100 miles.

ran 4 miles today

and hit

100 miles

since april.

!!!

I'm so so so excited / happy / can't-stop-smiling / sweaty (well, yeah) / sore / glad.

the stats:

12 miles in april

38 in may

50 in june

personal records:

fastest average pace - 8:45/mi

longest duration - 40:13 (consecutively. sometimes I got for another run a day ;))

most miles ran in a day - 5

when I started running, I could barely run 2 minutes straight. seriously.

I was huffing. and puffing. but I wasn't the little engine that could.

more like, I was barely able to breathe and my lungs were aching and my legs alternated between jello and bricks that threatened to melt or fall off.

and I really really really wanted to quit.

but slowly.

and surely.

and most definitely slowly.

let me emphasize slowly.

I started to get better.

I started to push myself (and not die in the process)

and my body started listening to me

and I could breathe again (sorta)

and I hit mini milestones and thought,

"hey, I can do this."

and I still have a long way to go.

I'm not training for any marathons and don't see any in the future.
I love running for the sake that it makes me strong.

my goal is to be fit and strong and healthy.

not necessarily a marathoner. ;)
I like short runs and quick runs and under 5 miles a day.

especially since my knees / ankles are so messed up from ballet, that's what I feel comfortable sticking with.

that doesn't mean that I won't someday go crazy and run 26.2 miles consecutively.

because I might!

but I like short runs.

I like 3-4 miles a day.

I like running 15-20 miles a week.

and that's what works for me.

so I'm focusing on endurance. building up to 4 miles straight

(right now I run for three, walk for 2 1/2 minutes, and run the rest of the way),

and a 5 mile run at least once a week.

I'm excited to set new goals and keep pushing forward.

but right now...

I'm happy. and content. and proud of myself.

because hey jack (in my best uncle si voice),

I ran 100 miles.

and that's pretty exciting. :)

we are surprised ;

we are surprised ; by
by and by, joy seeps in our
crevices

we are surprised ; honey
trails on the counter
rivers for ants. we are

surprised ; there
is no question leaving
doesn't press into our
faces.

day wears the
questions: on, in, around,
(eyes) my we

are cracked ; there is
room, by and by, rivers and lakes,
for light.

scurry along, home to
where the ;
questions aren't for
answers(answers

don't demand
a word)

You tell me

you count your freckles

so do I

your favorite smells is grass after rain

mine too

you can't bear to write in books

same here

you don't stop missing people

we are the same

you only drink coffee black

pass me a cup

your dream home is here.

yes.

/// wild mulberry.

I'm eating strawberries like candy and my mornings consist of drinking the rain up in swallows of sky and sometimes think I have stars in my lungs, flowers growing in the spaces between my fingers and all this to say, do you miss me? Everything I touch is stained pink and smells like raspberries in the summer, and everything I breathe tastes like walking into Home Depot, with the wood growing old and damp and musty in shavings swept in scattered piles on the floor. I used to walk into the store and flip through the catalogues of color like each shade was a hue I could name, and I wanted to buy the paint swatches for not only the colors, but the name. I dreamt of taping them to my walls and waking up to a kaleidoscope of onomatopoeias, colors shifting slowly from deepest of blues to the softest of peaches, made up of words like winter surf, manhattan mist, wild mulberry. On the right side of my bed, I would plaster a whole sheet of yellows for days when the rain was my only rhythm, and next to the window I'd tape a sample called pollen grain, and I swear I'd be able to taste the sticky dust of it like I had blossoms scattered on the floor. Do you know that there's a color sample called Star Dust and it's the softest yellow, like an Easter egg dipped too briefly to be more than an echo? I imagine walking hand in hand to show you my walls and when you opened your eyes, you would laugh.

You are the color of Irish Mist and you smell like dried salt from the sea and I painted a picture in shades of grey and green like the cold coast, just for you, and everyone who sees it asks why the sea is butter yellow, not blue. I tell them that there are different colors for missing people and lately, everything is shot through with gold and it seeps and trickles into all that I do and what I want to say is,

I still hate the rain (and I love you).

///

(fiction)

"There is still something to be said for painting portraits of the people we have loved, for trying to express those moments that seem so inexpressibly beautiful, the ones that change us and deepen us." — Anne Lamott - Bird by Bird

"The point is the Lord has called us to a lifestyle, it's not a lifestyle simply for the sake of successful ministry, so that we can see miracles. That's part of it, but that's a the fruit of what we are being summoned for. We are being summoned because we are people made in His image, who represent an aspect of His nature, that unless it is expressed in the earth, there is an aspect of God's person that people will never see. And you and I each carry uniqueness in design and person and gifting.

We've been stating a lot lately that when a person discovers who God designed them to be, they would never want to be anyone else. There's another layer to that. When a person discovers who God designed them to be, truly sees it, they will never compromise their life for inferior things. Because the significance of God's design is so great that everything else pales in life by comparison, everything else is simply counterfeit.

And so the Lord is summoning us into, first of all, a quest, the quest for more. The quest that sometimes wakes up in the night, that quest, the cry where we say, "Lord, we want you to do something deeper in us." And we learn to live in that place of abiding presence." - Bill Johnson

Wow.
Wrecked tonight.