Tucker's Tower

Piper and Dukie

It was four weeks ago yesterday that I filled out the paperwork to adopt Piper. I went to the Pet Smart with Sue and Piper proudly followed me, on the other side of the glass wall, from one side of the cage to the other. I fell in extremely like with this cat, not wanting to fall in love because the adoption wasn't yet approved. After picking out Piper and filling out the paperwork, in true Sarah and Sue fashion, we walked around the store talking about the things we loved while picking up items for the pets we both already had at home. We came upon the cat towers to which Sue announced that Tucker (Sue's cat) would LOVE one of those. We checked out the prices and in true SARAH fashion I announced that we could easily make one of those for a fraction of the cost!!! Two hours is all it would take!!! We took a couple of pictures and headed to Home Depot.

I started building the tower that, or the next day... Can't remember which. I made a number of errors in the first cuts and construction, and ultimately had to start over.

So how does Tucker's Tower relate to my athleticism? Well, some would say that it doesn't relate at all, but in comes the metaphorical side of me...

This year, half marathon training has been a little slow going. The long runs seem REALLY long, and the short runs seem extremely difficult. This all has me reflecting on the first time I trained for a half marathon. I was kind of training alone and every run felt like the first run of my life. I made it through the training and proudly finished that race, but every time I took the first step in front of the other I felt like I was starting over. You probably know that feeling of defeat when you feel like the work that was already put in, just the day before, doesn't seem to pan out to making the next day better. But then you amazingly have the ultimate success of the finish line or completing the cat tower, proving that every ounce of work/effort put into it was worth it...

Tucker's Tower
Better picture coming soon.

Well this training cycle is proving to be the Tucker Tower and very similar to the first time I trained for a half marathon. The two hours (wink wink) that were put into the cat tower project seemed to be met with one step forward and two steps back. The short term successes were often lost on the long term planned success. And here I sit, super proud of each and every step, regardless of the direction, that led to the success of a tower, that was ultimately ignored by the cat that I made it for!

So, what is the lesson learned in all of this? I need to remember that even the short term steps backward have a purpose and are ultimately steps toward the larger accomplishment.