One Month Gone...

It's been an entire month (& change) since I lost Monty, AKA BigDog. It's been a rough month. I haven't really felt like doing anything... no running, no blogging, no reading... nothing, really. Grief is a truly awful thing to experience & I've struggled with it this entire month. He was our first child, really... we got very soon after we were married, so he was our baby. It's been a rough month.

So I'll try to be brief in talking about what I've been doing... or trying to do.

In the past 2 weeks, I've made a real effort to get myself back into my usual routine. September 22nd was our 11-year wedding anniversary; my running partner helped me celebrate by running 11 miles with me. During the run, we talked about events that occurred in my marriage that corresponded with our mileage. It's always tough to celebrate an anniversary when half of us isn't around, so it was a really great way to honor these 11 years. 

Before

Run & Done: 11 years, 11 miles

There was a 5k on post... a Donut Dash. I never eat the donuts, but I had my sights set on a 5k PR. It was pretty rough; I ended up running alongside someone who was way faster than me. But she kept me motivated... until I collapsed on the last mile. Even so, I got a PR of 00:28:45, completely blowing my previous time out of the water.

Woot! PR!

Game faces pre-race

I also had to go shopping for a LOT of new clothes. I've lost a lot of weight due to a very strict meal plan. I am slimming down & very proud. I spend yesterday afternoon on a ridiculously expensive shopping trip, which even included buying a belt & 2 pairs of shoes. I'm calling it a workout because the lights in the dressing room were so hot, I ended up sweaty & dehydrated. Also, carrying all that stuff was an upper body workout!

And today, I headed out with my running partner for another 11 miler. It started out miserable. It was rainy & cold & neither of us wanted to stray too far from post for weather-related safety reasons. We ended up looping post a couple of times & when we hit about 5 miles, I couldn't do it anymore. It was depressing & oppressive at the same time. Michelle recommended leaving post; the weather looked like it would hold & we needed to keep going. So that's exactly what we did! At the very end of the run, around 10.5 miles, we ended up using an underpass to go under train tracks... which trashed our legs. So we decided to err on the side of caution & call it at 11 miles. Then we raided the dining facility for brunch & ate everything in sight! It was great.

There you have it. I'm getting my groove back. And getting ready to get Penny moving as my weekday running partner. She just got her first running jacket!

Running & hot dogs, please.