Stress management?

Yeah, I need some stress management pointers. My mood has been all over the place this week but mostly very ill-tempered. I dropped and hooked in the Nashville area Tuesday morning and the trailer I picked up had warped doors, an air leak, 2 broke hinges and had not been serviced in 404 days. That is totally unacceptable especially considering that it had been in and out of Laredo at least once this past month. There are 3 shops enroute that somebody could have stopped at and had the trailer worked on, one of which you can usually be in and out of with the trailer in an hour's time. The American Axle strike is still ongoing but as of right now James and I are still able to pick up product for our runs albeit at different locations than normal (James got the Cullman run this week).

Anyway I missed my Tues. run because of having to get the trailer repaired and that didn't help my mood at all. That put me behind for the week. Wed. was a 4.11 miler at Robinson, TX. Uneven road surface and windy, ended up with my right leg/hip sore for a couple of days. Thurs. was 3.25 miles at Pearsall, TX--didn't have to take a walk break this time, I was seriously starting to think that place was jinxing me. I did start to get the stitch again but was able to slow enough to work through it this time. On Friday I had James drop me off at Berryhill Park so I could run home and get my 7.3 mile long run in. It was raining and nasty looking but 15 minutes after I got home the sun came out. The great thing about running the bike trail when it's raining is that nobody else is out so you can hide behind bushes and pee without worrying about anybody coming up on you! Guys have it so easy when it comes to that. I don't usually do the nature thing but the rain and the noisy creek 5 feet from me was making things unbearable and I was 3/4-1 mile from the nearest restroom.

Today is absolutely beautiful, rode with the Bike City group this morning for 12.6 miles then arranged to meet Gary later in the afternoon for a longer more challenging ride. He added a loop with some hills--that is my weak point. The first (and steepest) one we got to I only made it halfway up--had to walk it on up, my legs felt like spaghetti!! I made it up the rest of the hills pedaling but it was slow going at times. We did get the fun part of going down one hill really fast (at least fast for me). I hit 33.2 mph on that one, woo-hoo!!!!!!! If I remember correctly, we did 19.06 miles in 1:18:09. It's currently 75 F and it was great to be able to bicycle with shorts and a tank. No pesky layering today.