Ice, heat, chocolate, and missing.

Today I am sad because Alex has voyaged off to Israel, where he is going to be for the next 10 days for Birthright. I think this is great and he'll have a super fun time but I always get anxious when he travels and this is the first time in our 3.5-year relationship that he's travelled out of the country so....I'm just nervous/anxious. But mostly I'm sad because we probably won't be seeing each other for the next 3.5 months! I think it's okay to be sad because usually I'm pretty happy, and after a day or two hopefully I get over it and start finding lots of things to keep me occupied. We've never gone so long without seeing each other and I definitely think that qualifies as long-distance. I guess it's good training though.

Also my best friend of 10-11 years is in the hospital because her appendix ruptured. She's had to have a couple surgeries and it sounds like it was a pretty bad week for her so I'm keeping her in my thoughts and want to send her a shout-out to stay strong and keep fighting! The last time I heard from her she said she was in pretty low spirits and I know what she's going through is no fun at all.

Back to positives! My legs are finally feeling better from the half-marathon, which was 4 days ago now. I had NEVER been so sore in my life! I took a real beating from that race but I did a lot of icing and took a lot of Tylenol and actually took two ice baths, which really seem to have helped! I had never ice-bathed before and now I think I will try to do it after all my hard runs; it really seemed to turn my recovery around and quite literally get me back on my feet. My hips, which I talked about in my Race Recap, are feeling much better and I think this has just taught me to save enough time before the race to streeeetchhh out! Especially for my IT-Band.

A couple race photos came out! This is the only one where I look semi-alive, but I still seem pretty bad. I know exactly what point of the race this is, I made eye contact with the photographer. Look at that heel-strike! Youch!!!

This morning I went to Hot Yoga but I think it's still too early after the half-marathon to be sweating so much, and it might've been better to do a recovery run. I had a terrible dehydration headache for the last hour of the class and it was just sort of generally miserable. I was also tired and having trouble staying on cue with the instructor, and though my legs felt better finally they didn't want to listen to me. It's important not to underestimate how much Hot Yoga can take out of you! It's not supposed to be comfortable, but make sure you have the proper hydration and rest to make it through the class. I'll have to keep this in mind!

Last November I did the Hot Chocolate Race in Columbus, and I have every intention of doing it in the future. I found this fitting quote on their boards recently:

Yum. So true. Chocolate gets through me hard times like I'm having today! I don't understand how anyone can dislike chocolate! It's truly an amazing thing.

I was also aimlessly scrolling through the news for my next half-marathon, which is the Lake Health Half-Marathon on June 16th. I've never talked to anyone who's done this race so I'm a little nervous and apprehensive, but my fingers are crossed that it goes well. I saw a table for them at the Cleveland Expo so they seem legit! I'll start doing some hard runs next week and then I'll probably taper for a week or a week and a half. I'm worried about the possibility of extreme heat, though! I wonder if they've had issues with this before. The race doesn't start until 8 AM--a full HOUR later than Cleveland. At 8 AM last Sunday I was closer to done than not! The course is also challenging and hilly. It'll be an experience for sure. Luckily they put this post on their Facebook page. Looks like they're saving lots of popsicles for me: