This morning, for the first time, I rose at 4:20 am to go out running. I have wanted to do this for a long time but a precious little one has shared my bed until the past couple of weeks. He is a very light sleeper so if I woke, so did he. But this morning was mine.

It was hard to roll out of bed. I could hear a light drizzle. Maybe I should just stay in my warm, dark room snuggled with my husband. But I knew it would be worth it.I stumbled downstairs and went through my preparations on autopilot. It may be a good thing to get up early but it is not a bouncy, energetic thing.

I met my group while it was still dark and we took off. It was glorious. I had forgotten the stillness and beauty of early morning. It was quiet, the world was at rest.All the hustle and bustle still slowed. Maybe all that rushing around and noise is necessary but there is a part deep inside of me holding tight to the idea we would all be better off if we slowed down and learned to listen to the quiet. The sky lightened until the magically time of twilight surround us. Twice a day, twilight comes and it is my favorite time. With the shadows of twilight, the child in me thinks there just may be something to all the tales of magic, fairies, and their ilk. We ran quietly with th wind gently winding around us on our path. The soft rhythmic sound of our shoes hitting the road.

On this run is a nasty little hill, big hill actually. It is sneaky. You don't really realize how long or how hard it is until your are deep within its grip. But it is joyfully rewarding as well. When you finally reach the crest a euphoria carries you downhill and along a cobble path. The harder you work, the more intense the joy. This morning I was rewarded for my efforts not only by the expected rush of good feeling, but a stunning sunrise laid out before me. Gorgeous.

After my run, I came back to a sleeping house. My workout is done and my family still slumbers. I have written, drank coffee, and read my bible. It is the perfect way to start the day. May you have a wonderful day.

Thankfully, I Have a Sense of Humor About Myself

Wow, it has been a long time since I have last blogged. Like many in the glorious summer months, I have been busy. There have been some great times but sadly, I have slipped back into an old habit. I found something figuratively shiny and fixated.

You can't fault me for my enthusiasm and gung ho attitude. I tackle projects, challenges, and mountains, sometimes literal ones, with focus, determination, and sometimes (um, often) an unhealthy dose of obsession.

Yes, once again I have jumped in with both feet and bit off more than I can chew. Well, at least more than I WANT to chew. I have been loving the running thing. Coupled with the challenge of copetition, my natural drift to fixation happily leapt to the forefront. I planned on running a full marathon this fall, another in the spring, and a half Ironman a year from September. Grab the bull by the horns, wrestle it to the ground, and then find another beast to tackle. Right??? Can I hear a woo hoo!!?? Um, maybe not the best idea.

Here is the dangerous thing, I am physically and metnally strong enough to accomplish these goals. But the only way I can is a the exclusion of pretty much everything else in my life. Obsessive focus, table for one.

Lately I ahve had that empty, unsatisfied feeling. It is the first sign of trouble. A harbinger of going down the wrong path. Due to the these feelings, I have been assessing my life to find the problem, brain dumping lists on paper to find the element out of balance. I was desperate to tweak life back to contentment and peace. So often the solution is right there in front of me but manages to stay hidden in some quantum shift blind spot.

When I finally resigned myself to put on the glasses of honesty, I realized I have neglected many important aspects of life. Physically, I have not been lifting, cross trianing, or practicing yoga. I am not physically balanced and I am starting to pay a price for said imbalance. I have not been creating. Hooping is a major creative outlet for me. I have also failed to write, hence the neglected blog. My knitting is sitting in the butler's pantry untouched. I had a burning desire to start working with mixed media art but it strangely evaporated.(Warning, warning, danger of obsession ahead)

Another clue to the mess emerging in my life is the chaos of my physical enviroment. The house is messier. Projects I was determined to finish have been left undone. My beloved garden has been turning into an overgrown, wild mess. And not in a good way! Anytime my environment is chaotic, I guarantee my mind is chaotic. In this mess, I do not thrive.

