The Rehoboth Beach Marathon was my fifth marathon, done a little over 8 months after becoming a new mom. I hadn’t actually considered doing a marathon this year. I thought a half would be an ‘appropriate’ running gift to myself after Connor was born. But then my marathoning friend, Joe, mentioned Rehoboth and all of a sudden, I had to do it. 11 weeks out I started training as best I could, juggling new mom duties and a heavy workload. My original goal was just to finish. But of course, my competitive, stubborn side set in and despite ‘training to finish,’ a week or so before race day I got my heart set on sticking with Joe’s pace group to finish under four hours. Continue reading →

[Author’s preface: This blog post was started days after the race. However, due to being a working mom, it has taken 6-ish plus weeks to write so some details are fuzzy and others are just left out entirely for the sake of finally posting this entry!]

I remember being on a training run two years ago in my neighborhood during the morning of the Baltimore Marathon; a neighbor commented as I passed by that I should be in the race. I smiled, thought to myself that I agreed with him and promised myself I’d do the race one day. A year later I was pregnant and training for the Marine Corps Marathon and decided that the 2012 Baltimore Half Marathon would be my first post-baby big race. I stalked the website until registration opened and signed up. Nine plus months later, 10 weeks of base training and 12 weeks of 13.1 training I was at the start line. Continue reading →

When I found out I was pregnant last fall one of the first things I did was sign up for a race that seemed far enough out from giving birth that I could recover from delivery and also have enough time to rebuild a base and execute on a training plan. I knew a marathon would be wishful thinking but a half marathon would be the perfect ‘comeback’ race. I’ve always wanted to do the Baltimore Half Marathon (and the full 26.2 some day) and with its October 13 date it was the perfect goal race. As I made my way back into running I studied various 13.1 training plans and debated the best one to fit my new world of being a working mom. Continue reading →

One of the ways I occupied my mind during the 2009 Richmond Marathon was thinking of all the reasons I love runners. I thought it would be fun to share some of the things I came up with and I encourage you to post in the comments why you love runners. The more reasons, the better! Continue reading →