Most of you guys know that I previously had a family blog called “Happiness is…” (some of you even read it!) It’s what made me fall in love with blogging, and that blog is special because my readers were able to watch me become a runner. I was combing through it the other day (because my kids love it) and I found this post. I knew I had to share it with all of you.
I was pregnant with Lou and feeling very sorry for my chubby, nauseous, no-energy self (I mean, the title of the post was “Frowny Face.” But just for the record- super super grateful for the ability to make humans, but not for some of the ugly stuff that accompanies it, i.e. constant nausea and fatigue for nine months that eventually it leads to sadness and worry of never EVER feeling not-sick again.)
I digress. I am huge advocate of saving medals. I don’t save many things, but medals I do. And after I die, my poor great-grandkids are gonna try to sort through all of my old things and they’ll sit around a gigantic pile of these medals looking at each other like, “What the heck do we do with these??”
Now, for your reading pleasure…
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Frowny Face
6.11.11
I should have been running this today.
Instead I am home doing dishes and laundry.
On top of that I am really busy feeling sorry for myself.
Out of the blue I decided to do something productive with my time, and maybe for a second stop the self-pity.
So I pulled a chair into my closet and got down the bucket that I toss all my medals into when I’ve finished another race. I don’t ever look up there, I just toss the medals in. I was surprised when I got them all down.
I had more than I remembered.
9 marathons.
5 Ragnars.
4 half-marathons.
It was a lot of medals, but I feel like that’s not that much for all the days and miles I have logged.
But I’m proud of those 18 medals. I like being able to see and touch something to prove you worked hard and saw something through.
Anyway, I decided to hang them in the laundry room. I always hear of runners hanging their medals in their office. Well, I don’t have an office. The closest thing to an office I have is either the laundry room or the kitchen, and there was no room in the kitchen, thus, decided the laundry room.
I thought maybe I could cover half the wall.
Then realized as I hung each one, I was wrong.
I made it all the way to the end.
And then I thought, Perfect. That marks the end of a chapter, and with the new wall, a new chapter and a new set of goals.
One day the four walls will be full.
One day I will run with 4 little ones across a finish line.
But for today, I must be okay with doing dishes, laundry,
and manufacturing a baby.
Where’s my medal for that????
One of the worst news a runner can receive is that their running shoes have been discontinued. And I received that news this summer. After crying myself to sleep, I decided to try on the 
I get asked so so many times how I got started in running or how to get started in running. I know I’ve written about this before, but lets do it again because if it helps one person find joy in running, I’ll write about it as many times as it takes! Going from nothing to running isn’t easy, but it is possible. I’ve done it once in the beginning and then once after each pregnancy with my girls so I consider myself somewhat of a starting-out expert.
I’ve been in a funk ever since my kids started school.