Janathon Day 29

Death leaves a heartache no one can heal, love leaves a memory no one can steal. – Unknown, From an Irish headstone

January 29 Run: 20:00 (mm:ss), 2.75 km, 7’19″/km (iPod)

Janathon  Day 29 has been completed with a 20 minute run. I warn you today’s post is going to be a little depressing and scattered. I can’t really keep my thoughts together as my initial thought was to run for 60 minutes or really as long as I possibly could… I will try to lay out the events of my day that lead me to thinking all the running in the world will make me feel better… I don’t expect you to read all of this, I just need an outlet right now and this is all I have.

Today, I stayed home. Taking a mini stay-cataion today to Friday and Friday is the Chinese New Year where I was planning to go home and celebrate with my Mom and go visit my Uncle to have some celebrations, laughed, and food. Early in the morning, I headed over with a friend to the YMCA here to take a tour of the facilities. Yes, I have a treadmill but I’ve been thinking about trying out a spin class and maybe start swimming. Woah, those are all the triathlete  sports! I’m not sure if that’s where I’m heading since I dread road bikes but I have heard so much great things about spin classes and losing weight. I didn’t sign up for a membership yet since this facility offers a 7 day free trial. I signed up and tomorrow morning at 9 am I will be doing my first spin class (Cyclefit as they call it). Scared and anxious, I hope it turns out well because I’d like to drop a few pounds!! Plus, if I do sign up for the  facilities, I can try a run on the treadmill there and compare it to the treadmill I own (for a comparison of the distance and pace). After registering for a free week starting tomorrow, we stopped a local bike shop for him to check out some road bikes. It was 1:10 pm when I noticed at 1:08 pm I missed two calls from my mom. I immediately  called her back (my mom doesn’t call me during the day unless it’s an emergency)… It was… I don’t want to get into major details but my mom’s brother, my uncle, passed away at noon today. He had cancer. He outlived cancer for longer than he should have. I just saw him Saturday at our family dinner at his house! I was planning to visit him this Friday to wish him a Happy New Year!…. I headed home straight away… called my brothers… Curled up in bed and cried… and cried… and continued to be sad. I ordered bad food…. I curled up on the couch… I moped around… I kept thinking, the best thing I can do is just get on the treadmill and run as much as I can so I can get lost in the run. Really?! That does NOT work. You cannot run from your problems and no matter how many miles you put in, you cannot bring someone back. My thoughts keep going back to my aunt, my wonderful aunt… my cousins… my mom…. I pushed my speeds up to even 6 mph for the last 2 or 3 minutes until I just stopped because all I wanted to do was drop and curl up. I need to mourn before I can force myself to move on but all I want to do is force myself to move on. If I continued to run, I’m sure I would have fallen flat on my face. I kept thinking about my uncle and thoughts of him. Thoughts of how he was the one person of all my aunts and uncles to connect with me in any way. We’ve even chatted over running when I told him I had started running, he told me how he would go for runs before he got sick… I pushed on and kept pushing the pace higher and higher. I know that he loved me. I thought about my sweet aunt who loved my uncle more than anything. My aunt who showed her unconditional love for him and cherished him. My family may not be the closest family but this is the family I have and I don’t want to lose anyone in it. I love them all even if we only see each other once a year or only chat online every now and then. I thought about how much I wished running could take away the sadness and make everything better. How badly I wanted to shut my brain off and just run.  I should be happy that my overall run averaged a pace of 7’14″/km which is pretty darn fast for me right now. I’d ideally like to be running a 7 minute kilometre but really, I’d just like my uncle back. That was my day. I am still going to go to the spin class tomorrow and hope for the best. Sorry for babbling on…

I am just sad and no run can fix that today.

Sincerely,

Diana Mach