Craziest week of my life

First just let me start off with I have had one of the craziest weeks of my life, and it hasn't all been good. Training wise everything has gone great even with all the hiccups I have experienced.

*A warning to any potential readers this is a long winded rant with a lot of whining and crying on my part about how my life has jumped up and bitten me on the back side. You have been fairly warned*

Monday, started with a great swim and lifted weights afterwards. Starting to get back into the groove with weight lifting and hoping I can reap some benefits from it in my overall fitness as well as my physique, yes I care about how I look and no I'm not shallow. Got an oil change* for my car cause it needed it and I was driving to Des Moines on Tuesday to pick up the President and COO of my company as well as our Facilities Manager so we could tour my market and scope out some new locations. After the boys went to bed hit the bike trainer for an easy night cap ride.

Tuesday I hit the pool for my long swim and another round of weightlifting, lower body this time. Squats are my new best friend or at least that is what I'm telling myself as I get back into them. At one point in my "meat head" days I could knock out pyramid sets of heavy squats in the 400+ pound range and hit as high as 600 lbs. for single rep so maxing out at 195 for 8 reps is only a slight dent to my ego but I will work my way back up to something respectful again soon, okay maybe not 500 lbs but different goals these days. Afterwards got ready to hit the road for Des Moines, and that is where the adventure begins. Coming into Iowa City I failed to notice the speed limit change and the highway state patrolman and got myself a lovely ticket for doing 75 in a 55. While I was waiting for the officer to finish writing up the ticket I sent my boss a text for letting him know I might be a little behind. After getting back under way I made it all the way to Grinnell before my car suddenly seized up and died as I was traveling down the highway. Now I don't know much about cars, but I do know that when I pull the dip stick there should be some oil on it, mine was bone dry. Long story short apparently that oil change I got, the technician either installed the oil filter cap wrong, or something was defective and oil was slowly leaking out of my engine from Monday afternoon until 10:15 Tuesday morning when it seized and died. Good news is their insurance is going to cover the cost of rebuilding my engine and the rental car until it is fixed, bad news is it might be a week or longer until I get my car back, which by the way did I mention it's still in Grinnell.

I was able to get a ride to my store in Newton where my boss came to pick me up and then we started our whirlwind tour of Iowa.

Wednesday and Thursday where spent criss crossing the state going from Ankeny Iowa, to Newton to Eldridge, to Morrison, IL and then finally ending up in Anamosa Iowa on Wednesday checking into our hotel around 10:30 after spending close to 7 hours driving. Thursday we headed back to Des Moines dropped my boss off at the airport at 11:00 for his flight then drove an hour an half to Webster City so my Facilities manager could see the store up there before driving back to the Des Moines airport for her flight at 5:30. Oh and I forgot to mention that I did get a run in on both Wed and Thur morning, pretty darn proud of those 2 workouts, could have easily just said sleep in you deserve it but I pushed myself to get them done and was thankful I did. Then I drove the 3 hours home to the Quad Cities.

At this point I was tired exhausted and ready for a nice easy relaxing Friday before the weekend, but I first had to get a bike ride in Thursday night.

Friday morning I slept in and maybe it was good maybe it was bad but frankly I don't care at this point. Got ready to take Casey to school, dropped him off came home to get ready to head out for the day and got a phone call from his school, I had forgot to pack his lunch, crap. Okay I was going to drop it off when I left before heading to exchange rental cars, FYI Ford Escapes are not a very fuel friendly vehicle, they get about 20 mpg and only have a 12 gallon tank so when you drive as much as I do you may have to fill up 3 times a day. Exchanged for a Chevy Cruze which so far is knocking out 35 mpg's which I'm happy with. Headed on up to Maquoketa Iowa before going to my radio remote in Anamosa (yes the second time this week I will have been in Anamosa) when the school called me again, I had forgotten Casey's lunch a second time. At this point I felt like the worst father in the world and I'm not even going to use anything else that has happened this week as an excuse. I felt awful and the stress of everything else that had gone on this week left me a little bit down in the dumps.

Finally made my way to Anamosa for my radio remote, which went really well, one of the good things this week. After leaving the store at 6 I felt like maybe my week had turned around and was looking forward to a nice weekend. Got less than a mile away before I realized "Not so fast my friend" when I rubbed my eye and my right contact subsequently popped out and disappeared into thin air. I pulled over and I searched every where, I was afraid to get out of the car for fear of it being blown off but after searching endlessly I had no choice but to exit the car. I searched every inch of that car and could not find it any where. If you have ever worn contacts and lost one you know that usually the just stick to your cheek or fall in your lap if you are sitting down, but no, apparently a black hole opened up in my lap at the exact same time my contact fell and swallowed it up into the nothingness, never to be seen again. Great now I had a 90 minute drive home blind in one eye, and I don't see well at night with both contacts.

I was mentally broken at this point and not in a very good place, the worst part was I didn't think I was going to be able to do the one thing I knew would make me feel better...run! I can't run with my glasses on, it makes me nauseous and gives me a horrible headache so I was dreading that my group long run was going to be derailed. After finally convincing myself that I was going for a run come Hell or high water tomorrow I was able to relax a little before bed knowing that if nothing else I was going for a run tomorrow, it maybe a short one, but in my experience any run is better than no run at all.

This has been a very long winded rant and for anyone who made it through all that you are either a) very bored with your own life and read to many blogs b) a glutton for punishment or c) a pretty darn good friend, thanks for reading.


Until next time...Do today what others won't, so tomorrow you can do what others can't.