Awful, Just Awful. I mean, P-A-T-H-E-T-I-C

By Thursday last week, a lot of things were really starting to get to me.  Eventually this ballooned into me having no choice but to go out for one of my "frustration runs."  Now, when I'm running distraught, my feet are almost stomping through the pavement, my body is flailing all over the place, and my form is definitely not the same as when I'm in my usual calm running state.  The point of these are usually just to get it out, and get it out quick.  I normally burn bright, going exceptionally fast, and then just completely fall apart not long into it.  The usual amount of time it takes is probably somewhere between 15-30 minutes.  Most of the time it will all work out to where I die off a good distance from home and have to walk back and think through things after I've burned off all my gas.  It's pretty therapeutic, and gets my wits together, but in no way is it ever to be considered a "good run."

Thursday night, I went out for one, telling my fiance that I would be back when I:  A)  Ran out my frustration. B) Ran out of light C) Ran out of charge on my mp3 player D)  Ran out of energy, whichever came first.  Eventually it was a mix of the dark and the happy running blueberry man on the front of my Blueberry Festival Race shirt rubbing my chest raw that did me in.  I checked my watch and I had been out for over an hour, bad form and all, still not feeling like I purged everything, still not tired, and in complete disbelief that I had gone that long in that state, but more astounded that I hadn't looked at my watch to realize it.  There wasn't any "in zone" running either.  I felt every pounding step vibrate from my foot to my head, and was never really in any state of peace where things around me melted away.

Friday night was a complete emotional drinking blow-up that I haven't had in years.  I'm still completely embarrassed about it, and how I just kind of let it happen.  If you're pounding IPAs and high gravity beers (I know at the Torch it was Shorts Huma Lupa Licious but what I drank at the Red Baron I don't remember), then have a little bit of whiskey and tequila, these things are bound to happen.  Needless to say, there was no happy ending to it, and it involved a lot of sickness and my poor girl driving me home (and a little bit of both combined).  It really wasn't until after that I realized what I was doing, and I felt like a stupid early 20-something again.  It didn't help that I actually had things to do Saturday.

Saturday morning I was in no shape to drive across the state to Holland for the Tulip Festival.  I had planned to run the Tulip race, but obviously that wasn't happening.  It was Jen's birthday and this was her plan, and I had promised to drive the 4 of us (Jen, Ken, Jessi, and I) there, so I force myself into it.  The drive seemed to be over before I knew it because I was focused on how bad I felt, but a little Qdoba and a little bit of Coke on the trip there brought be back to the land of the living. 

It was a good visit, but I still feel like a piece of crap for making us delay going there by a few hours (trying to gather myself in the morning) and missing the race (which had a really cool burgundy shirt of running tulips).  We still did everything else we planned:  seeing downtown, the big windmill island, the dutch villiage, and New Holland Brewery.  Yes, we still went to New Holland Brewing, even though I hardly wanted to look at another beer.  Good thing I've had most of their beers, the other styles were not that appealing, and I didn't have much to try.  I just wanted to try the Imperial Hatter (Imperial IPA) and the Red Tulip (Red Ale), so I got a 10oz of the Imperial, and planned on getting a growler of the other on the way out for a souvenir.

The food there was quite good, but the service was lousy (and I'm never one to complain).  After requesting my Red Tulip growler, about 20 minutes went by with nobody helping us and our waitress came back telling me they won't do a growler of the Red Tulip.  Apparently, for some odd reason that was the only one I couldn't have.  The Imperial wasn't good enough to get a growler, but I tried to figure out something else I could get.  I like The Poet, but a growler of Oatmeal Stout heading into summer won't ever get finished.  I'm not a fan of Golden Cap or Sundog.  I didn't want a full one of the regular Hatter, because I was already full up of IPAs at home, since Jeff was in Friday.  So I went through all the possible options and just told them to forget it. 

I still don't know the reason they couldn't do the Tulip.  All they told me was that it was a special brew that they couldn't do growlers for.  I guess I don't get what the problem was.  If it's a cost thing, price it accordingly.  I'm pretty sure there was no way it was impossible to fill a jug with it one way or another, so that can't be it.  I just don't know.  I've never had a brewery refuse to make a sale, especially when I only had 1 beer.  It kind of seems bad for business.  They did offer to let me sample the Tulip because I said I wanted to try it, but at that point, I was kind of just done with them.  So I tipped the waitress the standard 18% (which was probably more than she deserved) and we left.  I'm not really one to shun Michgan businesses, but I think they may be on my naughty list now.  It was just disappointed, because I've always wanted to go there, because I love their Mad Hatter so much.  I realized there, though, that I've had a lot of their wares and either didn't like them or they weren't my style.  A few even sounded like bad ideas, and I wasn't exactly adventurous considering the night before.  Honestly, is a Red Ale all that special, anyway?  Probably not.

We didn't get out of there until maybe 9:45, and we had been seated since 8:00, so it even made us late for the return back, and this time I noticed how long the drive was.  It probably didn't help that my back power window crapped out on us and it was half down all the way home, which was cold, loud, and annoying.  Just one more thing to fix, I guess. 

Anyway, Jason and I actually ran last night for about an hour, and it felt pretty decent.  It's getting really warm out so we need to build up everything again.  It's a lot easier with cool air on you, instead of hot sun, and hot pavement that seeps through your soles into your feet.  I'm really starting fess up to the idea that the Half-Marathon broke me a little bit too, and a lot of what's happened lately is a subconcious sabotage so I don't ever have to run that far (or further) again.  So, new goal...when they open up the Crim course this summer for all the registered participants to do their practice run, I think I'm going to try to be one of the people that go through it twice and do the 20, running, walking, or crawling.  Big words, I know, but everybody needs a goal.

Amidst all this trouble, I still lost a few pounds (again).  Rewarded for bad behavior (again), ugh.  I don't feel like I'm winning, though.  Sorry Charlie (Sheen).  If I don't shape up, I'm going to pull my own runner card.  It's bad enough that most of the runners I follow on here are superstars compared to me, but when I'm not even keeping up to my standards, I really feel like a slacker.