Well....Here I Go!!

I would first like to say I have always felt that blogging about myself is fairly narcissistic.  In fact I have butterflies right now as I type this, not because I am setting out to achieve a big goal, but because I have chosen to share this journey with the universe!  OK, well not everyone in the universe will care what I am up to, but there will be some of my lovely friends and family reading this and that is scary!  I plan on laying out the good, the bad, the ugly and everything in between.

I spend most days locked up with my two toddlers, so this may get a little long winded.  I tend to over talk when I have the ear of an adult...workplace hazard I guess.  I will try my best to not go off on too many tangents.

I also promise NOT to make you read this every day...well, maybe at first I will be a little over the top, but I figure I have to keep talking myself into this  before I back out.  That is actually why I am doing this in the first place.  I wanted to keep myself accountable for this goal.  I have actually had the goal of running the Nike Women't Marathon for about 4yrs now, but I have not taken a single step toward achieving that goal because it was in my head.  I am hoping that when I start to feel like letting my training slide I can come here talk about it and you dear reader can give me a boost.  I don't think that is too much to ask for in return for letting you into my private fears, self doubts, and achievements.

Please forgive the layout, I am still trying to find the right time of day to do this...ATM it is during nap time, but I already hear a baby starting to fuss.

OH!  I should give you a little heads up on what bug got up my bum to do this.  I attended a GREAT women's retreat (running, yoga and stand up paddle board) and we started by stating our goal.  That was easy...finish the Nike Women's Marathon...had that down for the last 4yrs.  As the weekend went on though I realized that wasn't a real goal.  I hadn't thought of how to get there.  I just knew I wanted the Tiffany's finisher necklace.  Now in the following week, I have decided that finishing A Marathon before 40...April 29, 2013 in case you were wondering...is the right goal to have

You see, I have not run in basically 3yrs and only VERY sporadically the 2yrs before that.  So in total 5yrs of very little cardio activity.  When I actually was running and cycling more, the furthest race I ran was a 10k.  I enjoyed my races, but most of them were chosen by how much free beer was given to the participants at the end of the race.  Yes growing up in Wisconsin has had it's affect on me.  I still LOVE beer and have NO problem entering a race if there will be beer involved for sure!

Well-babies are back to quiet so I have a few more minutes...I should take advantage.

A little background maybe??

I did not grow up athletic.  My parents are not athletic and for the most part some of my cousins are/were in sports, but on the whole a pretty sedentary group I hail from.  Not a bad thing...so not judging here, just stating the facts.  Something in me though has always wanted to run...how weird is that????  I remember summers as a kid babysitting my sisters.  I would have all this energy that I did not know what to do with, so I would run up and down our house stairs or I would run to the bridge and back.  But that was hard and I didn't exactly know what to do with that.  I mean there was not pace, just me running as fast as I could until my lungs and throat were burning.

Then I got to High School and found the burn of cigarettes and booze to be more fun than the burn of being out of breathe!  (GASP) Yes I said it...I was one of those kids you heard about.  Drinking and causing trouble...that was me.  Not always pretty to think back on, but it was what it was and I am here today an non-smoker who drinks responsibly (at least most of the time).  So if you are reading this and you have a moody teenager who wants nothing to do with you and everything to do with their room and their dark moody music, have hope ( and confidence) that they too will come out into the sunshine with everyone else.  Some of us just have to work through it in our own time.

So how did I start running??  Well, in my early 20's I had a boyfriend who quite graciously explained that all women get saggy asses at 26 if they don't run.  I, having always had a perky butt, wanted to make sure I did not fall into the "saggy ass" category.  As it were though, 26 came and went and I was still partying and smoking (ok so I was a little late at growing up, I did get there)  Twenty-seven did come though and so did the realization that a lot of the people I was doing cardiac and vascular surgery on were smokers.  I also had quite bar tending all together at this point and I decided that a change was needed.

I started by walking for an hour.  Put on my trusty headphones that I had used for so many years to block out the noise of the world's population and just starting putting one foot in front of the other.  After doing that for sometime, I was actually doing the elliptical at the hospital gym when one of the guys working there asked me if I would be at the race over at UWGB.  I explained "I don't run" and he simply said, "I know you can go on that thing for an hour, you certainly can run a 5k"  That was it our one and only conversation.  He didn't know me and I not him.  Something in me though started to believe that I could run.

Let's back up here to were I talk about marathons and ironman's on tv...Every Single Time I See One, I Cry!!!  It has been that was since I was too small to even remember.  I knew even as a 7yr old that it took something so special to cross that finish line...or at least that is how they edit it.  Something in me always wanted to be those people.  Even seeing those with that awful grimace, falling down and not finishing.  My heart broke for them.  I cheered for every finisher that did cross that line, my heart was elated!

So back to me at 27 thinking I could put one foot in front of the other quickly..HA!  A Joke at best!!  But I thought, what the hell.  So I started at the crack of dawn 530 before I had to get to work.  Those first runs were awful!  I could not even do a short city block side.  I just started by focussing on going from one corner to the next.  By then end of the summer I could do a few laps, It was amazing

That is all it took.  I have had the running bug since.  I went gang busters when I first started. Running every day, spinning 2-3x per week and I also added swimming into the mix after my runs.

Then, it all stopped.

I was in a relationship that was slowly sucking the life out of me and I no longer had the energy to run.  I barely had the energy to get through most days. (Let's not dwell here)

Then life got busy.  I started running again, but found when I got engaged there was little time to fit it in. Added to the fact I was on the high of getting married, I did not make running a priority.

Next came our move to Seatttle, our wonderful wedding, and then our honeymoon where unbeknownst to us, I got pregnant on our first try. Let me just say pregnancy takes over my body and is not kind!

I think this is a good place to stop...next time I will tell you how I got to my first goal of being a Mommy

Thanks again for your support-it really means the world to me!
If you wouldn't mind leaving a few words in the comments, that way I know I am not alone, it would really make me feel like I am not bonkers for setting out on this journey

Love-
Sarah