That's a new year if I've ever seen one

Well, lo and behold, the Mayan's were wrong. We are still here, more or less. There was also a Christmas, a Haunakka, a Kwanzaa, maybe some sort of Pastafarian holiday, a New Year, a like 3 other non-holiday days in between. Each one being more devastating than the next. And again, in the legendary words of Bill Pullman in Independence Day: "We will not go quietly into the night! We will not vanish without a fight! We're going to live on! We're going to survive!" That is what I kept telling myself. And the fact that I am here writing this means that either I did survive, or, I have a very social ghost. Either way, it was a struggle. There was running, and injury, and gift opening, and injury, and New Years, and some horrific sickness which was like an injury. Let's take this one at a time here.

Let's start with the running shall we? Right before the holiday-splosion I was doing well. My legs were churning out some good runs. Got all the way up to 11 miles, had some good tempo runs mixed in as well. Life was good. And then, as Dave Chappelle would say, keeping it real went wrong. First, the aforementioned deathness (that is sickness to the second power, so as to be closer to death) arrived. It hit me like Mike Tyson punch. See left for an actual photo of me vs. the deathness. But there will be more on that later. So that kept me in comatose state for like a week. Finally, I got back out on the road (or treadmill). I got some miles in, and then injury. The left side of me decided it was going to violently revolt against this running thing. First it was the left calf, then a tendon on the outside of my left foot, and then my left knee. It was a protest, a bodily Arab Spring if you will. Come to find out, shoes have a life span and mine more resembled Bernie from Weekend at Bernie’s than the shoes I had come to love almost a year and 500 miles ago. Well, we all know what that means...yeah, these babies. Pretty sure I just dropped a nuke on those upstart protesting limbs. Target eliminated. I will have a review up soon for the new kicks.

Speaking of new things, there was some gift-giving occurrence that happened recently. Something about a fat guy, in red, in some flying apparatus? No, not this one, this one. Yes, Santa stopped by my house and left some treats for the little Sasquatches. There was much paper-tearing, some paper-eating attempts, a relatively sturdy bike construction job and an equally successful toddler toy barn raising. I consider it a success and they went bat-shit insane for it all. So. Well done fat red man. Me on the other hand got clothes to be less pathetic in (thank you mom and sister), clothes and aforementioned shoes to be a running machine in (thank you dad and Mrs. Sasquatch), a Nike fuelband + to have imaginary numbers assigned to my awseomeness (thanks mom and step-father and certain coworker), and finally some great freebies from a couple fantastic companies (thanks EnergyBits and Premier Protein, my shameless plug). It was good haul. I was blessed, and very thankful. Sorry, no joke there.

Enough of the happy things, on to the epidemic sweeping nation: The Flu. As mentioned above, some sort of deathness attacked me over the holidays. I am pretty sure I lost the battle and got pummeled on my retreat. I should have seen the ambush coming, my kids both had it. One had to go to the ER on thanksgiving day and the other was so out of it Christmas morning it took her 2 hours to want to open gifts (it was a floodgate though, one rip and bedlam ensued). I thought I had survived the wrath, and I was sooooooo wrong. They (Wikipedia) say that the human body is around 60% water. I tested that theory by wringing every last bit out of my nose. Many trees, or whatever makes tissues, had to die to stem the tide of snot making escape vectors out of my nostrils. And that wasn't the whole part. Fever, there was a fever. Apparently you can have such a fever you hallucinate, because I woke up talking to my grandma that has been gone for over 10 years and then later waiting at the door for a friend, at 3AM. Drugs, we need more drugs, STAT! A face-melting fever wasn't enough, however, as this was a 2 front war. Asphyxiation was the awe to fever's shock. Apparently breathing is more important than I had previously thought. Every time I tried to do it, my lungs decided coughing was a more exciting way to draw in oxygen. And so, for a week and a half, I learned what smokers cough feels like. You will flu epidemic, you win.

And so, in the end, all is now right with the world. It is 60 in Kansas in January, major college football players are making up girlfriends and their deaths, Lance Armstrong went to Oprah to tell us what we all knew already, and KU is still winning the Big 12. So glad things have returned to normal.