And here we go again!

I used to relish in the art of blogging. These days, work and my nearly two-years-long relationship take up a lot more of my time and I've fallen out of practice. Rest assured, though, the running has not stopped. I spent the spring training for the Seattle Rock 'n Roll half-marathon. And by "training," I mean, "casually running once or twice a week and only managing to complete 4 or 5 of my long runs in a 12-week schedule." Whoops. Despite my lackadaisical approach, it turned out well. I finished in a respectable 2 hours and 2 minutes and wore a smile throughout the whole thing.

It was a particularly exciting event because my mom and sister were in town and also completing their first half-marathon! They both did a walk/run combination to finish in just under their goal time of 3 hours. Not too shabby, if I do say so myself :) To be honest, I dreaded the run itself. Seattle in June is notoriously rainy and cold and the Friday prior to the race exemplified the nastiness that Seattle can adopt when everyone else in the country is opening their eyes to the first sunbeams of summer. Come race day, however, the skies cleared, the wind stopped, and the weather held until 2 minutes after my mom, sister, and I, exhausted from the race, poured ourselves back into my apartment for well-earned rest and revelry. The sheer joy I experienced was only slightly adulterated by the notion that, had I trained more thoroughly, had I stuck to my very easy training schedule, I could have gotten a personal best. It was a great learning experience -- I run better when I keep my head out of the negative vortex -- but it's a little sad to think about how much faster I could have finished that one. Despite the disappointment, I think it's exactly what I needed. An inspiration to do better and to be better without falling into the trap of hating the very act of running itself. So, let's try this out. I'll be spending my first Christmas away from home this year, breaking my parents' hearts and, if we're going to be honest here, mine too. To make up for it, I'm taking a full week during Thanksgiving to fly home and be with my family, but I'm flying back a day or two early because I want to return to the course that got me my current personal record. I want to make that gamble on the Seattle November weather and run off my undoubtedly delicious Thanksgiving meal. I'm signing up and I've already begun my training, following the same schedule I used two years ago. I'm hoping to get a bit more speed training in there as well, maybe doing speed intervals on my Wednesday or Friday distances. That said, I am really quite excited to return to something I love so much! Wish me luck!