Volunteering (while wearing my super cool pink flamingo hat) at Silver City 100k last year! It should be FUN!

My next ultra is sneaking up on me! I’m doing the Silver City 100k (with 13,000+ of elevation gain) through some pretty rocky, sweet trails in Silver City, Idaho and I’m pretty pumped! Last year my entire family volunteered to do an aid station at the race and I had a blast! The course is technical and some of the climbs are sure to have me begging for Mommy, but I figure with the creek crossings and the panoramic views and familiar faces along the course it will be a time to remember for sure!

Lucky Peak at the summit – what a view!!!! Worth the 3,000+ of climbing in 5.5 miles to get there!

I’ve spent the last three weeks hitting up my local trails again (that I’d been grounding myself from as I got into BQ shape) and that’s been a lot of fun! I’ve done Lucky Peak, Dry Creek, Corrals, Hard Guy, Watchman, Shane’s, Stack Rock and some of the Bogus trails and it’s been a delight to get back into my groove!  My climbing skills still need some serious work, but I’m feeling like my old self on the downhills and flats and the gorgeous wildflowers have been making my journeys a total delight!

Enjoying some altitude training up at Bogus Basin on the trails.

I hope to get in a couple more solid runs this week before I ease up and taper more seriously for the race!

Life on the home-front has been pretty good, too. My five children have been begging me to take them to the local pools a few times a week, they’ve had sleepovers and we’ve gone on hikes and out for ice cream and to the movies! It’s been a nice time to relax from our usual homeschooling responsibilities and enjoy the summer together!

MMmmm – Taking the kids out for ice cream on a hot summer day is always a treat!

So, listen up! I’m here to demonstrate (with pictures of course)  all the fashion advice you’ll ever need for really making the most of your brand new Buff!

Ahoy there, me hearty! Been invited to pillage and plunder this weekend with your piratey friends but have nothing to wear?! You’ll be a swashbuckling, scallywag in no time (or at least LOOK like one!) Arghhh!!!

Struggling to find that perfect thing to wear at your next bank robbery?! Well, fret no more! Your Buff will have you looking like a pro in no time!

I’m sorry to tell you, Goody, I won’t be needing you or your ponytail holders anymore. I’ve found someone new. Someone who’s more flexible and meets all my hair-styling needs! It’s not you. It’s me. No, that’s not true. It was you!

Who needs a fancy, schmancy sleep mask when you have one of these babies?!! Hammock naps just got a whole lot more relaxing thanks to your new Buff!

What’s that? You find yourself at a birthday party ready to pummel that pinata when you realize – no one thought to bring a blindfold! Never fear! You’ll save the day when you bust out your Buff as blindfold fashion headband! P.S. Save me some candy!

I call this look the Buff hippy! You’ll be out wandering through the trails picking wildflowers before you can say, “Peace.”

Polecat

This morning I went running alone. I went to a place I’ve been many times before – a trail called Polecat that’s a 6 mile loop of undulating, perfectly manicured single-track trail through the sagebrush-covered Boise Foothills.  When I run by myself outdoors, on trails, all of my senses are reawakened, it seems. I’m more aware of the breeze (which was heavenly today in the 75 degree temperature.) I notice the sweet scent and colors of the wildflowers along the trail (today I saw clumps of tiny violet colored blossoms and lacy, white yarrow and vibrant, tiny yellow flowers dotting the landscape as I ran.)  I’m more aware of the steady, rhythmic sound my Pure Grits make as they thump thump along in the dirt, propelling me forward.

Show Daisies

I also notice things I might not have if I’d gone with someone else.  I saw the cutest little lizard and his lizard buddy racing across the trail just as I rounded a corner at a blazing 11 min mile! They couldn’t have been more than 5 inches long each and I just busted out laughing when I saw them scurrying off into the brush to hide from the crazy runner lady invading their territory!  A hummingbird flew so close to me that I could have nearly reached out and touched it’s delicate, furiously flapping wings, it seemed.  A grasshopper stopped momentarily before me on the sandy trail and then bounced off into the sagebrush and I couldn’t help but wonder how totally awesome it must feel to be able to jump that HIGH! I decided grasshoppers remind me of my friend, Cory Reece since he can jump so very high, even after running 100 miles!

Being on my own, also meant I had time to let that private, inner world of my thoughts open up and I could think about some things going on in my own life that I can’t really share with anyone. It was a release to let some stresses out and to let the funny little creatures I saw and the natural beauty IN instead!

