Making Strides

This blog is a way for us to record the daily actions and images of our lives as a family. We place almost all of the focus on our two beautiful babies because, well, they are the cute and adorable ones. However, sometimes we like to make a post or two to record what is happening with Jeff and myself.

One of the many challenges in parenting is to not lose yourself in the role and find some time for yourself. This is just one of the many difficult aspects of being a parent, and one we work very hard to overcome.

Jeff is goal oriented and likes exercising as a form of stress relief. During long distance runs he likes to think, plan, and pray. Three years ago he decided to start training for a full marathon, and everything was going really well until was injured. Then Norah arrived, then Justin, then I started working again. It was suddenly a lot harder to get out the door to go running, and he almost gave up on it. But he missed running and the way he felt when was done, so he started training again. Finding time was the hard part since I regularly don't get home from work until 9:30-10:00 PM, which leaves his exercise time very late on work nights.

We are so proud of him because today he completed his first half marathon in 2 hours, six minutes and 18 seconds. I kept the kids at home since we didn't think they would do very well getting up that early with 3 hours to kill sitting at the race site. Since I couldn't be there I am very grateful to the people that went out and cheered all of the runners on.

This is a huge accomplishment for more than one reason. The first is.....it's no small feat to run 13.1 miles! The second and more important one is that Jeff decided to follow through on a goal. He committed a ton of time, energy and effort, and then went out and did it.

That is why we are taking the time to write about it. We want Norah and Justin to see that anything is possible. That even when you have very little time or resources, if you try, you can accomplish what you set out to do. That sometimes, it's not about where you placed in the race, but that you finished, and more importantly, that you even ran it at all.

Jeff is quick to point out that he only takes some satisfaction from the half marathon, because his goal is to run a full marathon, 26.2 miles. Over the next 5 weekends he will run between 12 - 20 mile distances every Saturday morning, training for the December 13 full marathon where he will once more challenge himself to go beyond what he knows he can do. Due to commitments, he has not been able to run as often as he should, but he says he's confident his legs can lead him the first 20 and his pride can drag him the final 6.2 miles.

We don't have any pictures to post since Jeff refuses to put on his "Finishers Medal" for a picture ("because everyone got one") and the official pictures posted on line were too expensive.