Since We're Taking Trips Down Memory Lane...

This was the video I made on Juliana's 2nd birthday. Today she turns 11. Yes, I know it's ridiculous.



After she turned 10 we decided to retire the video tradition. It just got too hard to gather enough material now that she's older. Still, it makes me a little sad that I didn't make one this year. When Ava outgrows it I don't know what I'll do. Maybe I'll start following Jason around and make videos of him.

Someday I will compile them all. And then watch them in succession while I sob like a baby.

Year One:







Happy Birthday, Julibean.

August 24, 1997

On Growing Up

Lately I'm not sure what is harder: growing up yourself, or watching your children grow out of being children. I'm kind of a clinger. I'm a homebody at heart and as much as I like to challenge myself in some areas, I really don't like things to change that much overall. One very big change for me and my family took place about five years ago now when we moved from the Chicago suburbs up here to Milwaukee. It really was one of the best changes we've made so far. However, that transition has also come to signify something else for me. It was the time when I stopped being a mom of babies.

Sure, Ava had only just turned two when we moved out of our cookie cutter townhouse in Bartlett and into our "new" 100-year old Bay View home. But something about the way we had always lived was shifting. I had spent the previous four years in a quiet suburb with at least one baby in a stroller at any given time. My days were filled with Mommy and Me classes, walks to the park, and multiple viewings of Elmo's World. Now Juliana was starting school, and although I still had Ava with me during the day we had ditched the stroller by the time summer came around. We finally found babysitters that allowed Jason and I to get out on date nights on a regular basis- in a town where we actually had places we wanted to go and things to do! It felt like a whole new world was opening. I realized that this meant that my previous world was also ending but I didn't fully internalize the meaning of it until much later.

Two years passed and Ava started K4. I took up running and began meeting all the wonderful people that fill out the circle of friends that I have today. Holy cow, it had been so long since I'd had a circle of friends! By now Juliana and Ava were starting to build friendship circles of their own- outside of friend's children that I had set up play dates with. They started becoming their own people with likes, dislikes and personalities all of their own. They began talking about things they had learned from other kids at school- computer games, catch phrases from tv shows I hadn't seen, and oh, all the YouTube videos. They knew how to work the universal tv remote and all it's options and I didn't. I needed a lesson from Juliana on how to use my phone.

Last week did something I wasn't sure I had the emotional fortitude to do. I put the old Little Tykes plastic car the girls used to ride around out in the alley by the trash. I wrote about it last year because I didn't think I'd ever be able to let it go and what it symbolized. Part of me still can't believe I actually let it go but I set it out by the trash bins and ran away before I could change my mind. An hour later I checked to see if it was still there (and possibly drag it back into the garage) but it was already gone. I spent so many afternoons in our driveway watching one (or both) of them toddling around in that car. First Juli, then Juli pushing Ava, and finally Ava by herself. That $1 garage sale car represented a time where people still came up to me in the grocery store to ask how old my baby was. It was a time when little girls in my house still said words like "bookee" (spooky), "gubs" (gloves) and "swimsoop" (swimsuit). It represented something I didn't have anymore.

But what DO I have? I have two wonderfully imaginative, intelligent, creative, (and yes, a bit nerdy) young ladies. This makes me happy beyond all measure. But I'm also sad for what I no longer have. People always tell you when you have a baby that children grow up in a blink of an eye. When you're up in the middle of the night feeding a baby who won't go back to sleep it feels like words like these are a joke. Little milestones pass one by one though, and everything is so exciting that you never realize the quickness of it all until your almost-eleven-year-old is talking about Twilight and wants to get a Facebook account.

I can remember being in sixth grade so clearly. My friends, what I worried about, what I wore, how I wanted people to see me… all if it remains so vivid to me that sometimes I can't believe that I have a CHILD who is now that same age and living through those same feelings. Middle school was also the time in my life that I started seeing my own mom as a "person" and not as someone who just was there to take care of me. It blows my mind sometimes that I'm now in that role, still, after eleven years of being a parent. Maybe it's because my role keeps shifting. Instead of being the one to spoon carrots into my child's mouth or wipe boogers off their face I'm now here to give advice, check their homework (when I understand it) and guide them down the path to being good human beings.

Life goes by so fast.

Getting There.

Sometimes I think I’m invincible. Well not really immortal, but I have this “thing” where when it comes to something physical, I see no reason why I can’t learn to defeat it. I always tell people that I became a long distance runner partly because I once tried to jog around the park and failed miserably. It gave me something to focus on and conquer. But truthfully my desire to destroy goes back further than that.
I auditioned to be on the pom squad in 7th grade and didn’t make it. I was crushed. However, I was so determined to make it on the team that over the next year I taped every cheerleading and and dance team championship on ESPN I could find. I spent countless hours studying moves and choreographing routines in my basement and in 8th grade not only did I make the squad but I also choreographed the routine that won us first place in a regional competition.

I decided to study dance in college despite never having taken a ballet class. Sure I was a cheerleader. I also went to an arts-based school and participated in musical theatre, but I didn’t TRAIN at a studio for years the way many of my college classmates did. Even so I wanted to transform myself into a modern dancer in the likes of the great Martha Graham. Because I started training much later than others I struggled with technique. However I was natural performer so I used this to my advantage. I soaked up every performance I could attend, read every book on modern dance I could find in the library and stayed late in the studio at night to practice. (I know, cue the Flashdance music!) On an open stage night my freshman year, I choreographed and performed a solo in an attempt to draw attention to myself. It worked. After that I clawed my way from a very beginner class to being asked to perform in concert after concert by my junior and senior years.

