Falling Down

On Sunday, while running, I tripped, fell, and scraped my left knee. (I also did something uncomfortable to my right quad because it's been aching like I ran a marathon.)  However, after I fell, I assessed the damaged, determined it wasn't anything I couldn't run through, and ran on to finish up my planned run.  The streak is now at day #330.

The fall, while real, is a good metaphor for the entire month of November.  Because Jerry and I have had a doozy of a November.

Jerry got laid off.

There's a lot to discuss here in terms of explanation, but it's boring, and it's not a tale no one hasn't heard before.  It was a blow, but:

Thankfully, Jerry had anticipated the company's downsizing and had already been pursuing a few promising leads, and since the news, he has been inundated with calls, emails, and texts with leads and opportunities.  Ironically, now that he's a "free agent," managers from across the country have been contacting him and doing their best to try and "pick him up off the waiver."  Sorry, that was a lot of sports talk.

From all this, he will most certainly find a fitting offer from another company.

Also, he received a generous severance and, with our savings, we aren't concerned about any immediate financial impact.  Plus, you know, I work too.

While we are some of the most fortunate who can receive this kind of news, it still complicates our lives and is stressful to deal with.  A new opportunity for him most certainly means moving out of state.  We will probably have options to consider, but it's a big decision, and a big move (wherein I will have to resign my job), especially since we don't yet know where or when.  That would be okay, but we're also on the verge of closing on our condo, which we've already been negotiating a sale on now for months.  We're now set to close on that at the end of December.

In the end, all of these big events will, most likely, work out just fine and maybe even better than fine -- in some ways, the lay off could be advantageous for us and maybe push to make some decisions we were reluctant to undertake before.

So, the lay off announcement pushed us down, but we didn't stay down, and while his company's decision bruised, it's nothing that won't fade and that we can't recover from.

As for the running: Tomorrow, I run in my 9th consecutive Turkey Trot 5K, a streak of its own, but I have no expectations about time this year.  My runs following Sunday's spill have been short and slow, and I doubt my legs will feel good enough tomorrow to really push myself.

Still...you never know.  Sometimes an unexpected descent means you have no where to go, but up.

Sayonara October!

October always feels like a particularly long month.  And the last week of the month was particularly exhausting: We had company staying with us (which is always fun but is also busy), then I came down with a round of the barfs, and then it was Halloween which, once you have kids, requires days of events not just one day.  Given that, I was just happy to get last week's runs done, and squeeze in an even 100 miles for the month.

So, I'm happy to see October in the rearview and am pleased to look forward to November, one of my favorite months.  I have the turkey trot on Thanksgiving (always one of my favorite traditions), and I am planning for an early December half marathon, so I have that training beginning to peak as well.  Thankfully the weather has begun to cool off, so even though the days are shorter and I'll have to adjust to running in the dark, the relief of more temperate weather is welcome.

In general, because FL's sub tropical climate gives us the opposite enjoyable weather as the rest of the country, from now until March I get to enjoy FL's "race season," and just yesterday, I was starting to get excited about determining which events I wanted to include in this year's race calendar.  Certainly, it's tempting to do them all, but practicality dictate that time and finances be considerations, so I have to limit my choices.  Still, it's always fun to look at my choices and weigh the favorites with the events I've never done, or haven't done in awhile.

I'm lucky to have such choice, and it being November, I do pause to be grateful for the running events that stretch out before me from now until March.