To move forward you must know where you have been....

This blog has been swirling around in my head for quite some time and I figure it's about time pen met paper - err...keystrokes meet computer.  I've had many runners ask me about running/training during pregnancy and the postpartum comeback, so here goes.....

But first, I would like to bid adieu to 2013 with it's proper dues.

For most runners, 2013 will be remembered as "Oh, that Boston".  The running community, especially with the evolution of social media, is an increasingly "small world".  What touches one runner has a ripple effect on the entire running community.  This was never more evident than with the Boston Marathon bombings.  Runners took this very personally - it was like an attack on the fabric that comprises a community that represents all that is good, noble, and pure. After that day, we are all intrinsically connected in a way that we didn't ask for, but we'll take it and allow it to permeate our very soul so that we are all better human beings....and runners.

On April 15th I attended the Boston Marathon with my husband and then 18 month old daughter.  She has been cheering Mommy on since she was 9 weeks old, and loves to watch and cheer on runners.  She marveled at the wheel chair racers, and encouraged them to "paddle on".  We stayed to watch the lead runners, and a few of my friends who I knew would be Sub 3.  As fate would have it, we didn't go to the finish line as we usually did as 18 month-old toddlers are prone to melt downs, and she was done after 2 hours.  We left the city, and she napped blissfully in the back seat.

Fast forward 24 hours later.  I stood on the starting line for what was probably the first race in the country post-Boston - the "Rose Maguire Great Women's Chase".  I would be lying if I didn't say that for the first time in my life, I was scared.  Not the typical pre-race nerves, but the deep unsettled feeling that all I loved about running had been irrevocably scarred somehow.  I felt a different sort of anger - a bubbling beneath my skin that made me want to do something, but I didn't know what.  So, I relied on what was familiar to me - releasing and vanquishing demons by running til' I collapse.  I won $100 that day for holding off the men.  All I thought about the entire run was the man from my town - (Chelmsford) who was on the cover of virtually every newspaper and magazine that day.  I ran til' I dropped (literally) to get that $100 to give to his chartiy.  I later learned his name...Jeff Bauman.

On a scorching July day the 1st annual "Run for Bauman" was held in Chelmsford.  My husband and I ran the 2.62 mile race to raise funds for Jeff in the middle of a 14 mile training run for the famous #FalmouthRoadRace - the race I had my sights on all year.  Falmouth was one month away and I had punished my body all summer with the hopes of finally placing as a Master.  This would be my 25th Falmouth, and I was proverbially always a bridesmaid in the placing department.

This year at Falmouth was the inaugural women's elite start, and I was invited.  Number pick-up was at the High School, and I was pleasantly surprised to see none other than Jeff Bauman in the back of the gym.  I surmised he was quite the reluctant hero, but the media had made him the face of the Boston Marathon Bombing.  He was in a wheelchair, sans prosthetics, and I flirted with the idea of going over to say "hi".  Having a 23 month old in tow, I had no idea what she may say.  Would she stare? Would she say something inappropriate?  With my heart in my mouth, I took the plunge and brought her over to introduce ourselves as fellow Chelmsford residents.  Ella (my daughter) smiled at Jeff and asked if he "paddled".  God, do I love that kid.  We talked about "normal" things - the housing market, the beautiful weather this weekend, and I honestly think he enjoyed a brief respite from his new reality with an intercession of normalcy.  He was in town as the honorary starter of the race.

Not everybody believes in fate, but I happen to be a firm believer.  Every year we go to the finish line of the Boston Marathon to meet our friend - the best man in our wedding who serves as the lead medic for the elite athletes at the finish line.  He happened to have the flu this year, so we didn't go.  #Powerbar had asked me to volunteer to work at Marathon Sports the afternoon of April 15th. I decided it was more important to spend the day exposing my daughter to the wonder that is the Boston Marathon.  She had a meltdown - we left early.  Maybe I'm just lucky.  I stood on the starting line of the Falmouth Road Race along with 32 other elite females on August 11th and glanced up at Jeff Bauman with air horn in hand (no gun, per his request).   The pre-Boston me would have been intimidated - do I belong here? My only thought that morning was how truly blessed I was to be here, and this was my Masters race to lose.  All I had to do was do the only thing I know how to do best:  put one foot in front of the other as fast as I could and let the cards fall where they may.

Ella and my Mother were at the 5 and a half mile mark, with her beautiful "Go Mommy" sign and her cowbell.  I left the "zone" for 3 seconds to give her a smile and a wave, and then put my head down until I crested Surf Drive.  At the bottom of the hill the male winner had just crossed the  line, and before me waved the gorgeous American Flag as the finish line beckoned me to leave it all out there.

I stood on the podium that day, waving to my daughter, as the 1st Place Female Master at the 2013 Falmouth Road Race.

Life ebbs and flows; that is just the way it is.  Two weeks later, I fell during a race and tore my hamstring.  Injuries are as much a part of running as the training is - it's what keeps us hungry and appreciative.  What I always miss most when I am injured is the comradarie - the shared pain of the track workout that makes us our own breed of "Band of Brothers".  The community that I have always been proud to call myself a member of has never been more vibrant or more connected.  Every runner carries a sense of something deeper that calls us to the roads after the events of 2013.

On a cold January 2014 evening I return from my "jog", ready for the next adventure that is 2014: five and a half months pregnant, deliriously happy, and contemplating some unsettled business to attend to on the roads, tracks, and trails later this year....

Light follows darkness. Always.