Dumb ass things I've done
Hey! It’s been awhile since I’ve done one of these, and not for lack of material, but this one is SO idiotic, I just had to share.
(P.S. You’ve probably also figured out I didn’t perish in hurricane Irene. There was some rain, but nothing torrential, and maybe slightly more wind than usual at some points, but really, if I hadn’t known about Irene, I never would have suspected anything out of the ordinary. Half of a tree outside the house DID come crashing down, but it missed all the power lines and our drunken frat boy neighbors came stumbling out and hauled the tree out of the street so cars could continue driving through. At this point my anxiety was left mostly to the potential of power going out and an inability to communicate with my boss because I was submitting a fellowship application that Monday. I was keeping my laptop battery fully charged, emailing her drafts every few hours with a “just in case the electricity goes out! But I may still be able to check my email on my iPhone…” and even she was all PLEASE CALM DOWN. Sigh.)
What up bitches? I’m half of a TREE lying in the street that you can’t really see because Jasmine was too scared to go outside lest my other half came down to attack her, so she took a picture through the screened window.
Anyway! Onto me being a dumbass!
Wherever I go, I seem to constantly be surrounded by “athletes,” and Cambridge is no exception. Most of my co-workers/people from other labs on the floor all participated in one or more sports intensely at the high school and sometimes college level. I’ve been sneaking off to the gym by myself in hopes of being in decent enough shape to not be totally embarrassed around them. Then at some point it was announced that everyone was going to do a big 10K race in Boston on Columbus Day. I had been getting pretty speedy on the treadmill, but I was trying to run only once a week to go easy on the old lady knees, and I had yet to run, you know, outside and stuff. On the ground. Which is completely different from running on a treadmill. So I hemmed and hawed and vowed to try running outside a bit before agreeing to join. And then it was really hot or something. Or really rainy. Or it was getting dark too early. Or I had this thing called work to do that kept getting in the way. I realized shit was not going to happen unless I signed up anyway, so I did, about 2 weeks before the race, and the weather was finally reasonable again and I made my friends promise to haul me away from work before it got dark so we could go run outside. I think I went on exactly…3 runs before race day. And they were all in the evening, all when it was about 60-65 degrees outside, all 7K or less. I will note that I was pretty stoked that the race started at noon, unlike most races, which start around sunrise or something. At least it feels that way. And who loves running when they’re not awake yet? Not me. Also cold weather hurts my knees.
You know what else doesn’t go well with running? 85 degree weather. And blazing sun. Not the norm for October in Boston, but THAT’S what it was on Columbus day. Suddenly having the race at noon didn’t seem like the swell idea it was supposed to be. According to my friends, I took off like a bunny at the start line and things went decidedly downhill from there. No part of the course was in the shade, unless you count the part where we ran underneath a bridge and everyone was cheering madly for the 10 seconds of relief we had there. I probably should have just curled up there and stopped while I was ahead. There weren’t nearly enough water stations and they ran out of water towards the end. Also for the last half mile or so I kept thinking the finish line was coming up and I would start sprinting it out a little, only to turn the corner and realize that no, that was not the finish line, and oh crap, that was the last of my energy, now what? I think I did that about 4 times. The strange thing is, I didn’t feel any more miserable than I normally do on a hard run. It was the longest I had run in over a year, but I ran the whole way and totally thought I was fine, but as soon as I crossed the finish line, I started walking and realized that I was weaving back and forth. People kept asking if I was okay and I kept waving them off. Fine! I’m fine! I would dismiss them with a flap of my hand as I stumbled back and forth and wondered if it was always so hard for me to walk in a straight line but hand flapping probably throws EVERYONE off balance and hmm, was there always so little blood in my head? I think I actually crashed into someone who promptly grabbed me by the elbow and propelled me to the medical tent where I may have stumbled my way onto a cot.
I remember they took my blood pressure and announced it was 80 over 40. I also remember groggily thinking that 80 was supposed to be the bottom number not the top, but there probably wasn’t enough blood getting up there for me to actually form that thought. They took my temperature and it was 104. I was promptly swathed in wet towels and ice packs and some guy leaned over me and asked me if I knew what my name was (well, how’s he supposed to know if I got that one right??), where I was, what the year was. I think I totally aced all those questions, although I’m secretly worried that when he asked who the president was I might have said Osama instead of Obama. Eh. Anyway, they were pretty concerned about that 104, but the ear thermometer isn’t always that accurately so they wanted to take my temperature rectally. What the FUCK? I’m in an open air tent!! Do people who aren’t BABIES even still do this? Not only do I appear to be in the throes of heat stroke or whatever the fuck this is, but now you want to violate me too?!
No. No. No no no nononononononono. No. No. Noooooooo. No. NOOOOOOOOO. NONONONONO.
Also, no.
Luckily the question guy stood up for me and said I was cognitively with it enough to have the right to refuse “treatment.” The other people seemed PRETTY disappointed. Then they took my temperature again with the ear thermometer. It was 96. Peace out, ice packs.
I was lying there feeling like a ten car pile-up. Also kind of damn thirsty. Hey, sitting up and getting something to drink seems like a sweet idea. Okay, here I gooooo…hey, why am I puking everywhere? Oh crap. They wouldn’t let me have much water after that anyway, since I kept throwing it up, and I could forget about food. Which was disappointing because the funnest part of finishing a race is stuffing your face with all the snacks at the end. When I finally felt stable enough to walk and meet up with my (very) worried friends, they were all, “Well why the hell didn’t you try running slower?” I shrugged but in my head I was thinking I didn’t have a goal time, not really, my only goal was to beat the time of a certain someone that is quite good at rubbing me the wrong way (mission accomplished!). It’s a good thing I’m not stubborn. Or a dumb ass.
