One Last Hurrah

I’m pretty sure I’m retiring after Sunday. Nike is Sunday. I have known about it since March, when I was just trying to get through training to finish Boston and thought I’d retire there…but no, I got in and I wanted to visit my friend, and well, instead of going for my birthday and Bay to Breakers guess it was going to be Nike. Things happen and I wish I had been out of town on my birthday, and then my friend got laid off so she isn’t going to be in San Fran anyway…then other stuff happened…and then grandma died and I really lost my motivation, except to decide to dedicate it to her. Considering grandma always got a nice fireman beef cake calendar for Christmas from one of my aunt’s friends, it’s fitting that her marathon is the one where you get firemen in tuxedos handing out your Tiffany’s pendant. This one is going to be bittersweet because of that. And training again was tough. I didn’t want to, but I survived it, kind of, and I’m looking forward to just being done with it and get to a normal training routine and work on getting myself into the shape I wanted to be in by now, but the summer just found me letting myself get away from what I should be doing, and doing things I should not be doing. Ah well, such is life and I have all the time in the world for things now. No other focus but the gym, work and school. Maybe if I spend more time on all those other things, the things I DON’T want to be thinking about will just go quietly away. One can always hope.

So Thursday I fly…and I’m not even excited even though I’m going to a city I’ve always wanted to go to. I don’t even have plans made for what I might want to see or do. Maybe I’ll just hole up in the hotel till race day and study for my midterm and get reading caught up for my other class…who knows…

A Loss of Love

I guess in my last post I should’ve stated the last question was rhetorical. Well, maybe…I appreciate responses, but saying that what one person is doing to deal with their grief is wrong, is not quite appropriate in the situation. Everyone is different. It’s what makes the world go round. In my normal world, I’m a very social person. I get out, I do things, I see people…but it gets to be a struggle sometimes too because I really need down/alone time too…and I am very independent. I’m not one to ask for help unless I absolutely need it. I still am bothered by the fact that anytime I move, I have to ask people to help me because I just don’t like to put people out. And my grief is something others shouldn’t have to deal with or tolerate. I know I can’t put on a brave face for those that know me best, and it’s why I need to stay away from them as much as possible because the brave face act is just too difficult. So on that note, as everyone deals with grief and recovers from it differently, this is something I have to work out. I lost an aunt and uncle in the last few years, and that was sad, but I wasn’t close to them the way I was with grandma, so the grief wasn’t as overwhelming as this is. The last close person I lost was 20 years ago when my grandfather died. And I still grieve for him, but I had 20 years more of a relationship with grandma. I had grandma in my adulthood, which is absolutely different from losing grandpa when you were still barely out of childhood.

A friend sent me a card expressing her sympathy, and on it she wrote this quote:

“Grandma always made you feel she had been waiting to see just you all day and now the day was complete. ~Marcy DeMaree”

I cried after I read that quote because it absolutely was true. On my run yesterday morning I was thinking about grandma, as I usually do, and I lost it, again, I only hope anyone who saw me thought the wet on my cheeks was from sweat…I don’t like crying in public, unless it’s a sad movie, then it’s acceptable, but other than that, I like to try to keep it private. I’m not one of those women that uses tears to get things. Anyway, as I thought of that quote, and I thought of grandma, and my visits to her, my relationship with her…and the reason I’m not ready to be in a world without her is that I lost that love that I got from her and there is no replacement for that. As much as I loved her, and gave her my love, I know she loved me more, even if she didn’t express it in a traditional sense…When I would show up at her house, particularly if she didn’t know I was in town for the weekend, the surprise and joy on her face. The best present I could give her, was the time I spent with her. Oh, and the one other gift, I made a scrapbook for her the year we all went on a family cruise. She told me even as recently as a few months ago how much she enjoyed looking at the scrapbook and how she had just looked at it again. Just knowing that there was someone, whose day I could make, by just showing up at her house…that was something I absolutely took for granted and should not have, because now it’s gone and what kills me is I’ll never have that love, that total unconditional acceptance, joy and love from someone. Yes, my parents love me, I know that, but it’s still not the same thing. Knowing that I’ll never be able to make someone’s day with my presence again, it hurts more than I could ever have imagined. It’s been a month now, since I lost her, and it’s still as fresh as the moment I answered that phone call from my mom.

