Checking in....

I exist, but it isn't an existence I want right now.

My father is going to pass away any day now and it has just been a sucky, sucky year. And while he will be at peace, which is important, those still living are left with all the grief while trying to keep on living. There is going to be so much to do over the next year or two as my mom makes decisions about where she wants to live, all while trying to grieve over the loss of her husband (they would have celebrated 55 years this June).

Work is crazy. We have a project due tomorrow, which is helping me to stay busy.

And with this craziness I have made a decision. I will not be racing my 1/2 Marathon over Memorial Day weekend.

I have built up to 10 miles. I had done 8 miles a couple of weekend, 9 miles on Easter and 10 miles the weekend after that. Last weekend I did the BAA 5k and then 6.4 flat miles the next day.

This weekend I was supposed to race a 10 mile innaugural race by the beach. But the race didn't start until 9 so I wouldn't have been done until 11 and then after recovering and an hour drive back home, it would have been so late and I had a lot of things i wanted to do. So when my running partner, whom I hadn't seen since New Year's Day until last weekend, needed 9 taper miles, I chose to join her. It was the longest I'd ever run with anyone else. She and I had run almost 8 miles in December, but usually our long training runs have been on our own (I give her credit for doing so much of her marathon training on a treadmill this past awful winter).

I was scheduled to do 11 miles this coming weekend and 12 the following weekend. But I just don't want to do those runs. I want to enjoy my family and not be in pain. So I think I will now back down my miles to the 6-7 miles I want to be my normal non-training weekend runs.

Another reason I am stepping away from the 1/2 Marathon is I need to get the scale moving in the right direction again. For the majority of this month, the scale has said 197. That is way, way to close to 200. And I gained weight the couple weeks before my 1/2 in October. I can't afford to gain. I don't want to wait another 5 weeks (last time my appetite was huge was 1-2 weeks after the race) to start losing weight again.

I am a little sad about not doing the race. But I am actually really excited to get back to runs I enjoy, and find new routes (the 9 miles I did today was NOT on the bike path! It was on real roads with real hills!).