Even the flat seems uphill...

The minute I woke up this morning and started to leave the bed, I heard a voice:

"What are you doing???"

"Well, after some coffee, I thought I'd go out and try to train..." I replied with a certain hesitation.

"My God, you must be mad! There is no better excuse than fibromyalgia for staying in a prone position!"

By this time, I realized the voice was my body, trying to get me to lie down again, or at least to watch the news on television. It was touch and go there for about half an hour as my body pulled in one direction and my weakened determination in another, but since the training routine for today was an easy one (ten minutes running, five walking, repeated twice), my flabby determination won out, but just barely.

By this time it was seven o'clock and the park was packed to the rafters. But off I went, cutting off a whole minute from my one kilometer time. Big deal. Nine minutes instead of ten! I'm still going to win the bet with Adrián.

It seemed to me like there was a weird crew out this morning. There were some very, very old men, considerably overweight, who looked like they really shouldn't be out in this heat. There was an old gal who looked at me with the most horrific scowl, as if she might be furious with me for being there; on the other hand, she looked at everyone that way. There was a guy I recognized from a few years ago; he had become incensed because I was walking my dogs and said I couldn't take them to the park because they would poop on the path. When I tried to explain that my dogs were trained only to poop in their own back yard or on grass, he would not even listen. I told him he needed a dermatologist, a barber, and a shrink, and I left him fuming while I continued my walk. He must not have recognized me today because he smiled, but I looked at him as if seeing a cockroach on a cake. He probably went home and told his wife that there was a really weird bunch of runners out this morning.

These are the days that I feel best about, because they are so hard. Every fiber of me wanted to do absolutely nothing, but as I managed to find a groove during the first ten minutes of my run, I realized I might manage to make it through. The second ten minutes were uphill even on the flat, perhaps because I had my long distance glasses on and misread my watch, adding an extra ten minutes to my run before I realized my mistake just in time not to actually run them. There is no way I am going to enter some race at this point, however...