Health Report
On Wednesday I found out I had a touch of pneumonia. Just the beginnings of it, thank goodness. I shiver at the thought of a full-blown case, because this was bad enough: fever and aches throughout the body (head, joints), breathing difficulty, cough -- pretty brutal stuff. The doc gave me three big pink tablets. This was Zithromax, and each tablet contained 500 mg of the drug. I took one on Wednesday around noon. By dinnertime the fever was gone. By bedtime, the aches had subsided. By Thursday morning, I felt pretty normal again, until I went up and down the stairs a few times, which left me exhausted, my head spinning. And that's pretty much where I am today -- I've trended better but remain weak. I wonder how much of that is the infection and how much of that is the antibiotics? There's a lot of antibiotic in my body right now, since the idea with the Zithromax three-day course is (as the pretty fold-out Pfizer box says) that the drug builds up in your body and keeps working on days 4-10.

So the Napa Valley Marathon is five weeks away. I'm going to do it. I'm not going to do it in the 3:35 that I was thinking I might before this shit hit. And if I limp home in over four hours, that's OK. It's a strange thing -- part of the point of my training has been to give myself a precise idea of what to expect on race day. I wanted to know how hard I could push it. I wanted to know my time before the race even started. Now it's back to being a big fat mystery.

If all goes well, I'll do some walks in the next two or three days, then some light jogging the remainder of the week, just to remind my body that I'm a runner. Then I'll build up over the following two weeks to something in the 15-20 mile range. Then it's a two week slide into the race.

Hey, whatever. I'm not Frank-fucking-Shorter. Just a plodder struggling to put a little excitement and adventure into his life. I'll run.

Training Log: Jan 22 05
Friday afternoon I noted a sudden and significant improvement in my condition, so on Saturday I did a short run. Just 3.5 miles in about 32 minutes. Short and slow.

Now, two days later, I'm sicker than ever. The fact that Niko got hit with twin ear infections didn't help. He was up a bit and wanted to sleep with me and his tossing and turning and rapid breathing and sighing and moaning had me up literally the entire night Saturday. Then on Sunday we had friends and family over. It was great fun, but in hindsight not prudent. Soon after our friends Dan and Kate left, Niko starting shaking with the shivers. Gave him Tylenol and he conked out immediately, if fitfully. Then I started feeling lousy -- aches in the back, head and a pretty powerful general malaise. Then came the cough, from deep in the chest. At night, I got the shivers, too.

So now Niko is on antibiotics for the second time this winter (matching his total exposure to antibiotics for the first four years of his life), and I am suffering with a 102 degree temp (my usual is about 97.8, so this is pretty high, and it's rare). I stayed home from work today and it doesn't look good for tomorrow. I hurt all over -- except for my stomach. I've got an appetite. Another good and interesting symptom (or non-symptom) is that my sinuses aren't congested.

Anyway, which me luck. I'd really like to get back to working out again. Being down for a while makes me pine for even short runs, rides and swims. Now, I'm so tired and achy, I am going to crash. 'Night.

Falling off the Log
Training log has been absent for several days for a good reason: No training. I caught Niko's cold (Niko says Robert at school had it before him, so maybe we should call it Robert's cold). Anyway, I have walked every day, four or five miles. And I'm feeling better, except for a cough. So tomorrow I think I shall run.

And It's ... No Good!
It's always been one of the weirder aspects of football: 59+ minutes of huge, insanely athletically endowed men crashing into each other, only to be followed by some runt who played soccer in high school (and, unlike everyone else in the NFL, never got the hot girls) trotting onto the pitch to decide the game. When one of these sidewinders sneaks it between the poles and over the bar, the deed is noted but only briefly. All too soon the focus returns to the stars. But should the little guy miss, oh, then he shall dwell in a deep, dark and very lonely place. Post-game, inevitably he will yield a quote to a crowd of reporters who just as inevitably will note that the piteous words were uttered "amid teammates who dressed silently around him." So it was for Doug Brien, who missed not once but twice today for the Jets against the Steelers. Well. At least we know this: No matter how awful you feel tonight -- no matter how disconnected from the world or bereft of love or just plain down in the dumps you are -- you got it all over Doug Brien.

Training Log: Jan 15 05
Swim: 1800 yards. I'm going through a period of weak motivation. In fact, I'm as unmotivated as I've been since I started doing triathlon a little more than three years ago. So just getting something done each day -- anything -- is a bit of a victory right now. I swam. Yipee!

Training Log: Jan 14 05
Run: 7 miles / 1:00:23 / 8:33 per mile pace. Hey! I did a slow run. Nice and easy until I stepped in a hole with my right foot and wrenched my left knee as I tried to keep my balance (and did). But I think everything is OK now.

Training Log: Jan 12 05
Run: 5.1 miles at 7:30 pace. Should have run longer and slower but just didn't have the time or the patience. That's life.

Training Log: Jan 11 05
Swim: 2000 yards. A lot of 175yd/25yd reps, freestyle/breast, the breast for recovery so I could be fresh enough to keep perfect form on the freestyle. But the freestyle sucked anyway until about three-quarters of the way into the swim. I guess that's what a week out of the pool does.

Walked 4 miles tonight under many stars, in the chill, it was good.

Social Security Crisis My Ass
Josh Marshall spells out well what a scam Bush and the Rs are trying to perpetrate:

The Social Security Trustees estimate that over the next 75 years the
program faces a budget shortfall of $3.7 trillion.
As we've noted previously and will again, the Trustees use a very pessimistic estimate of future economic growth to arrive at that figure. But, for the moment, let's stipulate to that amount.
$3.7 trillion is a lot of money.
But how much will the president's Medicare drug benefit plan cost over the next 75 years?
$8.1 trillion, say the Trustees of that program.
And over the next 75 years how much will the president's 2001 and 2003 tax cuts cost if made permanent, as the president wants?
$11.6 trillion.
So you add that up and you get $3.7 trillion we need to cover Social Security's shortfall and $19.7 trillion we need just to cover the costs of the two major domestic policy initiatives of the president's first term.
And yet Social Security, says the president, is in crisis and destined to chew through the rest of the federal budget.

Training Log: Jan 10 05
A lot going on today, so it was great to have the pool back open and sneak a swim in to bust up the day. Short swim and I had no feel for the water at all; nevertheless, good to do something that wasn't hammering my legs.

Swim: 1800 yards: 1x600; 25yards breast, 75 yards free x 6; 1x600