I'm back!!!

It's been a while! A ton has been going on. I took most of last running season off, although I did do a half marathon relay, and 3 half marathons within 3 weeks, 2 of them on back to back days! I survived. I was slow, lots of walking, but I did it on very little training. So that made me wonder-if I can do back to back halfs with no training, what could I do if I trained for the entire season, May - March? So my goal is to find out this year. Work had been crazy - it has completely taken over my life and I'm really unhappy. Lots of overtime, stress, stress eating leading to weight gain (or sometime no break and no food all day). i get sick frequently-working the way I do isn't healthy. My goal is to devote more time to taking care of myself than I do to my job. if something were to happen to me, the reality is, the job would survive. They would pick up and move on and forget about me in a few weeks. I've really been thinking about the whole work life balance thing lately. This has become even more important as I found out over the last couople of days that I have an irregular heart beat. It was only discovered because I went in because I was really sick and in the course of the normal "listen to your heart with a stethoscope" the dr heard something usual - some extra beats in there. An EKG confirmed it. In researching I discovered that stress can cause it. So can caffeine but I gave up sodas on Decc 28th and usually drink decaf tea (and I do n't drink tea that often). I had felt a few twinges in my chest lately but I kind of dismissed it. Anyway, my job is not worth my health. i'm only 36!! So this running season I'm going to focus on me. Of course, I'm not off to a good start being sick, with an infection and fever. Probably won't be running this week with my running group. Just have to make sure that missing 1 week doesn't turn into 1 month and then into 1 year.....