Three Things

First running…I got up, got a decent run, if not a great one, this morning. I didn’t know how far I’d go, but ended up doing 9 miles. Again, not a great run, but an OK one. It started decent enough. Oh, and had I eaten more for breakfast, maybe I would’ve run more…Anyway, 5 miles into the run I am about 3 miles from my house, in an area that I know, or thought I knew, fairly well. There is Davanni’s Pizza. There is Blockbuster. Eden Avenue Grill is around the corner. The funeral home where both my aunt and uncle were laid out unfortunately is right there. Starbucks is there as well, but NONE of these places accounted for the delicious scents in the air. I noticed a sign up, that maybe I had just never noticed before, not sure, but it said Patissere Margo…what?? How could I not know of this place? I got home and instantly looked up the place online and the delights I found listed…oh my. I decided I must try it. Thought I’d go for breakfast tomorrow, however they aren’t open tomorrow, so I stopped there on my way to the gym. For today I only bought two regular croissants…I’d have just got one, but felt weird just buying one. So one was with dinner tonight and one is breakfast tomorrow if I get a longer run in. I should’ve gotten the cinnamon one too, but oh well…next time. At the gym I did strength train for 40 minutes, and biked for 30.

Two…rude people…I stopped at the grocery store on the way home to grab a couple of quick things, partly for dinner, some other necessary items. They were doing samples today and one was frozen pizza…sounded yummy. So I went to get a sample, and an employee had stepped up in front of me and was taking up the whole space…the guy doing the samples handed one over to me but I found it very odd. It’s not like this is a crappy grocery store either. It’s one of the upscale ones, in a nice area…ah well. Then I was checking out, self-check out (cause I kind of prefer it) and a woman comes up behind me, setting her stuff down on the very little space next to the self check, invading my space (granted I was done, but my receipt hadn’t printed yet and I was still gathering up my stuff) and thing is, it wasn’t like that was the only one available…there was another one, just a few steps further, on her way out…sigh.

Three…I know everyone means well…but unfortunately the sadness lingers. And you can only lean on friends for so long. Which is why the need to withdraw. If I don’t, they won’t be there later. You can drive people away wallowing and being sad for too long…unfortunately I’ve had to learn about the tolerance level people have too many times in the past and I’ve used up the sympathy on other things. And withdrawing is just the only way I know to deal. It’s starting…tonight in fact, I had the option of a BBQ, normally would’ve been a fun activity, only 2 people I knew would be there, the ones hosting, and it just didn’t seem like something I could handle today. That’s just how it is sometimes. Last night I was at a hockey game…that was enough for the weekend. Next weekend I have to deal with two days of things. And the weekend after three days…ughh…I just want to hole up at home. Is there anything wrong with that?

Messiness in Life

I could write about so much right now…my mind is a mess…my emotions are a mess…physically…I’m a complete and utter disaster, the small highs aren’t enough to make up for the drastic lows. 3 weeks ago my life changed. Really, only 3 weeks ago to go from that post of how I am withdrawing from dating, and moving on with my life from that, having issues in my head about that anyway (still thinking on occasion about the one that kind of inspired that post), to the complete and total devastating loss of my grandmother. I didn’t really write a lot about her until of course my last two posts, but she was so important in my life. All the thoughts I’ve had of moving someplace warm, of getting out of MN and finding a new city, something new and different…well, I couldn’t leave my grandma. Even though I didn’t get down to visit her more than 3 or 4 times a year anymore (I really hate going to my hometown and really mostly did it to see my grandmothers) she was still someone that I had a close bond with. I’d write her letters fairly regularly, had just been realizing I owed her one, which was why I was going to go visit her over Labor Day weekend instead…and instead of going then, I went a weekend earlier and said goodbye to her. I’m dedicating Nike to her, but it’s hard to keep motivated to even run and train for it. I miss her so damn much. 3 weeks, and I still think about her every single day, and all but one of those days shed at least a few tears…and some days have spent crying till there was nothing left to cry out. I still don’t know how to be in this world without her. I was not ready to let her go. I know, we probably never are ready for that, but I really thought I had at least another few years with her. More time to talk to her about my life…maybe a chance to meet someone, someone that would be worthy of meeting grandma. That’s the thing that hurts the most. Even if I didn’t think the possibility of meeting someone was impossible, how could I possibly be with someone. Have someone that close to me, that much a part of my life, that doesn’t know my grandma. I just don’t see it happening (OK, so 11 years and for 6 months of that time, 2 years ago, I had a boyfriend, so not likely that that was even a concern before I decided marriage/relationship wasn’t in the cards either)…it hurts too. Because now of course I really wish there was someone who could hold me and comfort me, and while I would know it’s not going to help, at least there is that little something there. I’ve been in a muddle now…getting angry at people for stupid non-reasons…getting annoyed at people for being around, or not being around, whatever the case might be…not wanting to be around others, but wanting people to drag me out and keep me occupied…and all through this my working out and eating has tanked further and my weight goes up.

