I’m Still Here

Contrary to popular belief, I have not been abducted by aliens. What I have been dealing with is a lot less fun. You see, I’ve talked about my anxiety before, but not much about my depression. I feel like, who wants to read that stuff. I figure people just want to hear about the fun races and events I’ve done, how training is going for any given thing or about one of the many fandoms I love. Then I think to myself, this is my blog. I can write what I want and if people want to read it, they will. If they don’t, well, at least it’s been purged from my brain.

So what’s been going on with me? Well, I’m trying to focus on feeling better. I’d be lost without Tara and “the girls”. They are my support system x 1000%. They get me out of the house, out of my head, distract me and whatever they can do to help me. I’ve had a few events lately, which I’ll throw some pictures of below, but haven’t felt much like being around the blogging world right now. I’ve started seeing a new therapist and once I start feeling a bit better, maybe I’ll be back much more often. For now, I might try to just aim for my Friday posts (which I haven’t even done). Baby steps.

Before I share some of my events, I wanted to share two videos. The first, I heard about through a running blogger I follow. It’s worth the 8 minutes to watch because he describes what I’m feeling almost perfectly. The second video is a song I recently heard shuffling through Spotify and it has almost perfect lyrics for me right now.

 

 

 

The last post I did was about my event on 11/8, which was Carry The Fallen. That is still such an amazing thing to me and I can’t wait to do the next one in March. A few days later, the girls and I got together for a Paint Night. For $35, we got to do a painting of Starry Night – my all time favorite. It included all the supplies we needed, plus two drinks.

 

 

A few days later was an event I had waited all year for – the Spartan Stadium Sprint in Fenway Park! I didn’t get to run with my girls, but I had a great team of Battle Buddies to run with from the Spahtens team. We got to run on the Green Monster, though the visitors clubhouse and dugout and around the warning track in the outfield. It was an amazing experience but pretty nerve wracking because of how many people were jammed into the park throughout the day. Did I mention it was flippin’ freezing that day??

 

No biggie – just the top of the Green Monster!

 

This past weekend, Tara and I and a couple of friends signed up to volunteer at Operation Holiday Cheer. It’s run by the Lt. Governor in RI and is a two day event taking in donations to send to RI troops overseas and then packaging and shipping them the following day. We signed up to take in the donations on Saturday, which would have been from 9-1, but we ended up leaving around 12:15-12:30. The donations were slow this year, sadly. Tara and I have done this before and the last time we did the bins were overflowing with donations. While there were plenty of people that volunteered to help, there just wasn’t enough coming in for everyone to stay, which is why a lot of people left early.

 

 

And finally, I have some new ink I wanted to share. I had pinned this quote on Pinterest months and months ago because I really liked it. I feel like it suits me between what it means and my love of the ocean. I felt like now was just the right time to get it done so I finally pulled the trigger. It’s my Christmas present from Tara.

 

 

I hope everyone is doing well. Stay tuned – same bat-time, same bat-channel.

 

 

 

 

 

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Spring Is In The Air

I feel like a change is happening. Something has shifted and this week, while already exhausting, has been filled with progress. I don’t know if it’s the daylight when I leave work that I get to drive home in, my reinvigorated workout routine or something else, but I’m glad it’s happening.

 

Stay away, Winter Storm Vulcan!!

 

Sunday started out the week on the right note by getting a race recap up, catching up on other’s blogs and emails and doing some meal planning and snack prep. I don’t know why we don’t do it every week. It makes life so much easier. I also registered for 8 more races for the year. I’m a little crazy. I can’t even describe how excited I am about the Spartan Race I’ll be running in FENWAY PARK!! Home of my beloved Red Sox. It’s gonna be epic!

 

 

Monday marked the start of my new strength routine that Dan gave me. I’ve mixed up muscle groups a little bit, plus days of the week, so I’m excited for the change. I am SORE after Monday’s workout and I’m sure I’ll feel today’s workout tomorrow (I’m usually 1-2 days behind on soreness).

 

 

Yesterday was a very busy day. I woke up at 3:45am and decided it wasn’t worth sleeping until the alarm went off at 4am. I went and did my run at the gym, came home, had my breakfast, got ready and then was out the door at 7am for my chiro appointment. That’s still going well and I’m pleased so far. We have a lot of work to do to “un-pretzel” my body, but it’s getting slightly better. She did find a nice, new, hugely painful area to release – my piriformis. She spent the whole appointment that morning working on each side – holy ouch, Batman!

After my chiro, I had a little bit before I had to be at work, so I went home real quick and dropped off my change of clothes and then headed off to work shortly after that. I’m not going to get into work lately except to say it sucks and leave it at that. Once I finished my work day, I hung out for an hour until 7pm and then drove up to East Providence for the monthly Rhode Island Road Runners meeting. We had a pretty small crowd last night, and not much to talk about, so we just kind of hung out and bullshitted. I left around 8:45 because I’m typically in bed at 9! Once I got home, changed and got myself set up for my workout this morning I think I ended up in bed at 9:30. Let’s just say my body didn’t wake up early this morning!

Today went pretty well. I got to switch shifts with someone so I got to leave at 5 instead of closing at 6. I gave blood at work which always makes me feel good. And the pièce de résistance was that supreme bully bitchface left early – any time without her in the department is a win for us all.

I’m hoping the rest of the week finishes out this way and I can continue on this upswing!