Some say running is cheaper than therapy. I couldn’t agree more! I hope that you’ll take the time to stop and notice the lizards (or whatever unique and interesting things might await) on your next run!  Go on now! Get out there and turn on your senses FULL BLAST and live a little!!

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh

Who knew family fun on the Oregon Trail could bring out the JOY in all five of them?!

Our family enjoyed some much-needed playful time together outdoors on Memorial Day and I hope other families were able to do the same! We had a really lovely time taking in the views of Lucky Peak, Table Rock and the Boise Foothills and especially enjoyed running up and down the Basalt Trail, which is crazy technical and way FUN! My 12 year old son was a beast heading up and down that section, grinning from ear to ear.  Our youngest, age 6, needed a piggy pack ride back to the house after our 3 miles of family fun! I wonder how much longer Daddy will be her taxi?!

My baby girl and I – I think she’s a chip off the old block!

Walk Like an Egyptian (or a bunch of Idahoans trying to pretend to be Egyptians!)

I Leap for Family Fun!

My training and racing have gone really well so far this year (other than a setback in February when I suffered a calf strain, which thankfully was resolved with rest and aggressive treatment by my chiropractor and sports massage therapist!)

So far for 2013 I have had a PR marathon at Redding in January (3:47), a PR at Run 4 Luv 5k with a time of 22:27, my second hundred miler at Antelope Island Buffalo Run in March (with a PR by almost 2 hours), a surprising 100k distance (which I finished with a sprint) at the Pickled Feet 24 hour race one week after my 100, a PR at Weiser River 50k (4:56) and finally a Boston Qualifying Marathon at the Famous Potato with a PR and a 3:40 time! 2013 has been a wonderful year for me so far and I am excited to see what the rest of the year brings! All those 4 am alarms to get up for a run,  running through snow, ice, rain or whatever the day brings and lots of run by headlamp (so I could be done before the kids were up for the day), all the tough climbs, the long miles, the speedwork and the constant work on my mental game over the last few months are paying off!

Now that I’ve qualified for Boston, my focus goes into my ultra running races for the summer and fall!  I’m competing in the Idaho Trail Ultra Series again this year (I was 5th female last year and part of the “Dirty Dozen” – top 6 men and women in the field) and I’m hoping to work hard this year, race well and aim for a top 3 spot this time! In order to compete, a runner must do 4 races of 50k or longer in the series.  So far, I’m signed up for Silver City 100k in June and the Foothills Frenzy 50k in October.  I also plan on doing the McCall Classic 40, Wild Idaho 50 miler and IMTUF 100.  It should be a really exciting racing season!

I’ve got my work cut out for me! With so much focus on the roads in the past few months to help me qualify for Boston, I’d pulled back on my trail time significantly, so I’ve been trying to hit the trails hard again and start working on gaining a lot more vertical during the week and weekends in order to build my strength and endurance for the upcoming races!

First up will be the Silver City 100k on June 22nd.  Last year, my family and I manned an aid station for the race and really enjoyed the beautiful scenery! I’m looking forward to having my turn facing those tough, technical trails in only 4 weeks!

I ran my first marathon – The City of Trees Marathon on October 4th, 2009.  It was 40 degrees and raining the entire race. It was wonderful and hard and definitely one of the most difficult things I’d ever done to that point (and that’s saying something from a woman who’s given birth without an epidural 5 times!)  I had set a goal of running the race in 4:45, but crossed the finish line in 4:57:33. It was such an emotional and glorious moment to suddenly become a “marathoner!”  I could not imagine running any faster than the 11:21 pace I maintained for that 26.2 miles!

Here I am running my first marathon in 2009! My finish time that day: 4:57

But, that is one of the things that really seems to drive our kind — the “runners” in the world. We love to challenge ourselves, push hard to achieve our goals and once those are mastered, we make new goals and go after them, too! One of the first thoughts that went through my mind as I soaked in my ice bath after the race was, “I bet I could do the next one FASTER!” And once I got on that path, it wasn’t long before I started daydreaming about pie-in-the sky goals — especially the biggest one of all for most marathoners — to one day qualify for Boston – the Holy Grail of running achievements!

I’ve loved Boston so much, we went there on vacation in 2010 and I ran the entire marathon course just for fun, dreaming of one day running it officially.

