Well, I got some bad news yesterday. As I mentioned briefly in my previous post (bottom and knickers), my cat has recently had surgery. This is a line of surgeries that have been necessary due to cancer. As he is a white cat, he is prone to getting sunburn on his ears and nose, which, of course, causes cancer. So he had to have the ear flaps removed and looks like a sock puppet. About 7-8 months ago, he had a cut by his left ear that wasn't healing and it came back as being an aggressive form of cancer. He then had to go back in and have his ear canal completely removed and skin pulled over the hole. Now he looks like he has a lopsided mohican! About a few months after that surgery, he developed a lump a bit further down his neck. They were going to remove it last Friday but as it didn't look too good, they took a sample for biopsy. Yes, it's the agressive cancer again and it's inoperable. To say that I am gutted is an understatement. He's been in our family for 12+ years, is a member of our family and the sweetest cat that you can ever hope to meet. Everyone who meets him falls head over heels in love with him. We've been given a time estimate of about 8-months.
This is my little Lewey (he's Welsh, hence the way we spell his name 'Lewey' instead of 'Louis').
My first instinct on getting the news was to not go for a run the next day but this only lasted a split second, as my more sensible voice kicked in (different from 'The Voice') and said 'don't be stupid, it'll help with the stress and life goes on'. I then really needed to go for a run but as it was a recovery day, it had to wait.
Upon waking this morning, I was all set to go: my first 60-second run, I finished easily and thought 'wow, that was easy, it was over in no time'. Ha! I then started my next 60-second run and got a really painful stitch (usually, I get a slight stitch at the end), my legs felt really heavy and sluggish and it felt like they were moving at half-speed. That run I stopped about 3-seconds before the end. Dammit! My stitch continued and my left knee became a bit tender. I did my next run and did notice that I was covering a greater distance than last time but I really wasn't feeling it anymore and wanted to give up. I gave myself a stiff talking to and told myself to run what I could and keep going otherwise failure would become a self-fulfilling prophecy. When I was half-way through the workout, I turned around to go back to the car and my runs pretty much petered out. In the end, I had to walk and not do my last 4-runs. I was pretty pissed with myself but I think that I needed more than a day to recover and my body was trying to tell me that. The tendonitis in my knee I've had before thanks to Jillian Michael's 30-day Shred (Cheers, Jillian) and I know that I need to rest my knee and take ibuprofen. This may mean that I shouldn't run on Monday but I'll reasess (how do you spell that?! It doesn't look right any way I spell it) when Monday comes around.
I think that it is all too easy at times like this to feel disheartened and give up. However, as mentioned, I was covering a greater distance with each run, I was out there again even though it is friggin' freezing, I feel better, I sleep better, I can feel my abs tightening up. I basically feel fitter already. I also thought that the cold would aggravate my asthma (especially since my chest was tight on my last run) but it didn't make an appearance at all! My running today may have been 'blah' on a scale of crappy to great but in terms of my achievements thus far, I am pretty damn happy!
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