Messy Morning

SPOILER ALERT:  This post contains lots of bitching.

I feel like I have had the worst morning today.  The worst.  I'll attempt to distill it into a few critical mistakes or sources of unhappiness. 

First, I left the house late.  I woke up in a big hurry.  It's Thursday, which means hill training, which means meeting at a special place (a hilly neighborhood), which means about 2-5 extra minutes of driving before I run, yet I still wake up at the same time as when we run from our usual place (very close to my house).  It would be smart to wake up 2-5 minutes early on hill days, but I don't do that for some reason.  Instead, I try to have my clothes laid out for me, so usually I can be out the door pretty fast.  Somehow, this morning though, I looked at facebook and left the house barely in time to make it.  We meet to run at 5:15 and we start running at 5:15 sharp -- I try to be there by 5:10 at the latest.  But today, I left the house at about 5:02.  Oops. 

I get in the car and get out of the garage.  On my lap as I drive, I have my phone and a granola bar.  I now run with my phone as I'm officially coaching people (just so I can call 911 if needed), and I always eat my granola bar on my drive.  My stomach can handle it (it did take a long time to get used to it though), and I believe in having some fuel before running so that you're relying on the best energy sources (rather than relying on the "bad" energy sources). 

Second, I started driving to the hills.  Within a few blocks, I realize something is horribly wrong.  Horribly, horribly wrong.  Like I can't see anything.  Oh yeah, with the facebook distraction, I forgot to put in my contacts.  This is possibly the first or second time only in my entire life that this has happened.  I'm so near-sighted, it's very difficult to do anything without my contacts or glasses.  And driving without visual correction is a recipe for disaster.  I can't believe I didn't kill anyone.  Thank goodness the roads are pretty deserted at 5:04ish. 

So I drive back home, pull back into the garage, unset the alarm, run all the way up to the third floor (where both my glasses and contacts are kept), put in my contacts (I figured that it was worth the extra 30 seconds to wear the contacts instead of glasses and be more comfortable on my run), run all the way downstairs, reset the alarm, drive again.  Much better this time.  You know, I can actually see curbs, cars, people, traffic signals, etc.  Always a good thing. 

Third, I get to the hills with moments to spare.  I've eaten my granola bar and put on my watch while driving, as well as put my phone into where I usually carry it.  But I haven't even tied my shoes yet.  I park, I get my shoes tied, and then we're off and running.  But something is wrong with my watch -- I usually look at instant pace, and it seems to think I'm running 60 mph.  Not. 

Well, eventually it smoothes out, but it's still somewhat frustrating because it screws up my paces and averages.  It might have meant that I ended up going out too fast (not 60 mph, but still, too fast). 

Fourth, I have an okay run -- not great, but based on the last few weeks, certainly could have been worse (but based on the last few days, could have been better).  But the pure essence of the run sucks.  It's hill repeats.  I know they are good for me, but man, running them is both hard and boring.  The plan was to run a warm-up mile-ish containing 1 hill, then run 7 hill repeats, then run a cool-down mile-ish containing 2 hills.  But since we ran the 7 hill repeats on a hill that one of my friends hates, I deferred to him on the cool-down route.  He wanted a bit higher mileage than I did, so he picked the longer cool-down route, meaning instead of 2 cool-down hills, we had 3.5.  And I was hanging way back from my friends beginning on the 7th repeat, and then for all 3.5 cool-down hills.  Even though they were doing the cool-down hills slow and easy, it was still too fast for me. 

So basically I felt slow and generally like death for a significant portion of my run.  But since it wasn't for all of the run, I'll count it as "okay." 

Fifth, I got home and remembered I'm having my blood drawn this morning.  So no breakfast.  My new employer requires these annual blood draws to do biometric screenings -- I guess they're not really required, but if you do it, my employer pays about $600 per year toward your health insurance.  So completely worth it.  So I showered and got ready for work.  No idea how it took me as long as it did.  I think I kind of got sucked into my book a little, so somehow it took me over 1.5 hours from the time I got home until the time I walked down to the kitchen to get my food ready for lunch. 

Sixth, I remembered to make my breakfast to eat at the office.  But that took forever.  I made a smoothie to drink, filled a cup with coffee, got some frozen breakfast sausage, etc.  Plus I had to make my lunch.  So I didn't leave the house until about 8:50, and my blood draw appointment was at 8:30.  Oops.  Fortunately I knew it wasn't a big deal.  Worst case scenario, they can't get me in right away and I have to wait half an hour at the lab or something.  But still, at this point, I'm running much later than planned. 

Seventh, I was completely overloaded when I left the house.  I was attempting to carry:  my blood draw paperwork, a book to read in the waiting room, my phone, my yoga clothes bag, my lunch, 2 cups (one cup with a lid with coffee, one cup without a lid with my smoothie), and then my yoga towel and bag.  I'm sure you see where this is going.

I got in the car and was trying to arrange things, and of course spilled the coffee off my armrest and backward, covering the carpet on the backseat floor.  So much for the lid.  Back into the house, unset the alarm, run to get paper towels (found some on the first floor fortunately), run back to the car, drive to the lab for the blood draw.  Now I'm late, hungry, AND pissed about the big stain that is probably going to be there in my car because I didn't have time to clean it up well.  And I almost never eat in my car or drink anything other than water, so aside from sweat and high-heel damage, the interior is in really good shape.  Until that first coffee spill today.  So the interior WAS in really good shape. 

Eighth, I have some trouble finding the lab.  Why can't addresses be prominently displayed for every single building?  But I make it there, go inside with my book, my water, my paperwork, my phone and my purse.  Slow elevator, but I'm too frazzled to try to find the stairs, and at this point I'm really, really late for my 8:30 appointment.  It's well after 9. 

Tons of difficulty with the lab staff trying to figure out how to input my work requisition number.  But eventually they get it in there, and I go back for the blood draw.  No waiting!

Ninth -- and then I remember.  D'uh.  I ate a granola bar on my way to the hills.  Totally didn't think about it, pure routine.  By this point, that was 4 hours earlier, but you're supposed to fast for at least 8 hours.  I decided to have the blood drawn anyway.  I seriously eat without thinking in the morning before I work out.  So now my blood work will probably show that my blood sugar is all out of whack or something.  Ugh!!! 

I just couldn't face the idea of possibly going through that entire morning all over again -- both because it sucked so much and it's going to be hard every single day for me to remember at 5:00 not to eat, so even if I'd postponed the blood draw, it probably would have been the same problem next time. 

But now I'm at work, drinking my smoothie, wishing I could just have a fresh start to the day, but at least it can only get better...  I kind of think that if I wasn't doing yoga all the time, this is the kind of morning that could have reduced me to tears or shouting.

Deep breaths...