I ran a race on Sunday. A 25K. Last year this was a prep race for Twin Cities. I wanted to run it at marathon pace (8 minute miles is what I wanted to run) and start out the first 10 miles at that and then speed up…which I managed to do…7:50 pace for it…it was a good run. This year I knew I wasn’t trained to run that fast. Weather this year was much warmer too. I did it as a 20 mile training run. Ran 4.25 before the race and managed to run .25 over on the race so had 15.75 for the 25K for a total of 20 on Sunday. The race, 8:55 pace…only 1:05 per mile slower than last year. And that was pushing it. I know I haven’t done speedwork…heck, this was my 5^th run of 20 miles or more (3 now for Nike, that’s 2 more than I did for Boston and I still have one more planned)…I wish I could at least get my love/desire for running back at least. It helped me through a rough patch before, but this time, this rough patch, it's just not there to help me.

With my up and down tendencies right now, I have made a decision that I should stay away from others. It’s better that way…so not making anymore plans to go out and do anything (with the exception of going to the Wild pre-season game on Friday, but that won’t be a big deal, I got free tickets, as I’m going with a friend who is pregnant…so not like it will be a late or wild and crazy night, and I owe her…we’ve been there for each other through a lot of things). I have work and I have school. Heck, if I can keep that mentality, maybe I can take 3 classes in the spring, 2 next summer and 3 in the fall and really push up my graduation and/or guarantee a graduation time of 2011 like I’m hoping…I can run when I find time around that. It will sure save me a lot of money too. Not like I have much of a life anyway. Friends are married or practically married and don’t want to go out anymore…and what do I gain when I go out? Nothing except sometimes a hangover, and then being down because I see all the happy couples around me and know that’s not nor will it ever be me…sigh…OK, enough. I’ll honor my commitments that are stuck and skip out on anything new…sounds like a plan.

Thanks Everyone

I appreciate all the condolence wishes. The funeral was really difficult but there was some bonding time amongst the family. We even had a nice family picture taken. First time we've all been together since 2000. My grandma's immediate family that is. I also had my best friend surprise me and show up at the funeral. She had been up and dropped her husband off at the airport to go see his grandfather who was sick, drive down to her parents and drop her dog for them to watch and then head the rest of the way to my home town (3 hours drive from where she lives with the detours that are in place now). She was there for the funeral and had a drink with us at the home town bar before she had to head back and pick her husband up. Of course it made me cry more seeing her there, but friendship is a powerful thing. She knew how much grandma meant to me.

Haven't had a day yet that I haven't cried...

In Memory Of...

Marilyn Winifred Diemer
May 19, 1920 – August 25, 2009

Beloved grandmother, sister, mother and friend…you will be deeply missed.

