On Another Planet…

It has been a whirlwind past 2 weeks thats for sure.  It has also been one of the most heartbreaking experiences I have ever had to go through and I know it will always be with me forever more.  I seemed to go into automatic mode when I received the news of Dad’s death and even managed to run about three times including once in Perth.  Have to say though, since returning to Melbourne last Thursday (23rd) the day after the funeral, things haven’t been that crash hot.  It was really hard leaving my sister behind even though she has a really supportive husband and two beautiful children.  I so wanted to stay a little longer but of course the reason I came back so quickly was because I felt I had to get back to my family and try get back into the normal routine of life, easier said than done I am afraid.  I have had moments when I have felt as though I am on another planet, for example, when I had to collect the car from mechanic on Tuesday.  I paid account, collected keys and then proceeded to walk back home only to realise about 5 minutes into walk I had forgotten to take the car and had to go back to get it

Thank-you all so much for all your kind words, it was so nice to read them.  I know my Dad would want me to get on with things but the sadness and the disbelief that he has actually gone is making it a little hard.  Time will heal, I know and I am just going to do the best I can with each passing day.

running

Now in pure me mode, I have written up my 6 week running regime in the lead up to the the Melbourne Marathon 10km.  Not sure if I am in fact going to do it, I will know closer to event.  I have set my running days as Wednesday, Friday and Sundays.  I managed to get my arse out there on Wednesday but I so did not want to run.  I went down to Princes Park and decided to do “whatever” even though I had a 5km run written on my schedule.  I did manage to run the whole 5kms but I was having a bit of a bawl around the 3km mark because I was thinking about things.  I decided I’d better pull my head in as I didn’t want anyone to think it was a really bad run   I should have ran today but really didn’t feel like it again, and, as it turns out I have no baby-sitter for my 3 year old anyway.  I will try and get out tomorrow instead.

I Love You Dad

If last week was lousy this week has been absolutely horrendous!!  My beautiful dear Dad died yesterday morning    I just can’t fecking believe it!!  He has been in hospital for the last 11 weeks (in Perth) basically waiting for hostel placement.  Finally after all those weeks, a lovely place came up, which I might add was going to be a back door job because my Aunty is a friend of the lady that runs it.  My sister was going to sign all the paper work on Wednesday morning and then when it was all arranged, he was going to be moved out of the hospital environment.  He has been so unhappy there and we were all so relieved to be finally getting him out and into something more homely. 

Well, it was obviously not meant to be.  It was Tuesday afternoon and he got up from chair to go to the toot and he had a bit of a turn and fell.  He has had a “companion” with him around the clock because he was unsteady on his feet at times and also due to the fact that he kept trying to”escape” to go back home.  Anyway, she tried to support him as he fell but he banged his head which needed four stitches and I am afraid it was all downhill from there.  He never recovered   He was vomiting all night and medical staff suspected that he was bleeding in the brain.  When they did the CAT scan on Wednesday morning, no abnormalities were detected but there was no improvement in his condition.  Through the early hours of Thursday the hospital called my sister and summoned her back to the hospital as they knew it was not good.  My sister rang me in hysterics to inform me and she sat with him.  She called back at about 9.30am Melbourne time with an update and I decided to book flight and get home to be with my Dad.  I hung up and 2 secs later, the phone rings again and my sister is screaming at me that Dad has died.  I can’t even begin to express all my feelings.  I am am so devastated and I hate being so far away……… it fecking sucks!!!

We have made all arrangements together for funeral over the phone and I will be flying home on Monday.  The funeral is scheduled for Wednesday.  Even though after my visit in November, I felt as though I had already lost my Dad due to Alzheimers kicking in, this is a total different level

Run for Joy

running/ramblings

I haven’t been for a run since Queen of Lake mainly because of “family crap” going on which I won’t bore you with, but lets just say I have had a lousy week   Things have started to settle again so hopefully by Saturday or Sunday I will be able to get back out there.

In my last post I stated I felt like a loser about pulling out of Melbourne Half Marathon and I think the main reason is because even though Queen of Lake was a little crappy, my training has been going so well.  I was running consistently and able to achieve each week on program as planned.  I guess I am disappointed because I think to myself if I kept doing what I was doing, I might have just got there.  But really there was no room for hiccups and I really am relieved I have decided not to do it because look what has happened, I have missed almost a weeks running due to family matters and it was nice not to stress about the running side of things because of it.

