Why a Blog?

Frankly, I'm not sure. I hate to write and I can't keep up with our family blogspot (and I really only show pictures on that one), yet I feel like this is really important at this time in my (our) life. This is not meant to be a place where I brag about my latest long run, or seek admiration/compliments on how busy we are and how we cope. Well, maybe once in a while I'll solicit compliments, but that's not my goal :) Instead this is a place where I'm going to try and make sense of it all and motivate myself. I want this to be a long term commitment for me, and not another 1 year phase. My hope is that this blog is the first public step in that direction.

We do have a busy life, but everyone else does too. Yes, juggling 2 young children, a very challegning career, a ironman husband and trying to run myself isn't easy. But I've decided I can't hide from that anymore. It's not easy, but it's also not impossible. I can run at 5:30 AM and still have a life, I can miss 2 hours of family time on Saturday mornings and my husband and kids will still love me. I recently picked up the book "Run Like a Mother" it tackles many of these same issues-- I'm sure I'll be quoting this book from time to time.

How far I've come already: In July I couldn't run a mile, and when I tried my heart rate hit the mid-180's. Marty had the kids behind me in the stroller and it took every bone in my body to not cry because it was so hard. But I didn't want them to see me struggle so I continued on and completed my 2 miles. At the beginning of October I had lost 25 pound and completed the TC10 mile in 1:59:18. My first goal was to finish and my "pie in the sky" goal was to complete the race in under 2 hours. More importantly my heart rate averaged 159, this was much better than the 180's I experienced during my 1st run. I've now lost 32 pounds and this weekend I'll be attempting the monster dash 1/2 marathon.

One last thing to note: Yes, I signed up for Grandma's Marathon in June 2011. I've been hesitant to tell people for fear I won't be able to complete it and they'll know that I've failed. So again today I'm saying it out loud-- I've commited my $85 to doing it and now I'll also commit my time and my body to this challenge. I've got a lot of fears associated with this marathon, but I'll ellaborate on those in another post. For now, all I need to focus on is that I'm FULLY committed.