when life (with help from politics) spoils my plans

I cover state politics for a living in Wisconsin. I don't know if you all have paid attention to the ridiculous shenanigans that have occurred in Wisconsin during the past six months, but to give you a photo primer most of it looked something like this:



All of those people have been in Madison since February, protesting the tactics and proposed legislation of this guy:



Gov. Scott Walker. The biggest deal to protesters is the collective bargaining legislation, which Walker says will help close the state's deficit. The legislation effectively eliminates collective bargaining rights for most public employees who belong to unions, including teachers, construction workers and nurses. The legislation was tied up in court for months but the state Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that it could take effect. Additionally this week both legislative chambers passed the budget after hours of debate (13 for the Assembly and nine for the Senate), the bulk of which was Democrats and Republicans yelling at each other.

SO. I love politics. I am not paid to have an opinion on any of this and I am, truly, professionally neutral about all of it. I say that because I'm not writing about any of this here to make you feel one way or another about unions, collective bargaining, Democrats, Republicans or Scott Walker. You can feel however you want, I don't care. What I DO care about is the fact that it's Friday morning, I have already worked 45 hours, I am fried and exhausted and I have not run since my 10K on Sunday. This is me right now:



Except not at the royal wedding and not related to anyone with an engagement ring worth more than my apartment building. Just BLAAARGH! The company I work for has also been feeding me lots of free food, which I appreciate, but the end result is that I am full of pizza and sandwiches and chips and Diet Coke and I feel gross and sluggish. Hopefully, now that the budget is passed my life will become more manageable. I had a mini panic attack this morning when I realized that my July half marathon is a mere THREE WEEKS AWAY and my longest run so far is 9 miles. Now I know I can run a half marathon on the base I've built so far; I know it because I ran a half marathon once when my longest run was 4.5 miles. But I would like to be competitive and to actually race it, and to toe the starting line knowing I am prepared. And I don't feel that way right now.

HOWEVER. I am planning to go running tonight, and doing that will mean I have really only missed one run this week. That is not a big deal. I also know that sometimes life happens and training suffers and you have to GO TO BED so you can get up in the morning and spend another 14 hours listening to politicians argue with each other. I'm not really beating myself up at all about any of this, which is good; I am mostly just finding it annoying. Dear legislators, DO YOU NOT UNDERSTAND THAT I NEED TO GET MY TRAINING RUN IN? PLEASE WRAP IT UP.



RUDE.

I will now go crank out one more story and try to get out of here at a reasonable hour, like maybe 6 p.m. Dare to dream, kids.