At that point, I’d already bought several books about the Boston Marathon, about it’s rich history, about Kathrine Switzer and her first run there in 1967 (where she was the first female ever to run it with a race bib) and how the race director, Jock Semple tried to attack her and remove her race bib and kick her out of the race partway through.

The infamous photos of the 1967 struggle between Kathrine Switzer and Boston Race Director Jock Semple.   Her boyfriend knocked him out of the way and she finished the race in 4:20!  Go Kathrine!

It angered me and surprised me to think that women had been unable to freely race in a marathon just a little over four decades ago. And, women weren’t openly welcomed into Boston until 1972, which coincidentally was the year I was born!

Here’s a picture of Kathrine and Jock in 1972 at the start of the Boston Marathon – the first year women were officially allowed to enter the race. He had apologized for his bad behavior in 1967. This photo shows progress in the mindset of those who thought women could not and should not run marathons! Kathrine’s first Boston marathon time was 4:20. Her PR was Boston in 1975 when she ran a 2:51! She was truly talented!

From the moment I learned that little fact, I felt a connection to Boston and the history of women runners. I felt it was my destiny to one day run the race myself — one of the benefactors of women like Kathrine Switzer (and my own Mom who started running in the 1980′s and was the first woman I knew who ran a marathon the year she was 40!)  They blazed the trail! They showed me the way and I knew it would be an honor to have things come full circle and freely come to race in Boston one day.

I think I’m looking at my Dad and thinking, “Dad and Mom, would you come cheer me on at a marathon when I’m 40? I know it will help me qualify for BOSTON!” P.S.  Bring a cool sign! I’ll like that little touch!

But, there was the qualifying problem.  Boston, unlike most other marathons, won’t allow you to just sign up and show up on race day to run. Instead, you must run a marathon on a  USA Track and Field certified course in a qualifying time (based on your gender and age!)  At the time I was dreaming about Boston, my qualifying time would have been 3:45:59 since I was 36. That was a difference of about an hour and 12 minutes FASTER! Talk about a pipe dream!  But, it was already engraved on my heart as my destiny — so I kept training, kept running, even when others stopped joining me for training runs or gave up on their running visions for awhile. I spent many years running alone along the roads in Nampa, Idaho, dodging sugar beet trucks in the summer and heavy traffic. I wasn’t close to a greenbelt so I made do with what I had.  And, little by little, I started to improve.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve nearly been hit by a falling  sugar beet from an over-full truck going 50 miles per hour down Cherry Lane in Nampa on a training run! It made for some quick foot action, that’s for sure!

About 6 months later I ran my second marathon. I’d been training for and ran my first ultra marathon just a few weeks before, so I wasn’t expecting a very fast time when I signed up for the Famous Potato Marathon – and that’s good – because I actually ran slower with a time of 5:14:13, but I wasn’t discouraged! I’d done a difficult half marathon (with 8+ hard miles of uphill) and my ultra within the same month as this race, so I was seeing myself accomplish several races in a short period of time, which was cool, too and it was helping me develop my strength and endurance (even if my speed wasn’t improving much yet.)

This finish photo always cracks me up! This was my 2nd marathon and my kids were chasing me as I final kicked it home! Though the final kick was sweet, my final time was my slowest of all 7 of my marathons: 5:14!

By my 3rd marathon, I got more focused. I printed out a Smart Coach plan from Runner’s World and I started training more seriously for speed.  When I ran the City of Trees in October of 2010 (one year after my first marathon) I shaved off 36 1/2 minutes off my time when I crossed the line in 4:20:59! That was a huge improvement and gave me hope that Boston could someday happen for me – if I kept working hard!  But, I still had a long way’s to go. I needed to shave another 35 minutes to “BQ” (runner lingo for Boston Qualify!)

I was more focused for the City of Trees Marathon in 2010 finishing with a time of 4:20:59 – a huge PR!

My focus was averted temporarily as I sought to run longer and longer distances in ultra marathons on the trails I’d fallen in love with.  I didn’t run another marathon until the Famous Potato Marathon one year ago — just two months after my first 100 mile race! I had no idea what I could do and had not trained on the roads hardly at all during my ultra prep, so I was amazed when I crossed the finish line comfortably in 3:48:41! A PR by more than 32 minutes!  That’s when my quest for Boston became more than a dream. It started to seem so much more likely!

A huge PR at Famous Potato Marathon in 2012! 1st in my age group and 10th woman overall with a time of 3:48!

