Twelve years ago I walked away, partly by choice, from a career that I'd grown weary of, partly due to work-related injury. I gave it up for a new adventure that paid half of what my wife and I'd been used to, in an effort to have and experience something different. At the beginning of this year I had finally worked my way back up the pay scale to what I was taking home in 1998! Three months later, the axe fell there, tossing me into the jobless mix of uncertainty, frustration, raised blood pressure, frantic budget trimming, and a forced lowering of life expectations. Turns out, it would not stay that way for long. To say that I have been blown away by the support I have gotten from my sweetheart wife, family, friends, Goon Squad members, other runners, bloggers, Facebookers, Twitterers, Daily Milers, Just Finishers, and bike shop and radio colleagues, would be an understatement. To bless you all would take too much space here. You know who you are. You were the much-needed padding in the walls I've been bouncing off of for three weeks.
Thankfully, the pinball action has subsided, as I've been welcomed back into the radio fold, on a fill-in basis, at a time when there are lots of open holes. I was even offered the opportunity to get in on the ground floor of a budding new business, from a Twitter friend I've been following for months. Unfortunately, current time constraints don't allow me to give the time he needs to make it work. His trust and kindness will be long-remembered and appreciated warmly.
If you've been here before you'll know I was going, at the end of this month, to Trieste and Prague, to run marathons in both places on back-to-back weekends in May. That trip has been scrapped, but, as "they" say, you can't keep an old marathoner down. I am one click away from signing up for the San Francisco Marathon in July. It'll be my fourth running of the SFM. My rule has been to not run any one marathon more than three times but...rules are meant to be broken. I am viewing it as my hometown marathon madness re-entry event. I am hoping to hear soon that at least a couple of local friends will be doing it, too.
Shortly after I'd committed to running Trieste, I agreed to run the Athens Classic Marathon in...well, Greece! I have a dear friend there, whom I have never met in person, who inspires with every workout she posts on line. We've chatted for months, and, at one point she invited me to come over and run with her. I accepted. It's not til October 31st so, despite my job loss, I was not prepared to cancel. I figured I'd give it time. Then, last week I decided to take a chance that work and finances would soon stabilize and sign up for it. Turns out, the day before, it sold out. I thought I was out of luck. However, within hours of emailing my friend, she'd spoken with her running club members about me and emailed me back. They're going to let me sign up as one of them. Could these people be more amazing? You do the math.
So. It would appear...the sharp edges of involuntary unemployment are being rounded...to where they are barely painful...right now. I am thrilled to be back in the full mix of life. Reinventing, again.
Gotta run!
