Struggling...

I managed to squeeze out 5 miles this morning, but I just wasn't feeling it.  Possibly my slowest miles of the season, but I think I might just be beat up from yesterday's mile repeats so I'm not getting too worked up about it.  Possibly also b/c my levels of stress right now are higher than they've been in years probably.  Neither my husband nor I slept well last night.  I think he was awake almost all night unfortunately.  We talked a few times when I woke up but I kept trying to remind him that I had a major hearing for work today, probably the most important of my career so far (and I've been a lawyer for almost 10 years!), so I really needed to get some sleep.  Hearing is now over (mostly successful).  Unfortunately, he is about to go into a very long stretch of work.  I am hoping to be able to rely on some of my non-marital support network this weekend to kind of talk things through and start wrapping my mind around the medical issues that have arisen this week (not relating to my body though). 

Our neighbors are out of town for a while now and I actually emailed them about it yesterday, still waiting to talk to my folks more and my besties.  I almost talked about it with Joy this morning, because she ran the first 1.5 after camp with me (she was with me Wed morning when we decided not to brave running through Hermine), but we got caught up in talking about other things and it was so nice to have my mind on something else that I didn't mention it. 

But if anyone reading this knows anything about CRT or ICDs, leave a comment and I'll email you some specifics.  Ugh.  But if you don't know what any of those acronyms mean, just consider yourself blessed! 

Not much else related to running that I can say right now.  Last night my husband and I went to cheer for a 5k that one of my best friends was running.  We saw at least 5 people from boot camp running too, as well as a couple who are on the local team with me, so it was a lot of fun.  I think we were maybe the only true spectators out there on the course, and we saw runners after about .15 miles and again right around mile marker 3.  It was so much fun.  My friend stayed with a co-worker of hers who was running her first 5k ever.  That was exciting. 

Our boot camp instructor tries to motivate us all the time by saying things about getting out there and doing it, otherwise you'll just be sitting on the curb clapping as they go by.  Well, honestly, I love sitting on the curb clapping!  I feel so encouraged in a race when someone is cheering, and a million times more so if I know they're cheering for me specifically.  I cheered during our local marathon almost 2 years ago for about 10 specific people, plus general friends I knew running, and I had so much fun doing it.  I walked and drove to about 5 different spots along the course. 

-- A weird aside about that.  So our local marathon (White Rock) is in December.  I cheered in Dec. 08.  I had my hair in a ponytail and was wearing blue swishy running pants (which I actually hate to wear to run b/c they're too noisy) and a green fleece.  I remember very specifically because someone took a photo of me running home carrying my signs, and one of my besties used that photo in a collage she made me for Xmas that year.  Anyway, my point is that I wasn't wearing anything particularly memorable or out of the ordinary.  About 8 months later, dead of summer, we had a new instructor leading our boot camp class.  My husband and I were a little apart from most of the group, doing our partner exercises, and the instructor was near us.  He told me he recognized me from the marathon.  I was like, what?  He said I was out there cheering and he remembered me.  I said I was and kind of looked at my husband like, is this guy crazy?  That was the end of it and he's not an instructor anymore (or at least not at our location), but it's something my husband and I both thought was incredibly weird.  I mean, there are hundreds of people cheering along this marathon course.  How in the world would he have remembered I was there, especially when there is no chance I was wearing the same thing?  He must have an absolutely incredible capacity for facial recognition.  I don't think there's anything particularly memorable about me.  Like if I was a stunning beauty, sure, maybe he'd remember me, or if I had a huge goiter on my forehead, that would also be memorable.  But I don't think I stand out of any crowd appearance-wise.  So bizarre! --

All that to say, I guess I'm not the only person who thinks it's special when someone's out there cheering during a race.  And since I wasn't running last night, I was happy to be able to take the opportunity to cheer for my friends, and also cheer for random runners, telling them they were almost there, to power up the hill, to give it a final kick, etc.  I even through out one of my fave support lines -- pain is temporary, internet results are forever!  (My other fave is, that's not sweat, it's your fat cells crying!) 

Strange that this is so long.  I'm still more of a blog reader than a writer, and I looked at one of my usual reads, A Merry Life, today, and there was a cool post about her favorite foods, one for each letter of the alphabet.  I was thinking I'd do a similar post today but I've already written a lot, so I'll save that idea for some other day.  And maybe in that time I can make my A and G choices.  I actually decided not to read her list b/c I wanted to come up with my own thoughts, but I saw the first few and saw she had avocado for A, and I thought, oooh, I love avocados, but I'd put it under G for guacamole, but then I saw she had grapes for G, and grapes might be one of my all-time favorite foods, so now I don't know how I'll arrange apples, avocado, grapes and guacamole.  Maybe I can have runner-up awards for a couple letters?