Updates: Work, Marathon, Injury, Life

After my last blog post, I went silent. For a month. This is the longest I have gone without writing since I started blogging back in November, 2007.

There are a few reasons for this hiatus.

1. Thanks to the recurrence of my neck injury, I haven’t been exercising. Since fitness is my topic of choice and my favorite hobbies (aside from reading but I’d rather read books than discuss them) are running and Refine, not being able to do either means I don’t have much to say to the internetters reading here.

I am glad to say that after a very long six weeks, a number of physical therapy sessions (with the best PT ever in the history of this world, I am obsessed) things seem to be finally getting better with my neck. I ran outside yesterday — the only spring-like day we’ve had so far — for 2 miles. This is a huge milestone actually, because up until then my limit was 1.5 before my neck would act up. I smiled the entire time like a jackass and I felt amazing.

2. I’ve been mourning not running the Eugene Marathon. I mean, I didn’t officially make the decision not to move forward with this race, but that’s only because of my stubborn denial. Given that the race is now four months away and I only just ran 2 miles when I should be in the first weeks of official training, I think it’s obvious.

I’m really upset. I wanted so much to train this spring and not deal with the annoying parts of a fall marathon (namely, beginning training in the most humid time of year when I am slow). I also wanted to get my marathon over with and have my summer weekends free (long runs take a huge toll on me). And I really wanted to visit Eugene, stay in a cute rental house with my adorable baby nephew (plus brother and sister in law) and run an awesome marathon on a weekend devoted to running.

At the same time, I lost so much strength from not going to Refine that I am eager to work on getting that back first. But overall, I’ve been really sad about this. Better the neck thing came back now than after I started training and bought my $600+ plane ticket (kinda relieved I don’t have to deal with that…) but still. Ugh.

3. I was so miserable at work I had nothing left in me to blog. Anyone who’s ever been deeply unhappy at work will understand this one. It wasn’t something I could write about while I was working there, but I was miserable for a very long time. Like, sick to my stomach unhappy. Cry in the morning because I can’t imagine another day, another week, another month at that place unhappy. I would barely even talk to my husband in the evenings or weekend; I was mostly silent. I couldn’t see a light at the end of the tunnel and as hard as I tried, it didn’t seem like my situation would change anytime soon. Going to a place that causes you to feel this way, day in and day out, is draining. I was exhausted. I had no room in my life to blog; I was too busy being unhappy. When I was at home, I was lethargic. I watched TV and that’s about it. Of course, it didn’t help that my main outlet — working out — hasn’t been available to me.

Even though I had already given notice for about half the time I haven’t been blogging (and unhappy with the quality of my posts before that), I still needed to be out of there to understand that it is good on the other side.

I have a new job now and it’s a much better situation. I’m very, very busy — busier than I’ve ever been in my life — but also much happier. I’m enjoying my work and feeling much more fulfilled, but I am also a little overwhelmed in these beginning stages.

I will have less time to blog but I hope to write a little on weekends when I can. And when I am working out again, I’ll write about my return post-injury. If and when I can train for another marathon (I am devoted to my sub-4 goal) I will once again share my weekly training updates. I absolutely loved doing that last time around, and it will be fun to compare training cycles.

And there you have it.