Looking Ahead

Our back yard looks empty. I’m mourning the loss of our beautiful cherry tree in the middle of the yard. It took a hit a year and a half ago, the same morning we left for the Florida Keys a heavy wet late spring snowstorm cracked one of the big limbs.

We cut that down and left the rest of the tree, but last week our heavy wet fall snowstorm broke the remaining limbs and it wasn’t going to survive. I’ll plant something in its place, probably a fruit tree of some type, when the time is right. I'll miss the cherry blossoms in the spring, and the shade.

I’ve been in a sort of half-funk lately. I’m not depressed but I feel somehow at loose ends. I think it’s finally starting to catch up with me, the fact that I have no immediate running goals and that huge part of my life’s focus is really blurry right now.

I’ve been filling the time with domestic projects, which is nice, cleaning out and organizing all the junk and making room for other things. I have made a goal to study for my oncology certification exam over the coming year. And I’m looking forward to the completion of the woman cave.

I haven’t been running with anyone else, I’m not ready to do anything where I take the focus off how my ankle is doing yet. And I haven’t been in the mood for sharing that time with anyone else, either.

I’m having to not only physically guard myself, but somehow I feel the need to keep my thoughts and mental processes to myself and to positive things while running. I’m unable to listen to anybody else’s stuff. Once I am more confident that I can run with a free mind, without the little nagging voice reminding me of my ankle, it will be easier to be around others, for now, I’m in self-protection mode.

I have made it to an hour of running, it doesn’t hurt while I run, but before I warm up in the morning, my ankle is slightly stiff. It’s not painful, but it reminds me that it’s there. I keep taking days off whenever I feel like it, but I’m sort of pushing it with that. I’ve taken a lot more days off the past 2 weeks than I really needed to.

It’s a luxury right now being able to do that, but there is some little gear grinding in the back reaches of my brain that is nagging at me to get off my butt and get moving more consistently. The weather doesn’t help, we’ve had snow, ice, and are expecting more in the coming week. I’m going to Arizona for a few days, maybe the sunshine and warmth will help my attitude and my ankle.

One thing I did do this week, I finally finished reading my copy of Running on Empty by Marshall Ulrich, and I’m planning to write a complete blogpost on that, sort of a personal review, wrapped into my own perspective.

I started reading it months ago, while I was training for my Badwater double, but was too tired, focused, and reluctant to read further at that point. Now that I’ve finished reading it, I’m really glad I waited until now, because I don’t think I could have thought about the book or appreciated it in the same way if I read it earlier this year, before I did my double crossing.

More about that later. The sun is up. I really need to get out and run today.