11 year later and I’m running the Maine Marathon, my third time! I feel like the physical event of the marathon being a formal race created a life of its own on the side where I have run so much in Maine it is as if to run a marathon, but nothing compares to the original first marathon in 2013. Becoming a marathon runner in October 2013 when I was 18, gave me a new life with passion for running with purpose. How do we balance pure love of the sport to meeting standards in events? I hope my race goes well, running with purpose welcoming every mile, being with the running community is powerful.

Today, I had run 5 miles in the morning and 10 miles in the evening.

Ten miles finished in my little free people set, I will be wearing for marathon day this weekend. My first Maine Marathon, I never imagined going from a little cross country runner with a long run of 10ish miles to training up to 15-18 to running the whole 26.2, the second Maine Marathon I sped up 20 miles in and felt confident crossing the finish line by 26.2. Hopefully, this third Maine Marathon will be the best one yet, but maybe it’ll never compare to the first time. 18 to 22 to 29, am I still as fast at 29 as I was at 18 for this Maine Marathon course? It’s been 7 years already, do I get a masters degree in marathon running if I do it all again? We shall see how much Coach OBJ prepped us for a lifelong sport!

When the mileage for a full marathon is tough, I find willpower to finish for the reasons I'm running which may be bigger than myself. In highschool, being with my best friend and her mom one of my best friends too, everyday as she fought cancer through all of her treatments&surgeries for years, she's an angel of inspiration to raise awareness and to fundrasie for those still fighting. Before all of my races, I like to write the names of those special loves from family or friendships inspiring the journey to be running the event. Grampas on all of my race bibs, sometimes a little ribbon with a name on a safty pin for the race bib does the trick. Running for love, running for god, running for something bigger than self. Sunday will be an ultimate challenge, I have faith everything will fall into place.

Weekend Long Run

15 miles this morning, building up to marathon weekend one, which will be the climb for a second marathon weekend the end of October. Two more weeks! I need to run all the mileage this week, be more laid back the week of, and look at marathon one as if an ascend to reaching marathon two. I’m very hopeful to finish both 26.2s in October, for being 11 years deep, maybe the last season of fulls. One step at a time, we shall see during marathontober blogtober.

10 miles today, hoping for a three hours run tomorrow. This is going to be my most intense ‘getting in shape’ week in my marathon training for next month, just working through it.

Back when I was 18 running the Maine Marathon for the first time, I never went for longer than 15-18 miles in one day doing laps around my block in 5 or 3 mile increments depending on the route like now in my training. I remember reaching mile 18 in the Maine Marathon for the first time and feeling struck with fear of whether or not I could finish the entire event, popping a jelly bean for runners in my mouth thinking it would be my fuel to the finishline 8.2 miles later. It's wild to think I did my first Marathon without any gels and barely going to the water stations. Now I wonder if everything that I went through physically to finish the marathon was a big deal compared to the emotion of accomplishing a huge goal, meeting a standard to finally be a 'marathoner'. I'll be really proud of myself if I finish the Maine Marathon and MDI Marathon this October, at 29 eleven years later… and have a Halloween violin concert on top of it all.

5 humid miles on this lovely first week back in elementary school. Gotta work it through marathon training 11 years deep. What will long running this weekend feel like? Today, I was thinking about how bad I wanted to run Maine and MDI for my ten years deep goal, but if it works out for my eleventh year goal coming to fruition it’ll make my entire life!

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Five easy Miles today. Diving back in after being dizzy and injuring my arm two weeks ago. Hiking cross training with my campers everyday seemed to keep me in shape. Hopefully, a long run works out tomorrow and training falls into place.

It’s precious to have plants landscaped around the property that remind us of fond memories, as if to be jewels beneath gorgeous flowers or stones, or seeing the livley butterfly’s.

On all of my running adventures, I love to focus on a positive affirmation, which may be connected to a workout or perhaps be just a mentality of focus. Finding poetry or mantras to remember or listen to in an audio book is an entertaining mindful soul fueling way to endure mileage.

Running aside, the fall two weeks ago set back a private violin concert planned for quite some time just for my mom and I, on August 15th. Sometimes we just fall to get back up again. There will be another time we'll stop by a pretty church or garden, have her sit for my classical tunes and then go out to dinner after. Finding perfection in the imperfect is a vision for artists. My first real violin has several cracks along the sound holes that were repaired to a point of being playable, which is a difficulty to play an antique lacking modern pegs yet having a gorgeous sound. Now, I feel like I have found a balance between playing an antique with a gorgeous sound while having a luxury of pegs that turn. All those years of six hour sessions on the real monstrous antique led to a more comfortable era. There’s something significant about knowing times to push through an obstacle or just drop the rope and create a completely new idea, new dates and places. Being flexible while accepting extraneous situations like falling, with making new dates is going to lead to an enjoyable powerful experience, creating something new. And then we’ll have the halloween concert…. 🎃