There’s been so much that I have been wanting to share with you as far as how my training has been going, but I just haven’t found the time to sit and write. I blog in my head all day long, while I’m at work, while I’m training, while I’m sleeping and I just haven’t found the hour or so that I need to get those thoughts down on virtual paper. I have about 4 or 5 drafts started, but nothing complete.

I wanted to tell you about the PR I set at the St. Michael’s half marathon and how much fun I had running with my partner in crime and how beautiful and perfect the day was. I wanted to tell you how we kept a slow steady pace in the beginning chit chatting through mile 10 and catching up like old times. Most of all, I wanted to tell you how we plowed on through the last 3.1 miles not saying a word, maneuvering in and out of runners to pass them, picking up speed with every step. I wanted to tell you how our steps synced up and our heavy breathing synced up as if were were one machine with one goal in mind…finish strong. And we finished so F*&% strong! But I’ve just been too damn busy.

I wanted to tell you about the loneliest 20 miles that I have ever ran in my entire life, and how I felt abandoned by my friends and how I found the inner strength to push through every minute, up every hill to make sure I reached my 20 miles. I wanted to tell you that I was scared and alone in the dark and exhausted, but I did it. I ran all 20 miles…with a negative split.

I wanted about all of the anxiety that I’ve been feeling over the past few days and how I every time I look at the course map and try to memorize every twist and turn that I want to vomit. I wanted to let you know that my greatest fear is failure and for the first time in my life, despite all of the wonderful support and the encouragement from my friends and strangers, I don’t know if I will succeed. My heart pounds right now at the thought of it.

I wanted to tell you that I’m running for a cause in honor of my 7 year old nephew who can sometimes have 30+ seizures all day long and how I do nothing but worry about him and hope that he is not going to be one of the Dup15q children that passes away in his sleep. My heart breaks when I think about what he has to go through and what my sister and her family have to witness day in and day out. There’s nothing I can do for him to help him. But I run for him, with him in my thoughts and his sweet angel face smiling at me. Yes, I am accepting donations to support research funded by the Dup15q Alliance.

But, I also wanted to tell you about the wonderful experiences that I have had too, like coaching for the Baltimore Women’s Classic 5K and how I’m so very proud of all of the women who are making a difference in their lives by training for this 5k, some for the very first time. I wanted to tell you how it makes me smile every time I see them run around the track going further and faster every week. I see them. I see their transformation slowly happening. I see butterflies coming out of their cocoons.

I wanted to tell you about the new friends I have made and that fact that I ran up hills this morning with such ease that it made me feel so freaking strong and I didn’t want that to stop. I am stronger. But am I 50 miles stronger?

And I wanted to tell the amazing scenery that I have had the honor of seeing these past few weeks…the beauty, the fresh air smell, the fun of running on the trails…but I’ve been too damn busy.

Well, after another pretty shitty week, I’m taking that moment now…glass of wine in hand to tell you, this has been a pretty intense journey.