Hundreds of Ways

Don't contradict me
Don't make me cross the line
If you feel threatened
It's only 'cause I might

                       - Conor Oberst, "hundreds of ways"

I spent a week on a boat. Literally at sea level. The week prior to this rather dreamy vacation was spent mostly anticipating dreamy vacation and not doing much in the way of exercise.

Thus. Here I am.

I tried to run on the third day after I came back, and felt like I was going to die. I managed 2.5 miles and to scare myself away from running for a bit. I downshifted to the elliptical which is where I spent the following week.

Yesterday I finally had what I would consider to be a normal running workout, four miles on the treadmill. It wasn't as easy as it should have been, but the last mile was spent telling myself "it's one more mile, you can do it" rather than "MY GOD MAKE IT STOP." So, you know... progress.

For anyone who has never gone through this sort of altitude adjustment, it feels like there is concrete in the bottom fourth of my lungs, I just can't get a good deep breath. And this, Sandy Sista, THIS is why I typically exercise even throughout my vacations (this was quite literally impossible when spending a week on a boat, and I mean literally a boat, a catamaran, I think it was called... but it's a boat, not a cruise ship), because I don't just have to come back, I have to come back to THIS altitude and it is just fucking murder, it is SO hard.

At any rate, I didn't want anyone thinking I had disappeared. Any time I go away, it doesn't mean I've quit, it just means I'm kicking and fighting my way to the surface. Never think otherwise.