Rambling Runner Girl reporting live from the other side of the Mississippi.\u00a0 Merry Christmas from Quincy!<\/p>\n
Today while I was out for a run, a quote by Olympian Kara Goucher kept playing over and over in my mind.\u00a0 \u201cThat\u2019s the thing about running: your greatest runs are rarely measured by racing success.\u00a0 They are moments in time when running allows you to see how wonderful your life is.\u201d<\/p>\n
A couple weeks ago, I led the group run at Lifetime on a Tuesday night.\u00a0 It was an easy 5 mile course that I had run before, so it shouldn\u2019t have been terribly difficult.\u00a0 But after all that I have put my body through this year, I was beginning to feel broken.\u00a0 I decided to allow myself a break for the last couple weeks of 2013.<\/p>\n
I raced a lot this year.\u00a0 I ran the Vancouver Marathon in May, the Chicago Marathon in October and was prepared to run the Tecumseh Trail Marathon earlier this month.\u00a0 I completed several half marathons, two 200+ mile relays, the Pere Marquette endurance trail race and a few 5 and 10k\u2019s.\u00a0 I stretched myself and reached new heights by completing a half Ironman in Racine in July.<\/p>\n
All of those are great accomplishments that I am proud of, but like Kara said, those successes don\u2019t begin to truly capture all that my life is.\u00a0 Since my decided break from running, I\u2019ve been taking it easy.\u00a0 Let\u2019s be real, we all knew I wasn\u2019t going to just stop running for two weeks.\u00a0 So my \u201cbreak\u201d has been a break from any kind of running agenda.\u00a0 No stress.\u00a0 No schedule.\u00a0 Just running what I feel when I feel like it.\u00a0 I\u2019ve run only when it\u2019s convenient, no more than 6 miles, at a nice easy pace.\u00a0 I\u2019ve taken a couple days off at a time and let my body rest.\u00a0 Not something that comes easy to me, but something that needed to happen.\u00a0 I am using this time to fall in love with running all over again.\u00a0 Today was a perfect example of that.<\/p>\n
Yesterday after I finished work, my mom and the kids picked me up and we made the drive up 61 to Hannibal and across the river to Quincy.\u00a0 The whole Jacobs clan was converging on this tiny Midwestern town for a fun old-fashioned family Christmas.\u00a0 Cousins and uncles had flown in from California, Minneapolis, Boston and DC.\u00a0 Other cousins had driven in from various parts of Illinois.\u00a0 We pulled up to\u00a0my Uncle Tim\u2019s farm house and it wasn\u2019t long before everyone else\u00a0started to arrive.\u00a0 The counter was filling with food, the house was filling with people and my heart was filled to overflowing as I looked around at so many of the people that I love.\u00a0 My kids played with cousins, we drank wine and mint punch, we placed gifts under the tree.\u00a0 I sat in the kitchen with my cousins\u2019 girlfriends and my Uncle Curt\u2019s best friend Julie who I\u2019ve known my entire life, and it occurred to me, By Golly, we\u2019ve got Girls in this family now!\u00a0 Growing up I was constantly surrounded by boys, which would probably explain a few things about me.<\/p>\n
By the time I joined the group working on the 1000 piece jigsaw puzzle the border was already complete.\u00a0 Some would pop in and out to help with the puzzle, but for the most part the die-hards were the same as usual and they stayed to completion.\u00a0 We had a white elephant gift exchange that filled the house with laughter.\u00a0 We are a wacky crew, but we are always ready with\u00a0open arms for\u00a0anyone who dares join us.\u00a0 I couldn\u2019t have imagined being anywhere else.\u00a0 And while there were several who were missing, we spoke of them fondly and wished that they were with us.<\/p>\n
Eventually the party wound down and everyone started to return to their places of slumber.\u00a0 The kids and I were staying at the farm.\u00a0 While tucking Silas into one of the twin bunk beds in the \u201cBunk Room\u201d where there are 10 twin beds (no joke) I said, \u201cOk, I will just lay down with you for a minute\u201d and the next thing I knew he was asking where his clothes were so he could get dressed.<\/p>\n
This morning, everyone slowly gathered in the kitchen for coffee.\u00a0 A few went off to have coffee at the Park Bench, mostly the aunts and uncles.\u00a0 My cousins slowly roused and we made plans for the day.\u00a0 We got a text declaring \u201cMaid-rite at 12:30, spread the word\u201d.\u00a0 It was at that point that I decided to go for a run before loading my body with the toxins of Maid-rite.\u00a0 Delicious as they may be, they are still taking years off my life, I\u2019m sure.<\/p>\n
I did a quick change, grabbed my gear, left my 10 year old daughter in charge of a house full of my cousins (knowing that she is by far the most responsible among those that were there) and I drove over to my Grandma\u2019s house to start my run from there. \u00a0It made more sense than running by the farm which would put me on some more dangerous roads.\u00a0 I opted for safe and quaint.\u00a0 I parked in the driveway and ran towards town, mostly just an out and back on 24th<\/sup> Street.\u00a0 It wasn\u2019t a particularly scenic route, but one that I had run many times before.<\/p>\n I ran to Maine Street and then I turned around and ran back to Grandma\u2019s.\u00a0 I ran past a police officer who had set up a check point at 24th<\/sup> and Harrison.\u00a0 As I ran by he asked, \u201cYou got your seatbelt on?\u201d\u00a0 I smiled.<\/p>\n Actually, I smiled the whole time I was running.\u00a0 I usually do smile when I run, unless you happen to catch me at one of those moments when I\u2019m sporting a look of pure determination.\u00a0 But seriously, I was smiling today.\u00a0 My heart was overflowing.\u00a0 I couldn\u2019t have been happier.\u00a0 And like Kara said, running was allowing me one of those moments that I was able to see just how wonderful my life is.<\/p>\n I\u2019ll be honest, I was worried about Christmas this year.\u00a0 It was my first Christmas Eve without my babies.\u00a0 But I managed to not just get through it, instead I came through it soaring.\u00a0 I have been blessed this holiday season with the presence of family and friends and even some unexpected surprises. \u00a0I didn\u2019t receive many gifts that required unwrapping, but I did receive gifts in abundance; gifts that are above and beyond anything that could ever be bought. And while I ran today, I remembered that the spirit of Christmas can\u2019t be contained to one day of the year.\u00a0 I may only see my whole family a couple times a year and I may only have my kiddos 50% of the time, but they fill my heart all year long.<\/p>\n My races of 2013 are accomplishments that no one can take away from me, but my true success in life is knowing where my heart is.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Rambling Runner Girl reporting live from the other side of the Mississippi.\u00a0 Merry Christmas from Quincy! Today while I was out for a run, a quote by Olympian Kara Goucher kept playing over and over in my mind.\u00a0 \u201cThat\u2019s the thing about running: your greatest runs are rarely measured by racing success.\u00a0 They are moments […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"aside","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-573","post","type-post","status-publish","format-aside","hentry","category-randomthoughts","post_format-post-format-aside"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4eO4v-9f","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.ramblingrunnergirl.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/573","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.ramblingrunnergirl.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.ramblingrunnergirl.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.ramblingrunnergirl.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.ramblingrunnergirl.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=573"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/www.ramblingrunnergirl.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/573\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":576,"href":"http:\/\/www.ramblingrunnergirl.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/573\/revisions\/576"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.ramblingrunnergirl.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=573"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.ramblingrunnergirl.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=573"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.ramblingrunnergirl.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=573"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}