Dream report: goth boots, renovations, and a terrarium.

Dream report, from my nap just now. (TLDR) Never mind me; I do this.

I was so tired and was like “why am I staying awake; it’s Saturday?” I lay down for a nap and was out fast. I went into a deep sleep for an hour and a half. Weird dream.

I was at my condo in Sarasota. I parked in the carport and the person next door got home and put like 5 pairs of big gothic boots down at her door on the way in. I asked her if they were her shoes. She seemed young for a 55+ community; she was maybe my age, or a little younger. She said yeah, but I could have them. I walked over to her door and saw inside along the wall were racks of videos and cassette tapes along the wall. I thought that was a good idea; I had so many video tapes and cassette tapes. I saw that she had a Skinny Puppy VHS. It was the 1996 video collection.

Her daughter came home. She was super tan, like too tan really, with dark hair and side braids, wearing a bikini top and jeans, I think. Looked like a crusty bartender from a beach bar. She passed by me and went inside. They started talking amongst themselves. I moved on, looked for my car and realized I had parked it at the wrong condo. Went to find it. (It wasn’t my actual car in the dream.)

As I headed towards where I thought I had parked it, a big construction excavator scoop was throwing dirt everywhere. I got to my car, and it looked like a tractor had driven over it. It was dirty and covered with tracks, but was unharmed, so I got in to move it to the right place. Some old man was walking around the circle, so when I was trying to move it down the road and across, I backed in between 2 other cars on the side of the road first, to get out of his way. He shook his head at me, because that wasn’t a parking spot, and kept walking while scowling at me disapprovingly. I drove off, around the circle, did a donut in the road and headed back to my condo. I had apparently inherited this condo from some older lady who I didn’t know. There was some stuff in there.

The lights were dim. I couldn’t get them to turn on fully. My friend Garrett was there, and he was going to do some work on the condo for me. He was asking me what I wanted done. I started telling him some things. As I was telling him, I walked into the next room. In the center of that room was a large rectangular thing, about 7′ long x 5′ wide x 8′ tall. It had vertical sections about 2-3 feet tall, in which there were various pets.

I told my friend, “oh my, there are bunnies in here, and a bunch of fish” They probably need fed; I don’t know how long this lady has been gone. I don’t know how to feed fish. Can you help me? And what about these bunnies? There are so many of them.

My friend came in the room, climbed in the top section of the thing, all sideways-like. There was some sort of jungle environment with a parrot (a Red Lored Amazon parrot) perched on a rope in there. There was also a chicken (a hen) in there, and some other animals I couldn’t see in that top jungle section. He had his whole body in there, lying inside the top of the terrarium, and he grabbed the parrot by the body. I warned him that the bird was probably going to bite him. The bird bit him. He let it go. Then the hen grabbed the parrot and stuffed it in her mouth, like a magic trick, and the parrot popped it’s head out of her mouth. They had done this trick before, it seemed.

I told Garrett that I definitely needed the electrical worked on soon, because it was way too dark in there, and that I would probably need a cat door to go from the living room into the screened area, which I wanted made into an enclosed sunroom. He was out of the terrarium by then.

Then I woke up, with a headache.

If you read all of that, you really need to find something else to do with your Saturday. And so do I, now that I brain dumped that here and my headache went away in doing so.

2024 REVEL Mt. Charleston Marathon

I ran the REVEL Mt. Charleston Marathon on April 6, 2024. This was my 29th full marathon, in my 16th U.S. State. My official finish time was 3:44:34, an 8:34 pace. It was extremely painful. Also, this was my first real altitude run (7633 ft. elevation at the start) and the altitude made some things very difficult. I really didn’t expect it to be as difficult as it was, for either my muscles or for my lungs. It was a struggle to get enough oxygen. There were lots of complications when I tried to do anything. Shredding layers of clothing, for example, put me over the edge every time because of the additional effort that took.

The muscular pain began at mile 7. It really intensified around mile 10, by mile 16 I felt like I was dying because my legs hurt so bad. A runner encouraged me at that point, and it truly did help my mental state so much, although the pain never went away. In the second half of the marathon, after the pain had me reeling, everything was bothering me. There was this one person who was doing intervals and kept passing me and then I would pass her. Normally it would have been great, but she had a very loud foot strike, and it was just getting on my nerves. As this went on over and over again, and I was in the pain bubble, it was very difficult not to associate her with the pain. I know better, but it was overload for me.

I got some GoPro footage of the race, although less than I would’ve liked because it was all so much to deal with. In the beginning my dexterity was really bad, between being very cold and having on so many layers of clothes. Later I was just in too much pain and was more concerned with managing that than doing much else.

