D-I-N-O-S-A-U-R

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This morning I was sitting on the edge of my bed talking to GCB. I didn’t have my contacts in nor my glasses on which meant that I couldn’t really see anything. I told him that I couldn’t even tell if his eyes were open or not, unless he blinked. The following conversation occurred:

Him: Wait, so you can only see movement? Are you like a T-Rex?!?!

Me: No! I don’t have a big head and little arms!!

Him: You ARE like a T-Rex! You run like you have T-Rex arms!!

Me: …….dammit.

You see, months ago our friend and my marathon buddy Stephanie likened herself and me to the dinosaur statues in Forest Park. One day she sent me two picture text messages.

The first:

“This is the angry face I make when I’m running.”

The second:

“This is your idiotic face of joy when you run…”

The thing is, she’s not wrong. Not even a little bit. I grin like a maniac and hold my arms at my sides much like this picture.

Hmmm. I guess I am kind of a T-Rex.

Lazy Bones

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Today is July 18. This means that my next half marathon is in three months and three days. Guess who hasn’t worked out since Ragnar?

Ok, so that’s not entirely true. I lifted three times in between Ragnar and my Portland trip, but I hardly did anything active in Portland (one four-mile hike) and haven’t done anything since.

People might tell me I’m crazy, but not only can I feel a difference, I can SEE one. I am so very much not ok with it.

My arms look smaller, feel weaker. My mid-section is rapidly losing all the definition I’ve worked so hard for. My poor legs. I feel like they’re unrecognizable. I know that there are plenty who would say, “Why worry? You’re in great shape! I don’t know what you’re talking about,” but I don’t feel good right now. Perhaps I am overly sensitive to all of this.

It’s so easy to blame other things. Like the fact that it’s been a hundred fucking degrees outside for the past couple months. Or that I’ve been out of town or in recovery or have taken time specifically for friends or anything like that.

The guilt center of my brain isn’t thrilled with my excuses right now.

And so I do what I always do. I study over my workout schedule, the one that is ALWAYS a work in progress, adjusting things here and tweaking things there. I search for motivation in any place I can find, like the emails that I get about my upcoming races or a picture of a friend who just competed in a bikini body contest (in the best shape of her life at 30 years old) or a motivational quote on Twitter. I’ll take stock of what I can do to improve my nutrition, what habits I need to try to break, where I can choose healthier eating options.

Then I remember a few things. That I AM human. That I AM still in good shape. That I DID promise myself that I would take some significant time off to try to stave off burnout going into the marathon. That it HAS been an incredibly rough week emotionally which has absolutely sapped every ounce of energy I have.

But I’ll get there. By September, when that marathon training for real starts, I’ll be ready.

The Good Stuff

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I have been overly dramatic and worrying you lovely people unnecessarily. My apologies.

Good things from the past little while:

-Beers in a redneck pool with incredible friends.

-Being able to talk to all three of my sisters for over an hour apiece over the past few days.

-Three engagement announcements for some friends incredibly deserving of that happiness.

-Asking GCB for Gatorade and having him come back with four different flavors because he “knew [I] liked the purpley-blue one, but couldn’t remember which, so [he] just got all of them.”

-Hugs. From my cousins. My aunts. My grandparents. Some of those hugs came after the stampede ignited from my ringing the doorbell….from five cousins at once.

-Realizing that mine, Ali’s, and Alison’s middle names are all Marie. On top of that? All three boyfriends’ middle names are Michael.

-Beginning my countdown to my trip to Arizona. Smiling because GCB gets to go with me.

-Chocolate cake for dinner with my dad, which of course sparked the “Dad is great! He gives us the chocolate cake!!!” comments.

-The comments and emails from you guys. They honestly mean more than you know.

What Are Words?

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Words. So many words.

Sometimes words are impossible to forget.

There are those words that will always make you smile. An “I’m getting married” from a good friend. The whispered “I love you”s from the pillow next to yours. Or perhaps the “It’s so good to see you” accompanied by the embrace from a loved one who lives far away.

Then there are those others. The ones you can’t forget. The picture captions that have seared themselves into your memory, unexpectedly returning to the forefront of your brain and forcing tears from your eyes. The emails you don’t see coming, “I don’t think we should be friends anymore.” The horrific ones you can feel rolling off your tongue in explanation, even as they feel foreign and ungainly, the ones you choke on and can barely even say, and when you finally do it feels like someone else saying them entirely.

Sometimes words are impossible to adequately use.

I hate you. I love you. How could you? What were you thinking? You’re not who I thought you were. I’ll always be here for you. I can’t have your back on this. I’m hurting. I miss you.

Never the right words. Never good enough. Never fully articulating what you want to say.

Sometimes there aren’t enough words. In all the languages in all the world, dialects, derivatives, words not even in use, there aren’t enough. Some things are completely indescribable.

So many words.

Love Hurts

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So. Yesterday was quite cryptic, huh? I truly am sorry about that, but honestly, there’s some stuff I can’t, or more appropriately won’t, put on here. In the past I know I’ve written things about my family, but at a certain point that stops. These people are THE most important people in my whole life, and we’ve run into a situation where we have to band together and protect one another, support one another, love one another more than we’ve ever had to in the past. This is a really fucking difficult, dark time for us. I keep bursting into random tears, though today’s much better than yesterday. I know that doesn’t explain a lot, well, it doesn’t explain anything, but just know I’m grateful for the good juju being sent our way. Truly.

That said, and maybe it’s because of this situation, but some of the good things in life are seeming that much better. I just spent a week in Portland with my dad and his side of the family, and it was SO GOOD to see all of them. I hadn’t been out there since October of 2008, so there was a lot to catch up on. I have one cousin who looks just like me, so much so that it’s like looking into a mirror into the past. It’s weird. She acts like I did at that age too. Not to mention the time I was able to spend with my stepsisters, brother in law, dad, step-mom, niece, and nephew. The niece and nephew are getting SO BIG, and seriously I think I melted every single time my niece would call me “Aunt Ann.” This is, of course, not to be confused with “Auntie Anne’s Pretzels.” Just no.

