Alas, I miscalculated that last run. I had my doubts and I kept thinking there is no way I could've run more than 4 miles in 30 minutes after just 2 or 3 lazy 30 minute runs over the past few weeks, and a riding season that looks like it's being shredded to pieces by alcoholism. It was just ridiculously optimistic.

And no, it wasn't 4 miles. I thought I included all of the sections of the 4 mile course I measured out last year, but not only did I leave out a significant section, but it's a section of the course that I run twice in an overlap loop. So that last run was probably a quarter mile, maybe half mile short of 4 miles.

When I realized that, I decided to run the complete old 4 mile course last night and also to go all out to see what's the best time I could achieve at this point. All out, the best I could do was 30:40, which breaks down to a not very impressive average of 7:40 miles, which while not impressive is apropos for this point in the season.

So no miracles here. If I'm on the road to ruining my health, physical performance is no indicator otherwise. And I don't say this cavalierly. I'm well aware of my mortality, and sometimes it scares me that this is serious and irreversible. But then I remind myself of my principles and what I believe in, and remember that we all have to go sometime. We can hang on all we want, but the more we make that habit, the more difficult it may be when the time really comes.

I've notice something odd in my right ear in the past few days, ever since the last time I went to practice drums. Kind of like the feeling when you have water in your ear. Then this morning I woke up and noticed an unusually pronounced ringing and scared myself wondering if it was tinnitus.

It's still here, but much less pronounced, and possibly the normal amount of ringing for any rock musician. I'm just noticing it because of that scare. But no, I think it's pretty normal now.

It does bother me that if it turned out to be serious tinnitus, I might have been really affected. Music is one of the things I admit is still a huge attachment, and it bothers me that I would have difficulty if it was taken away, and not voluntarily given up.

Finally, insomnia has come back and has been back for the past week and a half. I'm not sweating it because I'm not working. This rules out that working was the source of the insomnia. That the insomnia recessed for periods of time also suggests that alcohol isn't the culprit, either.

I'm rolling with it, and if I can't sleep, I don't try to force it, I just get up and sit for 45 minutes. If I still can't sleep afterwards, I just stay up and go about my business, even though fatigue sets in later and affects whatever I'm doing.