September 2010 – PretenseSoup

Em ơi! #327: That is its Purpose

This comic gets filed under RC567.5 L86 2010 for Internal medicine–Neurosciences. Biological psychiatry. Neuropsychiatry–Psychiatry–Psychiatric aspects of personality and behavior condition–Drug abuse. Substance abuse–Caffeine.

CLEARLY.

In other news, Bryan and I are famous. Check out this email I got promoting a local 5k/10k:

I was trying to figure out a way to do the 5k this year. It just isn’t going to happen. The good news is, I went for my first run in two weeks yesterday (and my second today) and my foot seems to be behaving itself.

Em ơi!#326: A Valid Strat

More colored pencils. I am kind of digging the richness of the color, though it is kind of stylized.

File this one under: HE5736 .L86 2010a, for:

Transportation and communications — Bicycles — General works.

If you were wondering, last week I biked 100.5 miles, not including the 2 hours and 40 minutes I spent on the Spin bike at the gym. It turns out I can read while on the Spin bike, which increases the appeal a little bit. This week so far I have biked 20.8 miles; today I took the day off because I had a terrible headache. I have looked back in my running log through to May and I can’t find a day where I didn’t do something – biking used to be what I did on my day off from running (and many of the other days, too). So this is odd. Instead, I baked a loaf of bread using whey from a bottle of goat’s milk I made cheese out of. I also ate a bunch of cookies and studied MySQL.

It is a magical life, I tell you.

Anyway, with regard to the comic (oh yeah): Bryan eventually realized that I had a flat on my bike and not on my car and helped me call a cab to take me downtown. I finally found out that my brakes had been rubbing on the rear tire and worn a hole through which the tube squished and subsequently ruptured. It was a trying day, since I went through two tubes before the bike shop figured out I needed a new tire.

I’m for bed. I have a new story being published (it is actually available for preview/online purchase right now); I’ll put up more details about that tomorrow or Thursday.

Em ơi! #325: I Did Say That

I really like this one, art-wise.

As I mentioned on Facebook, I won’t be doing a marathon this season, or at least not an official one. My PT guy has diagnosed me with a depressed cuboid bone and told me to stay off running for two weeks, then follow a slow program of building back up to running 30 minutes at a time for another two weeks. Given where my training is, there’s no way I can be ready for even the Middleton Marathon at the end of October, and that’s pretty much the end of the season, marathon-wise. So I guess I’ll train hard over the winter and come back fighting at the Mad City 50k or the Madison Marathon or something. We’ll see how it goes.

This comic is filed under RC1220.R8 L86 2010, for Internal Medicine—Special situations and conditions—Sports medicine—Medical and physiological aspects of special activities. By activity, A-Z—Running. This is much the same classification as last week (last week was RC1220.M35), but since shin splints are common to more than just marathon runners, I thought this was more appropriate.

Em ơi! #324: Marathon Misery

I know I’ve been posting little snippits concerning my marathon training. Last week I didn’t do one for a very simple reason – I ran Monday, and then not again for the whole week. Apparently, I’ve injured my foot, though the PA I saw didn’t actually give me a diagnosis other than it was “some muscle thing.” (Thanks.)

Yesterday I did 7.3 mi, and the upshot is I need to keep taking time off until my foot is completely better. I’m really upset about this, but there’s nothing to be done but wait. I keep telling myself that I may yet make it to the marathon (though I probably won’t be BQing (i.e., Qualifying for the Boston marathon) – I haven’t run farther than 15 miles in one go in several weeks), and I can always run 26 miles any day I want to when my foot allows it. But somehow that doesn’t make me feel much better. In the meantime I’ve been biking, both on my regular bike and the spinning bike at the gym, which helps for calorie burn (a little), but just doesn’t make me happy the way running does.

So it’s rough. I have to continue taking this one day at a time, which for someone who plans things like I do is painful. My foot aches when the weather changes, makes strange clicking noises when I go down stairs, and sometimes feels better…only to start hurting again when I’ve gotten my hopes up. Intellectually I know it’s just one marathon and there will be others…but I haven’t really come to terms with it yet.

This comic is filed under RC1220.M35 L86 2010, for Internal medicine — Special situations and conditions — Sports medicine — Medical and physiological aspects of special activities. By activity, A-Z — Marathon running.