You know when the phone rings at 10:55 on a Tuesday night it’s not going to be good news (unless you have a friend that is pregnant and due around that time). I have a new cell and wasn’t able to hear it ring, but I heard my mom’s voice begging me to pick up from my answering machine…I get the phone and she’s sobbing, voice cracking and telling me something…I heard hospital, ambulance, something about heart…but I didn’t catch the first part. She’s saying my name and asking me if I heard her and I said yes, but missed the first part and could she repeat it…she tells me “grandma Diemer passed away”…and while I already felt that was what she was going to tell me, it wasn’t till then that I lost it. Amazing how you can deny everything until you actually hear the words. My dad then came on the line, and by now I’m sobbing and he can’t understand me. He tells me something about someone saying grandma had said she was tired…and that was about the time she left us. The didn’t know if maybe it was a heart attack, all I recall saying was “I didn’t get a chance to say goodbye.” Dad had to go, mom had begged me to call my sister who was already informed and go over there, that I shouldn’t be alone…but I wanted to be alone. I spent some time crying and did finally sleep. Where I dreamt what I had been told was wrong, that grandma wasn’t gone…wasn’t helpful. I got up and got ready for work, started throwing things in a bag thinking I should head to my parents after work, but not knowing what was going on, I stopped and instead just tried to focus on the day. The funeral is set for Saturday, my brother, sister and I are driving down in a little while. Instead of helping a friend celebrate her birthday this weekend, I’m going to be burying my grandmother.

I’m not ready to be in a world without her in it. I mainly went to visit my parents to see her. Mom and dad are here enough that I see them regularly. My other grandma, well, I love her and feel guilty that I’m not as close to her, but it’s reality, I’m simply not as close to her as I am, was, my other grandmother…It probably comes from the fact that I was 5th in line of 15 grandkids on that side and there are only 6 on the other side, and I was first, and was the only one for 5 ½ years. I was very close to grandpa, who died just before I turned 15, and then that carried over to grandma more so then as I got older. My mom used to drag me out to see great grandma and visit with her most Sunday’s when I was younger, that was her mom’s mom, so it carried tradition too cause when I was home I was out visiting grandma. She was the one I went to when I needed to borrow some money for college, I regularly wrote her letters (OK, I was making loan payments too but even after I was writing to her) and grandma was just the one I loved going to see because I knew she was always very happy to see me. We’d most times come up with some lunch combination when there, and I cooked and fed her some of my creations that she would get excited about. I’d share all the mundane things in my life with her, and sometimes she’d hear it before mom and dad even. She was so much more than just a grandma and I'm going to miss her very much. I know she was feeling down, and was probably ready. She spent almost 50 years with my grandpa before he died of a massive heart attack, she's lost a lot of friends recently...but I still thought I had time. There are things even now that I wish I had asked her, and that I won't ever have the answers to now. I won't ever get to hug her again. And I never quite remembered to show her my Boston medal, as I had forgotten to bring it home, then forgotten to show it. There just never is enough time for those that have that special place in our hearts. Christmas is going to be so difficult this year.

I love you grandma. And wherever you are, I hope you are happy and with the loved ones you lost.

Ragnar Relay

So after my experience last year (put in link) of running the NW Passage Ragnar Series relay, I thought it’d be a good time running the one near home. Over the past year I’ve been talking to people, mentioning it and trying to get a team together. I know enough people now that it wasn’t as unfeasible to round them up as I might have otherwise thought. I had a few people from the Runner’s World Forums join up, a friend from college at the U of MN, a friend from college at Mankato and then each of them had friends and rounded it out with a friend that I met at a race and is part of yet another running club…so 12 of us officially registered and waivers signed by mid-July and while there were a few injury scares, everyone came to the start line pretty much injury free. Aches and pains along the way, but things were good for the most part. We even had an extra volunteer after having trouble lining people up!! As we punched in times for people, we realized we had a strong chance at being a contender for placing too…who knew? Our start time was set for 3 pm, the later you start the faster you are, and Van 1, consisting of me and 5 guys (yes, it was a weird set up with that, but that happens to be how it played out with the way the legs were laid out and keeping people together that kind of knew each other and having stronger runners on harder legs etc). We met up at the guys house who had the van and drove down to the start in Winona. We headed out on time and stopped for lunch at Subway on the way down. Got to the start plenty early, got our shirts, were checked in and killed time before the start. Watching the start was fun, I hadn’t done that last time, and then we were off to cheer and catch and swap runners. For those unfamiliar with the relay concept, this is a 194.4 mile race. You have 12 runners (or the ultras will have 6) and 2 vans. The first 6 run the first 6 legs, then you swap vans and eat or sleep in the ‘down time’ while the other van runs. This happens 3 times for a total of 36 legs and each runner doing 3. I was runner 4 and my leg was a harder one since it was almost 8 miles, it was during the day and had a pretty long climb up part of it, thankfully it wasn’t steep. I went out expecting to hopefully run around an 8:30 pace, that’s what I projected for myself and managed to run a 7:45…with others all running hard by the time we met Van 2 at the exchange 6 area we were about 17 minutes ahead of our projected time. My parents had come to see me at my first exchange and cheered me at a couple of spots along the way, which was fun…the dogs were there barking for me too. They were at the finish as well. Funny thing is mom had said I should run it in an hour, I came in just over a minute over that hour so guess she was predicting right. After we passed off to Van 2, we drove to an area to get a bite and watch some of the Vikings game, then headed on to exchange 12 so we could take a little nap before. We had Van 2 call us to let us know when they were getting close and being a little off we were not able to get much of a nap (except one of the guys, he was sawing logs pretty quickly and loudly, and we were outside!!). It was nice weather though, cool, but not so bad we were freezing and it was a very clear night, lots of stars.

