SpongeBob Strikes Again!

Things have been looking up the past few days.

Isabelle is doing well with recovering from surgery. I've had to hold her back several times because she wanted to chase squirrels, go out the doggie door, try the stairs, and fence fight with Iris. She's not supposed to do any of those things for 2 weeks after her surgery, and it's only been 5 days.

Saturday I went for my longest run in two months, I ran 10 miles on the Power Trail and felt decent. Not great, and I was slow, but it was a nice morning and I decided to get out before my motivation failed and I did it. I didn't have to stop, didn't have to walk, didn't get down over struggling with my lack of fitness. I went out 6 miles and came back 4, and walked the final 2 miles, on purpose, because I planned no more than 10 miles. I didn't want to be sore or tired, and it was a good strategy because this morning I feel fine.

I need to save something for next weekend too, when I'll be on my feet for 12 hours.

The BEST news of all is that my dad's bone marrow biopsy results came back and it was good news, it is the same thing he's been dealing with for years, it hasn't transformed into something worse. He's in his third week of chemo and other than being tired, he's doing well. When he told me that on the phone yesterday I felt all the tension in my body release. Like a giant body sigh...

If you're not familiar with the SpongeBob story, you can reference it here. You can scroll down toward the end of the post, to Visitor in the Shadows. After residing in our garage for the past several months, I kicked SpongeBob out, made him change out of his Halloween clothes into something more appropriate, and dropped him off at Felix's house. SpongeBob is a notorious couch surfer and I thought it was time he moved out for a while. We're tired of feeding him. Who knows when he might reappear, but for now, that's one less mouth to feed.

The weather has finally turned for the better. I planted some lettuce and spinach in the boxes to see if we can get away with growing anything yet.

I heard from my longtime ultra running buddy Dr. Andy Lovy, U.S. national ultra team physician, the other day and he told me he will be in Oklahoma this fall, and I am considering trying to get myself in shape to at least run the 12 hour there. I don't have any big expectations but it would be a good way to start my comeback. We'll see what happens. It's more about seeing Andy than the race. As my favorite ultrarunning icons get older, it's more important to me to see them when I can.

And Bob is in Badwater, so the double is on, and I plan to be there at least to crew for the return trip. I'm also considering a Grand Canyon double this fall. It all depends on how things go and how my fitness returns. The most important thing is that I am looking forward to things again, I didn't realize how much some of these stressors, mostly my dad's health, were weighing on me.

Relief...