There was just one catch.  Though I was about to turn 40 and the standards would have allowed me to run a 3:50:59 to qualify, new standards had been put into place that required me to run faster than ever!!! They shaved off the 59 second grace window that had applied for so many years and then took another 5 minutes off the time, basically requiring everyone in all age groups to run nearly 6 min faster to qualify!  My job just got harder! I needed to run a 3:45:00 or better to BQ! If the standards had not changed, that would have been the day I qualified for Boston! But, with the new standards in place, I needed to run 3 min and 41 seconds faster! I was NOT discouraged! I was pumped!!! I was so determined to go into laser mode and just focus as hard as I needed to to reach my dream goal!

I had moved to Boise late in 2011 and had the amazing luck of having a good friend who is much faster than me ask me to start running with him more in the early mornings. This benefited me in a couple of ways. Being able to run in the dark, before the kids woke up meant I was able to get in more miles (my weekly average went from about 30 miles a week to closer to 45-50) and I was having to push my pace more to keep up with my fast friend (even on his easy days!) I also suddenly had access to the Boise Greenbelt for safe running on long stretches of asphalt without a beet truck (or any traffic) in sight and I could hit the trails and run in the mountains almost from my front door, so I was gaining strength in my legs from climbing a lot more mountains – several times a week!  I had been noticing an improvement in my endurance and my strength and my speed over several months when I ran the 3:48 race!

Me and the “Fast boys” – Ryan and Derek who’ve helped to get me in BQ shape in the last year and a half!

I set my sights on a fall marathon with a lot of elevation loss (something I thought would play to my strength of running fast downhill.)  That race was the Pocatello Marathon and it didn’t go as planned. I was on pace for a BQ until mile 18, when the wheels just fell off and I started to walk – and pretty much walked the rest of the race until I crossed the finish line in a disappointing time of 4:27:01.  I had not trained specifically for a downhill road race. I had hoped my good luck at the previous marathon with very little road training or any speedwork would mean I could just “wing it” and do well at this race while still training for ultras in the mountains. I was wrong! It was a lesson learned! But, I did not give up!

My buddy April and I both were seeking Boston times when the wheels fell off for each of us. This is us coming to the finish realizing just how FAR we’d sunk in pace!

My friends Ryan and Derek continued to push me hard in training and they both knew how much I wanted Boston! Derek said something to me that really spoke to me this past winter. He said, “What is difficult for you must become easy!”  From that point on, when the boys ran roads with me in our midweek runs, we ran my BQ pace – or faster – every single time!!! I started to train at the pace I needed to qualify! It was hard at first and I couldn’t hold it long, but as the weeks went by, I started to find it more comfortable and by the time I showed up at the Redding Marathon in Jan of 2013, I knew I was ready (or close!)  I had even ran a 20 miler at 1 second per mile faster than BQ pace in training!

You know you gave everything you had in a race when you look like THIS at the finish line! A PR – but no Boston – yet! 3:47. Still needing to shave 2 min and 22 seconds off to qualify!

That was the most comfortable marathon of my life! It truly did feel like a training run until the final 4 miles or so (when it started to hurt and I could not muster the energy to push it home a bit faster!) I enjoyed the hills, the beautiful bridges we crossed and the route. I crossed the finish line in 3:47:22 – a PR but not a BQ!  I had ran a smart race and my Garmin said I’d done the 8:34 pace I needed for the duration – but – the certified course, being done on a very curvy route turned out to be a 26.5 instead of closer to 26.2, so I just missed it.  Being a race director myself (and someone who has personally helped certify 4 marathon courses) I should have known better! If you don’t cut every single tangent the course will be a bit long and I should have assumed from the start that I needed to run a little bit faster the entire time to reach my goal. It was another lesson!

I ran my second 100 mile race in March of 2013 (about 2 hours faster than the year before), then I set my sights back on qualifying for Boston in May at the Famous Potato. I felt fitter and more focused than ever before! Ryan had gotten the marathon bug and was training hard right along with me (for his own goal of a 3:10 or better) and having that camaraderie was good for me! Even though we run different paces, we would meet together, do the warm up miles as we talked and then each push hard for the speedwork and tempo work, then cool down together. I think we both pushed each other to do better and that was a big help!  For about 6 weeks, we abandoned our beloved trail running and just focused on preparing our bodies to qualify on the asphalt!

Ryan and I (and sneaky Dennis our photobomber friend – who also qualified for Boston) just before the start of the Potato Marathon 2013!

