Pass me a paper bag and a shovel

What an interesting day, all starting with Sat night. I had my usual work day on Saturday but it ended in a bit of an off tone. First I didn't get out of work until quarter til 12 (am) which is not so uncommon, not common either, except for the fact that I was only waiting for one table to leave and it wasn't my table. That's neither here nor there. I get home around midnight, I was hoping that I could get a decent night's sleep, haha, apparently I was mistaken. As soon as I curl up into bed my stomach decides that it's not in a good mood. Oddly the same thing happened on Thur night too. I have no clue what's brought this on since I was fine on Friday, so that ruled out a bug and I didn't eat anything out of the ordinary. Needless to say I was up for a good portion of the night. Fast forward to this morning. I woke up feeling a little better, but very weak, uncertain if I was up for racing today. At around 8:30am I got a call from my family letting me know that they weren't going to make it due to the snow, no worries plenty more meets no need to trek through the snow from NH for a meet in MA. I just figured they were getting pummeled with snow. I finally got up, fighting the temptation to just blow off the meet and stay in bed all day, and made my usual pre-race breakfast of toast with PB and coffee. Then I look outside, there's a white out. Holy cow I thought we were only supposed to get 1-3 inches all day, there's already 3+in and it's still falling at a heavy rate. So that's why the fam wasn't coming, not only was it probably snowing up there it's blanketing the city here. Okay so the toast and coffee settled in my stomach, good sign, but I was slated to race a 400/800 double at the meet, not good. I was entirely too weak to pull off both races so I called my coach and told him to scratch me from the 400, then we'd see how I felt after my warmup as to whether or not I'd race the 800. I warmed up, did drills and what have you, still a bit off but I decided to race anyway. I figured if I had to drop out of the middle of the race I would, not that I ever use that as an option, this was an exception. I had a teammate Laura in my heat with me who helped to ease a bit of the nerves. Up to the line, on your mark, set, *bang* and I'm off. I'm off fast, a little too fast, 33 for the 1st 200. Leading I ease back the pace, 400 hit 68, kept steady, still in the lead hit the 3rd 200 in 37, then came down the last 25 meters and was edged out by my teammate. No big deal, I was happy for her since this was her first race back from being injured and she out kicked me fair & square. I did have other things to be excited about I FINALLY broke the 2:25 barrier that I have been stuck at for the past year. I finished in 2:22.55, crazily on a sour stomach and bad night's sleep, impressive. Wondering what I could have done if I was on a good day. Can't change that, on to the next meet. Afterwards we started cooling down inside around the outside of the track but part of it was blocked off so it was proving to be a bit difficult. Figuring out that neither of us were going to race any more events I suggested maybe going outside and running in the snow. She was aboard and we took to the snowy half plowed/shoveled sidewalks of Cambridge for a beautiful serene scenic cooldown.

It was a long day but it was good. That was until I got home and had to shovel the sidewalk and attempt to unbury the car. Leave that for next day.

Scene overlooking the Charles