I was talking to my grandmother on Sunday (at church even, and I didn’t even burst into flames). We were discussing children, marriages, etc, and she lamented that she’d wished she had done it right the FIRST time. The man she’s married to, my grandfather, is actually my step-grandfather, and her third husband. I suggested that I wouldn’t be here then, which brought out her response of knowing that her children were supposed to be her’s, and she’d have had them regardless. I reminded her that I was supposed to be my mom’s. I was also supposed to be my dad’s. They’re not together, and haven’t been since I was fourteen, but I have no doubt that my mom was supposed to be with step-Mark. My grandfather is MY grandfather, as my biological grandfather died when I was 3, and I don’t remember him. I am where I’m supposed to be. I have MY family, as I was meant to have.

I guess I say all that because family has been on my mind a lot, obviously. Family on the other side of the country, family here, people who have married in, people I intend to make my family, people who are as close as family regardless of legal or blood ties. My mom’s best friend is family. My closest friends are my family. And these people are so important to me.

This sounds all rambly. That’s how it feels in my brain. I love this family of mine. Painfully so, at times. Sometimes they do things I disagree with, and sometimes they make me so mad all I can do is scream or cry or spend hours upon hours staring out the window and yelling horrible things at them in my head. Yet there’s always love. It’s conflicting, and right now, it hurts.

I don’t even know what to say past that.

And the Lightning Strikes

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One awesome week in Portland ended with a sucker-punch to the gut of some shit life has thrown at my extended family.

My mom’s already said it, I’ll say it. If you would, any and all prayers, if you’re into that sort of thing, or good juju, or whatever you have to offer would be beyond appreciated.

How do you process real life when you feel so numb?

*vague post is vague*

When I Wake Up Tomorrow Will You Still Be Here?

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Before you start asking questions, everything is better than fine with GCB. Trust me.

That said, I am coming up on a time in my relationship that is figuring very prominently in my brain.
Three months.
In many regards three months is a relatively inconsequential time frame. One quarter of the year. One season, if traditional seasonal explanations are to be believed. It passes so quickly that at times it’s hard to believe that twelve weeks of a year have just melted away.
Three months is how long I have dated nearly any guy over the course of the last near-decade. Three months is how long it took for them to go, “Um, yeah….nevermind. See ya.” That’s quite the confidence killer, by the way.
Make no mistake about it. My relationship is not ending. Conversations I have had with GCB indicate we’ve got quite a long relationship ahead of us, and I couldn’t be happier about that. Seriously. I think some of my friends are getting weary of hearing me reference that.
It’s not that I am worried, just….cognizant of the time frame.
That must seem absolutely crazy.
Past history makes me aware of this, for lack of a better word, milestone. However, the feelings I have for GCB are palpable. Sometimes my breath is taken away by certain reminders of just how much I love him, and those feelings become stronger every single day.
So why is this weighing on me? I think it in part has to do with a conversation he and I had a while back, wherein he was detailing some things about his job that I know had an outward effect on me. My exterior showed just a slight glimpse of the turmoil inside as I processed tried to process everything I was hearing. However, there was one thing that I knew, KNEW in those moments that kind of terrifies me.
I will not be ok if he does not come home to me.
Perhaps that’s part of why this three month thing is there. Three months has been this glass ceiling, if you will, a time frame I’ve been incapable of surpassing in close to a third of my life. I have no doubt, however, that this time there won’t be resistance. Hell, I’m not even worried about getting past three years. I know he will choose to come home to me.
I know it’s odd to even think about, but I still just want to get past that mark and carry on.

Up in the Gym Just Workin’ on my Fitness

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I hurt.

Today was the first workout I’ve done since Ragnar, and I’m going to be totally honest. While I was driving to the gym, I could feel my muscles start to get concerned, saying, “Wait a minute, didn’t we just get put through all sorts of torture? What is she DOING to us?!”

Interrobang.

Being that the few weeks before Ragnar were, um….less than stellar with the motivation, I’ve not lifted in a month. A MONTH. Knowing this, I intentionally dropped my weights on everything.

It’s a good thing I did.

Realizing that you’ve fallen a long way from where you were in just a few short weeks absolutely blows. I was better off on my arms than I thought I’d be, but damn, it still sucks to feel like you’re lifting baby weights compared to where you were just a month ago.

My legs? That’s a totally different story. My legs are apparently still REALLY MOTHERFUCKING TIRED. I cut my weight to just over half of what I normally do. It hurt. And then I had to do jump squats. The post-jump-squat shoulder lift reminded me FAR too much of my last leg of Ragnar. Boiling hot, sweat dripping down my face, chest, back, everywhere, hardly a breeze to find, legs shaking, and trying not to throw up while tasting way too clearly the Clif’s Shot Blocks I’d eaten earlier.

I make lifting sound so sexy and appealing, don’t I?

So now I just have to get back in my rhythm, my schedule, back to what I had lost motivation to do a few weeks back. It did feel great to get back into the gym, to sweat, to feel like I was doing something to move my body FORWARD instead of devouring a BACON-BACON mac and cheese from Cheeseology and taking a nap. Not to say that wasn’t glorious, but still.

My sights now are set on January. I’ve finished a Ragnar. I’ve finished a few half marathons. I’ve got 5ks, 10ks, a 4k (with beer!) completed and to look forward to. I’ll spend the summer taking things relatively easy and making sure my body stays healthy and fit.

And then the training starts again.

I am actually really fucking excited to start. But not until September.