But the absolute final piece of this puzzle was the shape of my relationships. I am a relational person. Good friends and family quicken me with the essence of life. It is one of the main sources of my energy and joy. I have been letting them all slide. I have not been seeking out my friends. I have been distant with John. But the biggest indicator something is wrong, I have been short tempered with my precious babies. I have felt annoyed and easily frustrated. It is wrong in so many ways. They are my joy, my blessing, and my most precious gifts. The deserve so much better than the momma I have been.

Ultimately, it was readily apparent I have fixated on these races to the detriment of things and people much more important to me. The decision to back off and rebalance was inevitable. I have to take the time to refocus my energy and passion. I can still accomplish these goals but a much slower paced timeline.

Lately, I have beent thinking a great deal about women's perceptions of themselves. I know alot of women desperately trapped in the cycle and cage of living for others or worse, for what others may think about them. I am going to be honest, for a fleeting moment I wondered what some would think of my decision to back off. Would they think I was weak? a quitter? Then my beautiful friend humility, whom I do not see nearly often enough, showed up and gentle stood her ground on the notion it must be done for the good of all I love, no matter what.

Self confidence quickly followed the lovely humility and declared, "So what if they do? Do we really care about the thoughts of people who would judge us?" Well nope, not really.

I want to encourage you to make the decsions, however hard or unpopular, that best serves you and your family. I hope you learn to scoff and ignore the people who would judge you. They really aren't important, they just think they are.

In the end, Liz Phair sang it best, "I AM extraordinary!" and so are you. I promise.

Peace my friends.

Month of May Personal Challenge

I had every intention of challenging myself with three things this month, 20 minutes a day of yoga, 30 minutes daily hooping, and going sugar free. However, I am a firm believer you must embrace flexibility in order to fully live your life of abundance. A few things happened:

Two weeks ago in a fit of yuck, I gave up sugar early. I had intended for this to be only for the month of May but I have quickly refined my focus to incorporating it into my lifestyle. I did not realize the horrible grip sugar had on me. I feel incredible and I didn't feel that bad before. This is immendsely better. My sleeping issues just left. I am sleeping so soundly now and waking refreshed and ready for the day. Whole foods taste amazing. Finally, when the bloating in my abdomen left I was shocked. I did not understand at all the effect sugar had on me.

We have figuratively moved to Ireland. We have had so much rain I believe a displaced group of Irish refugee fairies have taken up residence in my now verdant and lush perennial garden. Although I am in pure love with my only two year old flowers, I can barely find enough dryness to hoop. Hooping inside is just not possible, so that challenge will wait. I will still hoop any day I can but I will not hold myself to a particular goal.

I did start my yoga challenge and it is lovely. I keep it to only 20 minutes as a goal because I am unable to truly practice with the children. I know, I know I can do yoga with the kids but it isn't the same. But I will probably be able to practice many days for much longer periods of time. I love yoga. It balances me in so many ways, physically and emotionally. When I practice regularly, I maintain a centered and content mind. It is amazing.

I am increasing my running because as I said last post, I am going for the full marathon. I am very excited about the training and the challenge it will be to my committment, determination, mental strength, and physical ability. I love reaching for goals that I am not quite sure I can make. It makes life...sweeter.

Embracing My Insanity

Okay, this is crazy but I am going to do it anyway. I am going to run the Rock n' Roll St Louis FULL marathon. I cannot believe I would even want to but I really, really do. So that is exactly what I am going to work toward.

This is huge for me in ways hard to describe. I am a nit-picking, self-doubting perfectionist. I have often sabotaged my own accomplishments so I couldn't actually fail due to lack of ability. But even sneakier, I just didn't try someting unless I was almost certain I could finish easily and close to perfection. I did not truly have self confidence.

I have been reading Donald Miller and he talks about "inciting events". Basically, it means unless we have something push us down a hard path we will most likely continue along the comfortable, familiar path we are on. Even if it is a bad path for us, we will continue to plod along the path because it is the path we know. It takes a major event to steer us differently.

