Purging and Running and Purging

Does the title of this post make me sound bulimic? Well, I'm obviously not (although if you've seen me pound cookies as I did last week, you might wonder). But that's what I was up to in January.

We lost a good week of the month to the flu, with all 5 of us having it at one time. It was horrific. Really. The sickest I can remember being since I had the chicken pox. I will spare you the details. So, that was the first round of purging.

I also spent the month trying to train for the London's Run Half-Marathon. I've wanted to run it for a while, but 3 years ago, I threw my back out, then I was pregnant, then I was sleep-deprived and nursing a 6-month-old. This year I was a little late in the game when it came to training. Due to our Christmas travels and bad weather in both places, I didn't run for almost 3 weeks and my usual running distance was 4-5 miles. But I decided to give it a shot. Then I got the stomach flu and laryngitis, but I managed to do 3 long runs and to kick up my speed on my 6 miles. I didn't have a running partner, which made the running really, really hard for me because, let's face it, running is really not that fun. And running 7-8 miles on the treadmill almost made me slit my wrists from boredom. The good thing about the boredom of it is that I wanted to finish faster, so I finally kicked my 10-min mile pace up to a 8-9 min-mile pace, especially on the shorter runs.

The race was last Saturday, and it was really fun! I was just planning on taking it easy since I hadn't trained well, and I really enjoyed the run. It was all dirt roads, which was nice, and I didn't push myself, so I didn't end feeling sick, like I have before. I ended feeling like I could actually run farther, which probably means that I should have pushed myself more. But it was a really good, empowering feeling to end feeling strong. And I made it under 2 hours--just barely! It was also so fun to have J and the kids waiting at the finish line. I have no pic other than the one Sports Shots took here. Not so flattering, eh?

And, to the last "purging" from the title. I have been determined to purge my home of all of the excess we've accumulated in the 6 years we've lived here. So, I've slowly been cleaning out the kitchen cupboards (sometimes it takes me a couple days to clean just 1 out seeing as how H takes it upon himself to "clean out" at least 4-5 while I am cleaning one), closets, files, and soon, the toys. I have to admit that I'm not so good at purging. I'm a sentimental, loyal person, which is all good when it comes to friendship but not so great when it comes to organization. But here's the lone visual I've taken so far in the purging process. I went through all of my files related to my dissertation, determined to get all of that paper under control. I ended up organizing all of the articles and my notes, but tossing this stack--all of the drafts of my dissertation chapters. It represents so much hard work that it's hard to just throw it in the recycling bin. But the process did remind me that I need to get to work on publishing some of this hard work. You know, assuming I can get through the purging and organize my life and my home again.