A Year of Running + Gardening

Whew. I’m tired. I can’t help it, but I think it all the time. This summer I attempted to simultaneously garden and train for a marathon. On top of that, my cousin got married on Orange Beach Alabama on the gulf, so I spent a week there with my family, I had a business trip to Vegas the following week, and then a week after that I left for 11 days in Europe with my mom and sister. While I was there, we found out that John got a social media internship in Boston. I got back in early August and moved swiftly from 50 hour weeks into 60 hour weeks. John and I briefly said goodbye at the end of the month when I left for a 20 mile run and he got in his car for Boston.

In late September, my boss then delivered her baby a week early and 60 hour weeks turned into 70 hour weeks. A week later my uncle passed away in a harvesting accident in the arms of my mom and dad. I’ll let that soak in for a moment. They were there. I found out at work at 8:30 on a Wednesday night. When you find out that somebody you love has died, there’s no place worse to learn that news than at work. It’s crushing, it’s no place for tears, and it’s approximately a thousand miles away from the seclusion of a bed and pillows and blankets and kleenex. To learn that news and then to decide whether or not you’re going to run a marathon is beyond comprehension. I worked two more days. I ran the marathon on Sunday. I got done running, went home immediately, and was in the car on the way back to Iowa for the funeral within two hours. I stayed for one day and arrived back in Minnesota at midnight. The next day was Tuesday and I was back to work at 8 am. Since then, I’ve been working 60-65 hour work weeks. And sure, it’s advertising, this is what you do.

In the end, I finished the marathon and I left my garden to die. I’m fairly certain this is what burning out feels like. Mostly it feels like nothing. Each day you just make do with the circumstances you’ve created and the circumstances which have been created for you. Often it feels like incredible frustration, helplessness, and loneliness because nobody actually knows what all of that feels like. It feels like you’re becoming diluted and poison at the same time. But today…today I leave for a long weekend in Boston and I get to see John for the first time in 54 days.

I ran the marathon and I survived. A big deep and dirty soul-purging updating coming in the next few days. Stay tuned..or don’t, I don’t really care…okay, I kinda do…but just a little.

…20 mile run this weekend. EEEPPP!

Here I am with my sister admiring a veggie garden in Interlaken. Travel ended up taking over a bigger part of my summer than gardening did. I made no less than two trips to Chicago, a trip to Vegas, Alabama, Europe, and back home.

When you mix all that travel with marathon training and 50+ hour work weeks, it makes for a really boring blog.

Apologies.

Apologies all around.

Now that I’ve entered my second year of gardening and marathoning, I’m struggling to cope with my self-imposed expectations. It’s the delusion that I now know everything there is to know because I’ve done it once. I’ve been hiding from you dearest followers because I’m not living up to my own expectations.

It’s not that I haven’t been gardening or that I haven’t been running as I thought would be the case when I entered this world of internet accountability 18 months ago. It’s that I feel like my garden is a baby garden. The damn lettuce won’t grow and the garden down the street from mine has like, the sexiest lettuce plants. It’s that I’m running, but I feel like I’m not running fast enough so then I run too fast thereby forcing myself to take breaks.

I guess when you do the things you don’t think you can do, you’re forcing yourself to do them better the second year.

Sadly, the compassion, discovery, and personal growth I experienced in the first year seem like a distant memory.

Yesterday I finally had a chance to make another run to Mother Earth Gardens for peppers. I was hoping to get eggplant plants too, but I missed the boat on that one as they were out. Instead, I upped the number and variety of pepper plants and planted scallions and spinach under one of the chicken wire fortresses.

Hopefully I can get to a revised garden plot later this week.

Also, extra water for the garden-folk tonight. Holy Hot. Yowzas.

That’s a good looking plant. * whistles *

I think The Radishes are trying to comfort me because I fried Mr. Cabbage-Plant again. I tried not to, but I guess I didn’t return his calls for watering even though he was trying to alert the gardener, who subsequently wasn’t in the garden for a series of days. I haven’t been the best landlord; he hasn’t been the most forgiving tenant.

The Radishes get me.

What a difference just a few days makes.

I forgot my camera last night so I’m delivering a quick update.

Potatoes - Growth explosion
Scallions - Were growing, now missing. Not sure which rodent is to blame.
Radishes - Mostly grown!
Herbs - Suffering in super wet soil. Cilantro and parsley are both almost toast.
Cauliflower - What a little pansy, can’t handle a little dry soil, at all.
Onions - Living it up.
Lettuces - Just peaking through
Beets - A couple of inches tall.