This was the first year that I have ever set a New Years goal for myself. To say that I never used to respect myself enough to keep a personal goal is a fair statement of the Laura's of years gone by. I thought the idea of resolutions was just a recipe to feel like a failure. Why promise yourself something when you know that you are going to give up after a few months anyway? (I feel like the Debbie Downer trombone's "wah wha" should play right about here!)

Naturally, losing someone close to you changes you forever; if you care enough to look, some of those changes can be for the better. I feel like life was dull before Mom got sick. By "dull", I do not mean unexciting, but rather that nothing that touched me seemed to make a mark. I suppose that is a defense mechanism of sorts, but all the same it keeps you from experiencing life to the fullest.

All that changed when something completely unexpected happened: my mother and best was diagnosed with end-stage Cancer at a routine physical. With that news, and without my permission, the shield shattered and hundreds of sharp knives seemed to claw at me for days…months…years. That phone call changed my life (I was living 1,200 miles away at the time). I felt like I cried a lifetime of pent-up tears in those initial months, and then every tiny thing would set me off. I hated it.

But I needed it, really needed it. I needed to be able to feel or I wasn't living life the way I should, the way that Mom would have lived it had she been given more time. I've made a lot of promises to myself in the years since she left, and I have actually cared enough to keep them.

It was with that sentiment, almost four years after she passed, that I set what I thought would be a nearly impossible running goal for myself, particularly with having very little free time outside of work and school. It had to be a big goal that I needed to work on throughout the year, or I would have procrastinated until, oh…October.

No matter how many different ways I tried to divide the mileage (2.74 miles a day for 365 days, 19.23 a week for 52 weeks, 83.33 miles a month for 12 months, 250 miles each quarter for four quarters), I couldn't figure out how to take an easy way out. So, I just did it!



Nick, Jeff, and I showed up for one last race this year (Jeff has completed almost 20 in 2010!) with the threat of blizzard in the sky to toast the end of a successful running year. Cheers and congratulations to everyone as they wrap up their yearly goals!