06, 4:34, 5:11 and 5:52, making for lap times of 15:45, 15:51, 16:06, 16:14 and 15:37. After sector two of lap three, I realized that I remembered 13 seconds at the end of the previous sector but had calculated 4:40 as its time, which was obviously wrong, since I had 31:36 after two laps, and since I was pretty sure about the 13 seconds, I recalculated the time for sector one of lap three accordingly, though I will still leave question marks there. But this also made me decide to actually list some probable times for sectors one and two of lap five of the previous run, since I had been thinking about that and the fact that my mind came up with 40 seconds when seeing 13 made me decide that those times that I ended up listing there, and which already matched the other, less specific, impressions that I had, were actually the most probable ones.
Getting back to this run’s times, I pushed hard on the first sector, so that time was worse than I expected, and when sector three of lap one was already over the target for a 16-minute lap, and matched sector three of lap one from the previous run, I wondered whether I’ll even stay under 1:22, the first two sectors of lap two at least allowing me to hope to manage that. But when sector three of lap two was almost decent, just over six minutes, and the lap as a whole was well under 16 minutes, the thought of squeezing under 1:21 entered my mind, while over the course of lap four I started thinking of 1:20:30… But that was frustratingly close to 1:20, so on sector three of lap four I decided that I could try to squeeze under that time after all. That hadn’t seemed at all possible until then, but at that point I just went for it, and at the end of the lap I saw that I needed 16:03 on lap five in order to make it. So I kept pushing, and when, at the start of the last sector, it was quite certain that I’ll manage it, I was frustrated that I was actually going to end up closer to 1:19:30, but unable to squeeze under that time as well, so I thought that I was settling for just staying under 1:19:45 and, judging by the previous times, that I had to push hard to make sure of that… But giving everything on that last sector resulted in being even more frustratingly close to 1:19:30 than I thought.
It was rather windy during the first half of the run, and a couple of places remained gusty after that as well, but that was pretty much the only external problem, not counting a pretty normal amount of weaving and going the long way around. As for physical issues, the right knee started to give warnings from sector two of lap two, but much more concerning was the sharp jab that I felt at the back of my left thigh, possibly originating from the back of that hip, on sector three of lap three, which repeated itself at the start of sector two of lap four and again, albeit with less intensity, on sector one of lap five, while on sector three of lap four I felt a similar jab from the left ankle, so I tried to put a little less pressure on those joints and it seems to have been enough to avoid any worse issues. Other than that, my arms were starting to go numb from the long straight of sector one of lap five, as I was pushing harder, and a pressing need also seemed to appear around the start of lap five, though that soon passed.

On the way back, I grabbed a recyclable and held on to it as I quickly checked the nearby Mega Image. Then I had lunch, changed, and left again at 8:50 PM, with the few recyclables with the deposit symbol that were here, but after jogging to Penny Basarabia I just held on to them as I quickly checked the store, then kept jogging to Kaufland Basarabia, finally putting them in the machine from there, along with three that I picked up from there and which were accepted, so I ended up with a second voucher. But I had also picked up three others which had been discarded there and which weren’t accepted, so I put those in a cabinet, washed my hands, and entered the store a couple of minutes before 9:30 PM, making use of good discounts to get some expiring germinated wheat and some spoiling lemons, and then digging through the bananas, which had a good evening discount but were clearly bad, and grabbing two that didn’t look that bad. Then I used one of the vouchers received for the recyclables when I paid and cashed in the other, rushed out before the closing announcement, and used one of the tables that are outside to put the few purchases in the backpack before making my way to that Mega Image, grabbing just one recyclable on the way, entering the store with everything… And wasting over half an hour, waiting for some products with the 90% discount to be placed, because I had seen an employee with a cart full of products discounted by 50% when I entered, but seeing that all that was eventually being placed back in those areas still had that 50% discount, so just before 10:50 PM I gave up and walked out… And I didn’t even find any more recyclables on the way back.
I got back a little after 11:20 PM, then talked to dad for a while, ate one of the bananas and left the few other purchases in the kitchen, washed a few things that were there, also ate a bag of snacks and a really thick slice of cozonac, did the day’s squats, and a few minutes before 1 AM I went to the bathroom, reading a newspaper while only leaving a little in the toilet, and then washing. I was out a little after 2 AM, then took care of a few other things, also put the lemons in their place and washed the few remaining things from the kitchen, and finally ate dinner between 4:15 AM and 5 AM. I got in bed at 6:40 AM… But after a while, just as I was drifting off, my heart started beating really irregularly again, and eventually, at 7:55 AM, I got back up and on the computer, things being fine while I was there, but I only dared to get back in bed at 8:45 AM, after peeing one more time… And shortly after that Liza went to the litter box, so after she was done I got up to clean it, so dad won’t get on my case again, getting back in bed at 9:10 AM. And at least I was able to sleep after that, waking up frequently but getting back to sleep almost right away until around 2 PM, when I couldn’t get back to sleep quickly and eventually decided to get up, the problem being that the irregular heartbeats also returned then, though they eventually went away again, without returning again so far.

Otherwise, yesterday I also finally put that thing on my chair, the problem being that, while it initially seemed to fit the chair just fine, now it’s slightly less wide than the seat, and it’s just the sides that I mainly wanted to protect with it, so I wonder if it shrunk when I washed it or it gets pulled together like that when it’s tied to the chair, the latter option possibly allowing me to find some way to make it cover the seat better… But after sitting on it for a while I found myself wet, so it wasn’t at all dry inside and I then put it back on the balcony, though the fact that I also hung a load of laundry there means that it’s unlikely to get any drier anytime soon, so I’ll have to leave actually using it for later.
At least I recovered some lost sleep today, and stayed in bed for much longer. Admittedly, I woke up as dad was getting ready to leave, and while I didn’t go out of my room before he left, close to 10:20 AM I got on the computer for a while, getting back in bed around 10:50 AM and falling asleep again pretty quickly. And when I woke up at one point I told myself that if it was before 3 PM I’ll get back in bed, and it was around 2:30 PM, so I peed one more time, just in case, and did just that, catching another nap, though I don’t know how long that was, since I only looked at the time again when I finally got up, seeing 5:23 PM at that point, but I had been awake for quite a while by then. And I definitely needed this, seeing as the plan for tomorrow is to walk the route of the half marathon.