When I tried to turn on my Shokz OpenRun (bone conduction headphones), which I had never run with before (rule , nothing new on race day, was broken here), I couldn’t figure out how to get the power on and had a mild panic attack. I had waited until the last minute to power them on. Thankfully, I found someone to help me.

The start of the race was icy and there was snow everywhere. I was very worried about my footing initially. The first couple miles were particularly icy. I never felt a slip beneath me though, not even a little. They were cautioning us to be careful, so I was. Mile 1 was slower than it would’ve been because I didn’t want to fall. It was in the low 20s and windy. I bought a big wool overcoat at Goodwill, something nobody would ever run in, and ditched it at the start. I also bought a fluffy jacket to wear underneath that, which I ended up ditching around mile 3. I had planned to wear it to mile 5, but I didn’t need it. My heart rate was really high from the elevation, and that warmed me. The sun also came up and that made me more warm. Later I removed the second pair of gloves (those were throwaway gloves), then the ear warmer headband, then the buffs (I wore 2), my hat, my arm warmers, and finally my primary pair of gloves, all at various stages during the race. I ended up losing one of my buffs somewhere. Thankfully that was the only accidental loss. Removing clothing was difficult while going fast, but I hate being cold, so I wore a lot of stuff. I also had hand warmers in my bra and in my gloves, which I ditched (always at an aid station, where there were trash cans.) I checked a pair of underwear, pants, a long sleeve shirt, and a mylar blanket in my gear check bag for the finish. I’m glad I did that. Once the race was over, I got cold very quickly. During the race it was full sun, which was helpful at the start, but I didn’t love it towards the end. I prefer overcast. It still wasn’t overwhelmingly hot, but the Sun was bothersome, and just a bit too warm; it would have been better without it.

I felt my muscles threatening to cramp several times during the race, and I was really not able to bother with getting my BASE Electrolyte Salt out of my handheld. I had forgotten to bring the sublingual Hylands for before the race. I felt like I had too much going on with the pain, the GoPro, and the shedding of clothing. I just breathed through the cramps and thankfully, that worked to keep them at bay.

After the race I met up with my friend Jacque, from the Atlanta Track Club. She completely crushed her goals and is truly an inspiration. It was nice to have someone to hang out with afterwards. I met a couple of her friends and we stayed and talked for a while before getting on the bus to head back to the strip.

I set an “official time” personal record by 2:21, and I now have a 10:26 buffer on my Boston Marathon qualifying time for 2025! Apparently, my marathon distance time was still better at Marine Corps in 2017 (thanks, Strava, for pointing that out, so now I still have to beat that) but my official time wasn’t as good as MCM because of the amount by which I exceeded true marathon distance at that race (26.6), whereas this one I got closer to accuracy with 26.32. Every little bit matters.

I achieved my goal, which was sub 3:45. I abandoned my stretch goal when I felt like I was dying from the pain during mile 16; I renegotiated with myself to do whatever I could to at least hit my primary goal. It was questionable, because I was in a lot of pain for a very long time. I’m so thankful I was able to make it happen.

I’m calling it a win. But not enough of a win that I don’t think I can beat it sometime. šŸ˜

Sorry that I didn’t get to this sooner. I have now pre-dated the post to reflect the accurate timeline. I published it normally, when I first wrote it (much after the fact), but fixed the date to fit the timeline later.

Here is the race video I made to put on my Facebook profile and on my YouTube Channel. Go ahead and follow my FB and please Like, Subscribe, and Comment on my YouTube. Iā€™d love to hear from you!!!

After getting cleaned up, I spent an hour in the sauna at my hotel, The Westin Las Vegas Hotel and Spa. The heat, and the stretching I did in there, felt amazing. I’m sure it helped a lot with my recovery.

The next day started with a free yoga class. That was painful and difficult, but very helpful. Then I walked around the Las Vegas Strip and then had a really nice dinner with the 5 team members from my company who were in Vegas for LeadsCon. The food at Bavette’s Steakhouse and Bar was delicious and the atmosphere was wonderful. It was great to see everyone. I didn’t get any photos, unfortunately, except for this one before I headed out. Wearing heels the day after a downhill marathon may have been a bit masochistic, but it was a nice restaurant and I wanted to look good!

I enjoyed my time in Vegas. Although this race was really painful, I am so glad I did it. I will do another REVEL race sometime, I’m sure. Now I know what to expect, somewhat. I will do more leg days at the gym next time beforehand!