I woke up on the total wrong side of the bed this morning.  I didn’t even want to get OUT of bed.  Ok, so maybe that had something to do with the 30 or so miles I ran in the past 4 days.  6 miles of them done at speed work on Thursday, an impromptu tempo run at Rockwood on Friday after work just because I felt like going fast, and 14 miles on the trails of Castlewood yesterday left my legs feeling so trashed that I was afraid to swing them off the bed this morning for fear that they might not be able to bear my weight.  And last night when I met up with Rosie for a few more miles, she had already run 30 that morning.  I hadn’t even done HALF of her mileage and my legs felt dead.  I did appreciate the calling card she left on my windshield in the parking lot earlier in the day.  When I got back to the car, feeling exhausted and found the salted caramel Gu tucked under my wiper blade, it reminded me that as bad as I felt, Rosie was out there somewhere running 30 miles in prep for her upcoming Mark Twain 100.  She is going to run 100 miles.  Yeah, you read that right, 100 miles.  So, as we were shuffling along yesterday evening in the heat of the day, in search of shade, and beer, I felt like such a whiner complaining about how tired I was.  But the reality was, with Racine 3 weeks behind me and Chicago 9 weeks ahead of me, my legs are tired.

Add to my sore quads the fact that it was cloudy and overcast when I woke up, which then turned to thunder and rain, and you have the makings of a day that you just want to pull the covers over your head and stay there…forever.  Does anyone remember the movie Ernest Goes to Camp?  My brother used to make me watch that movie incessantly, along with Race For Your Life, Charlie Brown.  And if you know my brother, that won’t surprise you in the least.  Anyway, there was a song Ernest sang in that movie about being glad it’s raining.  I was kind of glad it was raining, it matched my mood.

Eventually, I dragged myself out of bed and downstairs to the Keurig machine.  Coffee will make it better, coffee makes everything better.  I grabbed my Racine 70.3 coffee mug, pulled the hazelnut Coffeemate from the fridge and made a cup.  (Side note:  I am incredibly superstitious about buying anything from any race until after I have gone the distance and earned it.  That coffee mug was very possibly the first thing I’ve ever purchased from a race before the race itself.  My logic with the mug was, well, it’s a souvenir from a vacation with my friends and even if I don’t finish the race, I can just cry in my coffee.  And maybe throw a little whisky in there too.) So, this morning, as I held the steaming cup in my hands and took a sip, I learned against the kitchen counter, staring out the back door, watching the rain fall onto my porch.  Not helping.  Still crabby.

I went back upstairs to the shower, I even washed my hair!  Still not helping.

I gathered my stuff for work and packed up my laptop thinking some time in a coffee shop with free wifi might be just what the doctor ordered.  On my way out the door, Britta called, we commiserated some about the challenges of life. And then she had to go because she was in the school pick up lane and I had arrived at Kaldi’s.  So, here I sit, coffee, phone, laptop, ipod. The sun is even trying to break through. Better, but still mildly unsettled.

So what to do about it?  A lot of folks would say, keep things in perspective, it’s really not as bad as it could be.  Which is 100% true.  I really have no reason to be miserable and crabby, I have excuses, but not reasons.  Excuses that include tired legs, the weather, lack of caffeine, the broken washing machine I discovered this morning, right after the pharmacist called to tell me that my prescription isn’t being renewed until I go to see the doctor.  Awesome, that information would have been useful before my Rx ran out.  More excuses like sometimes life is just hard.  And some days just leave you with a bad taste in your mouth, even after coffee.

But even when you put things in perspective…like the fact that someone else has every right to be more tired because they ran twice as far, or their struggles are so much worse…illness, addiction, what have you, the fact remains that you are the only person living your reality.  You are the only one who really knows what’s going on inside of you.  And while it could be worse, who is to say what might come along and make you feel yucky, frustrated, crabby today.  That doesn’t give me the right to have a lifelong pity party…or even a day long pity party.  But it’s ok to acknowledge what’s bugging me, face it by feeling bad about it for a while and then move on. The longer we try to ignore the bad, and hide it, and shove it down, the longer it’s going to take to really, truly get over it.  So, be real, own the crap and tomorrow will be better.  Or maybe it won’t but at least you’re another day closer to “better”.  And if that fails, put Pandora on the Footloose station and sing until your heart is content.

Sometimes you just have to take things a step at a time, especially when your legs are really, really, REALLY tired.

Some days just suck, really for no real reason at all.