30 days

A lot can happen in 30 days. A lot has. I’ve changed. My family has changed. One thing that has not? Our faith. It’s stronger than ever.

~

On April 28th I half dragged myself out of bed to run the La Jolla Half Marathon. I didn’t feel like running. My legs were still heavy and sore. I was on little to no sleep so the thought of running 13 miles of hills sounded awful. “Just get up” I said to myself at least 10 times. At least.

I made it down to the race start about an hour before go time. My warm up was pitiful (clearly my attitude was too). Each step felt like I had cement blocks tied to my shoes. This was supposed to be fun! Why was it feeling like work? Sigh.

When I finally found my girlfriends I perked up a bit. They were the attitude adjustment that I needed. Funny how friends can do that!

They had shirts on in support of Boston which quickly reminded me that complaining about heavy legs was just plain stupid. It was time to run and give what effort I had and that I did.

13.1 hilly fracking miles later I crossed the finish in 1:42:06 (this is a 9 min PB on this course!). My Garmin said 1:41:07 so not sure where my 1 minute watch fail happened, but it did. Still a strong effort and a great time on a difficult course.

I called my family and gave them a spot to pick me up since LJ traffic gets really bad. This allowed me to jog a cool down and finish with 15 miles on the day.

As I got into the car and told the kids all about the race. They fought over the medal (this is standard stuff when you have kids) and per the usual bragged about how cool it is when “their mom wins medals.” It.was.awesome.

After the race we had an awesome afternoon spending time together as a family. We went to a ball game in flip-flops and tank tops. We ate junk food because sometimes we just need to live a little. 

That day is so fresh in my mind.

You see that day our 30 days was approaching. We didn’t know it yet but it was. If we knew that a giant kick to the stomach was going to be delivered 48 hours later we would have frozen time.

30 days.

A reminder that we are not in control.

To be continued this afternoon…