Week 4: Four hilly miles

This week was much nicer weather-wise!  It was perfect, really -- 50s, partly cloudy, and dry.  I was thankful, because the weather made it much easier to get out and run this week when everything else was telling me to stay home!

First, I hadn't done any of my training runs this week.  I've been dealing with a minor issue that makes it uncomfortable to run, so I chose to rest instead.  While I know it was best for me, it left me feeling terribly unprepared for a 4-mile run.  I was still in some pain this morning, so I wasn't sure how it would go, but decided I needed to give it an attempt.

Then, poor Liliana had a rough night and was really struggling to get back to sleep when she'd wake up.  I'm not sure if it was teething or maybe feeling a little off from her vaccines, but in trying to help her, I didn't get to sleep until after midnight, I spent over a half hour up with her around 3, and then had to get up by 7.  Getting out of bed was really tough!

I've also found that the more Liliana grows into toddlerhood, the longer it takes to get ready.  Someone loves to be independent!  As a result, I was wiping the peanut butter and jelly off of her face while rushing out the door 10 minutes later than I'd wanted to be leaving.  Oops.

I'm so glad I made it, though.  More of the team was there today, and for the first time, we weren't running just in the cemetery!  I was excited to try out a different course, and as I expected, it made the run feel much faster than when we were doing multiple loops.  The four miles breezed right by time-wise.

I had to specify time-wise there because our route itself was far from easy.  There were several hills, including one so steep that I couldn't even attempt to run the whole thing while pushing the stroller.  I definitely benefit from the hill training, but it is amazing how much more I feel the stroller when pushing up any sort of incline!  It makes me feel terribly out of shape, but I have to remember that I'm running for Liliana, too.  And even with the steep hills, I ended with an average time of a 10:45 min/mile -- that's a pretty good time for me on a stroller run.

The hills reminded me of one of my most emotional moments of marathon training.  When we did our longest run of our training -- 20 miles -- the coaches left us motivational words along our route in sidewalk chalk.  We always had to run up a steep hill toward the end of our run, and after running so far, the hill was feeling extra tough.  Just as I was ready to give up, I saw the words --

This hill sucks
but cancer sucks worse!

It was that moment where tears came to my eyes and I quickly learned that crying and running do not mix.

There were no tears today, just reflection.  I remembered how hard Caitlin was fighting leukemia while I was running up that hill.  And today, three years later, I run while my mom fights cancer too.

My mom began her journey to becoming cancer-free this week with her mastectomy on Wednesday.  The surgery went well, although they found cancer in one of her lymph nodes and had to remove some additional lymph nodes as a precaution.  They kept her at the hospital overnight but released her Thursday morning.  So far, recovery is going well.  Her strength in facing this amazes me every day.

There are only 5 more weeks until race day.  If you were thinking of making a donation, now would be a great time!  I'd love to reach my personal goal of $1000, but need your help to get there!  Your tax-deductible donation helps fund treatments that save lives, and research to help save even more.