My half marathon is coming up October 23, and it's finally time to get off the couch and start training.
The astute readers will notice that I am beginning my training log on week 2. This is no mistake. This summer has been a busy one. I spent June doing an accelerated project management class. July was full of camping trips and ungodly hot weather. The usual excuses.
Oh, and then August rolled in.
On August 1, I took my 18-year-old cat Mishkin to the emergency vet for a nosebleed and severe congestion, following a nasal infection that wasn't responding to antibiotics. The vet diagnosed a nasal tumor. We could pursue palliative care or chemo.
As much as I love Mishkin and could not imagine a day without him, I could not put an 18-year-old cat with multiple health problems through chemo. The vet gave us a small pharmacy's worth of medicines to take home, and estimated he had perhaps a month.
The medicine helped ease his symptoms a bit, but he continued to decline. Most of my free time was spent on the couch with him and I slept on the couch with him almost every night. I knew he didn't have a month.
On Monday night, Mishkin and I decided that it was time. He kept waking up unable to breath and would barely leave my side. Tuesday, August 9 we took him to the vet and he went to sleep for the last time.
The English language is inadequate to describe the depth and breadth of such a loss. Happiness and joy are pretty standard, uncomplicated emotions like a sunny day without a cloud in the sky. But every grief is a bespoke thing like a sunset, filled with its own unique blend of colors and shades. No two sunsets are the same, and no sunset remains the same for more than a few minutes.
By the way, in the middle of this, my hamster died too.
In summary, I did not complete week 1 of my half marathon training plan, and between the IT band flare up and this (waves hands at the universe) I have thrown out all hopes of running a PR this year.
I have even literally thrown out the training plan I made and failed to create a new one. My current plan is to "just run a lot." Those who know me well know that this sort of free wheeling is completely antithetical to my nature.
During what would be week 2 I've managed to get outside and run twice. 3.45 and 3.22 miles so far. I will probably create a better plan in a week or two, but having run a half dozen half marathons as training runs during the spring, I'm feeling pretty bold about my ability to run 13.1 miles in October.
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