Zero

~ e.v. ~ 3 Comments

Today is the first day I’ve intentionally not taken any citalopram. I’d got it down to 5mg a day for the past week or so, so I thought I’d try the no dose.

I don’t know if it’s because of that or because I’m not running or going out in general, but this evening I feel really depressed. Hmm. Well I am frustrated about not running but that’s no different than the past few days, and my foot seems to be behaving so I’m still intending to run again at the weekend.

So… I think it’s probably withdrawal. I was hoping though that the 5mg dose was so low as to be insignificant and cutting it down entirely wouldn’t be much different. Maybe not.

Weekends

~ e.v. ~ 5 Comments

After taking a few days off running due to my toes going numb this past week, on Saturday I did 10k and was very pleased that everything felt fine. Then in the afternoon I went for a short walk and after 10 minutes my toes went numb. So that wasn’t a great success, but I walked for over an hour this morning and it was fine, which is confusing but promising? I’ve just decided to take a week off running and see where I am next weekend. To some people, taking a week off running is just called a week. To someone who usually runs 70-80km a week, it feels like a gargantuan task. How will I survive?

This is on my left foot and the left side seems to be where I’ve had all the problems lately. The left side of my body is a checklist of minor issues. This foot issue, slightly tight ankle/achilles tendon, shin splints, tight hamstring, achy hip… really I should just blitz my left leg with some strength and stretching work and maybe things will align a bit better and the nerve will settle down again. At the very least, not having shin splints every couple of weeks would be an improvement.

I spent most of the weekend playing Factorio on my PC. Which is a bit strange, because spending hours playing PC games isn’t something I’ve done for a long time now, but Factorio is incredibly addictive so it keeps me entertained. I also subscribed to Google Play Pass, which give you access to quite a large selection of games and other apps on Android, but I haven’t really explored it yet. Maybe I will try a game out before I go to sleep.

Nerves

~ e.v. ~ 4 Comments

Sadly I am going to end my current 38 day running streak. I have run every consecutive day for the past 38 days, for a total of 388km. That’s an average of 10km a day. Not bad!

Before that, I was on a 40 day streak, but took one rest day. So I’ve run 77 of the last 78 days.

But the neuroma in my foot isn’t quite right. I thought it was improving, and maybe it is, but the last three days while I’ve been running my toes have been intermittently numb. That’s actually a new symptom. Over the years I’ve had a lot of dull achy feelings, some sharp pains and even some burning sensations, but I’ve never had it feel numb while running. I don’t know what to read into that. It’s confusing because the mild discomfort I’ve had from it over the past few weeks has settled down, so I thought it was improving.

So anyway… I’m having a few days off running and I’ve broken out the ice packs and I’ll try a few days of ibuprofen just in case there’s some inflammation that’s pressing on the nerve. I forgot how much my stomach hates ibuprofen. Some of the noises it’s made today…

But really my attitude is still the same as it has been for the last few years. I don’t mind having a few days down time every so often, but in the long term, either the nerve cooperates or it gets treated surgically.

I’m finding that metatarsal support helps. Here’s a page showing how to create a home-made metatarsal pad.

Dreams

~ e.v. ~ 6 Comments

Last night I had a dream about my old job. I dreamt that we had taken on a project to inject pizzas with water. That was the project – to fill syringes with water and inject the water into pizzas. I went along with it to start with but after a while I started to question what exactly we were trying to do. I don’t think I got an answer.

I woke up feeling confused and looked at my watch, which said “05 04”. I looked at that for ages (well, probably less than a minute) trying to figure out what it meant. What is 05 04? It can’t be the time because it doesn’t start with “07” (yes, I remember thinking that). After a while I realised that 05 04 was a real time after all.

Then I went back to sleep.

