I’ve had a rough month so far.

Even typing that out has me trying to rationalize with myself and make it seem like that hasn’t been the case.

The conditioning to make it seem like everything is great when it’s not runs deep. It’s the ultimate response of “Good! How about you?” when someone asks you how you’re doing.

I’ve done some great stuff this month. If you scroll my camera roll then you’d surely agree.

But even so, this month has been tough for me.

One of my goals whenever I move into a more permanent space is to bring back photo albums. To be fair, I have never really done the whole photo album thing as an adult but I am old enough to know that it was a thing and to know that I want to make it a thing again.

This is the last update before the marathon because I will be running it in two weeks!

If you’ve missed my running saga, here’s a quick recap.

Back in February Mitch decided that he was going to run a marathon. It’s been a bucket list goal for me, as well, but I’ve tried to train for one a few times in the past and always got injured. Since he decided that he was going to do one, I couldn’t not do one. Now is the time! And so, I started running immediately.

Mitch and I invest a lot of time and energy into our relationship. It makes total sense from a logical perspective. Put more time into your relationship and you will reap the benefits. Just like eating healthy and working out. If you show up and eat healthy consistently or if you workout regularly your body will feel better and look better too. But I see how easily relationships can be pushed lower down on the priority list, just like diet and exercise.

On Sunday it began.

Another flare up for Lily.

At this point we strongly believe that it’s stress induced. But I was working with her a lot. She was doing so well! Making so much progress. Or so I thought.

Now we’re back to heading outside a million times a day (and night) without much help or guidance on how to truly get to the root of these unfortunate flare ups.

It’s been 47 days since I went for a run.

It is a little over a month until I run a marathon. A little over a month until I run 26.2 miles.

You could say that I’m starting to get slightly concerned about this. Because I am.

I’ve been getting back into a new morning routine this week. Sometimes I feel the call to switch things up, but the pillars are always the same.

Every year my mom and I take a trip to the mountains. It’s an overnight trip. We have the same routine. Wake up early, drive, stop at Tropical Smoothie Cafe to get smoothies and lunch, head to the mountains, hike our first hike, eat lunch, hike some more, go back into town for dinner at a favorite local spot, head back to the mountains, camp, wake up, hike hike hike, and head home.

It’s typically exhausting and painful but so much fun and very fulfilling. It is type two fun to the max. Type two fun is the type of fun that isn’t exactly fun in the moment but looking back is amazing. To understand it even more, compare it to type one fun, which is instant gratification in the moment type of fun.

Type one fun is great, but type two fun is my jam.