Attempting to Beat the Crap Out of the Blues

I always get depressed in late August and early September. I have had many theories about this over the years -- back to school anxiety, post-tramatic stress of ... something I can't remember, allergies. Bottom line is that it just happens. There is nothing that makes it come or go faster. It's kinda like a virus. I just have to let it run its course. Of course, just like virus, you try all kinds of crazy things to make it pass.

I can confirm what drunks all over the world have known for centuries. You can beat depresssion by drinking. Sadly, it only works until you sober up when things are a bit worse than when you started drinking. Did much experimentation with this in my college years.

Putting food on top of depression is a losing battle. Nothing is more depressing than being depressed and fatter than you were yesterday.

Have tried various distractions -- books, movies, etc. Can kinda help but like drinking when done you usually feel worse.

In fact, I've only found one thing that sometimes can make a difference -- exercise. Good exercise really can keep depression at bay and/or make it much more bearable. Trouble is that the absolute last thing in the world you want to when you have the blues is strap on a pair of Nikes and go trot around the block. Lying in bed staring at the ceiling fan sounds like much better idea.

Anyway, had to do something today. I was miserable just thinking about how miserable it must be to be around me. So I went running. In fact, I decided I would attempt to run myself into the ground. There are two ways to do this:

1) Run really fast until you feel like you are breathing fire.
2) Run a really long time until your legs, body and mind go numb.

1 has its advantadges. It's over much quicker, and it looks very manly (unless you puke). But I was afraid of popping the quad again...

OK, I wasn't. My quad feels fine. Frankly, I just hate running fast. I'd much rather run a 10 miler than a 5K. What can I say? I like a lot of air. So I opted for 2. Ran at a decent, though not by any means speedy, clip for an hour and a half. This is 3 times longer than my normal run and half an hour longer than my "long" runs.

The verdict -- I dunno. I think I actually feel a little better. If nothing else, I feel slightly virtuous and too gd tired to be nasty. We'll see tomorrow morning.