So my plan now is to “Run for Joy”.  I am still going to follow a regime just so I don’t lose track but I am not going to stress out about missed runs.  I would like to do a couple of the “Spring into Shape” series but I will have to assess whats going on around here at home.  Not sure if I am motivated enough to arrange car and babysitting for 10km Melbourne Marathon as I had intended to do for the half 

*Edit*  Oh, I forgot to thank you all for your supportive comments, so nice to read when you are feeling a little down in the dumps , and also Andrew/Beakus, it just may have been a hydration thing going on for QoL even though I felt like I “did the right thing”, I do believe I could have done better

Queen of the Lake

running

Today I ran in the Queen of the Lake 10km event.  It was a beautiful morning for running, a little breezy but not too cold.  Met up with RJ not long after 9am and we had a little look around, warmed-up a little and then headed down to start line.  Now, I have been pondering about how I feel my run went today and if I am all over the  place, forgive me but I am processing still   For once my body did not protest at all, not a niggle in sight while running, its a flipping miracle!!  I didn’t actually realise until after the race and I felt really happy about that.  Cardiowise today I struggled That I am annoyed with!  I usually can get the cardio under control and I may huff and puff here and there but usually if I slow the pace, it sorts out.  It didn’t today.  It has actually got me thinking about my iron levels again as that was the feeling I got when my iron was too high.  I am suppose to have it monitored every 6 months and I last had it checked in about November.  Anyway it doesn’t matter, at the 8km mark I wanted to stop and I hate that feeling.  I didn’t, I just slowed down and eventually made it over the fininsh line.  My official time was 63:54  When I did Beat the Boat I finished in 62:23 and was full of niggles and even stopped to stretch at most drink stations during that run, go figure hey!  So at the end of the day, I am glad I ran entire 10km, pissed of with cardio issue, extremely happy with the the free t-shirt I received.  It is really cute

ramblings

I have been pondering my plan of doing the Melbourne Half Marathon.  I don’t think in all honesty I will get to where I want to be with my running to complete it how I want to in the next 8 weeks.  I think I will go back to initial plan of consolidating my 10km running before I tackle a Half Marathon.  I think this is the sensible thing to do because basically when I do it, I what to feel great when I finish not karking it before I get to finish line and do it in a half decent time.  The way I felt today I am going to battle to get to where I want to be in 8 weeks and as much as I hate to say I feel like the biggest loser in coming to this decision   So my new plan is consolidate 10km running and I will do a Half Marathon in the New Year and having said that I think I am off to get a bottle of champers to drown my sorrows     

Racephobia

exercise: street run including Edwardes Park Lake

5 minute brisk warm-up walk

24 minutes  

5 minute cool-down walk

running

I walked out the door today with the attitude with “whatever happens”.This is the first run since my “early long run” last Friday at Albert Park which I might add, I pulled up fantastically the next day, no problems   I had planned to run on Monday and Wednesday this week but due too feeling “yukko”, I didn’t actually venture out until today.  I had to drag my sorry butt out I can tell you.  I so didn’t want to go out but felt I needed to get at least one run in before Queen of Lake on Sunday and I was pretty sure it wasn’t going to happen tomorrow due to appointments and things.

So set off and only did a 5 minute warm-up as I felt as though I was going to turn around and go back home   I made a pact with myself that I could do whatever I felt like doing and have no plan.  It was quite windy and I ended up running for 24 minutes with maximum pace of 5:14min/km and average pace of 6:06min/km.  I thought I was going to die today and my face was a nice shade of crimson when I finished.  Remind me never to go out the door without a plan!!  I was trying to slow down a bit today but for some reason I kept going back to faster pace.  I was thinking to myself, it should probably be an easy run before QoL on Sunday 

ramblings

Speaking of Queen of Lake, I don’t feel very enthusiastic about doing this on Sunday and I think it is for a couple of reasons.  The first one is I am scared I won’t be able to run 10km which is just stupid as I have done the distance before   The second reason is although I have planned to just do an easy run for this event, I am scared if I get caught up in the hype and end up going for it, I will be too sore to resume training regime on Tuesday.  It’s just all too stressful for me sometimes, ridiculous really when I know how much I love to run.  I honestly think I just need to try and chill out sometimes and just turn the brain off