(P.S. You’ve probably also figured out I didn’t perish in hurricane Irene. There was some rain, but nothing torrential, and maybe slightly more wind than usual at some points, but really, if I hadn’t known about Irene, I never would have suspected anything out of the ordinary. Half of a tree outside the house DID come crashing down, but it missed all the power lines and our drunken frat boy neighbors came stumbling out and hauled the tree out of the street so cars could continue driving through. At this point my anxiety was left mostly to the potential of power going out and an inability to communicate with my boss because I was submitting a fellowship application that Monday. I was keeping my laptop battery fully charged, emailing her drafts every few hours with a “just in case the electricity goes out! But I may still be able to check my email on my iPhone…” and even she was all PLEASE CALM DOWN. Sigh.)
What up bitches? I’m half of a TREE lying in the street that you can’t really see because Jasmine was too scared to go outside lest my other half came down to attack her, so she took a picture through the screened window.
Anyway! Onto me being a dumbass!
Wherever I go, I seem to constantly be surrounded by “athletes,” and Cambridge is no exception. Most of my co-workers/people from other labs on the floor all participated in one or more sports intensely at the high school and sometimes college level. I’ve been sneaking off to the gym by myself in hopes of being in decent enough shape to not be totally embarrassed around them. Then at some point it was announced that everyone was going to do a big 10K race in Boston on Columbus Day. I had been getting pretty speedy on the treadmill, but I was trying to run only once a week to go easy on the old lady knees, and I had yet to run, you know, outside and stuff. On the ground. Which is completely different from running on a treadmill. So I hemmed and hawed and vowed to try running outside a bit before agreeing to join. And then it was really hot or something. Or really rainy. Or it was getting dark too early. Or I had this thing called work to do that kept getting in the way. I realized shit was not going to happen unless I signed up anyway, so I did, about 2 weeks before the race, and the weather was finally reasonable again and I made my friends promise to haul me away from work before it got dark so we could go run outside. I think I went on exactly…3 runs before race day. And they were all in the evening, all when it was about 60-65 degrees outside, all 7K or less. I will note that I was pretty stoked that the race started at noon, unlike most races, which start around sunrise or something. At least it feels that way. And who loves running when they’re not awake yet? Not me. Also cold weather hurts my knees.
You know what else doesn’t go well with running? 85 degree weather. And blazing sun. Not the norm for October in Boston, but THAT’S what it was on Columbus day. Suddenly having the race at noon didn’t seem like the swell idea it was supposed to be. According to my friends, I took off like a bunny at the start line and things went decidedly downhill from there. No part of the course was in the shade, unless you count the part where we ran underneath a bridge and everyone was cheering madly for the 10 seconds of relief we had there. I probably should have just curled up there and stopped while I was ahead. There weren’t nearly enough water stations and they ran out of water towards the end. Also for the last half mile or so I kept thinking the finish line was coming up and I would start sprinting it out a little, only to turn the corner and realize that no, that was not the finish line, and oh crap, that was the last of my energy, now what? I think I did that about 4 times. The strange thing is, I didn’t feel any more miserable than I normally do on a hard run. It was the longest I had run in over a year, but I ran the whole way and totally thought I was fine, but as soon as I crossed the finish line, I started walking and realized that I was weaving back and forth. People kept asking if I was okay and I kept waving them off. Fine! I’m fine! I would dismiss them with a flap of my hand as I stumbled back and forth and wondered if it was always so hard for me to walk in a straight line but hand flapping probably throws EVERYONE off balance and hmm, was there always so little blood in my head? I think I actually crashed into someone who promptly grabbed me by the elbow and propelled me to the medical tent where I may have stumbled my way onto a cot.
I remember they took my blood pressure and announced it was 80 over 40. I also remember groggily thinking that 80 was supposed to be the bottom number not the top, but there probably wasn’t enough blood getting up there for me to actually form that thought. They took my temperature and it was 104. I was promptly swathed in wet towels and ice packs and some guy leaned over me and asked me if I knew what my name was (well, how’s he supposed to know if I got that one right??), where I was, what the year was. I think I totally aced all those questions, although I’m secretly worried that when he asked who the president was I might have said Osama instead of Obama. Eh. Anyway, they were pretty concerned about that 104, but the ear thermometer isn’t always that accurately so they wanted to take my temperature rectally. What the FUCK? I’m in an open air tent!! Do people who aren’t BABIES even still do this? Not only do I appear to be in the throes of heat stroke or whatever the fuck this is, but now you want to violate me too?!
No. No. No no no nononononononono. No. No. Noooooooo. No. NOOOOOOOOO. NONONONONO.
Also, no.
Luckily the question guy stood up for me and said I was cognitively with it enough to have the right to refuse “treatment.” The other people seemed PRETTY disappointed. Then they took my temperature again with the ear thermometer. It was 96. Peace out, ice packs.
I was lying there feeling like a ten car pile-up. Also kind of damn thirsty. Hey, sitting up and getting something to drink seems like a sweet idea. Okay, here I gooooo…hey, why am I puking everywhere? Oh crap. They wouldn’t let me have much water after that anyway, since I kept throwing it up, and I could forget about food. Which was disappointing because the funnest part of finishing a race is stuffing your face with all the snacks at the end. When I finally felt stable enough to walk and meet up with my (very) worried friends, they were all, “Well why the hell didn’t you try running slower?” I shrugged but in my head I was thinking I didn’t have a goal time, not really, my only goal was to beat the time of a certain someone that is quite good at rubbing me the wrong way (mission accomplished!). It’s a good thing I’m not stubborn. Or a dumb ass.