And, it paid off!! This past weekend, on May 18, 2013, I made history (for ME) by qualifying for Boston!!! I did it!!!!! I can’t believe it!!!  Despite having to stop for potty breaks several times along the course, I ran across the finish line in 3:40:44 — a full 4 minutes and 16 seconds faster than I needed to! My family was there to cheer for me along the route (including my parents, which meant the world to me), so many of my friends were either running the race or were there cheering or pacing, my amazing friend Lucia, who has ran Boston more times than any woman I know, paced me the last 6 miles and kept me steady and I got to high-five Ryan as he grinned at about mile 18 for me and 22 for him as he went on to qualify for Boston with a 3:08, too!

This is me and my wonderful friend, Lucia (in her Lucky Purple gloves that I’m sure gave me Boston qualifying Magic) at about mile 22. I was all smiles and felt strong!

It was an amazing day! When I crossed the finish line, my dear friend Dennis yelled at me, “C. EB” as he likes to call me. I was having a hard time catching my breath and when I looked up and saw him with his arms stretched out I went to him for a congratulatory hug. That’s when it all suddenly hit me like a ton of bricks — the quest was OVER! I’d actually DONE IT!!! I started sobbing, just so overcome with gratitude and emotion and RELIEF and joy! I did it! I really did it! I finally qualified for Boston!!!

I was overcome when I saw my family and lifted my hands and shouted out, “I’m going to BOSTON!’ I couldn’t stop crying tears of relief and joy! 7 marathons but I finally got it!

My parents were there with the video camera and my Mom said, “Where are you going now?” and through tears, I threw up my arms and yelled out, “BOSTON!!” My five kids gathered around me and hugged me and said they were so proud of me! “You did it, Mom! you finally did it!” My husband hugged me and said, “I knew you could!” which meant the world!  Later, Ryan found me and we posed for a picture. I’d named our little team, “Boston and a Belt Buckle” – meaning I wanted to earn a 100 mile belt buckle and a Boston qualifying time in the same year.  We’d both earned our 100 mile buckles at Antelope Island Buffalo Run in March -and less than two months later, we were standing near the finish line where we’d each BQ’d!!! That couldn’t have gone better!!

“You did it, Mom!’ the kids said! I told them, “Big dreams will not come easy! Just keep at it and you can accomplish what you wish for!”

Thanks for the support, Dad and Mom!

So, if you are dreaming of Boston and it seems like an impossible dream, I want to encourage you to never lose hope! I went from a 4:57 marathoner to a 3:40 one. Anything is possible if you are willing to believe in yourself, work really hard and keep on picking yourself up and trying if things don’t go right the first time! It’s worth it to keep after your goals! You can do it!!!!!

I have really fallen behind on my blog lately and for that I apologize. It’s been incredibly busy this year, trying to go from directing 5 races in 2012 to 10+ events in 2013! We just put on the Lake Lowell Marathon, Half, 10k and 5k over the weekend for about 350 racers and that is just 3 weeks after directing Bruneau Beast.  Last weekend, we headed out of town for my third Weiser River 50k and I used it as a training run for my upcoming BQ effort at the Famous Potato Marathon and that went exceptionally well.  I ran a PR 50k – 4:56 (bettering my previous time on the course by 9 min, which I was happy about.) I kept the heart rate under control and reminded myself constantly to not “race” it and stuck to the plan!! I ran conservatively enough (about a min per mile slower than BQ pace on rocky terrain) to jump right back into hard training the rest of this week and for that I’m grateful! I was 5th female and 10th overall, which was just icing on the cake! We also got to camp out which was a highlight for the five kids!

This past week has been a marathon effort by itself! I got up early to run or ride several days in a row and had so many race director duties that I was just running on empty. I also put on a big birthday party for my son, Joshua’s 11th birthday, which was a fun break and a nice chance to do something special with the family.

I am thoroughly exhausted. I slept less than an hour Friday night (race directors often get very little sleep in the 3 days leading up to a race and I think I got a total of 6 hours in the last 3 nights). Last Saturday I ran a PR 50k and I trained pretty strongly this week, so my body was literally on the brink — which is exactly how it’s supposed to feel as you peak in training two weeks before a marathon, so when our other running pals bailed on us this morning, Ryan A. and I decided to do a RTYP (Run Till You Puke) half marathon run, which is something our buddy, Tony firmly believes in doing two weeks before a strong effort marathon (and Tony has BQ’d more times than anyone I know, so we listen to Tony!)

