Just Do Stuff
I'm thinking of going super-short with my hair and transitioning from "side shave" to full-on mohawk. Eight year old me would be SO stoked about this, and one thing I've learned recently is that it can be very therapeutic to do stuff your eight year old self would be excited about. Of course, cutting it that short is probably a good way of summoning another cold front, LOL. Well, I have hats. I'm good.
There was nothing on the cameras this morning, but the cats were very interested in something outside last night. Feisal went on alert at my bedroom window, then went running to the back door, and Crowley followed him. I'm guessing it's the feral cat that I've seen a few times, but I'm going to go check for tracks. Our neighbor up the road with chickens just bought a cat trap, but I think his issue probably is more of the Hawk variety and less of the cat variety. I'm not going to tell the man how to keep his chickens, though.
Depending on how much time I have today vs. tomorrow I plan to try making sandwich bread. I've made loaves of regular white bread before, but they were more dense, whereas sandwich bread should be a bit softer and easier to slice. I bought some King Arthur AP flour, and I was using some yesterday to make a batch of scones. It's got a finer feel than the Publix flour I usually buy. I had a chance to work with both, and there was a noticeable (to me) difference. Once I'm comfortable making sandwich bread, I'll expand into making whole grain sandwich bread. Which reminds me, I want to make a pizza soon. I finally have my pizza crust more or less down, so time to take on a new project.
That Loop earplug thing was easy enough to handle - I got a followup email saying there were only five slots, so hurry and set up a time! I just ignored it. I'd be fine if it was a text chat, but I really, really, genuinely, from the bottom of my heart, would rather have my fingernails pulled out with a pair of pliers than get on a video conference call.
I did a tempo run yesterday and my brain messed it up. Garmin will show your pace in different ways - usually rounded to some extent, because while it does have GPS, it's not absolutely up to the second precise. And you can see either your average pace this lap, or how long it will take you to finish your current lap at this pace. The latter option can be more helpful for staying on pace, because even if you slow down and now you're at, say 9:30, you can push and still hit your mile lap at 9:20, whereas your average pace may be a lot lower than what you're really doing. That was the problem I hit yesterday, combined with how bad my brain is at numbers.
Sometimes I'll see numbers and just completely misinterpret or misread them. It made math classes a struggle, since numbers don't make sense to me anyway, and it's made adulthood a living hell sometimes. I'll read a number and my brain will tell me one thing, only to find later I misread it as something very different. It's even more frustrating when people don't believe that sort of thing happens, and they think you're either incredibly stupid or trying to pull a fast one. So yesterday I was convinced I was barely holding on to a 10:30 pace, and I started thinking maybe I should just stop racing entirely. My lung capacity feels diminished, I'm beating myself up trying to maintain what should be an easy pace, I suck at this, I suck at everything, why did I ever think I could do something positive, what the hell is wrong with me.
Then later I got the actual run data downloaded and saw I was actually going at my race pace. That's why it felt harder. And it was frustrating because, once again, I saw the data right there while I was running, but I didn't draw the correct conclusion from it because of how fucking dumb my brain is.
Gonna go look for animal tracks now.
There was nothing on the cameras this morning, but the cats were very interested in something outside last night. Feisal went on alert at my bedroom window, then went running to the back door, and Crowley followed him. I'm guessing it's the feral cat that I've seen a few times, but I'm going to go check for tracks. Our neighbor up the road with chickens just bought a cat trap, but I think his issue probably is more of the Hawk variety and less of the cat variety. I'm not going to tell the man how to keep his chickens, though.
Depending on how much time I have today vs. tomorrow I plan to try making sandwich bread. I've made loaves of regular white bread before, but they were more dense, whereas sandwich bread should be a bit softer and easier to slice. I bought some King Arthur AP flour, and I was using some yesterday to make a batch of scones. It's got a finer feel than the Publix flour I usually buy. I had a chance to work with both, and there was a noticeable (to me) difference. Once I'm comfortable making sandwich bread, I'll expand into making whole grain sandwich bread. Which reminds me, I want to make a pizza soon. I finally have my pizza crust more or less down, so time to take on a new project.
That Loop earplug thing was easy enough to handle - I got a followup email saying there were only five slots, so hurry and set up a time! I just ignored it. I'd be fine if it was a text chat, but I really, really, genuinely, from the bottom of my heart, would rather have my fingernails pulled out with a pair of pliers than get on a video conference call.
I did a tempo run yesterday and my brain messed it up. Garmin will show your pace in different ways - usually rounded to some extent, because while it does have GPS, it's not absolutely up to the second precise. And you can see either your average pace this lap, or how long it will take you to finish your current lap at this pace. The latter option can be more helpful for staying on pace, because even if you slow down and now you're at, say 9:30, you can push and still hit your mile lap at 9:20, whereas your average pace may be a lot lower than what you're really doing. That was the problem I hit yesterday, combined with how bad my brain is at numbers.
Sometimes I'll see numbers and just completely misinterpret or misread them. It made math classes a struggle, since numbers don't make sense to me anyway, and it's made adulthood a living hell sometimes. I'll read a number and my brain will tell me one thing, only to find later I misread it as something very different. It's even more frustrating when people don't believe that sort of thing happens, and they think you're either incredibly stupid or trying to pull a fast one. So yesterday I was convinced I was barely holding on to a 10:30 pace, and I started thinking maybe I should just stop racing entirely. My lung capacity feels diminished, I'm beating myself up trying to maintain what should be an easy pace, I suck at this, I suck at everything, why did I ever think I could do something positive, what the hell is wrong with me.
Then later I got the actual run data downloaded and saw I was actually going at my race pace. That's why it felt harder. And it was frustrating because, once again, I saw the data right there while I was running, but I didn't draw the correct conclusion from it because of how fucking dumb my brain is.
Gonna go look for animal tracks now.