Ridiculous

I was trying to find one word that kind of summed up my life right now and really, ridiculous just seems right to me. Continuing on from last weeks saga of many, sort of, emotional upheavals going on in my life this week continued in much the same stressful vein with 6 bouts of the flu (Ol’ man, #1, #3, #4, #5 and #6) and 3 chicken pox (#4 pretty much all gone, #3 very very sick with it and #5 a relatively mild case so far.) And it was my birthday, which we mostly ignored, which was fine with me, really. And I’m training for a marathon that is happening in a month from now.

Who’s idea was this?

I literally am just putting my head down and trying to soldier on through the storm- no, like really literally. On my birthday, April 1st, it snowed. In Vancouver. On my birthday. The ol’ man was home recovering from the flu and everyone else went down for a nap so I headed out for a nine miler. I froze. I had ice pellets hitting me in the eye. The whole thing pretty much sucked until I finished and then it didn’t suck anymore and I was glad I did it. Happy Birthday.

Today was long run day and I had been juggling in my brain the logistics of trying to get a run in with #3 and #5 home. It was supposed to be 18 miles, so it became clear that wasn’t going to happen and the weekend wasn’t much of an option because the ol’man is working. So I decided I would do a 9 miler looping close to home- #3 and #5 would be fine in front a movie and I would be very close to home. The treadmill just wasn’t an option, anything over 5 miles on it and I feel positively like a gerbil. I would then do 9 miles tomorrow- split the workout on back to back days like I had read about in Runner’s World. I headed out feeling rather guilty because although #3 assured me he was fine and demonstrated calling me in an emergency he just looked awful (#5 was quite happy with a movie and some cookies)-  so I cut my run short at 5:77 because I was too worried and feeling bad for leaving sick children at home. Tomorrow the older boys will be here to help so I should be able to manage the 9.

I am behind in training and definitely worried about it. I have to run a marathon in 1 month and on top of the regular old stress of setting a goal and trying to reach it, I have teenagers running amok, parents being forced into an old folks home (by me by the way) banks dissing us, vomit, diarrhea and pox galore and I’ve got to fit 18 mile runs into the middle of all of that.

I am calling on the running gods to give me strength… I wonder if there is a patron saint for runners? If you can hear me… prends pitie de moi… Au nom du Pere, du fils et du saint-Esprit. (Amen).