Tender latissimus dorsi splits wood again

The level of physical demand I endure to complete the splitting of the firewood has necessitated a broad neglect of my running adventures. If I play my cards right I can be done splitting with one easy day. More rain is in the forecast, but gratefully, for my needs, the temperature remains cool.

I think I've cut more than I did last year, but I won't know until it's all stacked. I love the look of that grand pile, but I'm seriously choked that I was so dim as to pile the stove lengths in a low spot. I wasn't thinking. When the snow melted the support for the three, twenty foot stacks went away and they all toppled over into the spring run off. Since then it's been raining with another ten to twenty centimeters predicted for tomorrow.

Since the melt I've had to wear rubber boots back where I was cutting and today I was splitting while standing in mud up to my ankles. I had to walk through water half way up my industrial grade rubber boots to get to the stove lengths. It's disheartening to have put so much energy into cutting it all up before the sap began to run, only to have it drink up even more water than the sap would have provided while it stews in the pond.

It's not really a pond. My frustration is showing. It's actually the track from the bulldozer that we had in to fight a fire several years ago.

Everything is sodden and cold. The garden is now planted, but we'll need some heat to get things to germinate. The truck was parked in it's normal place by the shop and it sunk into the lawn so far I had to have a friend help me pull it out with a four wheel drive. The basement is still running like a babbling brook as any drain tile protection is redundant at this point. The water table is very higher than the basement floor.

In drought years of course we are grateful not to be as dry here as some others close to us are, but just now it would be nice to give the sump pumps a rest for a while at least.

The road I've made to get into the firewood is swamp now. Or most of it is at least. Still no signs of significant mosquito infestation or ticks. Two days in the bush and two ticks. That's unheard of. I'm so grateful to only have the water to contend with and not the bugs. It's made the "hurry up" portion of the firewood project much more tolerable than it would be if I was eating mozzies while working out there. They'll come, but it'll all be done before that.

My body feels great. I haven't taken on so much strength work since I began my running as I'm doing now. The recovery times seem reasonable to me. Last weekend I was a little slow for a couple of days, but that effort made this weekend possible for back to back heavy days.

I hope my brain doesn't turn to mush like it did after last weekends work binge. I was down right dopey through the day after. I love endorphins. They are wickedly addictive. I suspect that all this heavy work with my heart pounding out of my chest is going to influence how I train for running when I get back to that. I've been focusing on endurance, but I think my endurance is proving to be quite well developed at this point. I'm tempted to push some of the strength elements when I focus on racing again. I still need to get a 10km time under an hour so I can begin hounding a two hour half marathon. I see a marathon in my future.