Disney

~ e.v. ~ 2 Comments

I have recently got a Disney+ subscription and I’ve been watching…

The Simpsons! I started at the beginning and I’m enjoying it. I think this could keep me entertained for a while…

The Mandalorian. I wasn’t sure what to expect with this, but I’m enjoying it. It’s kind of like The Witcher (minus the nudity) meets Clint Eastwood westerns. In the Star Wars universe. I’m sure there’s a conscious spaghetti Western influence. It’s surprisingly minimal in terms of plot and characters, but it works. One of the things I really did like is that when they introduced a female action hero type character, she was believable. Turns out the actress is a 38 year old MMA fighter, which might be why.

And I watched Solo, the Star Wars film yesterday…

I don’t think anyone really wanted a Han Solo film (myself included, hence why it’s taken me this long to see it), but it’s pretty good! The characters are very good, ironically with the exception of the two main characters. I don’t really know how you can replace Harrison Ford’s charisma as Han, and this film doesn’t. I mean, he’s not bad, but he’s just not Harrison Ford. But then that’s kind of the problem with the idea in the first place. Han from the first film works so well because he’s old enough to be cynical and arrogant. That’s his charm. Take away the life experience and I’m not sure there’s much left for an actor to work with. A cynical and arrogant 20 year old is just annoying, but what’s Han Solo without the cynisim? He’s just someone waiting to mature into an interesting character.

His girlfriend is also questionable, but the writing around her character isn’t very strong. It’s “tell” rather than “show” and she’s not really believable as a result.

But all the supporting characters are great. Donald Glover as Lando is especially good, as is Woody Harrelson, and so is Phoebe Waller Bridge (fleabag).

Overall it’s far better than the newest trilogy, but not quite as good as Rogue One.

Feelings

~ e.v. ~ 5 Comments

I have felt a bit better today but my watch thinks I’m more stressed today than I have been for months.

I think I got triggered. Shortly before my mental health slid I was reading about the fact that an actor from The Expanse (Cas Anvar, or Alex Kamal, the pilot) has been accused of some sketchy behaviour on Twitter. By quite a lot of people. I don’t quite know what it was about this, but I read quite a few statements by people saying they felt traumatised by it. Cas Anvar’s behaviour is not something I really want to discuss here, but I think reading about others’ experience through trauma and their ways of dealing with it and the ways it affected them reminded me of my own trauma, which I’d been successfully not thinking about at all lately.

Hmm. I guess I will be ok in a few days.

Holism

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For the last few weeks my running effort has been consistently quite high, which sounds good, but I’m not so sure. I did a couple of long runs last weekend and then I remember feeling ’empty’ Sunday afternoon. Not tired, more drained.

This last week was better, but I seem to be having a bit of an anxiety relapse at the moment. Maybe it’s also because I’m still gradually coming off the tablets, but I feel very bleh today. I woke up at 4 AM and felt quite stressed, which is something I used to experience all the time, but I haven’t had it lately. I feel tired now because of that. I don’t know if I feel worse now because I’m tired. I want to wake up tomorrow feeling well rested and content. I think whether I am awake at 4AM is a good barometer for my mental health.

I don’t really feel like I’m running any more than I have been doing, but I have various apps tracking my running intensity using various methods and they’re all saying I’m training the hardest I have been since I got a heart rate monitor just over a year ago. I don’t feel like I am, but the numbers say I am. Maybe I am over training a little. I don’t know.

The other thing is that I have something called a neuroma in my foot. Or at least, something with the symptoms of a neuroma (I had an ultrasound a few years ago which didn’t show anything, but the podiatrist I was subsequently referred to thought the ultrasound was probably not significant. And after trying to look at ultrasound images of neuromas myself, I have to agree with him).

So, a neuroma is basically an enlarged nerve. They can cause a lot of pain (it’s a nerve), but for me it’s been nothing but the odd twinge or tingle for years, possibly thanks to a pair of insoles the podiatrist gave me, which have a metatarsal dome on them to lift the metatarsal bones when I run. Neuromas are not uncommon and they can be removed surgically, and if they’re limiting your life then that makes sense, but for me, I’d like to avoid it getting to that point. (Paula Radcliffe had one removed). I mean, I think inevitably one day I will upset it a bit too much and I’ll have to have it removed, but I’m hoping that’s 15+ years away.

