I did it!

I officially signed up for the half-marathon in Olympia for May 16th! I also have a great new running coach/friend who has written up a training schedule for me and is doing all my long runs with me. These next 7 weeks will be hard training, but I am ready! I already completed my longest run yet, 13 miles, last weekend and I did speed work yesterday. I have always hated speed work and I have always hated training schedules, but something in me has changed and I want to go as prepared as possible to this half-marathon, so I can get a good idea of how I might do for the full marathon that I hope to do in October.

The October marathon is in St George, Utah and my hopes, dreams, and goals are to qualify for Boston at that marathon. I am officially inviting all who want to sign up in my group for St George marathon to let me know as sign-ups are April 1st! I am so excited that my mother-in-law, Lynn, is going to sign up with me and my friend here in WA, Sally, is going to sign up as well. So, wish me luck with my training, and pray that my feet will cooperate with me!!

Beautiful View

I really did not have a great day today, actually my life has been turned upside down for the last almost two weeks and I am not really sure what "normal" will feel like anymore. I recently had an event in my life that will change me forever and I am not sure if it's a good change or not. I feel the need to just write and express some of my thoughts and emotions right now. Some of this may not make sense to anyone else, but the thoughts in my head aren't exactly normal for me right now either, so this blog is really just for me to let some of this out and express my fears and emotions.

I have had so many emotions since this event; fear, sadness, empathy, love, anxiousness, anger.. which have made me ponder so many aspects of life. If anything good came out of this, it is that I love my own family including my husband, children, parents, brothers, sisters, and in-laws more than ever and I know I am the luckiest person alive with the family that I was blessed with. Even though this event did not directly happen to me, it impacted my life so much that everyone has really come together for this person that I truly care about and for me, yes believe it or not, for me. I am scared and tired and just trying to keep up with life right now and I can't imagine how much worse it would be if I didn't have so many people praying for me and listening to me every day pour out my crazy thoughts and fears. Life is so precious and there are many things to be grateful for, but life can sometimes be dark with people that can suck the beauty away by evil and the devils promptings. As far as my not-so-great of a day today, I was just running on very little sleep, with my two small children who were also running on little sleep and I took a dear friend of mine around town today to accomplish some important errands that needed to be ran.. which meant sitting in a DMV for 3 hours going to the county courthouse, the bank, Costco, gas, about 10 bathroom breaks... etc, etc, etc... then on my drive home I looked out the window and saw the most beautiful site... Mt Rainier. It was an amazing view. The clouds were rolling in and the sky was getting dark, but the cloud cover had not yet reached the volcano and it was glowing with light when everything else was shadowed in dark clouds. I had to stop and take a picture because it was juts so incredible. And I have to say that I thought about the beauty of life and even thought there was dark clouds and it was dark and gray outside, I could still see the most beautiful light shining on this magnificent volcano and I know that there is still beauty to be found in ugliness, we just have to see it and look at it and dwell upon the beauty and not the grey, darkness that can sometimes surround it.

I have a beautiful family and I am blessed with so many amazing things in my life and I want to look at the beauty, my own children who have no idea what happened and are just as happy and loving as ever. I am still cautious and I am still scared, but I know that I will be ok and I will focus on the good and the light.

I do just want to say thank you to everyone who has been there for me and my family and to anyone who actually reads this and endures my aimless writing that makes no sense, but makes me feel a little relieved. BUT, just look at this beautiful picture below and think about the beauty around you that may be surrounded by dark clouds, but does still exist and focus on that when you are having a bad day.

Check out what we did in 2009...

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