Ceiling

BDP has a lot of depth; with women who are new to running, who are hungry, balancing between trying to catch up and practice presence simultaneously. Some who found running later in life, and are peaking in relation to maturing which is a beautiful union:  No matter where we come from, we're all trying to take two steps ahead, and then, at the same time, try to keep each other in balance so that we don't get ahead of ourselves. A while back we asked each other the question, How do you know when you've left your race in training? Is there a way to find our "ceiling" without hitting it? It's funny that shortly thereafter, I hit mine. 

Last weekend we went to see Richard Cheese at the Showbox. When Red told me the plan, I was like, ohmygod what is this expensiveshowtunyshit? Then he put on a tuxedo. I, a black silk pantsuit. Over a couple of drafts, hip swayze, and Cheese's several suit coat changes from tropical to leopard fuzz, I stopped being judgey. We ate a spicy-italian sausage & pepper pizza from the Alibi Rm. and headed back home for a few hours of sleep before work.

Saturday was Red's first ball game; with travel mugs of coffee & Powerbars we headed back south. It was great weather and I set up on the aluminum bleachers with my laptop and a copy of the manuscript and edited while the boys warmed up. Later that afternoon we biked to Wander where they were celebrating their 1st Anniversary, ordering truck food, sipping barrel-aged. From there we wanted to afternoon cap at Kulshan. On the way I got a flat and crashed, falling across the road, blooming road rash. After assessing the damage, we continued for the beer, sharing stories with a bar fly who was in Hot Dog...The Movie. Walked home under the blue sky.

Sunday was family dinner with a platter of steaks, Baked potatoes. Mass salad. Rosé and red wine. Learning more about each other. I was buzzing. Then, a few days later I got my iron tested, and it's low. Navigating through the magic schoolbus mystery of HGB & HCT & Ferritin thanks to Ber the blood-magician. All this meat and my ferritin is super suck. How much ironbloodgreens do you want me to consume Universe! This led to a conversation with mother about how we're always in one ditch or another, and can never seem to find ourselves on the road. Which PS: mum has just finished her hospice training and will need a plethora of khaki pants.

I met up with a sports medicine doc. Actually, I was handheld into getting an appt. with a sports medicine doc. After 7 months of pubic pain, it was probably time. It is conferred that its osteitis pubis. So, as I told Rad Bones earlier this week, " I crashed my bike and landed on my knee and elbows. I'm going to show up to this race with cuts, scrapes, bruises, a broken vagina and no energy. It's going to be so fun."

All of that happened, and now we're circling back to BDP. I do believe we have a group of about 8-9 people going to Eugene (Al, Aly, Ber, Ber's mom, LB, LB's mom, Red & I). Nikki will run in the full, the rest of us, the 1/2. This was supposed to be the culmination of my half-year plan, my A race. But, as I've conjectured, it's better to be present and accept the timing of things. I'm really excited for my teammates, who have all worked extremely hard and sacrificed a lot of themselves for this. I hope that my spirit is as joyful post the pavement burn, as it is right now, in this moment.