Unfortunately lately it’s been twinging and tingling quite a lot more than it used to. I think I set it off by wearing a new pair of shoes, either because I didn’t have the insole in, or because they were laced slightly too tight (I suspect this option), or perhaps even because it’s been so hot and my feet have swelled a bit and put more pressure on the nerve.

The problem with the insole is I have only one pair and it’s really worn. I have tried so hard to find a replacement and it’s just painful. Most of them are unfit for purpose because they’re too soft, they’re not durable, the dome is so big that it completely misses the point, blah blah blah, maybe there’s the perfect metatarsal dome on Amazon but it’s hidden in a sea of rubbish. The insoles I have are from a German company called but trying to get hold of another set in this country is near impossible (unless you’re the NHS, presumably).

Anyway, I did some research and there is an alternative method people use, which is to cut out the dome shape from a sheet of self adhesive podiatric felt and then stick that into your shoe. I ordered a sheet of felt and I now have a lump of it stuck to my shoe. I’m not completely convinced, because it’s flat and not a dome, but maybe that doesn’t matter. We’ll see.

Work

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With work, we are still working from home. Things are starting to re-open and I am guessing they’ll want us back in the office in the near future, which I have to say doesn’t really excite me. My sister’s employer have announced they want her back in her office next week. This seems slightly dubious because the official government advice is still to work from home if you can. More relevant to me, the trains are still running a reduced service so I don’t know how practical it is for me to get to work anyway.

So I’m a little bit apprehensive about that, though I haven’t yet heard anything.

I’m also a little bit apprehensive about the fact I am overdue a salary review. I was contractually owed a salary review after six months of employment, which was the last week of May. So really the review should take effect from June’s salary. It seems unlikely that’s going to happen now as the payroll has probably already been processed. I don’t particularly want to have to bring it up, because it’s hassle for me, and I just shouldn’t have to. I will make sure it happens at some point though and I’ll make sure it’s backdated to June, too (easily done since it’s in my contract). So in that respect there is no real urgency, and, of course, with the uncertainty of the pandemic, it might be better to wait a bit anyway until some of that uncertainty has passed before putting them into a position where they have to decide whether to be generous or not.

But… the main thing I learnt from my last employer is that I should seek quickly to terminate employment relationships where I can’t trust my employer to behave as they should. Things are strange right now with the pandemic, but when things start returning to normal, this is the kind of thing I’ll be thinking about.

Solstice

~ e.v. ~ 2 Comments

So, the thing is that I like sleeping. Lots of people don’t get enough sleep. I’ve been there and done that too. It doesn’t kill you, and actually, you start getting used to it so you don’t really ‘feel’ tired. But it dulled my cognitive abilities without me really noticing, and, overall, it’s just not great.

So I try to get lots of sleep. Especially with all the running I do. Recovery is good, you know?

But it does feel a bit weird at this time of year. Lying in bed at 9:30, trying to feel sleepy, but it’s still daylight outside. Hmm. For most of the year it feels very natural to be in bed at this time. At the moment though… it doesn’t. Maybe I should move to Scotland.

Dreaming

~ e.v. ~ 2 Comments

I have had a recurring theme in dreams lately of being back at university and not knowing my timetable. The setting changes a lot, but the detail that I am not in full knowledge of my timetable is persistent. I kind of resign myself to not attending all the lectures and think it’s probably OK because I’ve done well enough in other areas that it won’t affect my grade, but I feel quite anxious about it. I’ve dreamt variations on this theme four times that I remember in the past month or so.

I don’t know why this keeps coming up. It’s been over ten years since I was at university.

Strangely, last night all the people in the dream were from secondary school. The main one is a girl I probably never spoke to and probably haven’t thought of once since I left school. Yet, there she was in my dream, getting annoyed with me for not knowing my timetable(!).