GW

After waking up at 6 am with a migraine, I knew yesterday was not going to be the running day I had been waiting for. Luckily, I was able to deal with it, go back to sleep, and wake up a couple hours later ready to enjoy the day, if not a run.

A bunch of silver dollar whole wheat blueberry pancakes later, we decided on a last minute bike ride with a vague idea of the route. By the time we stopped at a bike shop and crossed the park twenty minutes later, I was starving. We picked up juice and baguettes with cold cuts, hit the west side bike path, and headed up to the GW bridge. It was a bit tricky finding our way onto the bridge, but crossing was fantastic. The path over the bridge is uncrowded and there's a cool fresh if not twinged with car exhaust breeze. The view is fantastic, more for being impressive than beautiful. The part of Manhattan that I recognize looked far away. It felt even farther away once we crossed the bridge and ended up riding through a park in Fort Green, NJ.

We saw a deer at the park entrance and groundhogs at the picnic area by the water we rode by at the bottom of the long hill. Verdant is the best way to describe the bike path, or perhaps verdant and hilly. Wildflowers and ginormous leaved plants lined the way and filled the air with the scent of wood, pollen, and dirt after a rain. The top of my quads felt the uphills; my arms were tired from holding up my body on the downhills, and my hands hurt from the sustained gripping of the brakes. All good news! Working the front of the leg is supposed to help runners stay balanced. Apparently all the work running does for the hamstrings needs some countering if knee problems are to be avoided. My arms got a bit sore quickly because I've been working them with pilates, and my hands hurt only from squeezing, not from lupus related joint pain. We returned home almost six hours after departure, and although we stopped for food and drinks, that's still a solid cross-training outing (at least measured by the sweat dripping into our eyes).

I think the meds are working. I don't want to jinx anything, but I have felt almost nothing lupusy in three days, and that has kept me feeling incredibly positive even as my head has kept me from running. Instead of "it's not one thing, it's the other," I feel "thank you, universe, I can handle the lesser of two evils." Of course, the attitude depends on the day and where exactly I am on each front, and work, sleep, whether I've had chocolate that day, if my favorite tv show is on, the weather.... It's exhausting and rather thankless to keep a positive attitude all the time, but hard not to when I'm consumed by relief.

I'm working from home today to hopefully end-run late nights at the office early in the week that could cut into my sleep time. If the head and weather permits, I'll run this evening. Very little would make me happier. How many times can I say "cross your fingers"? That should have been the name of my blog.