Non-professional athletes

I've put on 6 pounds since March. I've been putting in extra time in the gym doing strength training since I've been sidelined by an ankle injury (since March) and have been attributing a lot of that gain to muscle mass. I haven't been fooling myself that much though. Having an "apple" shaped body or metabolism, or whatever you'd call it, most of my fat gain shows up around my waist. I know what my waist looks and feels like when I'm in shape. This isn't it. This morning I finally pulled out the measuring tape. I've put two inches on my waist since March.... which I do not attribute to muscle mass gain.

"Can you think of anything that changed right around that time???" Jen texted, followed by an emoji that was laughing whilst tears were streaming from his eyes.

"What are you referring to? I stopped running due to an injury. I started dating. I went on a three week sugar binge...."

Yesterday I did a Google search on weight gain in injured athletes. A couple of interesting things popped up. The first was by a coach, nutritionist, and triathlete herself. I've heard it before, how what we consume while exercising (as long as you stay within your 200-300 calories per hour of exercise) doesn't really contribute to any weight gain. Well her take on that is if you're craving sweets or salty foods, basically your "bad foods" (because who craves carrots...besides my boyfriend), you can eat them during your ride (or run if you so wish) as long as you return to saintly eating off the bike. The article is called "Be a saint on the couch and a sinner on the bike". My only question is: how do you keep a chocolate bar from melting on a bike ride? Research for another day.

Elite runner Laura Fleshman gained 15 pounds during one of her injury breaks. Well geez. If an elite athlete gains 15 pounds from an injury and I only gain 6 (so far), then that's pretty good.

It doesn't help that I've been entirely overwhelmed by the rest of life that demands I not be an athlete. You know, the whole part about being a grad student and producing a thesis. The part about teaching a bunch of new college freshman about weather and climate.... and how to be responsible adults, which I didn't realize was what I signed up for. The part about working another part time job. The part about taking a Japanese language class. And yes, the part about fostering a new relationship.

Cooking is harder when both people have different tastes and nutritional needs. There has been quite a bit more eating out lately than what my metabolism is used to. And who is going to order two eggs and a couple slices of toast for breakfast when confronted with 6 different choices for eggs benedict and crepe specials?

Last Saturday I helped Mike move into his new apartment. The two of us did it in less than a day. The next morning I sat on the couch while he unpacked things in the kitchen. My back to him, I was recovering from a large plate of eggs benedict (California style), hashbrowns, and about 12 cups of coffee.

"Are you going to the gym tomorrow?" I heard him ask.

"I guess...." I replied.

"What do you mean you guess?"

"Well I'd kinda like a day off..." My voice trailed off near the end of that sentence.

Silence. I didn't even have to turn around to know he had stopped unpacking and was standing there staring at me. What did you do today, Carrie? What is today if not a day off?

"Yessss, I'm going to the gym tomorrow." I groaned. I like that he doesn't take my shit.

I don't take his either. Last night he poked at the new item on his plate. "What is this?"

"You're new favorite vegetable. Eat it."

"But what is it?"

"Jicama."

"What does it look like?"

I laughed. "What do you mean what does it look like? You're looking right at it!"

"Yeah but what does it look like when it's on the tree or whatever.... it doesn't grow like this." He looked around for a whole vegetable. During dinner I saw him try to hide the three small sticks of jicama behind the salt and pepper shakers on the table.

"Hey! No no no!" I admonished him while putting them back on his plate. I watched him stick the first piece in his mouth. No reaction. In went the second piece.

"Well?"

"It doesn't have much taste."

"That's because you didn't put salt and lime on it." Later he had seconds of all his vegetables, including the jicama.

My sports medicine podiatrist has cleared me to run for a half hour at a time, three times a week. I can increase each run by ten minutes each week if my ankle does ok. She's confident I can compete in the San Diego International Triathlon in June. In my mind it's in the bag... I start eyeballing the Santa Cruz Half Ironman in September. I do some rough calculations in my head. A half marathon seems doable by that point. I push the reality of the 1.2 mile swim and 56 mile bike that precedes the 13.1 mile run, out of my mind. Not the important part. Can I cover the run by then? Yes.... I think I can....

