This past birthday in March, I took a leap of faith and signed up to run my second marathon ( CIM in December). And I have struggled to come to terms with my decision ever since. The further I got from my first marathon last December, the harder it has been for me to wrap my mind around the idea of doing it again. This was not helped as I took a break from running to let last year's injuries heal. The further I got out of the running habit, the harder it has been to get it back. It's been a challenging year. Nothing really bad has happened, but I've felt a bit out of sorts and even lost at times. A drastic change from the focus and drive I felt last year. But now, despite a continued struggle over whether or not to run this year's CIM , I have come to the point on the calendar when I needed to start a marathon training plan. Training for a marathon isn't something to procrastinate about. In order to keep my options open, I decided to begin a training plan. Two wee...

This past weekend was girls' weekend at my house (although my husband might argue that it's girls' weekend every weekend between me, our two daughters, and even our girl dog). My husband was away doing "boy" things, so my mom came to visit so we could do "girl" things. One of the activities, dare I say the highlight of the weekend, was participating in a 5K on Sunday morning. And it wasn't just any 'ol 5K, it was a women's 5K. Perfect! So when I realized the timing of the event, I signed up my team of women: myself, my mom, and my two daughters, Rebecca (age 8) and Katherine (age 5). This 5K was the first for my mom. She's been to a couple of races as a spectator, but never as a participant. And I was excited to have her joining us in the race fun. Equally excited was Katherine (my 5 year old), because this would be her first chip-timed race. Her excitement didn't come from a desire to be fast and timed, because that was by no means ...

I've been sitting on some news for a month now. Last month, on my birthday, I got swept away in a daring moment. I was celebrating another year of life (and what an amazing year it was), watching the inspirational Biggest Loser finale, and processing the early death of an acquaintance. And in that moment, I felt a strong need to recommit to myself, my health, and cherish being alive. And so what does one do in that instance? Well I took a daring leap. I jumped online and signed up to run the California International Marathon again this December. I then quickly questioned my sanity. Needless to say, running 26.2 miles is hard, but all the training that goes into it is even harder. And the further I've gotten from December 2nd, the more afraid I've been to do it again. But I remember feeling the desire to do it again that same day, right after finishing my first marathon. I wanted the chance to do it injury-free, so I could give it my all. And I trusted that crazy "some...

It's been almost four months since I ran my first marathon, and practically that long since I've written a blog post. I know I never quite finished my marathon story here, but I've found it increasingly difficult to return to it. Just as I took a break from running to recover, I seemed to have also taken an unintentional break from writing and creating, too. I'm now slowly returning to everything. It is not only taking effort to build back up my running, but also my writing and creating. And even though it is challenging, these are all necessary activities for me that I hold dear to my heart. As I add them all back into my life, I'm feeling happier, less lost, and more alive. The marathon was an incredible experience. As I've written before, the weather was crazy and my emotions overflowed. Once I started, the weather remained awful, but my emotions actually calmed. I may have been wet, and a little cold, but I had my music in one ear and I was running. I ...

As I mentioned before, in the days leading up to the CIM , I was extremely nervous and emotional. I can't tell you when I did something that scared me so much. I really can't. But I faced that fear. Early that Sunday morning, as the rain and wind beat against the house, I got my stuff together and prepared to start, and hopefully finish, my first marathon. Fortunately, I wasn't alone at the start. My friend Paula (whom I had run several races with during the year, including the NWM half marathon in SF ) was just crazy enough to try a marathon with me. So our beloved husbands dropped us off on that dark, stormy morning, armed with their love and encouragement, as well as our rain ponchos, sports goo, etc.. We were dropped off about a mile from the start and I will say that the weather was crazy awful. As we climbed out of the car, we were immediately greeted by the heavy wind and rain. We pushed towards the growing mass of runners and long lines of port-a-potties (an unfort...

Here I am! I did survive my first marathon on December 2, 2012! I am officially a marathoner! Yay! For those who have been wondering, I am sorry I left you hanging for so, so long. December brought some unexpected distractions and I feel like I'm just realizing its January, even though we're over half way through it. Yikes. Nonetheless, here I am 1-1/2 months later and 26.2 miles further into the amazing journey that is my life. As I left off , I grew increasingly nervous as I got closer to the California International Marathon ( CIM ). Not only had my training not gone as plan due to injury (aka IT Band issues ), but the weather became a huge factor. In past years, the CIM would generally fall on a cool, crisp day, but no such luck for me. It was stormy, wet weather with 30-50 mph winds. I must have checked the weather forecast hundreds of times in the days leading up to it, hoping to see a calmer forecast (and I swear when I went to bed the night before, the forecast was cal...

