I'm running a half marathon

It's happening.

The last time I ran a half marathon was 2019, but it feels kind of like a fever dream now. I tend to forget that I ran it, even though at the time it was so important to me. I think when I ran that last half, I was trying to prove something (it was post-CECS recovery), but my heart wasn’t really in it. I remember being excited and hopeful – emotional – but I also remember being intensely unhappy during parts of the race. I wanted it to be over. I had a hard time finding the joy and beauty in the struggle.

Afterward, I reckoned with the truth that I had put a lot of pressure on myself for that race, and I made the decision to step back and not do any big races for awhile.

That was February 2019. The next year, the race organizers moved the race to January (because of football? I think?) and the appeal of that particular race has always been that it falls on my birthday weekend. So, I ran it as a “virtual” 5k and opted to run the Gasparilla 15k in February instead, and then the pandemic hit and races were put on hold.

Oh hey, it's 2023

I really thought it had been over a year since I posted here, and I guess that's true if we're talking regularly scheduled programming. I missed my usual "year in review" post, so let's pick up where I left off — March 2022 — and rundown the last year.