Reflections on this past year

As we get ready to start the last month of 2014, I've reflected on all that has transpired this year.  I'm not sure at what point (maybe February sometime?) I decided that this year was going to be a good one for my running.  A REALLy good one.  Things at home with Anders were at the height of its heartbreak and hardness.  Anders and I spent nearly the entire day for months in my grandma's very old rocking chair. (Anders was throwing up so much that ours would have been destroyed.)  I would feed Anders, he would throw it all up, then I'd re-feed him (usually the second feeding was more successful than the first), then had to hold him at a certain angle without moving for about an hour and a half.  (Keep in mind that infants need to eat every 2-3 hours.)  This is how January through May went for Anders, Quinn, and I.  Finally, Anders got so frustrated with throwing up that he finally just stopped eating, leading to dehydration, an ambulance ride to Children's, and was the trigger that allowed us to finally get his fundoplication and g-tube placement.  Case in point: it was a horrible spring.

So, what does a person like me do when life has throw your entire family a bag full of lemons? Run. A lot.  And then run some more.  As spring continued, I completed daily runs, cross training, speed workouts, and long runs.  The biggest shock on my life occured at the Leprechaun Chase--on a difficult, hilly course, I was able to smash my 10k PR and run a 40:36.  As a cautious runner with very realistic goals, I never in a million years thought this was possible.   I was also able to PR in the half (1:31, placing 23rd female overall at Lincoln) and the mile (5:45) and also stacked up several pretty strong 10k's through mid-summer.  This fall, I shifted to longer stuff, including the 70.3 and marathon.  And here we are at the end of 2014.

Am I going to be able to do any of this again?  Things are not perfect yet with Anders, but we are nowhere close to the desperation our family felt earlier in the year.  Was this the only reason why I was able to have these good races?  (It should go without saying that I would have traded a heathy baby to never run a PR again, but our situation is what it is.)  Even if this is the case, it will mean that Anders is better, and this is the most important thing.  Running new PR's  helped ease my pain a little, but it was more like a bandaid on a broken heart...

2015 is going to be much different.  I have every hope in the world that it is going to be a great year and that wonderful things are going to happen.  I am signed up for Ironman Florida next November, so will spend summer-October preparing for that.  Ironman is on my bucket list, and while it's going to be very difficult with small children, I believe that I can do it.  (Plus I have a supportive and fabulous husband.  Have I ever mentioned that?).

We are taking this life one day at a time, and we are doing it together.

It's cold out and days are short.  But if you are heathy and have the ability to run, get out there.  It could change your life.