No sleeping in this morning. Met Ted on the trail. Did not feel like I had a good attitude the entire run. Missed my warm bed all the way long. The inversion dampened my spirits. I can feel the quality of the air that is going in when I pick up the pace. And when I feel the quality is not good, I do not want to pick up the pace. And I feel depressed, a bit of a panic from the realization that something I depend upon for life is does not have very good quality.
Finally decided to do an attitude improvement tempo pick up. Ran the uphill mile (the last one of the standard tempo course, 0.5% grade) in 5:55. That made me feel better. My mind has a natural tendency to notice or recall connections or associations. So I remembered Pushkin's cure for dampened sprits that I had to memorize in the Russian equivalent of grade school or some time early in junior high: Выпьем с горя; где же кружка?
Сердцу будет веселей.
which in my translation, is: Let us drink from sorrow, where is the mug?
The heart will be merrier. Combine that with the fact that your average Russian literature teacher approaches Pushkin
the same way a devout Christian would approach the Bible. No wonder Russia has serious alcohol
problems. While Pushkin wrote beautiful poetry, I think the teachers should emphasize that had he chosen not to drink, it would have been even better. And he probably would also have had a less explosive temper which would have given him the wisdom not to duel.
Ran with the kids in the afternoon. Found a story that just cracked me up about how a bug in a cake printer produced a very
interesting birthday greeting message for an 80-year old Italian lady. I could not stop laughing for about 5 minutes. Good exercise for the abdominal muscles.
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