28 days to go. getting excited

Half Moon Bay Marathon on 9/25, my 41st birthday.

Yippeeee

recollection

My eyelids barely open. they keep fluttering between slightly opening and closing, i hear voices telling me things, then asking me to answer questions. i can barely comprehend. bright lights surround me. and wires, tubes, cords. what the hell are these things on my stomach? they look like bugs. dead ants or something all in a creepy pattern on my body. they aren’t moving. are they dead? where am i?

you are in the hospital. you are at children’s hospital. you’ve been in a car accident.

i’m assessing my body and taking it all in. slowly. the tubes up my nose, coming out of my left lung; in my arms; my legs suspended in the air in some weird contraption and whatever the heck is on my stomach.

some doctors come in and tell me they are going to do something to my left arm. next thing i know, they are drilling what looks to be a nail into my elbow. i feel nothing. i am so doped up. moments later, my left arm is also suspended in the air. three limbs now suspended in the air, in traction, they called in. my young little brain is spinning, trying to understand what has happened. how weird it is to be surrounded by strangers doing weird things to my body.

where is my family? here comes Father Mangini from St. Leanders Church. What is he doing here. That’s weird. Ah, here’s my brother, Joe. Where is mom? Oh, she is probably getting something for me at the gift shop.
Father Mangini and Joe came over to my bedside. On my left side. I asked, “where’s mom?”
Our priest said, “your mom died.”
“Oh no”, I said as I turned my head away to my right side.

celebration

Caught myself in one of life’s precious moments earlier today. I didn’t start my run until about 11:00am, which of course meant it was a wonderful sauna outside. 88 degrees, 65 percent humidity. I struggled thru 6 miles and just allowed myself to walk quite a bit after running the first 2. My head felt so hot, my heart was beating rapidly, and yet my pace was slooooow. Just a typical day of running in the south, eh? Ok…so…I ran thru the Celebration, Florida neighborhood where seriously everything looks so perfect….perfect grass, perfect sidewalks, everything so clean and crisp. A very quiet, cute community about 12 miles from Disney.
About 30 minutes into run, I was able to stop in a a building and soak my bandana in cold water and refill my water bottle. I wrapped the cold, wet bandana around my neck and proceeded with the run. Er…run..walk…run…walk…
Whole body was feeling some fatigue after yesterday’s run plus the 7 (fun) hours of walking around Magic Kingdom! Ok….so…I finished up the 6 miles and went straight to the pool to meet up with my pals who were exercising their option for pool time instead of run time. I rinsed off at the cold outdoor pool shower and then hopped in to join them. After probably 15 minutes, we saw some infamous Southern rain clouds coming in and made our move out of pool. They had brought their towels, of course, but since I had come from running, I did not. I decided to just go ahead and walk back to condo in the rain. What did it matter, I was all wet anyways? As I began walking, the drops and speed of rain became more intense and we were in full on thunderstorm. I was outside of the pool gate area and stopped and waited for my friends to see me. I did one of my “open arms” poses where I held my arms open as wide as I could and tilted my head back. The large, warm Florida drops washed over me, poured down over my head, over my glasses and all over my body! I felt like I didn’t have a care in the world. I kept walking back to condo and then started running barefoot, in the middle of the street with the rain falling all around. I was smiling big. This is life, baby! Tasting life…