The thinnest of wedges between happy and sad news

What a day. Good stuff, bad stuff, and everything in between.

It was a truly glorious morning, chock-a-block with birdsong and sunshine, blue skies and trees full of the tender yellow-green of new leaves. I might have paid more attention to it if I hadn't had Pilates last night. I was so sore while walking the dogs that I questioned the sanity of running. Eight miles on the schedule, and I could barely shuffle around with the leashes in my hand.

Having missed Tuesday's run, I was not amenable to missing another one, so I filled up my FuelBelt, grabbed some gels, and drove to the trailhead, striking out just before 10:00. It was odd to be doing such a long run all by myself, particularly on the same trail I'd shared during so many buddy runs with Liz, Angela, Lindsey, Kelli, and Amy. It wasn't bad, exactly--I found myself mostly watching the mileage unspool ever so slowly in front of me. "Oh, look, there's the first half-mile marker already. Now we go up this little hill, and down, around this curve, start seeing the railroad cars, and look, here's one mile already! Mile 1 at 11:41..."

Once I got warmed up, I didn't feel too achy. I hit the parking lot where we normally do the first water stop at 30:30, but since I was carrying all of my own water and gels at my waist, it didn't matter. I drank out of one of my bottles and pressed on, hitting Mile 4 and the turnaround in 44 minutes and change.

Things started to go south around Mile 5. My hams and glutes and abductors and adductors all started voicing their displeasure shortly before I hit the parking lot again at 58 minutes and change, so I stopped to walk while I drank some water and kept walking for an extra minute or so. If my husband had been in the parking lot to handle the water stop as he was for the weekend runs, I would have climbed in the car and told him to take me home. But since the car was still 2.7 miles away, I really had no choice but to continue on. I managed to go a little over a mile before I needed to stop and walk again, drinking a bit more water and squeezing the remainder out of the orange gel packet I'd started at mile 4. (Orange is okay, but not as good as raspberry or apple cinnamon.) I went another mile and had the last swallows of water at the half-mile marker before cruising on in, finishing the eight miles in 1:29:25 for an 11:11 pace. And oh, was I sore. Not injured, mind you, just sore.

I met Betsy for lunch at the bakery and was reminded that I have good news to share! My mom's PET scan came back, and of the two areas of cancer she had, one was GONE and the other was "significantly reduced." The doctors seem to think that they can achieve a remission with just a few more cycles of chemo! Yay! I was all excited to come and blog the happy news tonight. I am so happy for my mom and for the fact that treatment, while not fun, has been a lot less brutal than in times past. I hope that she will be able to get back to doing the things she enjoys soon and put lymphoma behind her for as long as possible.

I had planned to put in a few more hours on a work project this afternoon and evening, but at about quarter to six, the phone rang. It was my mother-in-law, Erika, who lives in Europe, so she's six hours ahead, and it was almost midnight there.

She was calling to tell me that her partner, a man she'd been with for twenty years who was for all intents and purposes her husband, died on Monday of intrahepatic bile duct cancer. We knew things didn't look good for him, and we had last heard that he was looking into hospice about ten days ago, but I didn't think it would end so quickly. I had held out hope that I might be able to snag a flight over after the race to say good-bye, but obviously that's not an option now. We were just over there for a visit last fall, so at least we did get to see each other somewhat recently, but now he's gone, and Erika is alone. She says that on some level, she is relieved that his suffering is finally over, because he was absolutely miserable, but she's not looking forward to having to manage everything alone.

Good-bye, Hans. I hope they have plenty of bows and arrows for target shooting wherever you are now.