Running the half marathon was my inciting event. I am not even sure how I intially committed to it. I believe I was sort of just talking trash but then people found out about it. There were so many times I wanted to quit but continued because too many people knew and I didn't want to admit I was quitting. I am so very glad I didn't. I am so glad I continued to work harder and so above my comfort zone in order to not be humiliated. It changed everything.

Completing that difficult and emotional event finally gave me the self confidence I have been lacking. Failure lost most of its scariness. I now know I can go out and try to accomplish some pretty crazy things and as long as I really try, there is no shame in failure. Actually, there is just alot to be learned.

So now I am challenging myself to the next crazy event, the full marathon. I am going to train hard over the summer. I know it will be another difficult and life changing experience but this time, I am looking forward to it.

My First Half Marathon

I did it. I really did it and it still seems unreal to me. Yesterday, I ran my first half marathon, actually my first race of any kind, with a time of 2:15:46. It was one of the hardest and most satisfying things I have ever done. Ever. I am seriously having trouble believing it is real.

I think I was most suprised with my decided lack of nerves the morning of the race. I was pumped up and having a great time. I remember grabbing the hand of my just met the night before new friend Brook's hand so we could wind our way through the insane amount of people to get into our corral. My feeling was more that I was going to a dance party than I was preparing to accomplish something so life changing. I was chatting, playing, and laughing with all those around me. It was crazy fun.

When the race started, I felt this amazing calm come upon me. It took 15 minutes to walk to the start with all the people in front of us. I bent my head in prayer to thank my heavenly Father for the strength, the determination, the ability to do this race. I quickly realized, I was crying! I quietly cried with joy. I thought of all the hard runs, the cold weather, leaving my family so I could "fit in" 8 miles. I thought of all the aches and pain it had brought me. It had been a hard, hard road and there I stood on the brink of fulfillment. I stood (well, shuffled slowly with the crowd) absolutely amazed at what I was about to do.

I am not going to go mile by mile with the technical break down of each mile. I will say those hills were seriously hard. I do believe one was almost a mile long, seriously. All I could do was fix my gaze about 10-15 feet in front of me, focus on my breathing, and just put one foot in front of the next. But however I did it, I made it through.

From the very beginning it was evident to me that I was not going to be forced to struggle through or talk myself into completing this part. Trust me, I have completed many training runs on strength of will alone. But this was different. So I decided that this, like so many things in my life, was going to be an exercise in being present and aware. I am so glad I made that decision. I now have vibrant memories of cheering with crowds as I passed through, the beauty of Soulard's townhomes in the early morning light, the smell of the brewery (okay, maybe I could have done without that one). I remember how my body felt as it warmed up and became loose enough to run a comfortable stride and how it tensed up later and had to relax all over again. One of the fondest memories I will have is really feeling my feet start to hurt and then as I turned the corner I saw an incredible sign held aloft, "The only reason your feet hurt is because of how much butt you are kicking." That gave me energy for a couple of miles.

I really enjoyed running without music. I loved chatting with people and the sense of comraderie. It was immensely enjoyable and lifted my spirits and enabled my feet to fly. It was the best run of my life and I am rather sad it is over.

This experience has truly been life changing for me. The committment and dedication it required was beyond any challenge I have undertaken up to this point. There were times I wanted to quit. There were times I didn't believe in myself. I think pure stubborness and the refusal to admit on Facebook I was quitting was the only thing that carried me through some rought points. But in the end, I really did it. I proved to myself that I could. I proved to myself that I could set a very challenging goal, I could keep up with the day to day that was required, and when the time came, I shined brighter than I ever dreamed possible.

I am now looking forward to a different kind of challenge. The month of May will find me dedicated to yoga, hooping, and living life sugar free. It will be hard and challenging in its own way. My next running goal is another half marathon in October with an aim to come in under a 10 minute mile pace. But whatever the goals I set in my life, I am bursting with confidence I have the ability to see it through. I encourage you to set a goal and find this confidence if you don't already embody it. It is breathtaking.