Pause

I am going to take a month-long break from blogging. Today is August 16th...so on September 16th I will be back. There are some changes I want to make. One big change, I hope, will be my blog address--poor Mary Aplin has been left out for too long :) My marathon is not until October 25th, so you probably won't miss any more than a few mileage updates anyway. I'll miss y'all...

The Scandalous Runner

Dear sweet little Mountain Brook family, with your perfectly coiffed yard, I am sorry for the pink tank top I threw in your azalea bushes. I am sorry that it is sopping wet from my sweat, but I threw it there in a state of desperation. You see, I was at mile 15 of my 16.8 mile run, and I had learned that my body was not made for such extremes. I was on the verge of tears from exhaustion. My legs felt like they were made out of an extremely dense brand of putty. I had a stitch in my side, limiting my already difficult breathing, from the Mountain Dew I had just chugged in a last ditch effort to take in some glucose and finish the d*$! thing. And that shirt, well, it felt like it weighed ten pounds, and I couldn't bear to let my running partners carry the nasty thing--like they were begging me to let them do. A girl, who has had two babies and is watching her left-over baby pooch jiggle in front of her as she jogs through Mountain Brook, has to hold on to some last stitch of pride. So, I refused to let them hold it, and I chucked it into your bushes. I'm sorry. I'll be riding by later this afternoon, when I have enough strength to move my legs, and if it is still there I'll relieve you of it. Abby

I am sorry I've been MIA for so long. There have been a lot of reasons (one of which I blogged about this past week and Jeremiah screened, sorry), but I have really missed y'all. I am sort of addicted to those little [TheMaddoxFamily] notes I get in my inbox every time y'all leave a comment. Anyway, today was a hard run. It could have something to do with the fact that I had "girls' night" with Ashley, Berkley, and Taylor last night. That involved a tapas dinner (with LOTS of cheeses) and wine and a movie that kept us up late...Yep, I payed for it with interest this morning when we bumped up our 14.4 miles from last Saturday. I actually laid down on the rocky asphalt parking lot after we finished, spread eagle. It was a little dramatic, but my legs seriously felt like every last joint in them was spewing lactic acid.I know you saw my note, but if any of you know me, you know I must have been in some sort of desperate state to shed my shirt. I DO NOT run in a sports bras only, ever (as you can tell by the lovely white, Hanes number I am wearing in the picture above). And if I have seen you running around in one, I've probably thought "Humph, hussy." I know that's what the cute little pregnant girl I ran by thought of me. But I have been humbled. I jiggled (and it wasn't my boobs mind you) my way through Crestline AND Mountain Brook village, just trying to survive. I will also never again scoff at people who act like they need expensive gear to run. You need lightweight material to run long distance in our humidity. Trust me on that one.
I would like to tell you about one major perk that comes from long-distance running. I have not lost a single pound. Are you all gasping in horror? I am glad that isn't the reason I started this jazz, cause I'd be jumping ship about now, but I'll be honest, I was hoping it was going to be a natural by-product. So, I haven't lost any weight, but I feel so much more confident about my body. It's weird, but it's like this: If I am running this far and pushing my body this hard, then this must be the way I am supposed to look. Take it or leave it, this is me in shape. It feels really, really good.


I'd like to tell you one major negative about long-distance running too (at least for me). It does a NUMBER on your stomach. I spend all the morning after our long runs...and sometimes longer, worried to leave the close vicinity of my own potty. I have always had an iron-coated stomach; I eat what I want and things keep on tickin'. But suddenly I understand all of you out there with "nervous stomachs." And the even stranger part, is that rarely does anything actually...happen (this is turning into a simply lovely post), I just feel like something is going to.

And on that note, I'll leave you. Here's a picture of my sweet girls, just so you know they are still alive too. I did finally make it to the camera store this week, and wouldn't you know they turned me away immediately because the don't "deal with" Kodak products. You'd think, in this economy, a specialty camera store would deal with any kind of camera they could get their hands on.

Absence Make the Heart Grow Fonder?

