Hanging In, Hanging On

When all else fails, start running. - Dean Karnazes

Ahhhh this quotes resonates so well with me lately. So well. It's been, well, an interesting few weeks to say the least. I know life ebbs and flows and there are really good times but sometimes there are bad times.

Well, we have been dealing with one of those difficult times. I say 'we' because I know it affects my whole family. All I can tell you is that I haven't been myself, though I couldn't exactly tell you why. Everything has been making me incredibly anxious, and I am simply unable to shut off my brain at night to go to sleep. I knew it was coming on, I could tell things were getting worse, but I thought I could control it or at least continue plugging along, managing it myself. If you follow me on Facebook or Twitter, you know I've also caught a bad streak of luck lately between a car accident, emergency trips to the vet for my dogs, and unexpected pricey house repairs. All things I should have been able to handle in stride, but at the time, seemed to me the catastrophes of all catastrophes. I felt like I was on the verge of losing it at any given moment. Which is ridiculous, I'm aware, because things could be so much worse. I just seem to have a hard time recognizing that right now. I started to dread Sunday nights with such passion because it meant having to go back to work on Monday. So much dread that you would think I work in some horrible sweat factory. Which I don't. Needless to say, I was in desperate need of hitting the reset button. HARD.

As cheesy as it may sound, it's been running that has gotten me through the past few weeks. It has literally pulled me through each day. Which is funny because lately I had not been counting on running for much. I felt out of shape and slow and had little faith in running. Again, this is cheesy, but running had faith in me. Or something like that. Each run started to be better than the last. A little bit easier. A little bit faster. Slow but steady progress. Through running, I finally started to feel like myself again. The worse my days at work seemed to be, the better my runs were. Some sort of weird equilibrium going on there.

I wrapped up last week with 80 miles. My highest mileage week in quite awhile. 70 miles the week before that. I'm in the pool 5 days a week, which has kept my hip issue silent and my core strong. And, dang it, it felt has good. I felt good. I'm still not where I want to be running-wise, but I'm starting to have faith that I can get there. I had one of the most relaxing and stress-free weekends that I've had in awhile. My weekend consisted solely of running, reading, a few movies, and me in my pajamas by 6 pm and in bed by 8:30 pm both Friday and Saturday nights. I need more weekends like that.

Though I still had some Monday morning dread last night (who doesn't?), I'm starting to feel like this funk is behind me. Hard work, patience and faith will pull me through. That's my mantra anyway.

[P.S. I did decide to run a Spring Marathon. Just a small, local one. The Army Marathon on April 21. No plans or grand delusions of running a PR. Just running "for fun." Or something like that.]