Dejection

Thesaurus.com says the synonyms for discouragement are as follows: hopelessness, pessimism, dejection, depression, despair, disappointment, discomfiture (huh?), dismay, downheartedness, melancholy, sadness, and a few more that were less closely matching apparently. Yes, dejected. That fits here.

I sit in the 8th floor lab with my feet up on my desk, staring at my old physics, meteorology, computer programming, and GIS books. Sharky McSharkface shakes his hula skirt with a wide grin on his face, reminding me of happier times. Times when I wasn't choking down a sad salad wishing it was Phish Food ice cream.

I should've known by my uterine cramps at 5 am that today would be rough.

I teach a class of 55 students. Three of them have been MIA since week two, so they no longer count. Two more of them come and go randomly. So 50 something is what I'm left with. They all show up when there's a quiz scheduled.... and then 25 of them get up and leave after the quiz. Twenty five students can't just sneak out. It's like a mass exodus. I watch the remaining students watch the others file out and try to pretend I don't see them. I start my lecture.... and watch the eyelids start to droop.

It is days like this that I have no idea why I do this, other than to get my tuition paid, and a fraction of my rent paid for.

Ok, it's a noon class. Everyone is either starving or just ate a burrito from La Vic's. We're also in our first heat wave of the year... this is what a fellow meteorology grad student says to me.

Yeah, maybe.

Hawaii is stamped on McSharkface's solar powered podium. His torso shimmies opposite of his hula skirt clad hips (well... what would be shark hips anyway). He wears a pink lei and blue sunglasses. He seems so happy. I blink away tears while another grad student types away at his thesis programming code.

Even my salad is sad. I added dill and everything to make it interesting. It's not.

I have never had an affogato.

My Japanese homework goes untouched.... although it would probably take my mind off my apparently lame teaching methods.

The head of the department says not to take it personally. That was easy to do in a class of 25 students when only three got up and left. When 25 get up and leave.... well that does something to a person. I'm pretty sure even Buddha would feel a little tug in his chest at that one.

My fellow grad student says to me "You're doing it for the 25 that stay".

I'm sure they don't want to be there either, they just aren't assholes like the rest of them. I down a chocolate peanut butter smoothie to ease the pain and open up my Japanese book.  

Wanderlust

Lately I've had a yearning for Africa. Do we all yearn for Africa?

I stare at the map on my wall, on which there are no red dots stuck to the African continent. Truth be told, there's a few continents without red dots. There used to be green, blue, and yellow dots on the map as well, but everyone always asked what the different colors represent, so I wanted to stick with red. My dot stickers are old now and don't stick very well. I just superglued red dots on top of all the yellows, greens, and blues. My fingers are covered in superglue. Boston? How did I miss Boston? Boston got its red dot- I ran the Boston marathon in 2014.

Staring at Africa, my eyes graze over the different colored countries. Where could I go in Africa? Morocco? Yes, maybe some day. But that's not what I'm yearning for. Egypt. Yes. That's what my heart wants right now.

"Right now?" Mike asks when I tell him.

"Well no. Right now I'm going to go for a run. Then eat breakfast." I wonder about the current state of Egypt and decide that at least for the next few months, I don't have time for Africa. I'll spend a week in Hawaii a month from now, I'm spending another summer in San Diego, one more trip with Emily before school is back in session. Then I've got to work on graduating.

Last night I dreamed I was in India, making curried lentils.

City Life

Jen made a comment a couple months ago that I'm living a glamorous life. I think spending most of your life in a small town can skew your image of city life. I think it was the mention of taking the train to the airport. Trains seem adventurous... although I may have been talking about the light rail, which is a bit less adventurous.

I know what she's saying though, and it's probably why I like living in a city more than in the country (and I've done both). I teach today, so I'm sitting in my 8th floor office (with 8th floor roof access) downtown, dressed up in a teal blouse, open front black sweater, and black slacks. Slip on black shoes. Dangly earrings. Beside my laptop sits my cell phone and coffee.

I did  not take the light rail here today. The light rail takes 2-3 times longer than just driving, so I'm contributing to city's air pollution.