I've been wanting to write a blog post for a while now, but I just can't seem to settle my thoughts long enough to do it. So please forgive the brevity of this post. It is simply an attempt to reach out and help settle my thoughts. This Sunday will be my very first marathon. 26.2 miles. My training, this journey, began eight months ago when I bravely signed up to run in the CIM . And oh what a journey it has been. In recent months, I've been dealing with setback after setback in my training and it makes me nervous. It makes me nervous when things don't go as planned. I am even a little scared. Excited, too, but mostly scared. But that's okay because I am also open. Open to the experience and open to possibilities. Big things happen when we dare to step outside our comfort zone. Some say that's when magic happens. And running a marathon, possibly in the pouring rain, definitely equates to stepping outside of my comfort zone. So wish me luck as I step up to the s...

It's my final marathon Monday (on Tuesday) and it's time to get to the bottom of this story. I have dragged it out long enough. I almost completed the story last time, but then I was worried about my blog post being too long. I got over that when I shared about my Nike's Women's Half Marathon experience. So today is the day I try to explain why I signed up to run a marathon. It will probably get a little choppy and I might repeat a bit from previous posts, but I promise this blog post will go the distance. It's time to run long. Things changed for me in March. Before that, the thought of running further than a 5K, let alone a marathon, never ever crossed my mind. I even had a couple friends suggest the idea earlier, like training for a 10K or even a half marathon, but I would quickly dismiss it and never give it a second thought. It was crazy talk. But then in March, things started to change. The first thing I remember from March was my run-in with an old classma...

I know I missed Marathon Monday this week and I promise I'll get back to the story where I left off last week . But today I am going to skip ahead to tell another story in my marathon training saga. A long story. This past weekend I ran a half marathon at the Nike Women's Marathon (NWM) in San Francisco which was my second half marathon. It was an incredible experience, both the race and the process it took to get there. The NWM is a huge race (25,000 runners) with a huge reputation for a beautiful course, San Francsico hills, and Tiffany's & Co finisher's necklaces handed out by fireman dressed in tuxedos. As big as it is, it can take some work to enter the race. For many of the spots, there's a lottery held early in the year. And I'll be honest, I didn't know this race existed when the lottery occurred. But as I learned more about running, I learned about more races and this one popped up. At first, I was far too intimidated by the thought...

It's Marathon Monday (continued from here ) Last week's Marathon Monday left off with my decision to join Weight Watchers. Now joining Weight Watchers is a story all it's own and I'll share that, too, but today I'm going to concentrate on the running part of my story. So the new year came and I joined Weight Watchers. With my renewed commitment to losing weight and getting healthy, I started running again. Since it had been awhile, I started the Couch to 5K program again. I progressed through the program more quickly and before I knew it, I was calling myself a runner again. And I was happy to be running, so I shared. I loved sharing my running experience even though, up until this point, I had pretty much been a runner in isolation. I'd share my runs in conversation or on Facebook, but I didn't really know any runners. But sometime in March that started to change. I started meeting other runners. For instance, I remember a chance meeting with an ol...

It's Marathon Monday again and it's time to get back to my story after last week's interruption . You may remember I left off with the Couch to 5K program and getting "hooked" on running. While completing the nine week program, I actually started enjoying running for the sake of running which helped me complete the program and then continue running. After I completed the program at the end of June last year, I decided I should actually find a 5K to run. It had never been my goal in the beginning, but it seemed a natural next step in my journey. So I found a local 5K for a cause near and dear to my heart: my first 5K was the Race for the Arts . It was a wonderful experience, so I decided to run two more, one being a 5K marking the 10 year anniversary of 9/11 and the other a 5K to raise money for ovarian cancer (a cause dear to a friend).The races were fun and rewarding, and I really could have done more, but with the holidays approaching we just didn't have t...

I interrupt this regularly scheduled Marathon Monday for a bit of a panic attack. I started writing this blog post in my head last week as I started to look ahead at my running schedule. The miles are building and so is the unknown. To train to run a marathon, most programs have you running at least four times a week with one of those runs being a long run, as I am doing. Each week you increase both the distance of your long run as well as your total weekly miles. Soon my long runs will be passing the half marathon distance (13.1 miles) which is uncharted territory for me. The unknown has me a bit nervous, so much so that I'm feeling nervous even when I go out for a "short" run. Regardless, I still get out there. Marathon training has definitely been valuable practice in routinely facing fears. So last week, my long run was twelve miles. I faced my fear and I did it! And it felt good. I thought I had maybe turned a corner. But then I came home with an achy ankle that did...

