It's been (almost) 30 years!

30 years ago my mom was almost five and a half months pregnant with me, kiddo number two! My sister, Liz, was all of 9 months old, and I can only imagine the thoughts my incredible Mom was having. Mom never wanted kids, so if Liz was an accident, I was a undoubtedly a long list of words like catastrophe, blight, and woe! Haha. Now, I say those things as lovingly as one can. Our Mom has never treated us as if we were mistakes, but she has always made it clear that she never wanted kids. My sister and I didn't fall too far from the tree on that one. Although I have one incredible niece, Liz is in no hurry to knock out a sibling for Roslynn, and despite my in-laws best efforts, I am in no hurry to yield her a cousin.

But I digress, back to my story. Little did Mom know, the world just couldn't wait for me, and on August 17th I was going to make a grand entrance. Mom isn't the best with pain, so I tried to teach her a lesson. I put her though 48 hours of labor and nearly took her life, as well as my own. You see I wanted to enter the world feet first and face down. Turns out the doctors don't like that, and until I went into fetal arrest the doctors wanted that to be different. But I won! Feet first, face down, and a few minutes of not breathing, and they let me have it my way! Mom was down for the count and in need of a few blood transfusions, but she made it! Not only that, the crazy lady would have another kid 8 years later...also an accident! Someone should have explained that you have to take your birth control daily if you want it to work. I don't think she understood it!
Since my lungs were underdeveloped, I struggled a lot as a kid. I was in and out of the hospital with pneumonia for the first 8 years of my life. But in between bouts of illness I was a lively, loud, seemingly bottomless pit of energy sort of child. My father didn't enjoy my banter, but for some unknown reason I decided I was going to stand up to him as often as I could. I always wanted to stand up for something, even though I had nothing to stand up for. That didn't go too well and his temper mixed with my button pushing got me into a lot of trouble. My father was abusive and his religious zealot side infuriated me. I had a number of ideas as to how I believed the world worked, and if it didn't work that way I simply did not care. My world was going to work that way. At 12 my parents divorced and I was free of the fear of him.

Shortly there after, while being my sisters constantly following puppy, I found something that would end up completely consuming my life. Running. It was a way to take out aggression, to compete, to finally be really good at something, and to put my unwarranted desire to fight for things to some good use. Because of running I came to know and love a God, that seemed much different than the one I remember our father throwing in our faces as kids. I choose to spend time overseas working with missions organizations and getting a much broader understanding of the world than I had previously known. I learned that along with running, loving people is truly my passion. Sometimes I over do things a bit and my obnoxious side comes out. I have to reel it back in and realize I am smothering people, which turns out is creepy, not so much showing the love I have! Lol. My family supported both of my passions by allowing me to travel and taking me all over the place in Popa and Grandma's RV, or in Sam's (my step dad) car to race. We had some fun times getting to races and it made me feel important that they were, and still are so involved in my pursuit of the sport. Running brought me to Akron in 2002 and I fell in love with a place for the first time. I met many of my friends here, including Ryan, and my running blossomed into something that has lead me to experience a number of great things. Because of running I have met more people than I can count that make everyday such a blessing. I have fallen in love with those people, spandex, clocks, hills, pavement, blue lines, data, legs, shoes, peoples ability to dream, the feeling of winning, the silence in the early morning, the sound of shoes on pavement, girl miles, reflections in puddles when it rains, spring, fall, doing something you didn't believe you were capable of, coffee, laugher, shade, and being sore (just to name a few). I have done a lot of things that have made some incredible memories, a lot of things I look back and think were stupid, some things I shouldn't have, yet I would do them again. I have been tougher than I thought I could be somedays, and more fragile than a plate of china others. By and large I have enjoyed it all along the way.

In 30 years I grew into a healthy adult, who is rarely sick, ALWAYS early, constantly finding ways to again try to kill my Mom (Via heart attack with my crazy endeavors), a little (or maybe a lot) crazy, passionate, and all in all filled with a desire to run and love people, so not much has changed. HAHA!

My first (almost) 30 years have been fun. When I was young I thought I would be very mature and grown up at 30. I am not. Most of the time my Peter Pan side gets the best of me, and I enjoy it that way. I plan to keep it up! I am excited to see where my next decade of life takes me. I have full faith in 10 years I will still be the luckiest person I have ever met!

Summer Is Flying By

The past month has gone by much faster than I can remember most months going by. Since returning home from a disappointing finish in Duluth training has pushed forward to new and exciting times, vacation has rocked my face off, and our family has lost someone very dear to us.



The week following USA 1/2 Champs I went to see Leo Kormanik at Ohio Sports Chiropractic to figure out what is behind the hamstring issues I've had. Leo is a good friend/former roommate/ and stellar runner that has a heart for helping people run and live healthy. We are lucky to have someone in North East Ohio like him! Pretty much the moral of my hamstring is I've developed some major lazy habits over the years. So I am working to correct those issues, and hopefully have a go at the Olympic Trials "B" standard for the marathon using the Akron Half in September. I believe that if I am diligent in focusing on the underlying issues I will be able to correct them and come away a better athlete for it.

I had much needed down week on vacation. We had a ton of fun and enjoyed the Gulf of Mexico! I was able to get in a run everyday and still soak up enough sun to show off the incredible concentration of melanocytes my skin holds! haha! I tan a little too easy and it was obvious on day 2 of vacation! We had a blast and loved every day at the beach! My sister-in-law, Carly, married Kyle on Friday and it was a beautiful wedding with a hilarious officiant. I was easily brought to tears of laughter through his semantics. Carly was stunning, and Kyle was handsome as always! The day seemed less than perfect with a few rather strong storms passing though, but just in time the sky lit up and for an hour or so held off for a perfect beach wedding! So happy for you guys!

Late friday evening we received the news of Grandpa Spellman's passing. It made for a long drive home the following morning, and my heart hurt watching people I love so much suffer from grief. For me my main focus was to help in anyway I could and try to show support in a way that each of my family members needed. Wednesday and Thursday were the calling hours and funeral, and it wasn't until Wednesday evening that I really wrapped my mind around the loss of an incredible, loving, sincere, and truly funny man. I struggled a lot on Wednesday and Thursday to keep myself together, and I found the people around me being the supporter I hoped to be. My friends and family close and far consistently send support in small and large ways. I haven't dealt with death much in my life, so I wasn't sure what to expect, but I can honestly say watching the family come together was a thing of true beauty. The love they have for one another is selfless and altogether stunning.

Once back in Akron, training and spending time with so many ladies and gents I love felt familiar and thus comfortable. I tried to express my gratitude for the relationships I have a little more. Now I am a rather affectionate, loud, and passionate person, and not much is awkward for me, so that means my friends and family may have been smothered with a whole lot of hugs and "I love you"'s. Ask Kyle or Nicole what happens when I say "I love you", and you don't respond...haha!

The heat and humidity have made hard and easy efforts alike a little more of a challenge, and staying hydrated is seemingly a losing battle these days. However Nicole, Aubrey, Lizzie, Meredith, Heather, Laura, Barb, the rest of the CED group and I have had some pretty great workouts. We are hoping to see fast times in our upcoming races because of them. Nicole and I have been pretty excited to see the times were able to hit and eager to watch the outcome of enduring them! We will be racing tomorrow, July 21st, in Painesville. The Johnny Cake Jog 5 miler is a tough course, but usually yields some fast times with good competition!

Like I said it has be a quick month, and summer is flying by! I look forward to seeing what we can do over 5 miles tomorrow and eager to see where this summer leads us going into the fall!