Well, after a week of hard battle, the cold I was trying to fight off won, and I finally succumbed to the usual joy of sinus headache, sniffles, and cough. I’m not sure why I even bothered to fight it off, because the actual cold took less time than the battle leading up to it, and I probably could have saved the viruses and myself a lot of effort if I’d just been a bit more tolerant and allowed them access to my respiratory system in the first place.

Anyway, it’s generally over now, except for a touch of lingering cough and a bit of an odd toothache which I’m almost positive is related to sinus pressure. But, since I’m hideously overdue for a dental appointment anyway, and since I’d prefer to not suddenly discover the need for an emergency root canal while in San Diego two weeks from now, I’ll be making a dentist appointment on Monday (if the office is open, Tuesday if it is not.) Yes, my life IS that exciting.

My oh-so-ambitious triathlon training took a brief hit during the Battle For the Sinuses, but only for about three days. I’m already close to a half mile on the swimming, but I pretty much knew going into this that the swimming would be the easiest part for me. I’m a really strong swimmer, and even though it’s been close to twenty five years since I’d swum laps for any extended length of time, it all came back really quickly. (I used to swim long-distances (mile+) for “fun” when I was a teenager. One of the big regrets of my life is that I was never able to do any sort of swim team/racing. I think I’d have been really good at it. Oh well.)

As far as the cycling portion goes, both of my loyal readers will no doubt remember that I was doing a lot of cycling back in 2008–close to a hundred miles a week for much of the summer. On Friday I managed to pump out eight whole miles. *headdesk* Okay, I know, I have three more months until the race. It really won’t be that tough to get my mileage up in that time…

But the running… Ah, the running. That is going to prove to be the bane of my existence. It doesn’t help that it’s the middle of summer in the Deep South. Unless I want to run in 90F degree heat (and by the way, I Don’t) I have to get up at about 5:30 a.m., and even so, the humidity is high enough to make me wonder if I could simply combine my running and lap swimming into one moist activity. It also doesn’t help that I’ve never been what anyone could call a fast runner. Or not-slow runner. Okay, even “runner” is a stretch, to be honest. I manage to get up to a pace that’s not walking, and that’s about it. Even back a few years ago when I was running 3-4 times a week, and doing 6-7 miles at a time, my pace was never faster than 10:30/mile. (In other words, my goal will never be to actually win a race!) So, I kinda detest running right now. I know that there will come a point when I enjoy it, but that’s a ways off–I usually don’t get there until I reach the “five miles is an easy run” stage. Right now I’m still firmly in the “holy crap this shit hurts have I made it to the mile-and-a-half-mark YET??” stage.

And, work on the book continues, of course. I’m finally through the phase of thinking that the book sucks, that everything about it sucks, that it’ll never make sense, and that no one will want to read past the first five pages. I’m actually awfully close to having a readable draft, and not only do I no longer believe it sucks, I’m perilously close to thinking it’s going to be quite good.

Yes, I’m delusional that way. Kinda like how I’ll start to like running in a couple of months. Ah, pleasure is oh-so-close to pain!