Here we go again, it's Marathon Monday #2 (continued from here ): Week 1, Day 1 of Couch to 5K ( my first run ): May 1st, 2011 "It felt good to get outside. Running was hard, but short enough to do." ~from my C25K app journal entry When I took my first run last year, it was not love at "first step." Running for even one minute at a time was rough. It was hard on my heart, my lungs, my legs, etc.. But I was determined. I needed to get healthy. Earlier in the year, I had started my fitness journey (another year, another try) by using our elliptical machine while watching TV. As warmer weather and longer days approached, the ellipse became more and more of a chore. TV shows I had been watching while on the ellipse were ending. And it was getting harder to be indoors, with the nicer weather. Not to mention how difficult it was becoming to stay inside among the household clutter that comes with a busy family. I needed a change. So as challenging as it was, the C...

I've probably hinted at it, but have I mentioned that I am training for the California International Marathon (CIM) on December 2? My very first marathon. I've been meaning to explore the road that brought me to this decision because prior to last year, my only running experience was playing in elementary school. I never ran cross country or participated in any sports (I was a band nerd). So how did I choose to train for a marathon? Great question. A question that I even wonder about...... a lot. It was an interesting process coming to this decision. Some of which I can't truly explain, but I am going to try. It's kind of a long story and I'm not usually much of a storyteller (that would be my husband). But my running story has become such a huge part of me that I think it's worth telling, even if it's just for me and my family. Life is full of choices and it's fascinating to look back at how some of them are made. Especially the more signific...

This summer, a little over a month ago, I ran my first half marathon. 13.1 miles! For me, it was 2-1/2 hours of running with a brief walk through the various water stations. An amazing accomplishment for someone that struggled with just one minute of running a little over a year ago. So I was proud! I knew it would be a big deal, so I often talked about getting a 13.1 decal for my car window to mark the occasion. And I did! In fact, my family presented me with my new decal just moments after I crossed the finish line and I couldn't have been more excited, or exhausted. I proudly placed that decal on my car window and my heart sings every time I see it. It holds such incredible meaning and memories. I love seeing it every time I open the garage in the morning or walk to my car in a parking lot. As I once again noticed my decal this morning, I had a thought. Wouldn't it be great if we could all have decals celebrating our proudest moments? Something the whole world could see, bu...

This past weekend marked the one year anniversary of running my first 5K . And that first 5K was a wonderful and challenging experience. I had never quite run 3.1 miles before the race, but I had been building myself up using the C25K app . I was fairly confident I could run the full distance, but I still was unsure about how it would go. Based on my training runs, I told my family to watch for me at about 45 minutes. And then I surprised myself and set a personal record (PR) running the entire race in 39:44 minutes (a 12:49 min/mile). And as I wrote about it last year , it was pretty magical. So to mark the anniversary, I ran a 5K in the Whole Foods Running School Family Fun Run . And it was just as wonderful and challenging as my first. As usual, I was fortunate to have my incredibly supportive family with me, but I also had two friends running the 5K with me, as well as others running the 10K and the half marathon. But, for me, Sunday's race was about celebrating my 5K. As my f...

For many years I've struggled with my weight, especially after having my two daughters. I tried countless times to lose weight, using various diets or exercise regimens, but never successfully. Often, I'd find it difficult to maintain changes long enough to see results, so I'd get discouraged and return to my old, bad habits. My emotional eating, my sweet tooth, and my fairly sedentary lifestyle would always get the best of me. But last year, things finally started to shift and change. It happened little by little, but it started happening. For instance, I increased my physical activity last year, first using our elliptical machine while watching television and then switching to running using the Couch to 5K program in May 2011. Being more active didn't come naturally, especially the running, but I did it because I knew something had to change. I needed to get healthy for myself, but also for my girls. I wanted to be an example of how to live life, not an example...

Today was one my first mornings of "freedom" since both my daughters are now in school and it's one of my days off. I can't tell you how excited and anxious I was to have time to get things done without carting a little one around with me. But it was almost too much pressure. I wanted to get so much done that I felt frantic. I felt a bit like our dog Sprinkles racing around the house in excitement with too much energy to contain. I'll admitt, I almost feel the same way as I return to my blog. I have so much I want to share, so much I want to write. In fact, I feel overwhelmed and unsure where to begin. I know the beginning is often a very good place to start, but the beginning is not so easy to pinpoint in life. And life is what I'm looking to share here. I hope to share stories about my life and lessons I'm learning, art and projects that inspire me, adventures I take with and without my family, and my running and weight loss journey. I may not know exac...