Mom and Dad dropped us off at the airport yesterday morning bright and early for our flight. They certainly are troopers, and we so appreciate everything they've done for us the past few weeks. It has been a fun and crazy time together!
Amy and Will were kind enough to pick us up at the airport - such good friends! - and we went on to spend part of the afternoon together, eating lunch at Big Top followed up by, of course, a visit to Gelato Fiasco, plus a bit of playtime for the kids. We didn't quite get out for a snowshoe hike like we intended, but there is a lot of winter left :) Sam and Will had a good time playing together, and it was fun to have the chance to catch up with Amy, not to mention it kept the kids busy for most of the day, which is always a good thing!
Never a dull moment with this crew ;)
Last night I realized that, OMG, tomorrow was the 31st! I swear, sometimes I really don't know where the time goes. I took some time and looked back at my end-of-the-year posts from the past few years, which was fun (2014, 2013, 2012, 2011, 2010, 2009). It's amazing to me how much has changed in six years. As a parent, the passage of time is readily apparent right before my eyes with Sam in our lives. She is still growing and changing daily, and I am incredibly lucky to be mom to the adorable, mischievous, happy, organized, incredibly smart, cute, loving, sweet, goofy, curious girl that she has become. Every day Sam amazes us in some way and I look forward to continuing to watch her evolve in the years to come and to sharing many adventures with her along the way.
On the running front, the morph of time is a bit more subtle. I had forgotten that it was only in 2010 that I did my first trail marathon and am always sort of surprised to remember that my first 50 was only two years ago. Although these past few months haven't quite been what I had been hoping for running-wise as I recovered from TARC this fall, overall, there is no doubt that this was a pretty solid year. My intent for the year was to challenge myself and to run new races in different places, and I feel I definitely accomplished that. I was focused and steady in my training for the first nine months of the year, ran a few fun, new races, had a lot of really good training runs, and am incredibly proud to have finished my first 100 mile race at TARC this fall, so yup, I'd have to say that 2015 was a pretty darn good year!
The last run of the year was also the first screwshoe run of the season and the first of no doubt many Highland Green loops for the winter. I took my time getting out of the house this morning but finally got going around 8:30 or so. Someone had been out on the powerlines on an ATV yesterday, so there was a narrow strip of packed snow to run on. I was happy to see that the tracks continued across Highland Green Road, but they looped back at the top of the hill so I did too, hitting the road and turning onto the back dirt road, which had been nicely plowed down to a thin layer of packed, rather icy snow. Perfect screwshoe running. I stopped to check out the trailhead down to the river but although there were a number of foot prints, I knew it wouldn't be good running. Not packed enough, so I continued back on the pavement. A bit slushy and wet, but not bad. Got in a nice 5.1 miles for the morning for a total of 1,963.6 miles for 2015. Part of me wishes I could have gotten to 2,000 miles and that I had been a bit more on top of things today and had run an extra 0.4 miles to get to a round number, but these are trivial things, I know, as this was my highest yearly mileage without a doubt, and now I have a goal to aspire to for next year - 2,000+ miles and ending on a nice round number ;) Ha!
Hoping to build on the strength and endurance gained this year and am looking forward to many miles in 2016. Cheers to a 2016 filled with fun, laughter, adventures, time with family and friends, and a whole lot of running!
Happy New Year , everyone!!
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Running Log Files:
2015 - 1963.60
2014 - 1702.00
2013 - 1557.75
2012 - 1400.00
2011 - 1375.00
2010 - 1100.00
2009 - 675.50 *pregnant/Sam born
2008 - 1112.00
