i'mmmm baaaack.

I've had so much time off training with being so sick for so long that I didn't really see much sense in posting. I've had a million thoughts run through my head and a million reasons to write, but I hesitated...and never followed through.

I am back to running. I'm not able to swim or bike just yet. And my runs are short (an hour at most), relatively speaking. And slow. But I still gain peace in running. In being alone. In sweating. In feeling my heart beat. I've run with more pent up emotion this last week than I've probably ever had. But for an hour or less, I have an outlet.

My life has not been threatened by illness, but it is significantly altered. It's something, that once again, has been an impetus to make me take a step back and really look at things that matter in life. It's made me have such gratitude for those that love and care about me. It makes me grateful for what my body is capable of doing. It's made me realize that for a while, I took those abilities for granted. I pushed and demanding more and more from my body. I didn't take enough time to cherish it. I won't do that anymore.

My eyes have been opened to some very simple truths in life. I always have believed that everything happens for a reason. I know I don't always understand why the bad things happen, like people getting cancer or the loss of a small child. Mostly, I can somehow see the blessing that resides in the catastrophic. Now I can see that, sometimes, God's very blessing is allowing something bad to happen to prevent something worse from happening.

That's my story and I'm stickin' to it.