bittersweet symphony.

The running club certainly has helped with my winter depression. It has breathed new life into my running and commitment to my next marathon. Breathed new life into me in general. New people, all with the same crazy desire to run lots. The only problem is that I've been sore every day since I started. At some point, this is bound to stop. And for the first three weeks, it was a mark of the hard work I was doing. But now I'm a little sick of it.

Take last weekend. I woke up feeling great on Saturday morning, but then I did a speed workout around Lake Calhoun in the -14 windchill. And then ran 13 miles the next day. I felt ok again by Tuesday, but then did an 11 mile speed workout at the Dome. And ran 7 miles on Wednesday. I'm finally feeling like my quads and hamstrings aren't crabby at me and I'm headed to do repeats on the High Bridge (a half mile hill!) tomorrow morning. It's so much painful fun.

I feel immeasurably stronger already, but this might be too much for me. I'm going to give it a couple more weeks, and then I might have to cut back and pick and choose which runs I do. I'm too young to be groaning getting out of bed every morning.

Running club or not, I'm still tired and sad a lot, and had a complete breakdown earlier this week when, for two days, I thought I was turning 37 this year. Like I still have mini panic attacks thinking about my response - heart racing, shortness of breath, better get on the floor before I pass out kind of panic attacks. But luckily I was wrong and I'm only turning 36. Somehow immensely better. And made me feel pretty stupid for not taking the second and a half to actually do the math to correct this misconception.

Regardless of the mistake, my body makes me keenly and constantly aware that if I want to do the baby thing, my time is about up. And somehow 37 seemed like a death sentence in that area. Over the last six months or so I tried to figure out how to be able to do it financially on my own and just can't make the numbers work. Add to the fact that my dad talks about dying a lot lately (he's doing ok right now, though), and the pressure is overwhelming. The heartbreak I have over not having kids is hard to reconcile. I am thankful for the life I have built on my own, and know it is very good. There's just a piece or two missing.

And I have to laugh, because I can't really think of something that would make me less attractive than having my clock ticking. Which ain't gonna help me fix the issue. Oh the irony.