My sinuses are so inflamed that my teeth hurt. My doctor just upped my dosage of Nasacort to twice daily (it's a 24 hour dosage), and order that I get back on Zyrtec. I was going to drive to the pharmacy to drop off my prescription for a steroid inhaler, but I would lose my fantastic parking space. I have to pee and I'm two floors up from the restroom... with no elevator.

I'm wedged tightly between glamour and misery.

Wish You Were Here

Why is it that "absence makes the heart grow fonder"? Is it the lack of our partner's snoring or the way he leaves the sponge full of water in the kitchen sink, that allows us to focus only on our favorite parts? The way his eyes smile, the way he smells, the sweetness of his words and touch? 

I woke to the sound of waves crashing on the beach and peered out my window beyond the lit sand path and into the darkness. I laid back in bed and listened to the waves, just audible over the whir of the air conditioning unit, and felt a sense of having dreamed this moment and place before. 

I prepared a cup of coffee as light started to filter onto the water and the cicadas began to overpower all other sounds. I sprayed myself down with citronella and walked barefoot onto the wooden porch with my coffee cup and saucer, and sat listening to the cicadas and the waves in the warm, damp air. I took my second cup down to the water's edge, just steps from my bungalow, and took photos as the sun struggled to peek out from behind storm clouds. Stray dogs and people sauntered by while several swimmers played in the water in front of anchored fishing boats.

It's something to have someone back home that makes you excited to leave paradise and return to his waiting arms. 

I dropped off my empty cup in my bungalow and walked along the beach looking for a better vantage point for my photos. I stepped off the sandy beach and onto the rocky shoreline that looped around the island. A crab scurried across a rock and reminded me of the book "Beachcombing at Miramar". A young man with a fishing pole joined me on the rocks. 

It started to rain, so I slowly made my way back to my private bungalow where my brightly colored swimsuit stood out on the wood decking, drying from yesterday's snorkel. The cool air felt soothing as I stepped into my room and sat on my bed, looking out the sliding doors to the ocean. My phone displayed 22 new messages and I responded to the only one that mattered. 

"It would be awesome if you were here."

"As long as I was with you."

2 am and beyond...

2 am is no friend of mine, but we've been seeing a lot of each other lately. My neighbor's ceiling fan has finally stopped sending pulsed humming noises into my bedroom, which I've been laying awake listening to for days. It has also stopped raining, which I laid awake listening to for two days. I don't remember if the rain coincided with the ceiling fan.

I'm pretty sure my neighbor has tuberculosis. His cough is terrible and it's been going on at least since he moved in a couple months ago. My mind drifts to any and all circulation vents in my apartment. I decide I'm closed off from his apartment, and let it go. Him and his wife also have a child. A small baby. One with high pitched shrieks that they endlessly coo to in an effort to silence it.

My neighbor snores. I'm jealous that's he's asleep.

A friend said "Text me if you're awake at 2 am, I probably will be too." But I don't. I don't because as I lay in bed awake at 2 am, I think about whether or not I could make it to the gym, and still get cleaned up in time for my doctor's appointment that would precede the class I'm teaching, which I don't have the homework graded for.... or actually the quizzes either, and all of that needs to be done before noon, and holy shit I need to get stuff done for my internship as my performance has been drastically sliding. I have to study for my oral quiz tomorrow in Japanese class, and I start doing calculations... and I start panicking, and I start crying. And I could text him and ask if he's awake and I could tell him that my stress level is so high that I'm crying and I don't know if I'm going to make it, and I picture his response "Don't worry, it's going to be ok."

And that is exactly what I cannot bear to hear right now. Telling someone who feels like things are definitely not ok, that things are going to be ok, is like telling a burning person that their feet are not on fire.

Well I don't know if it's exactly like that.

People with "real" anxiety tell me not to stress about it. It's not worth it. "Just let it go". And I wonder where in my life I went wrong that people assume that I should always be ok. That I can just decide to turn off my stress and anxiety.

My advisor is returning tomorrow night and I've done exactly zero with my thesis since he left. I'm editing a paper for a visiting foreign professor and I'm a page and a half into eight pages, and hoping two of those pages are references.

