She Runs By Faith

Disclaimer: I received Knockaround Slingshot Snow Goggles in exchange for my review as part of being a BibRave Pro. Learn more about becoming a BibRave Pro (ambassador) and check out BibRave.com to review find and write race reviews! My 2022 running adventures have finally come to a close! It's been an amazing running year and also a pretty crazy exciting year as far as personal life goes as well. We moved to our dream farm in July, which was a lot of work and also so cool. The snow this winter has been intense but we love it out here. After running CIM in early December, I planned to take a solid two weeks off of running.  That turned into one week off going as planned and then 10 days of doing bare minimum childcare + laying on the couch with influenza. And THEN a sinus infection followed that! Thankfully the kids are super hardy and were only sick for a couple days; unlike me.  Finally, I made it back to running and realized I only needed to run 24 miles to "run the

Running a marathon in December isn't generally something that most Midwesterners do, and it certainly isn't something that I have done before! To just briefly (or not) touch on training for a late marathon, I will just say it was a little complicated but worked out the absolute best it could have.  On the downside, I hit the treadmill or drove into town for any major long run or workout during the busier harvest times and especially beet season (that starts October 1st) to avoid getting in the way of the big trucks on our country roads. After harvest cooled down, deer season followed and I still stuck to the town running or treadmill while that was in full swing. Then an early season blizzard and the snow hasn't left since, which isn't a deal breaker. I biffed it once on our trail in the snow and caused some issues in my left knee but, praise the Lord, it eventually resolved with time, rolling and a visit to the chiro. As for what went well, this was my first trainin

Disclaimer: I received free entry for the FM Halloween Run as part of being a BibRave Pro. Learn more about becoming a BibRave Pro (ambassador), and check out BibRave.com to review find and write race reviews! This past weekend was full of racing and a lot of cousin fun! The kids and I headed to Fargo for the Fargo Moorhead Halloween Run weekend which kicked off with the Friday Fright Night 5k that night. The race started at 6:30 pm and I took my youngest with me to lessen the load on my kid watchers.  As we lined up, I was thinking "I wonder why I'm the only one with a stroller here" . Then we got running and I realized why. Ha. Scary people actually pop out of the woods while you run down the path during this race and, as the sun went down, it was pretty creepy! Thankfully my fourth born is my fourth born. He's a tough little stinker and said in a calm voice, "I'm scared" , and then he was good.  So maybe I'm the world's worst parent for ta

I went back to one of my favorite semi-close to home races this past weekend and this time with all four boys + my parents to cheer me on. That was pretty special! Leo isn't able to make it to October races due to the sugar beet harvest but it sure was great to have this group with me.  Watching mom take off! This year was a little different than the previous times I have raced the Blue Ox, in that I ran a 26-k's instead of 26.2 miles. The race weekend ended up with the most beautiful Fall weather you could ever ask for. As far as I can remember, I think this was the most beautiful Blue Ox Marathon I have ever ran!  As far as the course goes, I basically skipped the first 9-mile loop and a mid-race out-and-back with this shorter distance. The 26k distance served as a nice training brick for the California International Marathon coming up in December and was an amazing experience.  While some of my 26.2 race years here have been downright miserable in the end, I pretty m

Disclaimer: I received free entry for the Dick Beardsley Races as part of being a BibRave Pro. Learn more about becoming a BibRave Pro (ambassador), and check out BibRave.com to review find and write race reviews! The Dick Beardsley Half Marathon has been a bucket list race for me and I was so excited to finally get there this year. Our family made this one last camping trip for the season and that went off without a hitch (minus blowing a tire on the way down!). My goal since racing Fargo this spring was to work on pacing smart - possibly even negative splitting :)  After parking the camper, I took a couple of the boys with me to the race expo. The expo was small and mainly featured packet pickup and the Friday night spaghetti feed. We went on a wild goose chase after packet pickup to find a new spare tire for the drive home. It took a while but we eventually found something that would work and then headed to supper. The night got late but eventually the crew went to bed.  I ended