The hardest 10 miles

Ever. That's what I ran this morning. I went out with my running partner, Scoop. Today is her 36th birthday-- a young whippersnapper.

I have done 10 mile runs before countless times. Seriously. I have run 15 marathons and many 1/2 marathons and lots of other strange races like run 15 miles up and down a mountain. But I think this morning was the hardest run of them all.

Weird how some days are so killer.

Or is it? My dissertation project is rocking and rolling, which is totally awesome but is also much more time consuming than I had thought about. It is also more emotional than I had realized it would be, because I am talking with so many people who are tortured by their eating issues, many of whom haven't spoken about them to anyone before.

My kids and I are leaving for Europe at 6:30 am Wednesday to join my parents and their synagogue on a trip to visit Jewish highlights in Prague and Amsterdam for a week, after which we will go visit my husband's brother, wife and children in Vilnius, Lithuania for 3 days. Gotta pack for that, make sure the cats have enough food (because I'm not sure my husband knows where supermarket is, let alone the cat food aisle). Need to eat up all the fruit and vegetables. Need to remember to bring our passports. Need to find the right hair gel for 80% humidity.

I want to interview as many people as possible for Finding Om before I leave on Wednesday. Ideally I would like to get the yoga classes and discussion group started in early March. Suddenly that feels very close. Aside from interviewing and qualifying participants there's a lot to do, like come up with the asana sequences we will use, finalize the meditations I will use in class, and solidfy the structure of the post-asana discussion group. I would also love to follow through with the yoga teacher's idea to make a DVD to help participants with their home practice. I have no video equipment or experience or anything, but that's a small matter.

We return home on Feb 23rd. I have the Run the Republic stairclimb on Feb 24th. My little one's birthday party is March 1st, and there's all sorts of art supply kind of stuff I want to have ordered before I leave.

And I feel pressure to get in a quality workout every day before I go, since I probably will not work out for the 10 days I'm away. I may try to spend 15 minutes in the morning going up and down stairs at the hotel or doing sun salutations in my room, but realistically none of that may happen.

So then when I think about how hard the run was today, it kind of makes sense in perspective. I have a lot going on, all of which takes both physical and emotional energy.

Or maybe I'm just a wussy-ass.