Falling Down the Stairs is a Humbling Experience

Thursday started off as a great day (well minus the whole Petey peeing on the bed thing, but that's another story for another blog entry titled "Adventures in Potty Training a Puppy from a Fourth Floor Walkup"), the weather was great, I got an excellent workout in at the gym, 3 miles on the elliptical and 30 minutes of swimming laps, and I have the whole day ahead of me to look forward to. Truly an awesome day.

I was thinking about what I was going to do with my awesome day while carrying Petey down the stairs to go out (yes, we have to carry him down the stairs because he's still too little to climb them), next thing I know I'm falling down the stairs and all I can think about is not landing on the 8 pound dog I'm carrying because I'm pretty sure it might have killed him. I didn't for one second think about how I was going to land and ended up doing a very awkward throwing the dog in front of me so I don't crush him thing.

I then landed directly on my right knee cap. Not one other part of my body took the impact. It was shockingly painful. And of course, Petey was no worse for the wear, he just stared at me with his head cocked to one side while I yelled for Jeff to come and help me because I just wasn't sure if I could get up. Of course then I burst into tears. Not because it hurt (it did) but because I was terrified that I had injured myself and I would no longer be able to train for the half or the full marathon and all of the goals I'd been working towards would be shattered. Dramatic much? Ha.

I spent the next 5 or so hours on the couch wallowing in my own pity and icing my knee. I couldn't believe how upset I was or how vulnerable I felt. It really hit home for me just how important all of this training is to me and how important my goals are to me. It also really hit home just how quickly things can change in an instant. I was lucky, I don't think I'm seriously injured but I could have been and that scared the crap out of me.

I will try and be more careful when carrying the little guy down the stairs. The next time I might not be so lucky to end up with only some rug burn and a couple of good bruises!

Running on the Beach is Hard

The beach is my favorite place on earth. Always has been. There is nothing I love more than walking along the shoreline, letting the waves hit my feet, feeling the sand between my toes and looking out at the ocean. I feel completely at peace when I'm at the beach, no matter what is going on in my life.

We made our first trip down to the shore this past weekend to celebrate the fourth of July. It was amazing. The weather was perfect, the company was great and little Petey loved the shore just as much as I do...

Obviously I had a bit of marathon training to do while we were down the shore. Luckily I did my longest run before we left. But I still had a few runs to do while we were there. Let me just say, they were BRUTAL. Honestly, probably some of the worst runs I've had while I've been training. Despite the beautiful weather and scenery the runs were awful which was honestly really frustrating.

I did one run on the sidewalk and one on the beach and they were both hard. There is really no way to describe them other than that. Just hard. I don't know if my legs are still tired from the long run I did, or if they are tired from all of the walking I did on the beach, or it if is some combination of the two, but my training this past weekend was anything but easy.

I'm taking today off from anything other than walking and am planning to do a short run and an hour long yoga class tomorrow in hopes of helping my tired muscles. I'm also thinking about trying to schedule a sports massage to see if that might help. It's a little discouraging to be having trouble with 3 mile runs at this point in my training, but I'm sure its just one of many obstacles I'll face along the way.

Welcome to the family Petey!

I interrupt my regularly boring training posts to introduce our newest family member - Pete!!

This past weekend was a whirlwind, a completely awesome whirlwind. We've been in process to adopt a puppy for about a month now and in the middle of the night on Friday (about 1:30am) he finally joined our family. Here is the photo on petfinder that started it all:

We found the posting for "Tigger" about a month ago, here is what it said:

~~~~THIS PUPPY IS LOCATED IN A RESCUE IN ARKANSAS BUT CAN BE ADOPTED OUT OF STATE TO AN APPROVED HOME AT THE ADOPTERS EXPENSE~~~~~~ THIS GUY COME INTO THE RESCUE WITH OTHER SIBBLINGS IN JUST HORRIBLE CONDITION.THEY HAD PARASITES SO BAD WE DIDNT KNOW IF THEY WOULD LIVE OR NOT.ON TOP OF THAT THEY HAD HAIR MISSING OVER HALF THERE LITTLE BODIES.THEY ARE NOW FREE OF THE PARASITES AND GETTING THERE HAIR BACK.YOU WOULD NEVER KNOW ANY OF THEM WERE EVEN SLOWED DOWN A BIT WITH ANYTHING.THEY LOVE TO PLAY AND EAT JUST LIKE ANY TYPICAL LITTLE PUPPY.IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO ADOPT ONE PLEASE CONTACT US AND WE WILL SEND YOU AN APPLICATION TO FILL OUT.THESE BABIES ARE ALMOST 3 MONTHS OLD NOW

That was all it took. We filled out an application and a bunch of phone calls, a bit of money and one very long plane ride later and Tigger is ours! We re-named him Pete and could not be more thrilled to have him in our family.

He has had a traumatic first few months of life and we plan to remedy that by giving him as much love as he can stand. Its a tough job, but somebody has to do it.

We knew we had a fantastic little guy on our hands when after 12+ hours of being stuck in a crate (he had all kinds of flight trouble getting here, thanks a lot Newark airport) and not knowing who the heck we were, his first instinct was to try and lick Jeff through the crate. That's pretty much all it took, we were both in love, he had stolen both of our hearts and continues to do so more and more each day.

The first night he snuggled right up to both of us and fell asleep after his long day of travel. It was the sweetest thing in the world. It's been a little hard to watch how scared he his of his new surroundings (going from rural Arkansas to Hoboken, NJ can't be easy for the little guy) but we know it's just an adjustment phase. Pretty soon he'll feel right at home here, even with all of the commotion.

We're still getting to know each other and just enjoying our time. Here is a picture of him today, happy and secure in his new home:

We love you Petey!