Catching up
Oops!
I haven't posted an update in a while. My fundraising has slowed down quite a bit in the last few weeks. I am hoping that my event at the Dexter Pub at the end of April will make up the difference for me to reach my goal, but if it doesn't, I won't have much time left to throw together some new fundraising ideas. And I'd really like to devote most of my time in May to job-searching, so..... crossing my fingers that all goes well! Get thee to the Pub on 4/26! Remember that 10% of the entire day's sales will be donated, so you can have lunch at 11am or drinks at 10pm or anything in between--it will all count.
Running is plugging away, although the last couple of weeks I've been in a bit of a slump. My longer runs on Saturday and on Tuesday go really well, which energizes me greatly that I'm making progress, and I'm astonished by what I can now do. But shorter runs of only 3 miles done between longer runs can leave me completely defeated--my heart races and squeezes like it did when I first started running, I ache all over, and sometimes I can't even finish the whole 3 miles. It's incredibly discouraging, and makes it difficult to get back out and run the next day. I'm sure that this difficulty comes from the longer runs and the pain just lags a couple of days, and since none of this involves an injury, it's really just a mental battle that I need to get past. It's becoming all the more clear to me why people say that running is only part physical and mostly mental. Even if you have the drive to get out there and run every day, there are still constant mental battles in conquering the weather & elements, knowing when to prevent injury and when to push through the pain, and finding new motivation every day even when things become stale and your body puts up a fight.
This creates almost a bipolar approach to running, as now I dread short runs and really look forward to long runs. On that note, this week's long run tomorrow will top 8 miles! What is more, our little Ann Arbor group will be meeting with runners from across Southeast Michigan at a larger park tomorrow. It will be nice to meet a few other people and have a change in scenery.
Finally, one more note (and it's a good one!). Abby and I were just interviewed by a local newspaper, the Dexter Leader, to talk about our experiences--hers with cancer and mine with Team in Training. We look forward to seeing the article printed in next week's paper on Thursday 4/16. I'll definitely post a link to it then. Something else for mom to put on the fridge, eh? ;)