so this weekend was the GO! St. Louis Half Marathon. it was the goal race for the winter/spring session for the FFRC that I am a part of the coaching team. this weekend started off pretty alright, one of my oldest friends came in from b’more with is girlfriend to run. after dropping off their suitcases we headed to the expo, it was small but had enough vendors that we were in there for a little over an hour, from there i took them on a tour of STL. we hit up The Gateway Arch, stopped at the Schlafly Tap Room for lunch and beer. then we headed back to my house where everything went to utter shit. my little doggeh Gracie hasn’t been doing so well over the past couple of months. she was about 12 and her age had been showing more and more each day. she stopped jumping up and down off of the couch, going up and down stairs and was wonkily getting around. I took her in to see our vet on Thursday and she was put on an antibiotic for an ear infection that was pretty obnoxious as well as a few pain meds to help control the pain and inflammation due to arthritis. she was a hot mess but at least everything was fixable, or so i thought.
on Saturday, while i was running around with our visitors she apparently crashed big time. my husband made the executive decision to take her in and to let her go compassionately. i am heartbroken writing this. it has been three days since we went from a two furball house to a one furball house. its our new normal i guess. she was a rescue, and probably the funniest Boston with her google eyes and her snoring like a 300lb lumberjack each and every night, she will be truly missed.
needless to say, all of my plans were shot at that point. i tried tho, i really did. i got up, got ready, left the house before the sun came up to drop my car off at the finish and make it to the start on time. when I got to my garage I couldn’t get out of my car. i knew that i didn’t have 13.1 in me. as much as running would have helped me work through some of my feels, there was no way i was mentally in the right headspace for a half. so i drove back to my house and picked up my friends and dropped them off at the start so that they could run the race we were supposed to run together, came home and promptly zoned out playing xbox. i hurt, even more so than when my grandmom passed. it was / is tough.
so after they finished their respective races, they took the metro back up closer to the start where i picked them up. we spent the rest of the afternoon day drinking at one of my favorite breweries 2nd Shift . the day was beautiful, it was what i needed, good conversation and good folks. just what a bruised heart needed to start to heal.
while the best laid plans are bound to fail its all in how you pick up the pieces and start to move forward. yes, we are down a member of our household but we are better for having her in our lives for the 10 years we did.
perhaps i’ll post more about the little gremlin we named Gracie later but for now i will say this, she was loved.
rest easy little girl.