some days you're the dog, some days you're the hydrant

I figured last week's burst of energy wouldn't last.

I'll be honest - I'm fighting a pretty major case of the suck this week. I've got a few life in general things stressing me out, and last week I upped the exercise, probably in part because I was running/biking away from them. This week, I don't have the energy to do it quite as much as I did last week. My anxiety level is up (anxiety fuels my exercise more than you even know), but physically, my body doesn't quite want to match the craziness in my head.

Probably part of the problem is that I know I'm not sleeping as well this week. It's a little difficult when your finger hurts and you keep smacking yourself with a freaking huge, annoying splint. That will hopefully change tonight, since the doctor hooked me up with a much smaller, less cumbersome, less painful splint. The verdict is three weeks in that, go back and see him again. Oh, and no damage at all beyond the dislocation, and everything's back in its rightful place now. That means (a) no surgery, and (b) it'll heal completely in a relatively short time. I just have to keep it protected from being bumped around in the meantime.

This also means I can swim. I tried taping my fingers for my swim Monday and couldn't find anything in my athletic tape arsenal that wouldn't disintegrate in the water. So I tried swimming without tape or the old splint (which could soak up, like, 10 lbs of water, as I found out during Warrior Dash), and it wasn't painful, but my finger was flopping back and forth. It felt too weird, so I cut my swim short. But I can swim in the new splint.

Anyway, I also read once that your body is more physically tired when it's trying to mend an injury. I suppose that's sucking some life out of me at the moment too, although it feels ridiculous claiming I'm running slower because I hurt my finger. Ha.

It's also SO FREAKING HOT AND HUMID. Ugh. I wanted to run at a 9 something pace this morning but I felt like I was running in an oven, even at 7 AM. I know humidity makes a person run slower. It still sucks.

Finally, I'm mildly afraid of the bike. I haven't been back on it since, although I'm considering riding with the group tomorrow. I just know I'm going to be more paranoid about falling, and I feel really dumb about falling for no reason Saturday.

Hopefully this funk won't last. I'm going to keep pushing on regardless, but I'm willing to cut myself a little slack and not be a maniac right now. The mental ickiness sucks, but it never lasts forever, and given recent events (some blogged about, some not), it's probably pretty much normal and to be expected. Gotta love the hard parts.