She Runs By Faith

Let this be the long-lost race report that never happened at the end of 2024 and also a photo dump of our trip to Georgia! There is so much that I haven't wrote about since Fargo 2024 and prior to that even. I had mentioned my mom's brain cancer diagnosis in May of 2023 and she did pass away in July 2024, now having rest and complete healing as she is with our Lord Jesus Christ.  Since then, I have been doing a lot of life "pruning". What is priority? What isn't? My main priorities are God, my husband & family, and homeschooling - then everything else comes after that. Last February was a rough one with mom's cancer battle, my running pup Ruby dying unexpectedly, and assortment of other things just adding up. I was about ready to cut the "unessentials" of marathoning, Instagram/this blog (my running community basically), and to just do what I absolutely had to do. I was very sad and wanted to give up on whatever I had the option to. That even c...

(Repost from IG with some deets at the end) On Saturday, I ran the Fargo Marathon for Marathon #19! There is a lesson to learn from every marathon and yesterday’s was: Even when things don’t go according to plan, NEVER GIVE UP‼️ Back when the miles felt smooth :)  I went in with an aggressive “A” goal, overshot my pacing (oye 🙄) and hit a pretty hard wall wayyy too early in the race. After mile 10, I started to fade and knew that my current pacing wasn’t sustainable for the next 16.2 miles. I was passed by many runners at that point and really battled it out in my mind for the rest of the race. Somewhere around the 25th mile of the race, a half marathon runner yelled, “the lead is only 4 minutes ahead, GO GET HER!” I said, “thank you!”, and gave her a thumbs up but was very doubtful that I could catch anyone with how miserable I felt. How not to pace a marathon... I kept trucking at whatever pace I could keep, feeling pretty tense and disappointed in how I executed this ...

It's been too long since my last homeschool update; time runs away from me. Our previous school year ended abruptly and in a hard way, when my mom was diagnosed with stage 4 brain cancer after Mother's Day. We completed our state testing requirements much earlier in the school year and well-exceed Minnesota's required number of school days, so we stopped the school year a week early and went to grandma & grandpa's farm to spend time together.  That's the beauty of homeschooling. There is room for flexbility, swapping around days/weeks, starting or ending early and even taking school on the road with us.  Life has been a bit different ever since then but we have made so many great memories even during tough times! Having Christmas together as a family at my parents' farm was a miracle in itself.  ---- We soaked in the summer as much as possible - full of farm things, swim lessons, 4-H, fairs, a trip to Mt. Rushmore, family time, baseball - and then started sc...