I wrote one hundred and eighty blogs in 2012.
Sweet Jesus, how on earth did I have time to work more than forty hours a week and train for half marathons?
In November alone, I entered a blog-a-thon where you had to blog every day of November; that was a huge challenge but I powered through, even if a few blogs were just pictures of a Cliff Bar in my hands while running in the A.M. or rants about my cats.
I made no New Year’s resolutions entering into 2012. My 2011 resolution was to get a runners high, something I thought was inconceivable. In 2012 I got a runner’s high more times than I can count. There were so many times in the last year all I wanted to do all day was run and I spent hours doing it on the back roads of this mountain town.
2012 began with tears of joy streaming down my face as I heard the magical words that my best friend would return to the States to live after living abroad for eight years. It was the happiness I needed in my life right than after a stressful Holiday season; my Grandma had been diagnosed with breast cancer and I myself had found more lumps in my breasts and was spending all my free time dealing with biopsies and wondering if more surgeries were in my future.
When my best friend, my Snow Flake, called me on a Friday night and told me we would be just an hour apart again, and not separated by a big ass ocean, I was so happy I was in tears.
I had been waiting for that moment for eight years.
That right there, made 2012 an amazing epic year. We have gone to Vegas twice, sipped wine on the Central Coast, gone camping in the freezing cold mountains and beaches of the South Land, spent many morning runs catching up, had a blast at Ye Olde Renaissance Faire, and enjoyed the marvels of the food truck fest at Santa Anita Race Track. Not to mention our Fourth of July Brian’s Birthday Creek extravaganza and many fun beach picnics. 2012 has been a very fun year.
2012 began with many freezing cold runs on twenty degree days in our local mountains. February took me to Newport Beach and I rode a tandem bike for the first time which lead to many beers and a whole lot of screaming. That was a ridiculous fun winter day; a ridiculous fun winter day in which it was eighty degrees at the Southern California beaches! During a cold mountain winter it is so nice to drive two hours to the beach and lie in the warm sand in a bikini.
February also meant my first race. It was suppose to be a snow shoe race but there was no snow so I just ran the 5 K. This gave me the urge to do more races and I started plotting out my race schedule for the year and the road to my first half marathon.
In April I went with my Snowflake and her husband to the zoo in Los Angeles where our other best friend worked and we pet a lynx and held creatures like owls (And I prayed they would not attack me)
This led to spring time and adventures at Santa Anita Race Track. I took pictures of the colt, I’ll Have Another, who would go on to win the Kentucky Derby and I believe would have won the Triple Crown for the first time in thirty something years if not for a little injury the day before the Belmont Stakes. In the summer I would have two beers at Santa Anita and totally embarrassed myself in front of I’ll Have Another’s (I know kind of ironic) trainer, Doug O Niel.
The spring meant rattle snakes and painting my house.
Mainly it meant there were rattle snakes very where I wanted to run.
I saw so many damn snakes this year. I trained almost none stop for the Run 2 the Top of Mt Baldy Labor Day weekend. I climbed a mountain that fall day. I made it over ninety percent of the way to the top before I had severe altitude sickness and had to give up.
Than I puked all over the place and climbed back down the mountain.
I bought a new car and went to my first Chargers game.
In October I ran my first half marathon and I finished third in my age group.
My year ended with a last minute trip to Mammoth Lakes and Lake Tahoe, two places I had never been before. I took a week off work during the Holidays, which is unheard of in the retail business. I spent a week detoxing, running the mountain trails of the Sierra Nevada and snow shoeing. I felt amazing. Some days its hard to imagine that I’m thirty two.
2012 ended with me peeing in a Starbucks cup after sitting in a car on a mountain rood in gridlocked ski traffic for two hours. I’m not saying peeing in a Starbucks cup was my goal for 2012, but still, it was a little impressive.
