Note: It has taken me a couple of days to work up the courage to post this to my blog. Its a little scary to put yourself out there and declare a really big scary goal, let a lone two when my recent track record hasn’t been that stellar; but here goes nothing.

Oops, I did it again.  Off I went to yet another amazing weekend in Central Oregon for a Wilder Running and Writing Retreat, ready to go deep and come back charged up and ready to work on both my writing and running.  The running has actually been pretty solid, thanks to my coach, Gregg @ultraninjarunner and #teamninjacoaching. Granted I haven’t spent much time on the trails, but I’ve found joy and strength in running and the most impossible of all races that I’ve registered for in 2020 (The Transrockies Run 6 Day Stage Race) doesn’t seem that impossible anymore; mind you the training will be a challenge, but I can already see that it will be worth it and that I can do it.

But what happened to my writing?  It’s been months since I’ve committed any amount of time to actually writing and I haven’t posted anything since August when my Step-father passed away.  I have spent countless hours playing around with ideas in my head, I even put a few down on paper, but then I would talk myself out of delving deeper and actually exploring the theme; because who really cares what I have to say about weight loss, running, depression, losing a parent, work stress, and the current fight within the United Methodist Church over inclusion of LGBTQ People in the church?  Who am I to think that my voice matters? But who am I to think that my voice doesn’t matter? And most importantly who cares what other people think, “what other people think of you is not your business,” I think is how the quote goes. For some reason that I’ve never really been able to explain, I want to write, and I want to share what I write. I am not looking to become a professional writer – I am very happy in my chosen profession, but writing brings me joy and I need to put it out into the universe.  As Elizabeth Gilbert says in Big Magic, “Do you have the courage to bring forth the treasures that are hidden within you?”  I am going to step out on a limb and say yes, I do!

So I am throwing caution to the winds and putting just a few intentions in writing and sharing them publicly! I will post to this blog at least twice a month, I want to primairly focus on sharing my experience training for my upcoming races as I build up to by BIG SCARY AUDACIOUS GOAL of running the Transrockies 6 Day Stage Race in Colorado this August and as I work towards returning to my WW goal weight and becoming a Lifetime Member of WW (or Weight Watchers) once again. I go in to more specifics in subsequent posts about why Transrockies and my race schedule for 2020 and why I’ve decided to return to WW after a hiatus of many, many years.  But I also plan to write about other things that strike my fancy, to try to not censor myself and thoughts so much, to dive deeper into this practice of writing.

My hope is to bring a little bit of light and love and hope to anyone that reads what I write.  To hopefully reach someone else that might be feeling the same way I am and to know that you’re not alone.  That life and going after big dreams can be hard, but it can also be worth the effort. So I invite you all along for the ride, who knows where this will take us all.