500th!

Hey, Wow! This is my 500th post! That's pretty cool. Especially since I have been blog-slacking to the extreme lately. I wonder when or if I will ever go back and re-read these things. Yeah, probably exactly one minute after some horrific virus strikes Google and everything I've written is irretrievable. Shudder.

I write today after so long a break because of a couple of unrelated happy occurrences. Well, if you believe in such things, it's possible they are cosmically-related, but whatever. Don't go consulting your crystals about it or anything.

The first thing is that my dear friend Kathleen ran her first 5K today! 'What's so great about that?' you may ask. Well, many things.

I have known Kathleen for just over 10 years. (She started out as a theater acquaintance so it's easy to keep track of when I met her: we were doing Annie Get Your Gun and Tommy was just a few months old). Shortly after we met and just before we became really good friends, she had knee replacement surgery. Because of this, whenever talk of running came up she was very supportive of me and my pursuit  but was clear about herself: Can't run. Knee replacement. Not possible.

Then, of course, there is the small matter of Kathleen facing a little thing called CANCER back in 2011. Ummm, yeah. And she did not get that friendly kind of cancer where you have a little tidbit removed and a teaspoon of chemo and then you're good to go. She had knock-you-on-your-ass, scare-the-crap-out-of-you, surgery-and-chemo-from-hell, with-a-side-order-of-pulmonary-embolism for added excitement. It is not an exaggeration to say that Kathleen thought she was going to die. And while all of us who love her never spoke of it, there were many moments when we wondered, too.

Of course, Kath would jump in here and dispute, "Well, you can't call what I did really RUNNING.... Lots of people who started in waves after us caught up to us... " Yadda yadda yadda. Typical denial from a lady who deserve some Horn Tootin'! She trained hard for this event. She started out just walking the dog and then trying to run a bit as she went along. Then she got on the Couch to 5K plan. And then she made it 3 miles with some walk breaks. And THEN, last week, I got a message from her saying she RAN the WHOLE THREE MILES. That is so huge. For anyone. But for her, that is like Neil Patrick Harris Hosting the Tonys Again Huge! (Legend - wait for it - dary!)

I did my due diligence and FB stalked her enough to share these pictures. (God bless that Journalism degree. I am a pro!)

Stranger on the Left had a the perfect sign for Kathleen on the right... (who is stranger  than most but not A stranger to me!)

Kathleen's friend, Barbara, ran with her. I didn't dare commit to the event, given my bad run of luck lately. (RUN of luck... HA!)

Knowing Kathleen was cranking out a personal goal this morning was not, however, enough to inspire my lazy butt. I say lazy, but I guess after the week we had here I had a reasonable excuse. All three boys were sick this week. And not in that convenient-but-challenging all at once way. It went like this;

Monday - Gabe wakes with major boogs and fever. I stay home with him.
Tuesday - Gabe still has fever. Scott stays home with him.
Wednesday - Everyone wakes up healthy. Yay! Off we go to school.
Wednesday afternoon - Call from daycare. Gabe's fever's  back. Drat.
Wednesday night - Gabe cracks his chin open and Scott takes him to ER. (I am at play rehearsal at the time). No stitches. Just exceptional stress and steri-strips.
Thursday - Gabe is OK but Tommy wakes up with a fever. I stay home with Tommy and Gabe because, ya know, bashed open chin and fever yesterday....
Friday - Tommy still has fever. Scott stays home with Tom. And, bonus, it's Scott's birthday. So that's fun!
Saturday - Everyone is feeling OK. Woo hoo. Getting some stuff done around the house, putting away the outdoor furniture... and, uh oh. Elliott doesn't look so good. Yup. Elliott has a fever.

My running has been going OK. I've come to grips with not doing the Ultra in a couple of weeks and I will happily just enjoying my time with my running pals and being their Athletic Supporter. I am focused on Boston 2015. And I reaaalllly wanted to get in a double digit run today. It would be my first since August. But ggggaaaaawd I was so mentally exhausted from the week. And gaaawwwwwdddd I just had no give-a-damns left.

Then, the phone rang. And it was Kathleen. And she told me about her run and I thought, yeah, I need to go do that 10 miles.

So I did. Of course, of all the hilly routes I could take around here, my unplanning feet took me on the hilliest. So I trotted along at a decent pace, listening to podcasts, contemplating the universe. (That is, if you think that contemplating the fact that I knew we had no chocolate chips NOR chocolate milk ingredients in the house is equivalent to contemplating the universe...)

Thanks and big congrats to you, Kathleen! And if you do another one, remember the Age Old Rule: "Run if can. Walk if you must. But always, always, pee yourself a little."

P.S. Everyone think BQ thoughts for the great Sarah Bowen Shea tomorrow. She is one of THEE mother runners from Another Mother Runner and she is poised to do amazing things in the morning. West coast time... so don't get your fast thoughts in too early.