This was only the second time I’ve done a RTYP and the last time I did one with Tony, Ryan and Dennis, Ryan ran with me and we chatted most of the way, so I never felt it was an all-out effort. That day was a 1:50. My “official” best half marathon time is from the only flatter half I’ve ever done – 3 years ago and that time is 1:53:05 (it might be time to run another this summer…)

Today I ran a 1:44 – better than anything I’ve even done in training (I have ran 1:46 3 x — once in a marathon, twice in a training run that was not a RTYP.)

I collapsed to the ground when I finished, the grass was wet. I didn’t care. I felt tired, hot and ELATED at my progress!!!!!!

I feel as ready as I am ever going to be to BQ in two weeks. I need to be smart with rest, recovery and keeping the legs loose and I think I can do it – FINALLY!!!

Ave HR: 178
Max HR: 188

Splits:
Mile 1: 8:12
Mile 2: 7:57
Mile 3: 7:53
Mile 4: 8:05
Mile 5: 8:02
Mile 6: 7:56
Mile 7: 7:59
Mile 8: 7:55
Mile 9: 7:52
Mile 10: 7:47
Mile 11: 8:16
Mile 12: 7:58
Mile 13: 7:48
Last .10: 6:45

P.S. I did another 5 miles after this which consisted of slow jogging, then walking and finally SLOGGING! I think I’ve reached the end of my energy rope! Time to recover a bit and start getting my mind in a great place before my marathon!!!!

My mood was light as I watched the race updates.  And, then, suddenly, something went wrong. Very, very wrong.  There was an explosion. People were falling, bleeding, panic ensued. And, then another explosion. Frantically, I searched the news for information about what was happening. I texted my closest running buddy and asked if he was watching the news. I was in shock. Stunned.  What had been a joyous celebration scene had suddenly become a war zone with spectators losing limbs and bleeding and runners being told less than a mile from the finish line that the race was cancelled.  The quick response of the police, the paramedics and volunteers on scene who rushed to the aid of the injured, not knowing if they were right in the midst of more attacks was overwhelming. Good people do good, selfless, kind things – even at the risk of their own well-being, which is exactly the opposite of what the cowards who unleashed this horrible attack did – orchestrating an evil attack on innocent people in the midst of a celebration who had no way to defend themselves or fight back.

I was in tears watching the mayhem, the blood, the fear I saw on the faces of those interviewed. I worried for my friends who were there and for their friends and family who had been there watching and cheering from the sidelines! My five children hugged me and looked at me with questioning, innocent faces asking why anyone would do such a terrible, ungodly thing? I had few answers.

My heart was heavy when I awoke the next morning realizing that the Boston attack had not been some terrible nightmare but was in fact, a harsh reality.  My husband and I had directed The Bruneau Beast sand dunes race over the weekend and it was my responsibility to head back to the course and sweep the 5k, cleaning up flag markings, any trash and such.  The sky was gray and dark. It was threatening to rain. I welcomed the weather as an appropriate response to the grievous acts that had taken place the day before, the loss of innocent life (including an 8 year old little boy who was waiting for his daddy to cross the finish line).  I drove alone the hour out of Boise, losing myself in the mournful mood of my soul, glad for the chance to process my emotions and be alone.

I took along my camera and these are the photos I captured that day as I grieved for Boston.  My thoughts and prayers are with all of those affected by this tragedy.

My buddy, Rachel C. stopped by my house while I was looking over the map and said she’d enjoy coming along too, so we met up at 4:30 am to get a jump on Ryan A. and Derek (who I refer to as the “fast boys” because they are exceptionally FAST runners!)

After looking at Ryan’s Garmin info (where he’d done this route in the past in 1:29) we started a half an hour (it turned out to be 27 minutes exactly since they started two min early and we started one min late -not that I’m being a numbers geek) before the guys and decided to hike every step since we thought it would be fun if they caught us at the halfpoint and we all ran downhill together. The sky was pitch black, the city of Boise twinkled below like a thousand sparkling diamonds, the wind whistled and I was thankful for my thin Brooks jacket keeping me toasty. We reached the 4 mile spot and could see two headlamps about a mile down the trail heading steadily up towards us, so we waited for about 7 minutes (that’s ALL it took them to catch us with a half an hour start!!?!! WOW)

They were flying too and in great spirits! We said our hellos and we all started running fast downhill having a blast! If the fellas were tired from running hard on the steep uphills, they didn’t show it! They were FLYING!!!! And whooping and laughing and having a great time! Rachel and the boys took off super fast and I had to hold back on the super technical downhill right after we joined up. It’s like a death trap, a zillion various sized rocks, uneven terrain, by headlamp. Totally exciting! Loved every minute of it – but I had to take my time. I definitely lost my “early morning running” skills with the several week lay off from running much with the calf injury and am eager to get back to being a bit more fearless on this sort of thing!

