It's Been a Long Time

Hi all,

I know it has been a couple of months since my last post, and a lot of things have happened. Things got so crazy that I needed to break away for awhile and just take care of myself. But I'm making an effort now, today, to get back into posting, and trying to keep myself accountable for my running/training.
Let me start with the biggest thing. In November, the love of my life, Bella, got really sick and was on IV fluids for days, and I had to make the hardest decision that any pet owner has to make. I had to have her put to sleep, and it devastated my entire world.

How do you say goodbye to your best friend?

I think I kind of shut down for awhile. I just couldn't deal, and it's still really hard to talk about. She was my first dog (MY dog, not family dog) and my heart just broke. She was my family for the time that I got with her, and I really miss her.
When I lost Bella, I decided that I needed to try and re-focus, so I started running with Abby, my other boxer. We started with one mile at a time, with walk breaks of course, since she has to pee all over everything. It was really therapeutic to go out and just tune out of things for awhile. (FYI--it's hard to run and sob at the same time for me=good therapy). We have worked our way up to 3 miles, more or less, at a time.

Another kick in the stomach was that my right arm started hurting in November, the one I broke skateboarding 5+ years ago.

Before surgery--eew!!

After surgery--eew!!

I got it checked out, and the orthopedic surgeon said that I needed the metal bars and bolts taken out of my arm. Apparently it is somewhat common to have to remove hardware years down the road, and so January 5th, I had surgery to remove 1/2 of the metal--oh yeah, because there was metal on both bones of my forearm, I could only have one side done at a time (so the bone will have time to heal between surgeries, or else I could break it again doing just about anything)! So I had the surgery, which has put me out of running for most of 3 weeks (no can do, running with an arm wrapped with 5 lb. of bandages and swollen to 3x the normal size!). I have gone out once, and was able to do 1.25 miles, and plan to go out today and try for at least 2, if not more. Prior to the surgery, I was doing 3.5-4 miles at a time (Abby would do the first 2-ish, then I take her home and go back out). Also, she has made me faster, and I'm now doing approximately 11:30-11:50 miles!! Woot woot!

So with Debby Downer out of the way, I will bring you the positives of my "sabbatical" (haha):
1. I got very ambitious and have already signed up for some different races for 2012. I have signed up for the Cincinnati Flying Pig 10k on May 5th, which I will be running with my sister-in-law (big brother is doing his first marathon that weekend too!!) I also signed up for the Warrior Dash on June 2 and am working to recruit other people to run it with me!! The most difficult of my goals is to run the Athens (Ohio) Half Marathon on April 1st. I planned that one prior to finding out I had to have surgery, so I'm a bit behind on training at this point, but I'm gonna figure it out--I will complete it, it's just a question of how much I may have to walk during it too, but I'm not too worried about that part--I still have 9 weeks to train. I worry that I'll have lost too much ground being off for 3 weeks, but I guess that is something I'll have to deal with.
2. I decided earlier this month that it might be a good idea to consider adopting another dog, since Abby is home on her own while I'm at work. I went on Petfinder (which I do occasionally, just to see. Like window shopping, in a weird kind of way) and found a male boxer named Percy, who was at a shelter about 2 1/2 hours away. He was super-skinny, 41 lbs, and they thought he was about 6 years old--normal size for him would be 65-70 lbs. I went to see him and of course fell in love--he is a white boxer, but I don't think he looks anything like Bella (despite what the vet says!). I brought him home on Thursday last week, so he's been here for 4 days and is settling in fine, except for an intense fixation on the cat. He doesn't hurt her, just smells her somewhat roughly, pokes her with his snoot, and she gets mad and swats and hisses. He just looks shocked when that happens.

Percy smiles in his sleep

I go back and forth emotionally with whether it was the right decision to make, getting another dog so soon after losing Bella. I'm just trying to work with it day by day.

I go back to work in 3 days, after I get the OK from the doctor. Oh yeah, and 6 months-to-1 year from now, I get to have the other surgery to remove the other hardware from my arm, so I get to do this all over again...

Well, time to get on the running tights, long sleeves, and shoes, and get back in the game! Look forward to catching up with what everyone's been up to!

--Marge