The energy is gone. Mentally and physically exhausted. I don't want to even expend another drop trying to fix some dinner, which I desperately need, but the kitchen is waaaay over there… 10 feet away, and it's getting late, so I may as well just sleep by now (god.. 9pm and I want to sleep). So, 6:30am start time due to 2 days worth of mail from a holiday. Didn't leave until 6:30pm. And I only did my route. In the morning I had to help with setting up another route due to our local problem worker not showing up again, and won't for the rest of the week, but I was out and on the road by the time I normally am. And all that damn ice took me an extra 1h15min.

Baby steps everywhere. Flat footed walking everywhere. Can't turn on your feet like you normally do or you fall. Have to walk like a damn robot when every sidewalk and steps are covered in a half inch of ice. A couple years ago I was curious how many steps I took on a standard 8hour day route (meaning 5 hours of street time – the rest is between driving/office/etc). It was like 14000 some and came out to 12.5 miles or so. This route is 7 hours of street time… ON A GOOD DAY. I'm really thinking of getting a working pedometer out there again and finding out because between summer and now, I think I'm easily taking 30-50% more steps, and it's showing.

So I punch out at 6:15 and go warm my car up for 10 min. Meanwhile I try to stretch and my legs are just having none of it. They want to quit on me and I literally can't keep myself up. I have to lean on everything. Sitting is even more painful because then the legs think it's really time to rest and just start doing that pulsating wave of pain/go to sleep mode. So I drive back to Madison and get to my polling place by 7pm to vote. Doing my best to keep myself looking strong, seeing as how I'm still in uniform, but the line is taking way to damn long and it's aggravating me how slow the old ladies at the front are taking everyone's names. They get to me and one of them wants to take a small break to tape up her hand. _(*&)#(*$%&)!!!! Get out of there and go to Woodmans to get some groceries. I literally can't make it to the other end of the store. I get to the organic foodish section and just kneel down to the ground and look like I'm trying to read the various bottom shelf of chips. Just kinda sat there for a couple minutes. I did see a couple I liked, so I picked them up and decided I better get up off the ground. Continue on down the ice cream isle to get my sherbet that I love and when I get there I still can't go on. So I just sit my ass on the shelf and look around for a couple more minutes.

I swear, in all my life I have never been this exhausted. Running cross-country in h.s., swimming, bike trips, anything… nothing. The great news is ever since that blizzard, the weight has been flying off. It's amazing how simple the formula is. Expend more energy than you take in. I hit an equilibrium about 3 months after I started 3 years ago that I couldn't seem to get past, but wasn't exactly upset about. Yeah, sitting in front of a computer for 12 years didn't do wonders with my metabolism. However, I never changed my diet, and my current daily routine balances it out with that initial shock carving a lot of it away. Now however, it's very much tilted in one direction… expending more than I take in. And that intake includes donuts, energy drinks and all sorts of crap someone who is on a diet would be killed over if they reported it to their dietician. So yeah, those magazines that claim “Eat what you want! Lose 10 pounds!”, don't tell you about needing to run 10 miles a day or bike 50, etc. I can only imagine that if I “ate right”, I'd probably look like I did in high school by spring. Tonight, however, I entirely expect to lose 4 or 5 pounds while sleeping which is not that unusual for me lately. The question is what do I do about it tomorrow. And seeing how our problem child at work is out again and the week is looking harsh, it's just going to continue.

Funny thing… on my last swing a lady walked past me and said, “You must either be made of steel by now or entirely sick of this.” I said, “Both actually. This is the most unbelievable workout ever, but day in and day out it gets tiring fast.”

And btw, never tell your postman, deliveryman, garbage man, etc., “I bet you've had enough of this (weather, snow, rain, heat, humidity)” or “(Hot, cold, muggy, wet, etc) enough for ya?” or “I bet you're ready for (insert next season here).” You are not the first person to have ever said that and are not being witty. In fact you're probably the 100th person who has said that in the last day. Best line I've had this winter was a woman who just raised her hands in the not guilty way and said, “I'm not going to say a thing.” Thank you!

OH! One more thing. Ted (the guy whose route I'm on b/c he broke his leg earlier) came in today and will be now permanently doing light duty until he maybe gets better, if ever. Got to talk to him finally and found out what really happened and what he sees happening. It's worse than I had heard. I had heard conflicting stories and the one I had been telling people was sadly wrong. I can't remember what I said to him that started this tangent, but he straightened me right out with all the metal that is in his leg and what happened. He was doing the baby steps down a handicap ramp. One foot was on dry, another on ice. Moved onto what he thought was dry and slipped. The other foot slipped until it hit dry at which point all the energy just shot through his leg and literally ripped his left foot from his leg. He said that there was a single tendon and a little bit of skin keeping it attached to his leg (as he points off to the left where his foot was laying). I think I almost visibly gagged.

Anyways, he said, “Ryan, in all honesty, I have my doubts. I think there's a 50/50 chance I may not ever carry again. This is going to be your route and frankly I'm glad you have it. There's nobody else in here that has the determination you do to handle that monster. And it is the biggest route ever! Tell me you know that now! Tell me that isn't the biggest route in this building and you walk all of it every day without crumbling like all these other people do on their smaller routes.”

Damn I felt good… until the end of the day. But that's just pain. Like the quote at the UW Band practice grounds, “Pain is temporary. Pride is forever.” I swear I never thought I'd ever think that way about a job like this.