A look back at 2011

A recap of 2011...

January
Started my blog!

February
 I moved from Tacoma, WA back to my home of Boise, ID after living in WA for the last 3 years. As I go back and read those post it definitely was a bitter sweet time.

March

Ran my first race in Idaho

St. Patty's Day 5k

April

-My son is officially in the double digits (he was more excited about that than me, I was more sad that my baby boy isn't a baby anymore *insert crying mommy here*)

-Ran 20 freaking miles on the treadmill!!! (read about it here) I'm pretty proud of that accomplishment. Takes more mental toughness I think than to run 20 on the pavement. At least for me it does.

-Gene is officially retired from the Army after 21 years in the Military. So proud of him.

May

Ran marathon #2!!!

Famous Idaho Potato Marathon

June

Totally killed my sub 2 hour goal at the See Jane Run Half Marathon with a time of 1:53:24

A week later I ran my 3rd marathon!

Seattle RnR Marathon

This was probably the most memorable and emotional race I have ever run. Re-reading my recap and looking at all the pictures makes me tear up.

I PR'd by 10 minutes with a time of 4:07:34. I look forward to running this race every year with Wear Blue Run to Remember

July

July was more of a step back month after 2 months with marathons in them. There was lots of camping and relaxing going on.

But Gene and I did go on our longest run together of 8 miles.

August

This month was full of fun races!

First Gene and I ran the Boise Foothills XC12k race and it totally kicked my butt!

But the view was beautiful and I still want to buy these pictures of us. They are some of my fav race pictures yet.

A few weeks later we ran the Project Athena 10k race

And finally this month I ran the Boise Dirty Dash 10k Mud run. Probably one of the funnest races yet!

  September

This month is where I kind started losing my motivation :( and found every excuse there was not to run.

-My part time job that I liked so much turned into a full time job that I wasn't liking so much and was taking away from my training and family time. I'm still currently working there. Without getting to much in detail about all the reasons I am looking for another job I will say that I like people I work with and the type of job it is. I just don't like my hours and wish I got paid more for the amount of work I do among other things I wish were different there. I would love to find a job that offers free massages every month especially with marathon training coming up, but unless some changes are made, I just don't see myself working there for very much longer.

October

I started to find my motivation.

I ran the City of Tree's Half Marathon and got to run the last mile of Linzi's Marathon with her as well as with Cambry

I decided to run a last minute race this month and loved the hilly challenge. High Speed Pursuit Half Marathon

November

 This month I primarily just focused on getting ready for Las Vegas RnR half

And also spending lots of time with family and celebrated my loves birthday :)

December

Reunited with my BRF's Tiffany and Tiana in Vegas.

Ran the Las Vegas RnR half marathon.

Didn't get the PR I was hoping for but had a fabulous time cause it was Vegas!

Ran the Christmas 10k Run with Linzi & Cambry

I met both these amazing ladies through blogging this year and I'm so glad I did.

And finally finished off the year with a New Year's Eve run helping me meet my mileage goal of the year to run 1,000 miles. Finished off the year by running a total 1,001 miles!

In summary I ran 1-5k, 2-10k's, 1-10k mud run, 1-12k, 4 half marathons and 2 marathons!

This year I definitely learned a lot. I know there is room for improvement. I know I need to figure out how to keep my motivation and not lose my love for running. I know I still have so much to learn about training, pacing, nutrition etc. I can't wait to improve in every area in 2012!

Next up goals!