I have been depressed. Like seriously, I have sat down at the computer several times in an attempt to say hello...just let you know some little thing that was going on...but I didn't have it in me to make jokes, or relay some recipe or craft (that seemed petty and fake), or to land-blast you with the blackness of my emotion. Reading hasn't helped...not even Oreos. Don't get me wrong, I've been doing a lot of laughing and loving and RUNNING (14.4 miles on Saturday morning, to be exact!!!), but I feel this constant need for companionship--chatter--to skew the sinking whirlpool I feel waiting in my chest, ready to suck me in as soon as I let silence prevail.

The good? news is, that Jeremiah has been depressed too. I say good because when one partner is being Sally Sadface, it's easy for the chipper counterpart to want to go ahead and dunk her head the rest of the way under to quiet the madness. Since both of us have had cases of the dumps, we've been able to laugh at each other's Debbie Downer status, cling tight together, and both swim hard for the surface. It's been good for us.

Tonight, though, I feel better! Tonight, when I asked Pace to love on me and give me a kiss she said, "Mommy, you're alone all the time." I laughingly said, "What do you mean? With you squirrels, I don't feel like I'm ever alone!" Her hypothesis: "But, I'm always playing with Dapples, and Daddy's at work, and you are cleaning the kitchen all by yourself." That pretty well is it in a nutshell :)

I know I haven't told you why I am depressed (and that is annoying as HECK), but I am sure you will trust me when I say that I would if I could but I can't. It's a combination of lots of things really. Mainly, I just wanted to ask that you bear with me for a while. I AM coming back...sometime.

(BTW, old picture. Still no camera. It's not looking good boys.)

Still Alive and Running

I have not been too busy to blog, but I have been too busy to haul two small children to a camera/battery store across town, try to listen to a salesman while the girls pull various and sundry expensive items off the shelves, pay the money for something that may or may not work, and try to fix my camera so that I can blog. SO, I have missed y'all. That picture is our mileage and time from our long run on Saturday morning. Almost a half marathon. This week I felt tons better than last week. I think this was mostly because I wasn't afraid to slow the entire group down and be at the tail end of the line while we ran. I gave them one run to get to know me before I became the leech that's not afraid to slow down everybody else. I've decided they can leave me, they can kick me out, or they can do like they did this week and run back to me over and over again in the run so that we finish at the same time :) I am exaggerating a little...but not much.
Several of you asked about how I got the pictures, and so this week I asked Tom Riser if he would hand the camera to another group member so that we could snap him in a shot for the blog. Here's what we got. He's the one in the front, double fisting it with the power drinks, but you see he's blurry as all get out. Maybe next week. Apparently Dr. Riser (and his wife Margaret, far left, also Dr. Riser) loves gadgets, and this is some new runners camera or something...that he is trying out on us. He is almost always at the front of the group, but he'll sprint a little farther ahead, and then turn around and snap us.

Everyone in the group is medical but me. On the first run, they each sort of ran beside me (huffing away) for a while to talk. Me: So What do you do? Them: I am a [insert specialty here] doctor. What about you? Me: I am a stay-at-home Mom (that sounds sort of lazy)...and I like to write (so do a lot of people)...and I have a blog (they probably have no idea what that is)...and I have a small business where I embroider for people sometimes (that's sort of a lie. would you really qualify the Flossy Finch as a business)...but I went to school to be a chemical engineer! (ok, now you sound like one of those people who put their high school presidency of the French Club on their grown-up resume). I am going to stop now. Mainly, I am just a Mom (and they would have been perfectly happy with that answer you insecure fool).

In the meantime, I have done some other things besides run. I have spent an entire day getting a sewing lesson from Riley's (Caroline, my sister's, boyfriend) Mom while Caroline watched my girls. I learned a lot, but to spend an entire day and have only the TOP of a dress made was a bit discouraging...Discouraging enough that the lesson was Tuesday (a week ago) and I still have not even had the heart to take my sewing machine out of the back of my car.

Let me try to end on something positive... ... ... ... Mary Aplin has started talking more. We've moved past single grunts, to grunts that sort of sound like words :) I'll try to be back sooner, but I am still dreading that trip to the camera shop!