I promised I'd return to blogging once I began training for my first ultra, and I suppose that completing my first marathon actually signals the beginning of a new cycle. Here I am, uncharacteristically without words.

7 days post-race, I'm not sure what to think about my marathon. In a hundred ways it was spectacular: a most amazing accomplishment, second only to giving birth to my daughter; a gift to myself in so many ways as I approach the half-century mark; a reminder that people, gathered in a community, are powerful and inspiring. In a few dozen other ways, the marathon made me realize that I still have heaps of work to do: finding the right kind of inner strength to push through a dark place; being able to find light and joy despite disappointment; taking rest and recovery seriously as part of my training. In the end, I ran 26 + miles, close enough to my goal time. And flying through the finish chute, alongside my gorgeous, achingly loyal training partner, felt like everything on earth was in balance.  

So now what? In the near future, Super H and I have a few trail races for fun--a 15K on Thanksgiving morning and another 15K in December, but looming larger in my mind are race plans for 2013. This I know: 50K in the spring. Two half marathons or one full in the summer. A few fall trail races. I'm almost certain I know which races, and I have a few coaching scenarios that I'm almost done mulling over. I've made a serious re-commitment to my yoga practice, am lucky to have found an incredible running-centered chiropractor who works with a gifted massage therapist, and I have made some fairly dramatic changes to how and with what I nourish myself. There is much falling into place in this new place I find my old, new self.

And so here it is, then, my new blog. About training and trails and friends and feet and the benefits of barley malt and kukicha and black cohosh and love.