Run a Little, Walk a Little

I was at the courthouse from 10:00am until 6:00pm yesterday, with no lunch, trying to settle a case.  It settled, which was good, but I missed one of our last Indian Summer days.   I was too tired when I got home to do more than write yesterday's blog.  Today was another of those Indian Summer days, so I made sure to come home early and take the puppies for a nice long walk.  It seems I wasn't the only one appreciating the weather, because my old girl (she's 12.5) practically raced around the lake.  I brought them home and went for a run.  It's great to be able to run again.  I'm using Jeff Galloway's system for running, which is a run/walk method.  You run for a few minutes, then walk for a minute, all through the run.  I first tried it when I ran the Marine Corps Marathon, and it's amazing how easy something is when you only have to do it for five minutes at a time.  That first hill on my run (tell me again why I live at the bottom of a hill?) doesn't seem nearly so bad when I know I get to walk soon.  The funny thing is that my running times are faster when I run and walk than when I only run.  That's kind of how it is here in the Trenches.  The divorce process is a marathon.  There are some folks who can run the whole thing and do so quickly, but the vast majority can't.  They have to work hard to finish.  Some of the finishes are better than others;  and the bad ones are usually due to a lack of training or starting out too fast.  Pacing yourself, running some and walking some, until you can run more than you walk and do it more swiftly, gets you to the end, and you cross that finish line looking and feeling a whole lot better than those folks who didn't pace themselves.  Those of us in the Trenches know who they are.  They're the ones who panic about everything, obsess about things before their time, and generally over think.  If those folks don't slow down, they look and feel exhausted and overwhelmed by the time we really need them to focus and obsess.  Then, they're no help to anyone.  They need to walk a little during their race so they can come out better in the end.  Here in the Trenches.