Grand Rapids Marathon 2009

Cheri & I after the race

The morning of the marathon, I woke early.  I drank some coffee and continued deliberating in my mind what pace team I was going to try to stick with.  The pace teams are separated by celebrities marathon race times.  If you’re only doing the half marathon, you can divide it in half to see your ending time.  I was stuck between Will Ferrel’s time and P. Diddy. 

Little Earthquakes

I had planned on writing about the marathon today.  The kids & I have been enduring the ’sickness’ that is flying through the schools and I just didn’t have it in me to emote the events of the race until I felt a little better.  I’ll have to save it for a nearby date though.  A black cloud moved into my life last night and I feel like I need to get it out before I can move on.

I found out last night

Running down a dream

16hrs before my race.  It’s hard to believe that 3 months of training is coming to an end.  The purpose of it will be here soon enough.  194.28 miles and 31hrs 51 min logged.  All the preparation is over now, leaving only anticipation.  The butterflies in your belly, the rumbling in your bowels.  Wherever your body delivers it’s nerves, you’ll feel it.  Questions start to overwhelm your mind.  Doubt and worry.  Did I train enough?  Should I have done more?  Will my body be able to fulfill my expectations? 

Last year,

Precocious

Apparently, the housing market is so good that even Emma is looking for her first home. 

It started about 2 wks ago.  The house across

Honest sweat

Since July, I’ve been training again for my half marathon in October.  I gave myself 3 more weeks of training this year to make it a solid 13weeks.  My friends, Cheri & Megan, agreed to do the race together just like we had last year.  After consulting our schedules, we decided we’d have to train separately during the week and do our long runs together on the weekends.

In the beginning, it wasn’t so bad.  I learned the joy of running by myself.  Quiet time to think and release the tension of the day.  Smelling the

In the garage

A garage sale has been a long time coming around these parts.  5 years worth of clothes from Emma and 4 years worth of clothes for Gerrit have compiled into more bins than I care to count.  I tried and lost track at 20.  Add in baby toys and gear and you have an overwhelming amount of stuff just sitting there, doing nothing.  I’ve never had my own garage sale before and truth be told, it made me a little nervous to try to organize it all on my own. 

Then last Monday, my neighbor Sandy told me that she was having hers again.  She’d had one earlier in the summer but with all my cottaging, I didn’t join in.  Easy excuse, I know but it was a valid one and I clung to it.  I think my friends had actually stopped believing me that I was going to have one at all.  After all, I’d only been talking about it and not doing one for months.

This time, I had to definitely do it.  I had to bite the bullet and figure out how to put it all together.  The first problem was the garage.  Although I had spent an entire day cleaning it out and reorganizing it earlier in the summer, it had started to become full again with random things such as tools, dryers, trash to go to the dump.  It’s what always happens to open space.  Inevitably, all open space will be filled with something.

I told Dan on Tuesday that I was having a garage sale on the weekend.  What I meant to tell him was

Cottage pro

I believe I was born to cottage.  I really do.

I’m sure most people think that they were too.  I’m also sure that most would never recognize the degree of skill and fortitude it takes to cottage like a pro.  They might think that they could handle the intense level of vacationing.  They probably believe that they have the stamina to maintain that perfect balance of fun & relaxation mixed with a tinge of work.  But I believe it takes an extraordinary amount of  focus and desire to achieve a perfect harmony in what I have deemed ’cottaging’.  It’s not camping, it’s not being on a cruise… it’s cottaging.

I believe I have achieved a near perfect recipe for doing so.  It will be my life’s work to

Call me the breeze

The core of me is filled with fear… well, correct that… it used to be filled with fear.  It seems like my whole life, I’ve battled with being afraid of things.  Some are rational fears (like heights) and some have been ridiculous fears(lawn mowers).  I’ve tried to work on both the big and little ones over time.  They say the best way to overcome a fear is to just do it.  I can officially add riding a motorcycle to the list of fears overcome.  Here’s some pictures of