Do Over.

For those of you who don’t know me – I’m 30, I own and run a restaurant/bar in the beautiful Pennsylvania Wilds, and this is my little haven for my (mostly slow) trail running exploits.

For those of you who know me…

Sorry about that little flounce. I know I kind of up and disappeared without a trace, but sometimes you just have to shut up and run.  If you really want the long story, you can send me an email or Facebook or something, but it’s really not worth the words.

Truth be told, though – I really miss “this.”  Whatever it is.  Writing race reports and seeing what you guys are up to mostly.  I think I’m a narcissist and a voyeur.  This is probably cheaper than therapy.  People might say that about running but I call BS on that because my credit card hand is strong and I like new shoes and racing too often.  Anyway, I can’t wait to catch up on your journeys.  Sincerely cannot wait.

What have I been up to the past few months?

In May I raced the Chief Wetona 1/2 Marathon in beautiful Mt. Pisgah state park.  That was a fun one (nice and cozy sized, lots of climbing) and for whatever reason I was having an excellent day.  Definitely a tough race.  Cool story, though… I unknowingly ran with Sandy from Trail Bound Mom for a minute.  She later sent me the photographic evidence.  I am the alabaster and orange mess.  I think this was mile 1ish.

Myself and Sandy at Chief Wetona. It’s a small world, even on WordPress.

Anyway, hi Sandy!  And thank you for making me want to blog again.

I took it easy for the rest of May and just worked on getting the mileage up.  

Then June rolled around and I “ran” Rothrock… aka got demoralized and felt like I should probably reconsider my choice of hobbies (and friends.  Even though I was the one who conned them into that suffer fest.)

If I’m good for anything, it’s a flattering race photo.

It took me awhile to digest that one.  Rothrock legitimately SCARED me.  So many moments of “it would be really easy to hurt yourself BAD BAD,” and after taking a spill I went super conservative.  There was definitely blood and tears shed that day.  I came in under my goal time, but it was ugly all the way.  I crossed the finish line shortly after two other girls from my running club and we all said “never again.”

Then on the car ride home we made plans for next year.  And a training run there in the near future.  So apparently the crazy is contagious.

I decided after that to take a nice long stretch off of racing.  

So much adulting.

And dye my hair purple like an attention starved teenager.  But that look works well on me.

I wanted to use June and July to get in better shape, build my mileage, and just commit to hitting the trails hard.  (Surprise surprise, that works.  For some crazy reason consistency yields results.  Who would’ve thought?)

August is stacked with races starting with Elk County Boulder Dash, which everyone in my running club seems to be training for and there’s always someone looking to put double digit days in, so that’s been really helpful in terms of motivation.

Umbrella Rock, Elk County PA with one of my training buddies Julie.

After Boulder Dash is Dam Scramble, followed by the last ever (and sadly my first ever) Megatransect.

Other than that, work has been chaotic, Big A has been really accommodating to my habits and strange dietary needs and has been working on getting in shape himself, my dogs still have rocks for brains but they are cute as hell, I’m so glad this is the summer of grapefruit beer because that stuff is delicious, and I’ve been hanging out with my dad more lately which is just good good good.

Anyway, I hope this finds you well, and I look forward to being back.  Happy happy trails as always!