"Far from finished"

That is my team's name for this weekend's relay.  I'm pretty excited and really looking forward to it.  But before I get into what I'll be running this weekend, let me re-cap what I have been up to in the last week first.

So, last Friday I had another class at trapeze school and it did not go as well as the first class.  I'm not exactly sure how or why but for some reason when I got to trapeze school and got buckled in and made my way up to the platform to fly, I had a massive anxiety attack and couldn't do it.  I wasn't afraid or nervous about jumping it was completely unrelated overwhelming emotions that bubbled up to the surface at the top of the 23 foot platform after 3 weeks of one horrible thing after another.  I couldn't breathe, my heart was racing, and my hands were sweating like crazy.  It was unreal.  I finally got up the courage to try and just do it thinking that once I got a successful swing in I'd feel better, but it didn't really help.  Each time was just as overwhelming as the first one and I completely freaked out.  I ended up doing 3-4 swings out and then I hurt something weird in my hand so I gave up.  But I did get this really funny photo out of it:

Anyway, after trapeze I drove home and changed quickly into jeans and a t-shirt and my friend Patty came over.  We went to a fundraiser nearby for one of the bombing victims, Jeff Bauman.  He went to high school in the town next to where I live and Patty graduated a few years before him, but went to the same school.  It was a very nice event.  They had raffles, a DJ, cash bar, silent auction, t-shirts for sale, and donation buckets too.  Some of his friends were there and his family too.  It was nice to celebrate a big milestone with them, he had been released from the hospital earlier in the day.  We had a chance to chat with his parents before we left and it is obvious where he gets his amazing attitude and spirit from.  They were incredible people.  I am so happy I had a chance to meet them and help their family a little with a few donations.

Saturday I wanted to do a long-ish run to prepare for Reach the beach, but wasn't feeling it.  I went out and did 7 miles very slow and sluggish.  I felt ok but my pace was near walking.  I'm hoping maybe my garmin was wrong.  I just felt so defeated and demotivated afterwards.  I spent the rest of the day doing absolutely nothing.

Sunday I had really good intentions of getting up early and going for my long run.  I got up and had some tea and changed into my running clothes.  Filled up my fuel belt and got ready to walk out the door and then the skies opened up and it started POURING rain.  Not a light sprinkle, flood the streets and impossible to even see through sheets of rain coming down.  I took that as a sign from God to take a rest day.  With the crappy run the day before and a high resting heart rate I figured rest was in order.  I'm glad I did, I fell asleep on my couch and woke up in the late afternoon.  Clearly my body needed a break.

Monday afterwork I ran along the Charles and did a little over 10 miles.  I could have kept going if I took another gel, but I cut it short because I wasn't exactly sure how many miles it was to the next bridge.  I felt really great and my pace was right back on track.  Rest does a body good.  Only weird thing was my heart rate monitor still acting funny.  Instead of really high readings now I am getting really low readings so I chose to ignore it completely.  I went to Target the next day to get a new battery.  Will test it out tomorrow when I run the first leg of the relay.

I was going to run last night, but when I left work it was starting to rain again and it was getting late.  I wimped out and decided to drive home instead.  Oh and a lovely side note of the week, When I got home Tuesday night from Target there was a notice in my door that a level 3 sex offender moved in right next door.  AWESOME!  One more reason to hate where I live and to add more stress and anxiety to my already overwhelmed nervous system.  All of the elderly people in the condo association started calling me and asking me to call them back.  I ignored them all and went to bed.  I sent out a letter the next day instructing everyone to direct any questions they have to the police department because there is nothing we can do.  I feel like I run an assisted living community sometimes.  They all live alone, but freak out and complain to me about EVERYTHING even though I have no power to improve anything.

So, I guess after the last month of one thing after another I am REALLY REALLY looking forward to taking a day off from work and doing the thing I love most - RUNNING.  Our team starts at noon tomorrow and I am the second runner.  I will run legs 3+4, 15+16, and 27+28.  The distances will be 14.4, 9.15, and 10.81 for a total of 34.36.  I will have to add on a little 0.64 mile jog at some point to make it an even 35 miles finishing on my 35th birthday.  Here is what the course profile looks like:

In other exciting news, yesterday I booked my flights for the Berlin Marathon in the fall.  So exciting!  And I have a hotel for the Mount Washington race too.  This year is shaping up pretty nicely.  I'm checking off all kinds of bucket list things.  Still need to pick a date to go skydiving.  Yikes/yay!