Light at the end of the tunnel

The glass was almost half empty this morning but let's just go ahead and make it half full. First choice for this post title was "Just shoot me". Here lately, I've been feeling awfully similar to what I think a poor, old, lame horse would feel. My other choice was "Humpty Dumpty", more on that later.

Week has been one full of trials. After brewing all weekend about how I wanted to broach the topic on Monday morning, I decided to just come on out with it. See, my company has been going through many changes, very few of which have been positive. As these changes have evolved, I'm beginning to see more and more demand on my time for work which is taking away from my other "duties". I say duties jest fully, as these duties are my big rocks, the ones that fill my jar first. The ones that make my life whole. The brewing had to do with me trying to make a difficult decision to move on from my current role in the workplace. Brian and I have been planning on me moving on before Emma's starts school next fall, to allow one of us to be home in the morning/afternoon to see her off and be home when she gets out. With all the stuff going on at work right now though, we are thinking this may take place sooner rather than later. I'm struggling, of course. I'm a workaholic by nature, have a real hard time with the idea of not contributing to our economic well-being, feel like I've worked hard to get to where I am and hate to walk away from it - whether it be for a while or for good. I'm sure there will be more discussion to come on this topic, but expect some changes will be made before the end of this year.

On the physical front, my left leg is still giving me lots of troubles. Amanda and I endured a "short" 14-miler last weekend, and I was able to make it through with the help of some ibuprofen; however, we were dragging and my leg took a few days of recovery to get to feeling better. Come Tuesday evening, I thought I could manage through a 10-miler mid-week run. Hit the trail, felt pretty good for the first half of the run, turned around and not sure if it was the pain of my leg or the headwind and snow, but I suffered through the next 4 miles before calling it quits at 9. Leg was so sore the next day, I've literally been limping around for the past two days. So, made an appointment with a Physical Therapist and started that yesterday. Apparently, my hips are out of alignment, one side is anterior and the other side posterior (could it be from birthing 8 pound babies?), causing my left leg to "appear" to be shorter than the other. The length of my legs is virtually the same but with the way my hips are sitting, the left leg is taking a beating. I'm striking hard on the heel and spinning on the ball, causing undue stress from the heel all the way up through my calf, shin to my hip. It's nice to know that there is an underlying mechanical reason for why I feel like I am falling apart, but discouraging given that ING GA is only three weeks away. With another PT appointment scheduled for next week and very little running on my plan for the short term, I'm going to try to still run/walk the marathon. I'm sure I'll be slower than a turtle but given that I have plane tickets, race registration, friends to meet up with, my dear friend's baby girl to meet, etc - I don't want to cancel my trip. Worse comes to worst, if I really feel I can't go the full 26.2, I'll drop back to the half and run with my GA buddy, Amanda and her hubby. Training buddy, Amanda, reminds me and I keep reminding myself - "this is NOT the Olympics". The only person I had anything to prove to is myself. It's not my last race ever. There will be other marathons. This is my mantra for the few weeks to come since my initial race goals look pretty far out of sight at this point.

On a brighter note, looks like we have a nice weekend ahead of us, with no major plans but lots of time for family. Emma is super excited about watching the Annie movie tonight as a family. Grammy had bought the movie for her and let her borrow it. We have front-row tickets to see Annie, the Musical next month here in town, so we figured it would be good for Emma to see the movie first to understand the characters and story line. The following two weekends will be just as great, with the local St. Patty's Day parade and Easter, there will be some fun stuff going on. so, I do have so much to be grateful for and other lights to focus on. There is a "light at the end of the tunnel" for my current trials, maybe not an easy fix, but all things that can be overcome.