Change of Pace

It's actually hard to imagine where I would have fit running into my life if I HAD been allowed to stick with it over the last few months. Maybe it served me just as well that I was put on the DL, considering that it let me off the hook for finding time to run. It will be a long road back, but at least the break has been a guilt-free one!

What I have been up to instead this summer has been:

1. Trip to Portland, Oregon to present my master's project research at an academic conference (I had a conversation with two runners on the metro)
   
2. Trip to Los Angeles to coordinate the awards ceremony for the Pictures of the Year competition (The 1984 Olympic marathon was in Los Angeles; does that make it a running related trip?)
   
3. Back to Columbia, MO to try and finish my master's project and finally graduate. Fail.
   
4. Trip to New York to set up a new subletter in my apartment there and for my baby shower. Fabulous to see all my pals, though frustrating that I barely got to say two words to most of them. I never even entered Central Park. Weird.
   
5. Side trip with Jack and 11-yr-old Clay to Philly to do historic stuff and meet extended Hornberger clan.
   
6. Visits to New Jersey friends/family on the way back to the city involving an (unsuccessful) mad sprint to try and catch a NJ Transit train that left me curled up on the platform with wicked Braxton-Hicks contractions -- amazing how unconcerned the other train patrons seemed.
   
7. National Geographic called to use one of my photos. Really. This actually happened.
   
8. I got really sick before leaving New York. It spread to my lungs and I spent the next three weeks coughing despite the fact that I no longer have any abdominal muscles. I comforted myself with the thought that maybe labor will seem painless in comparison.
   
9. Frantic packing upon return to Missouri and the big move to St. Louis. The rental company canceled my truck reservation the night before my move, allowing me to practice deep breathing and visualization techniques.
   
10. Even more frantic attempt to finish up the photo book I'm editing for my master's project in hopes of being able to have it in-hand to sell in mid-September. Fail.
    
11. Fly to Columbus to pick up my mom and drive with her, my dad and her dog to Richmond. Get her set up to stay on her own for a month or so (a questionable plan at best) before driving her car back to Missouri. Thank goodness my dad is willing to check in on her a couple of times a day and take her grocery shopping, to Dr. appts, etc. After the baby, she'll come out to Missouri for a while, but that's problematic too since she can't be separated from that dog of hers and that dog of hers can't be trusted around children. Still figuring this one out...
    
12. The aforementioned drive back to Missouri. Note Salty's comment about my ankles in the last post...I should have photographed them again after a 1,000 mile drive!
    
13. I have a job now! Just a freelance one, but it lets me take photos and do some actual journalism and it keeps the cash flow coming in the right direction -- no small matter since I keep buying stuff for baby! I actually have an assignment four days before my due date...we'll see how that goes! The website is Patch.com, but the community page that I've been working for isn't live yet.
    
14. Drive across Missouri to the book printer in Kansas City to oversee production on the first pages. Yay, they look good! Visit college pal Nancy and get to show off enormous belly.
    
15. Go to town festival In Festus/Crystal City where I was supposed to have been selling my book. Make do by handing out flyers about it. Hope that people will buy it whenever it does eventually come out.
    
16. And just in the last hour, I've gone and complicated my life a bit more by dropping my computer on the concrete basement floor and it seems to be in a bit of a coma now. I guess I'll have to figure out a way to muddle through on Jack's PC, but without Photoshop, I'm at a bit of a loss. I'll need to figure this thing out sooner rather than later.
    

Mixed into all of this is dealing with my mom's finances (which are a complete mess), my own finances (not a heck of a lot better), refinancing my apartment (refinancing a Co-op is comparable to doing a 45x45 square Sudoku), getting official Missouri residency (so I can sign up for one credit of in-state tuition, so I can stay on student insurance, so this birth thing doesn't put me into debt forever), trying to make sure I have at least the basics to take care of this impending infant, setting up a deferral on my student loans, and trying to, at least occasionally, act like a good step-mommy (make dinner, photograph x-c meet, celebrate birthdays, etc.)

So needless to say, I have not finished my master's project, hired a midwife/doula, toured the obstetrics ward, or taken birthing classes. I'm not sure what I would have done if I'd have had a full-time job through all of this. I AM sure though that I would not have been making time to run.

This was a rather long vent, I'm afraid. And I was going to liven it up with a few photos, but I'd just scanned them into my computer when I dropped it, so that took care of that. At any rate I think we're up to date now. 17 days to D-day...please baby, don't be early.

That last gasp of muggy summer air, that sharply-angled, autumnal light, that distinctive musk of dying leaves and adolescent sweat...ah, cross-country.

I'd been wanting to attend one of my stepson's meets since he started the season (his first) a few weeks ago, but other stuff always seemed to get in the way. So I was psyched to finally get to a meet yesterday afternoon, even though it kind of made me feel really old. Was high school THAT long ago? Um, yeah, I guess it was.

In the end, I was so overcome by the old, familiar atmosphere that I and my big belly jogged around like a crazy woman, trying to take photos at the start, finish and all the mile-markers. It actually felt better on my back that the effort of walking quickly did and I figure with 11 days to my due date, what harm could I do?

Well, oy vey. Last night I learned the answer to that one as I hobbled around the house with every muscle in my hips and lower back aching and groaning. Seven months on the wagon has left me a little decrepit and my muscles just don't understand how to cope with the extra 30 pounds I'm lugging around up front. Lesson-learned though. Once this critter is on the outside, I'm going to take my good, sweet time with the comeback and hope, hope, hopefully I can avoid getting injured on my way back to being a runner.

Now, I just need to find a good Turkey-trot application to use as my focus object during labor...