Well, I was off on when Van 2 should find us, so we were up sooner than we planned and are now 30 minutes ahead of schedule. They come in, and we get back to work doing our runs, passing off our runners. This leg was my night run. I hadn’t worn a headlamp before, but definitely preferred it for the 6 miles I was running vs carrying a flashlight. It being dark I could only really see Garmin during the splits it fed back to me…and I was off a mile…it was sad when I saw mile 4 come up when I thought I was at mile 5. This also had us off on a side road for about 3 miles, so not on the highway, but it was darker, no shoulder and kind of freaky…I had to remind myself that Michael Meyers and Jason were not real and pray that some freak wasn’t out there watching for lone girls running in the dark…I was doing a pretty good clip here. I had myself down to run a 7:38 pace, and finished the 6 miles Garmin told me I ran (5.9 according to Ragnar) in about 46 minutes…so a 7:41 which was just over my goal. I was tired but happy at the end and winded enough to not quite figure out where Don, who I was passing off to, was standing. Our next two runners finished and we passed off to the other van and headed to Stillwater which was our next big exchange and were we hoped to see our 2 volunteers and take a nap. We did get there in time to see the volunteers and laid down by the river and slept as the sun came up. I was out for an hour, had a false alarm that Van 2 might be close but then slept another 45 minutes and came out feeling refreshed enough to be ready to run again. Our van came in, runner came in and we were off again. Our first runner had a short leg, only 3.1 miles and he had a new PR for that distance on his leg. Our second runner had a decent one and number 3 also kicked out much faster than anticipated and it was my turn again. This time for 4.3 miles. It was on a trail, mostly flat, with a climb at the end. I didn’t really fully realize the climb till I got to it. Oh my God I was ready to cry as it kept going and going and going…over a half mile and a climb of about 300 feet which just for translation ideas I think that’s about a 6 on the treadmill slope…I thought I was going to throw up at one point (this was after really wanting to make my projected 7:30, what I was thinking when I set that one I don’t know) after doing a 7:17 on the first mile…I got to the top, had a slight downhill and then more uphill to pass off my final time. Gatorade was brought to me…and then a nice cold beer…so what if it was only 9:30…anyway, Don’s leg was tough, Tom’s last leg, our fastest runner, was somewhat short so he kicked it out fast and we left Van 2 to finish it up while we had a few beers hanging out at the exchange. Headed to the finish finally, had a bit and bought some beer along the way and then hung out till our van got there and we headed to the finish to cross as a team. Team picture, waited around to find out results and unfortunately we were pushed down and finished 5th in our division. It was too bad as we thought we might place, as of the last I knew we were also 16th overall, which isn’t bad considering they had 233 teams registered. Our final time, again not official, was 24:03 or something like that…not bad being able to run 194.4 miles in just over 24 hours…there is talk of an ultra team next year…and we might try to get a competitive girls team if the guys do that…we’ll see. It was definitely another fun time though and anyone that hasn’t done a relay, I highly recommend it.