So there are 30 days until the Philly Rock & Roll 1/2 marathon.
I have been training for the Atlantic City NJ full marathon coming up in October and figured I could fit the Philly 1/2 in as part of my training. Which it fits nicely into one of my drop back weeks in my training schedule. My only issue is that there have been some extraordinary life events that have come in the way of my training.
To begin my 2013 year, my girlfriend is diagnosed with Breast Cancer, so in April she had to have surgery, double mastectomy, with 8 weeks of recovery and multiple doctor visits. Then in June I get a call from my sister saying that my Mom is not doing so well and we should make plans to go see her. They live in South Carolina, and I am in New Jersey, so I take some time off from work and make the drive to see my Mom and Dad. Mom was diagnosed with Melanoma a couple years ago and surgery was done to remove it. They thought they had gotten it all but that turned out to not be the case and the Melanoma had spread to her lymph nodes. The doctors called it metastatic melanoma, which is very aggressive and at that point there wasn't much to do for Mom. The doctor told us she had a couple months to live, this was June 25th we were given this news, at this point Mom is in the hospital because she is in a lot of pain. So I stayed the week with Mom and Dad and went back home for the weekend. On Monday get a call from my sister that Mom is being moved to Hospice care, I know this is not a good sign so we make plans to go back down to see Mom and Dad over the 4th of July holiday. We get there on the 4th and Mom is not doing good at all. Doctor says it won't be much longer. I am confused at this point because only a week ago she had a couple months, now we are talking days. We make calls to all my brothers and sister and let them know to come soon. On July 8th my sister, my girlfriend and I stayed with mom over night and I am glad that we did, my Mom passed at 5 am the morning of July 9th. I have to say that the nurses at the Hospice of the Upstate in Anderson South Carolina were the best, they treated all of us and my Mom with the best of care. We couldn't have asked for anymore from them.
So we get this all settled and everyone is back at home and trying to get back to a normal life, as normal as possible I guess.
Well on Monday I find out that my Grand Mother as passed. This is my Dad's mom, just what he needs to deal with now. So now we are in the middle of preparing for another service. Well my Dad says he is not coming up for the service. See my Grandma lives in Vermont, where my Dad is originally from. So for my Dad to drive up it would take him 16 plus hours and he just can't do all that driving by himself anymore. Fly you say, well my Dad has never ever been on a plane and says he will never step foot on one. So flying is out of the picture altogether. So I have decided that I will drive to South Caroline and pick up my Dad, I will bring him to our house for the day on Friday and then drive up to Vermont on Saturday and stay the night. We will attend the service for my Grandma on Sunday and then drive back to our home in NJ on Sunday night. Then on Monday get up and drive my Dad back home to South Carolina, then back home so I can be at work on Tuesday morning.
So you see all these events have cut into my training runs, I have been running but not to the extent that I really should be to prepare for a full marathon. I have 8 weeks of training left before the marathon so I will have to really focus on getting the training runs in over this next few weeks, especially the long runs.
Wishing everyone out there the best of everything and happy running.
Joe
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