I think about going for a swim, but it's cold here and the pools are outdoor. The indoor pool a block from my apartment doesn't open until 8 am. I think about the indoor pool at 24 Hour Fitness in San Diego and how I could roll out of bed right now, step onto the warm pool deck in my bare feet, air thick with chlorine and high humidity, let my body be wrapped in the tepid water, and listen to the sloshing in my ears. Stroke, stroke, stroke, breathe, flip at the wall, brief silence, stroke, stroke, stroke, breathe.....

Ok, so then can you make it to the gym? But I don't want to go to the gym and it doesn't open until 5 am. You can clean the bathroom, that'll give you a dose of chlorine and check one more thing off your massive list.

I refuse to clean my bathroom at 3 am. I get up and take two Tylenol.

I could continue grading. I could work on my code for my internship. Maybe I could even do something wild and crazy like work on my thesis.

I roll over and put my arms over my face. What I really want is to sleep. I am exhausted. I am annoyed by the people who suggest that I just turn off my stress, my panic, my anxiety.

What are you going to do with that spinach you bought? You were going to scramble it with eggs, but you boiled the eggs, and you didn't get any other vegetables for salad. It's just going to sit in the refrigerator and go bad. Really. I'm stressing about spinach now. Please just go to sleep.

It's now approaching 4 am. At 4:45, my coffee pot will click on and start gurgling and dripping. Coffee aroma will drift into my room and I will consider getting up. I will instead doze off. My alarm will go off at 5:30 am and I will be jolted into blurry confusion.

I consider telling my doctor I can't sleep. The last time I saw my doctor she suggested I cut back on, and possibly completely stop, caffeine. For a not very good reason that I won't get in to. I can only imagine her stance on the topic if I told her I'm not sleeping between 2 and 5 am. How do you tell an insomniac not to drink coffee in the morning? I generally do not drink caffeine after 3 pm and I'm at about 3 cups a day, so I don't think coffee is the problem.

I stare up at the ceiling in the darkness and brainstorm about what makes me feel sleepy. All of this. Feeling sleepy is not the problem. I'm sleepy, I'm tired, I'm exhausted. My rapid heart rate, racing thoughts, and overall feeling of distress, is the problem. Just let it go. It's going to be ok. My agitation is the problem. My brain is the problem.

And now I'm staring at a computer screen (with computer glasses on, thank you) at 4 am on a Tuesday, and this week is just going to have its way with me.

Trail of tears

Last year, a fellow grad student suggested I print out a one year calendar (all on one page) and cross off each day I worked on my thesis. She got the idea from a website on accomplishing goals. So over the summer, I did just that. I did fairly well over the summer. When school started back up again, I was too overwhelmed with classes and work to get anything done on my thesis.

I printed out a new 2017 calendar. January was sporadic. There are no X's in February. 

After a merciless week, I have finally sat down at my desk on campus to work on my thesis (after hearing for the last couple weeks from my advisor that I'm lagging behind). 

I think I'm going to go ahead and mark on my calendar the days that I have sat down in front of my data, cried, and put it away. I think shedding tears over your thesis should count as productive days. 

I started out on Elle King Radio on Pandora. After having far too much bitter coffee from Peet's downstairs, the upbeat, sassy nature of the station was too much to handle. I switched to Ray LaMontagne Radio. Shawn Mendes was whining for mercy. Thumbs down. The rain pattered against the window and all 173 issues with my thesis came crashing down on me.

"As I'm Leaving" (David Grey) came on. If anyone has seen Ladder 49, that's where they're having the funeral for John Travolta's character and it's raining, his wife is grieving, it's just really sad. But the song is actually beautiful. 

I grieved for John Travolta for a couple minutes until my advisor showed up and took the rest of my scotch for his meeting with the dean. 

Zero progress on my thesis. But plenty of tears shed. 

My notes are spread out across my desk. I have no idea what to focus on. 

Sacramento is not showing northeast wind events. I can hardly remember why it is I'm supposed to care. I don't even know how to Google what it is I'm supposed to do to fix my plots that a visiting professor said were "meaningless". You have to rotate the axis into the winds... 

Maybe I shall make a flow chart of how to progress with my thesis. A road map if you will.

Or Google a new scotch to try.