You did it to yourself

Life is slowly getting back to normal. Today I slept late and then we went grocery shopping to replace the entire contents of the fridge and freezer. It was actually a good thing. I didn't buy any crap. I only bought what I needed. It was a way to hit "reset" on eating healthy and, after the mental hell of the last few weeks, that's a great thing for me to do.

I have no concept of what day it is because of being without power for a week. Today is Sunday. Tomorrow is Labor Day. After that I go back to work on Thursday. I'm not ready but that's an entirely different matter. Tomorrow is the New Haven Road Race. So many people I know are doing it this year. At first I had to get over the fact I wasn't doing the 20K because I held out hope I *might* be able to do the 5K. When my drain didn't come out last week and I set my recovery back who knows how long with the stress and doing way too much shit just to survive last week without power I had to accept I wouldn't even be able to walk it. Not even walk it. That makes me so sad. I want to be there tomorrow with my friends. I want to do the 20K like I did last year, also coming off of surgery, and feel triumphant. Tonight when I feel like I should have my running clothes out and my gear packed I feel like I screwed myself royally and I have no one to blame but myself.

I remember blogging a looooong time ago about scheduling this thing. In my new life there is always some kind of event to train for. I knew if I was going to do this I'd have to make a sacrifice and miss something along the way because there was no off season. That's not a bad thing. For someone like me it's a miracle that I look at the calendar and see events and training plans instead of birthdays and anniversaries that I dread because it means that I will have to see people and they'll see how fat I've gotten. That's not how I live anymore, thankfully, but I'm having a harder time with this disruption to my life than I thought I would. Having a week-long disruption to my daily existence from the hurricane certainly didn't help but I know it's the race tomorrow that is putting me in a funk.

The Hartford 1/2 is in jeopardy now too. If my drain comes out this week (it should, amazingly the last 2 days where I've actually gotten to rest the way I should have been post-Irene has brought my fluid level down to where it should have been) then I can start up with running again. I am not afraid of pain, running the 20K last year 10 days after gallbladder surgery was pain. I'm not afraid of being slow or having to take walk breaks -- I've rebuilt my running base so many damned times now I know what to expect and I know I'll eventually prevail. But I'm right at the cusp where I'm cutting things close. I'm not going to stress about Goofy (yet) because official training wouldn't start until late September and the first few weeks are pretty low mileage anyway. I don't want to miss Hartford but I don't want to overestimate my ability to make up for lost time with training.

*sigh* This sucks. I guess I could have waited until after Goofy and done this in January. I wanted it done though. I was ready. If I put it off I might have not done it (again). There's no going back. I did what I did when I did it. I'm hoping I'm coming out on the other side of the recovery process at this point. My incision looks beautiful. It's nearly closed almost all the way across and it will be a tiny scar for the most part except the hip area because that's where the drains were/are. I'm still pretty swollen throughout the abdomen and my regular clothes are awhile away but I catch glimpses of myself in profile, binder and all, and I think "Wow. It's really gone. Maybe this wasn't for nothing after all."

I didn't spend a lot of time on cosmetic surgery boards when I was choosing to do this. Honestly, I find a lot of those forums a waste of time. A lot of it is a pissing contest (my surgeon is better than your surgeon) and a lot of it is just more stuff to worry about than I needed to because, really, once you go under it's beyond your control. I had certainly read that it was major surgery and I guess I discounted what "major" really meant. I'm not going to pop a stitch reaching around to pat myself on the back but maybe part of my mental struggle has been this: if getting back to normal for me simply meant being able to go back to work or drive then I'd pretty much be there already. Getting back to "normal" for me is being able to do a 20K race tomorrow, a 1/2 marathon a month later, the Tough Mudder a month after that, the Goofy Challenge the month after that. Maybe that's why I've struggled so hard with depression after this. It's a good problem to have. The old me wouldn't have given a shit about any of this stuff.

I wish everyone who is doing the race tomorrow a great day. I'm going to try not to have a pity party for myself because I hope to have many, many more race days in my future.