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Breathing and Enjoying the End and Beginning of Years

I feel like I've been neglecting my blog lately. It wasn't intentional. It just happened. I didn't feel like I had anything important to say or share other than my marathon journey.

I've wanted to write more about my feelings after my first marathon, more than just the race day recap. Honestly, it still seems completely surreal. I have that, "did that just happen" feeling. It's been hard for me to even respond to all of your incredibly kind comments (I will though; I promise).

Everyone seems to want to know how my recovery went, when I'm signing up for another, IF I'm signing up for another, what's up next, and so on. I want to talk about all of that, but I also want to talk about the amazing 11 days off I had from work that started Christmas Day.

What I learned most about the time off was how much I tend to miss when I let myself get into a rut. I tend to crave normalcy, schedules, timelines, but then when I don't have that, I realize that it can also be a major catch 22.

During my time off, I let myself enjoy lazy lunches out (too often perhaps, but worth it). I enjoyed time with my sister, my husband, my niece, and my friends.

I ran a marathon and recovered nicely with no pressure. No worries about sleeping in too late. No place I had to be in a hurry.

I wasn't rushed to get in any workout. In fact, I omitted weight workouts entirely even though I had the luxury of extra time. Physically I needed a break and mentally a re-set.

But mostly, mostly I needed to relax my Type A ways and just enjoy. I didn't set out to make hard and fast plans. If I got something accomplished on my to-do list, great. If not, what I was enjoying trumped it. That included rare lunches out with Jason.

I got to enjoy a girls' only day on Thursday with my sister and my niece. We went to a "fancy" restaurant, later made homemade pizza and enjoyed a cut-throat game (or 4) of Sorry.




I helped throw a baby shower for a dear friend and later that evening had a late late late (ok early dinner) with Amy so we could finally exchange Christmas gifts.

Sunday I met up with one of my oldest friends for another lady's only lunch. It was quite leisurely as we had tons to catch up on. One should truly never go so long between visits with your friends.


And it wasn't as if I sat around in my PJs doing absolutely nothing. In fact, I didn't have one "at-home" day where I lounged in jammies sans make-up. Chores were done, errands were run, but there was a lot more enjoying in between.

No, I didn't reorganize the entire house, never made it to putting away all the laundry, my DIY of rehabbing the chandelier didn't happen, but so many other things did. Not a bad way to end one year and begin a new one.




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