finding balance

hello there readers....all 4 of you? ; )

thanks to everyone for your support of me in this endeavor! i'm pretty far along with the fundraising, maybe about $600 more to go, feel like i can do it.

mileage has been going up -- my new longest distance is 7 mi. never thought for a minute i could run that far. very exciting.

been thinking a lot about balance lately. balance between work life and personal life. balance between pushing yourself physically and knowing when to take a break. balance between being happy how things are and being motivated to change them. lots of things like that. i guess all that's to say that there is a deeper process going on here than just running (or sometimes not running), but redefining myself and my priorities a little bit to fit all of this in. it ebbs and flows -- i'm definitely not perfect when it comes to following the training schedule TNT provides, but i also think i'm doing better than i expected and perhaps as well as can be expected given other things i'm balancing it against. of course there are people who are able to reconfigure their lives around training, and i admire that, but i'm not sure that's me. we'll see. but after a few up and down weeks of training, i'm going to do my best to recommit to being as close to perfect as i can. may be a little tricky because i'm traveling, but hotels have fitness centers and concierges can point out running routes in unfamiliar cities. thankfully too i have some wonderful friends i'm seeing on this trip that will run with me, my ironman (woman!) friend this weekend and my dear sweet A next week in chicago. so i'm hopeful about getting back on track, but i'm also learning to be patient with myself (and i hope you are too) about not being 100% on point all the time.

like i said, i'm learning...and, boy, i really can't wait to learn what it feels like to have raised 100% of your fundraising goal AND to cross that finish line...

stay tuned! ~j