When folks asked why I would want to run a marathon, let alone, a second one... I didn't really have a good answer. Exercise? Joy of running? I'm not sure and I figured either one of those answers might put me in potential harm of running haters. The truth is I wasn't sure if I could do it again. I thought maybe the first time was just a fluke and I wanted to see if I could do it. Everything becomes a bit more of a juggling act when a little one is involved, so I liked the idea of the challenge.
It was an amazing day and ever if there was a Fall day in Philly to run a marathon it was the one! My amazing cousin paced alongside me (even though she had only trained to do a half) and kept my spirits up the entire time. We discussed music, crazy family, being moms, running itself and listened to some tunes that I'm personally embarrassed to mention. We high fived lots of fantastic friends along the way that came out with water, bananas and lots of encouragement. And, dare I say, before I knew it we were at the finish line high-fiving and saying maybe we would do it again! Maybe.
A huge thanks to my wonderful husband that took on baby duty for me to escape on long weekend runs and rolled his eyes saying you could actual be getting sleep now. He's a hard egg to crack, but the best cheerleader out there! And to my sweet, EB, for being a pretty amazing training partner. He took in the miles and happily enjoyed snoozing and the scenery.
Training for a marathon at least had a manual. Thank you Hal Higdon. Flying with a baby, not so much. I felt like a magician with a bag of tricks... bottles, Puffs and pacifiers we had a plenty! There were backups for the backups! But at the end of the day flying with a 9 month old is pretty much what I imagine flying with a baby chimp to be like and no amount of pacifiers is going to fix that. However, we arrived and Thanksgiving in warm, sunny FL with both of our families and friends was fantastic!
With the Holidays around the corner I was on overload. It was my mission to make this the most amazing first Christmas any baby had ever seen. Tree, check. Decorations, check. Lights, check. Tons of hand painted Christmas gifts with baby's print, check. Cookies, check. Delirium, check. I felt like a crazy person trying to think of every creative, unique idea known to man. After weeks of preparing, I had a hard reality check when baby couldn't focus on any of these amazing gifts and creative things that had been put into place because he was too obsessed with the tissue paper and wrappings, check.
So, I learned something in all of these scenarios. You can do what you put your mind to (even if it takes a long time), you can survive most situations (as long as you have pleasant, fellow passengers) and you should appreciate all of the things that your mom did to make the Holidays magical for you!!
Live Wildly. Love Deeply.
