We interrupt this blog...

I'm not fond of tooting my own horn but this one felt like it needed to be put out into the world or it wouldn't be real.

Almost a year ago I had a milestone birthday. If you've been reading my blog for awhile you know that I was running frequently around that time as I was planning to run the Seattle Rock N Roll Half Marathon in June 2010 to honor my milestone birthday. Then in November 2009 I hurt my knee and while I was recovering my running partner moved to Singapore. So, needless to say, I stopped running. It was the perfect excuse. And stopped doing anything else for that matter.

Fast forward to 8 weeks ago. My older sister sent me a text and asked me if I'd run the Eugene Oregon Half Marathon with her and a couple friends. I didn't reply to that text for almost a week as I stewed on how I wanted to respond. Then I remembered that I never completed that big birthday goal, and as this run was on May 1st, it would still count in my milestone year.

So we jumped in and started an 8 week running program of 4 days a week and a long run each weekend. It was brutal but nice to have each other for motivation and daily stress release/therapy. We had such deep conversations over those 2 1/2 hour runs! We learned a lot about ourselves and each other.

Any this past Sunday at 7 am we embarked upon our journey. It was a sunny and cold morning. Perfect running weather. AND....it was life changing.

Never has anything in my life made me feel so strong and capable. As each mile of the 13.1 passed, I felt stronger and stronger. I didn't have to will myself to keep going as I did in my daily runs - for some reason my body just floated that day. Hearing my name as I ran through the finish line at the famous Hayward Field was incredible. The whole mind-over-matter saying of "if you think you can do it, you can" is true.

Christy, Jamie, Me, and my sister Laurie after the race.

We are running the Chicago Half Marathon in September and maybe, just maybe, we'll sneak in the Seattle Rock n Roll just for fun.

Never in my life did I expect to do this, but I'm glad I did.