Taxed

Ali had to head up to Orlando around noon Saturday.  I started up on my outside duties first.  I kept quite busy.  I finally decided it was safe to trim back the cold damaged part of the areca palms around the pond.  I was holding off just in case we got another freeze.  I then mowed and weed whacked the entire property, something that hadn’t been done in months.

I then moved inside and continued in whirlwind chore mode, sweeping the house, unleashing the Scooba on the hard surfaces and doing laundry.  As always, especially when Ali isn’t around, I MUCH prefer getting as much done around the house up front in a weekend so I can back load the rest with stuff that I WANT to do.

I had made arrangements to go visit my mom that evening.  The point of my visit was to hook up the fax portion of her printer and to get her tax stuff.  Later in the day I decided I would just do her taxes on the spot since it doesn’t take all that long.  Of course the dogs were thrilled to get a trip to Grandma’s place.

Mom wanted the fax part of her printer hooked up so she could fax her resume in for job opportunities since that is a pretty common request.  It only took me a few minutes to get that hooked up and working.

I then loaded up Turbotax.com to do mom’s taxes.  Mom was convinced she was going to have to pay in a significant amount of money to the government this year because of her SS benefits that had no taxes taken out.

Last year I filed mom’s taxes with the free version of turbotax.  This year they sucked $20 out of me.  Sure I could have used the free version again but if you get the BASIC version it will carry over all of your info from the previous year, a huge time saver.  I decided $20 was worth my time.

So I carefully went through mom’s tax forms and answered the questions presented to me.  The entire process is very straightforward.  In the end it turned out that mom actually was going to get back a small refund instead of having to pay in, she was VERY happy to see that considering she is unemployed.

My reward for helping mom out was a very tasty chicken parm dinner that she prepared.  I brought a bunch of stuff from our garden that was used to make a nice salad as well.

Another reason I wanted to keep my Sunday clear was I had exercise plans.  I intended to run the same big loop that I did when doing the half marathon distance, approximately 7 miles.  I wanted to follow that up with swimming in the pool at the water park.

When I did my 13.1 miles the temps were around 50 and the sun was nowhere to be seen, hidden behind thick clouds.  On Sunday when I started running the temps were about 25 degrees warmer, the air was humid and the sun was shining down brightly.  I knew this would translate into a more difficult run but still, I figured if I did 13, 7 shouldn’t be such a big deal.

I went out at a pretty decent clip early on with my first few miles being paced in the mid to high 8’s.  I didn’t feel too bad.  Somewhere around 4 miles the wheels started to come off.  I am not sure if was more hamstrings that were sore from a 300 on Friday or a layover from being in the seated position for endless hours in the van a few days prior but my legs felt bad.

Each segment of the square that I was running is straight AND long.   Mentally I was starting to feel defeated as I couldn’t even see the point where I had to turn right for what seemed to be eons.  I tried to snap out of it.  I’ve had periods during long runs where I started feeling pretty bad but was able to pick things up later on, not yesterday.

The longer I ran the slower I ran.  By the time I turned back onto Livingston Road my legs were begging me to stop as I trudged along at a snail’s pace.  There was incessant mental dialogue going on that went something like this.  “All you have to do is stop running and the discomfort can end” followed by “What the f?!  You ran 13.1, this is only 7, don’t you dare stop you f’ing p%ssy!”  The battle between these two voices in my head added to the anguish of the run, I just wanted it to be over. During the last mile or so I was running incredibly slow, between an 11 and 12 minute mile.  I was that spent.

Finally the punishment came to an end when the GPS clicked to 7.00.  I staggered around like I drank a bottle of whiskey.  My legs almost felt like they were not there.  I sat and tried to recover for a long time, at one point turning the truck’s AC on full blast to try to cool down.  It seemed impossible that just a few days ago I was complaining about being frozen solid.

I listened to a message from Ali after her half marathon.  It sounded like she had a rough time as well but she survived it.  Finally I felt ok enough to drive up to the water park parking lot.  When I walked in I saw a sign posted saying the lap pool was closed for repair.  Oh well, no swimming I guess.  I was so damn tired I could have cared less.

Instead I took a dip in one of the pools to clean up, sat in a lounge like a zombie and then grabbed lunch there.  It was enjoyable.

When I got home I had a few more things I wanted to get done around the house which I took care of first.  Then I headed out to my pull up station.  I needed to make another attempt at the 180, this month’s Bar-barian challenge.

I had made two previous attempts at the challenge and both times wound up with 11 reps.  The last time I tried my hands slipped off the bar before I could try a 12th rep.  This time I tried to address the issue by getting some weight lifting chalk, applying it both to my hands and the bar.  The chalk made a big difference and I was finally able to squeeze out a 12th rep, barely.

I actually relented and took a two hour siesta afterward, my body was just spent.

Later I finally got to watch the most recent Predators movie.  I really didn’t know what to expect, I have always been a big fan of the series, especially the original.  I really liked this latest creation.  They did a nice job assembling the cast and it came damn close to capturing the magic of the original.  The only thing missing was Arnold, otherwise the film had all the action and suspense you could hope for.  Definitely check it out, A-.

Ali comes back home today, she spent an extra night up in Orlando with the girl she ran the race with.  Outside of the trauma of running the half marathon, it sounds like she is having a good time.