Self-confidence killer

I feel like I just wasted the last seven months.

Because for seven months now, day in and day out, I've been logging miles...on a treadmill. No other form of running could possibly be less thrilling. I'll take hills or pouring rain any day over that boring 'mill. I've tried to make it easier by bringing Arabic verbs to study, or rockin' tunes on my iPod. But in the end, I'm running hard and going nowhere. Such is the reality of living in the Middle East. No one wants to run in 110-degree heat in an abaaya. No one.

But I told myself that it was worth it, because I was going to PR in my half-marathon in mid-August. I even told the trainers at the gym so much.

No more, my friends. Not after it turned out that, between trails that were basically mud pits and kids that would hang on your fingers wherever you went, I couldn't run so much in Uganda. That was all going to be okay, because I was going to kick it up a notch when I got home...but that was before my Weird African Disease set in. It hurts to breathe when I'm lying down. It's hard to walk up the stairs. Forget the eight miles I was supposed to log today.

I'm so disappointed I just want to cry.