Once we hit the smoother sections of downhill running I was in my element and started running much faster! That’s when I started whooping and hollaring – and it started to rain! I felt like a little kid I was having so much fun, my hair plastered to my face, arms and legs pumping hard through the mountains under the stars! My fastest mile was mile 7 at a 7:18 pace. I felt I could have ran it a bit faster, but I had to pee!

I stopped to take care of business and wait for Rachel (who’s headlamp was fading making it hard for her to go as fast as she wanted to.) Once I saw her light behind me, I took off again to the final stretch, lungs burning and breathing heavy as I gave it all I had to the finish!

That was the most incredible workout I’ve done in MONTHS! Totally loved it and can’t wait to do it again!!!! THIS kind of running will make me a beast!

Elevation gain: 1,659 feet. When I got back to the parking lot and realized Rachel and I had done the 8.64 mile route in about 1:45 I was pretty excited! Not bad for hiking the first 4 miles! Next time, I think we girls need to start 15 min early instead and run as much as we want. I am betting we could do it even faster!! What do you think, Rachel?! Are you in?!

Giving blood = giving life! I will always be indebted to those who gave blood so my little girl could live! It felt wonderful to finally be doing something to return, in some small way, the gift that was given to our family when Savannah’s life was saved in 2007!

I have several items on my “bucket list.”  Some of them are grand adventures like running Rim-to-Rim-to-Rim at the Grand Canyon, taking a ride in a hot air balloon, running the Boston Marathon or meeting a running hero like Kathrine Switzer. Others are a little less glamorous, but very personally meaningful to me. One of those things on my list was to donate blood – something that I think we all know is a good thing to do, but many of us never get around to actually doing.

There is a special reason why this was so very important to me. My beautiful daughter, Savannah, the youngest of my five children was a very sick little baby when she was about 6 months old. Though we never did get a diagnosis for why Savannah became so seriously ill, one of the turning points for her recovery was when she received a blood transfusion at St Luke’s Children’s Hospital on September 22, 2007.

Savannah in the PICU after her blood transfusion in Sept of 2007.

I remember being terrified as they told me that my little girl might not live through the night, but standing by her bedside, stroking the soft tufts of blood hair on her little cherub head and singing softly to her through my tears as she received that life-giving blood. As the hours went by, color started to return to Savannah’s face. It would be nearly a year before Savannah would be fully well again, but that night will forever be etched into my memory as the night she was given hope again.  I told my husband that very day that it was very important to me to one day donate blood as the best way possible I could say, “Thank you” to whoever had given so selflessly to my own baby girl and helped save her life!

Well, a few weeks ago, while on an early morning run with my pal, Ryan, he mentioned feeling a little tired since he’d given blood the day before. That’s when I shared with him my own family’s story and told him I really wanted to give blood too! So, he invited me to join him the next time the American Red Cross came to his office and I happily jumped at the chance!

Thank you, Ryan for being a great example to me and letting me join you today!

So, today was that day. The day I was able to pay it forward. As I was lying back in the chair, I thought about how frightened and hopeless I’d felt the day Savannah needed blood and how utterly grateful I was when there was blood available to give to her. I wondered about where my own blood would go. Would it be another little baby like my own who would need it? A mother? A grandpa? It really doesn’t matter. It just feels amazing to know that there is a very simple way to do some good, to provide some help to those who really need it!

So, if you are like I was – thinking that giving blood is a good thing to do and something you’d always intended to do, I encourage you to take the steps to find a local donation location so that you, too, can share the gift of life! And for those of you, like Ryan who have been giving for years, please know from the bottom of my heart how truly grateful I am for your kindness! Thank you!!

I guess this means I can now cross another item off of my bucket list. But, this one I plan on keeping on the list and repeating over and over as long as I’m able to give!

Savannah (who’s a healthy 6 year old and the light of my life) and I.