Month: April 2023

Stress

~ e.v. ~ Leave a comment

I think we got the jury service sorted out. My employer asked me to defer it until December, which is a lull in their need of me, according to their scheduling (note: you can’t schedule software development a week in advance, let alone 8 months, but whatever). This still needs to be approved by the courts, but I think it’s likely they will.

In other stressful news… About 3 and a half years ago I left my previous job because it was a toxic workplace. I should have left at least a year earlier and being there every day did a lot of damage to both my mental and physical well-being. I think it caused something like complex PTSD but that’s another blog post I don’t really intend to write…

The problem was really just one particular woman. But that’s ancient history now… Or is it?

I was on a run today and guess who I saw. She didn’t see me, or possibly she saw me first and pretended to be fascinated by her phone.

Here’s my heart rate graph, see if you can guess where I saw her.

It’s the big spike just before 35 minutes.

I actually felt pretty alarmed just to see her. All the feelings of anxiety came back in an instant and I felt the rest of the run feeling sick. I guess I’m a bit surprised. Before lockdown when I used to get the train to my new job I always used to feel the stress when we passed my old job’s building, but I really thought that I wouldn’t be so easily triggered now.

Anyway, the good news is that it’ll probably never happen again. This was along the high street in the town centre and she lives in a different town, so it was probably an unusual visit for her.

Judgement

~ e.v. ~ 2 Comments

The first piece of exciting news is that I have been selected for Jury Service! Ahhhh. I told my manager and he was like “yeah, fine”, but then he told the company owner, who is now having a bit of a tantrum about it. I don’t think he’s come across the situation before as he doesn’t seem to understand the options and currently thinks I don’t need to do it if it inconveniences him (nope).

I can ask to defer it until another time in the next 12 months if my employer won’t give me the time off, which is probably what he’ll want me to do. I don’t really see why my employer gets a say at all, to be honest, and I would prefer to just get it out of the way. I need to respond to the summons within the next few days (or potentially be in contempt of court!) with either an “ok” or “I can’t do it on this date because [reasons], but I can do it on these dates instead” and at the moment I’m twiddling my thumbs waiting for my employer.

There was a post on Reddit earlier that said something like “in relationships, look for people who make your life easier, not harder”. Very apt.

Anyway…

It’s three and a bit weeks to go until my next half marathon. My last few weeks of running looks like this:

I’m mostly focusing on durations rather than distances. I haven’t really decided on a target time or pace, but it should be between 1:30 and 1:40, hence why you see a lot of 16km runs (which take me about 1:30 at an easy pace).

My body is hungry, tired and achy, and I am so fed up of the weather! The 18km on Wednesday included a 60 minute tempo, which included long stretches of running into strong wind gusts. Try holding a tempo pace in a 30mph headwind, it’s not easy!