I do not give up.

So when I find myself faced with a daunting task like running 26, 31, or even 50 miles, I don’t see any reason why I can’t do it. Maybe it’s crazy to think like that or maybe, just maybe, it’s something amazing. Part of it is just being stubborn but really, barring major injury I never see any reason why I can’t at least finish a race. I’m not talking about winning or even setting personal records- there have been many races where I’ve tried to beat a certain time and fallen short. But I never once thought I couldn’t finish. When I ran Dances with Dirt this past weekend on a treacherous, hilly course, it took us nearly seven hours. The night before? I was excited but not nervous. “We’ll get there when we get there,” was our attitude.

So as I dive into 50 mile training and I stare at training runs of 28, 30 and 32 on my calendar am I scared? That’s not the right word for it. I am ecstatic. I cannot wait to focus, tackle and defeat this latest distance. I know that if I train right and am smart about it, that 50 is just another number. It may take me all darn day but I’ll get there when I get there.

What about you? Do you have a story of determination?

Tracey Takes Part in Something Crazy: Part 756

Oh hey, I did something wild. As if running regular marathons aren’t hard enough I have to seek out new ways in which to torture-- I mean challenge myself. Like maybe run a marathon on wooded trails, climb rocky bluffs, and sweat through scorching prairies. Maybe run through areas where said “trail” is only ever-so-slightly implied. The mere idea of a trail. Yeah, that’s what I wanna do. I wanna cover nearly 3000 feet in elevation. (Like whoa. Thanks for that detail, Krista!)

And I wanna do it with four of my bestest running buddies.

Step one to doing a race like this: Ignore the waiver. After we had already signed our lives away we went back and read the fine print: “I realize that my participation in this event entails the risk of injury, or even death.” Sounds reasonable for a race with a dancing devil as their mascot. Let’s see... insect bites, poison ivy, broken bones, potential death...where do I sign?





Anyway, so after spending the night at Hotel 1972 (otherwise known as the Devil’s Head Resort), me, Annie and Rochelle met up with Marty, Krista, Amy, Matt and Evan at the campground by the start. (I don’t camp. Ever. Especially the night before a marathon so we roughed it with outdated decor and a broken air conditioner.) But what I wimped out on the night before we totally made up for on the race course. Five of us were running the full marathon, Matt and Evan ran the half and Amy ran the 10K.

The details:

Right from the start I could tell this was going to be a long ride. The first four miles were painfullly slow as we climbed hill after neverending hill. Where on earth did all these Wisconsin hills come from and why didn’t I know about them before? The runners were very bunched up which made for a very slow pace and we did a lot of walk/running. The people who ran the hills in the race are my heroes, for real. I didn’t have a time goal for this race since we all planned to run together and simply enjoy the experience so the pace didn’t really bother me that much. It felt very freeing to run with an “I’ll get there whenever I get there” attitude. We were stopping at every aid station for drinks and snacks (Pretzel M&Ms! Wut!) and taking photos as well. Everyone we saw was so supportive as well. I lost count of how many times I said, “Good job!” to runners we passed or to those who passed us.

And then there were the bluffs. The Rockies. My dad had warned me about the bluffs around Devils Lake because he had been fishing there in the past. However, my dad like to warn me about EVERYTHING so I usually let stuff like that roll right off and don't pay much attention. (This is the man who asked if they hand out maps at marathons and chastises me for running alone without pepper spray in Bay View.) Who knew he would be right about this? The hills I thought were difficult in the beginning paled in comparison to these. It was like scaling a rocky mountainside. We were like the Von Trapp Family Singers climbing over the Alps but without the cute Austrian outfits and I don’t think Captain Von Trapp ever called anyone “bitches.” (We love you too Marty!) There were jokes about potential cliff diving taking place once we reached the top and lo and behold when we arrived there were rock climbers rappelling down from the highest point! Really.



I don’t think I ever hit a serious “low” point in this race, which was good. My least favorite part was on a very gravelly path where the pieces of rock were so large and pointy that they felt like they were stabbing through the soles of my shoes. I was the most uncomfortable at this point but I didn’t feel like I was going to die or anything. Win! I kept setting the goal of just getting to the next aid station and never really thought about more than that. Baby steps to the elevator. It wasn’t until we passed through the final water stop (around mile 22) that I started to dream about the finish line. It was then that I think we all got a little bit loopy. At one point we passed through a particular sunny area surrounded by tall grasses and I started picturing myself as Laura Ingalls running through the prairie. It was kind of surreal. Did I miss the part where we all got high? Ah, the joys of running-induced delirium.




The last two miles were kind of a blur. We re-entered the woods and I probably kicked my toe on every stinking rock and root in my path. I didn’t feel like my legs were that heavy but apparently my body was desperately trying to tell my mind that it had enough. As we neared the end we had decided we would link arms and cross “Red Rover” style so we joined up as we came out on to the grass toward the finish area. The first thing I saw was Matt cheering for us and pumping his fist in the air! We turned the corner and saw Amy and Evan at the finish line and we all got a big cheer from the crowd as we crossed! I heard someone say they were impressed that we had all stayed together for the entire race.



Then there was the magical outdoor shower that was like a sweet, sweet waterfall.



And of course, beer! What else? The rest of the afternoon was full of ponies and unicorns as we collected our age group awards and ate piles of food. (To be fair, there was only one other girl besides us in the 30-34 age group but I still drink from my prize mug with pride.)

We basked in the afterglow that is post-race festivities and washed away the memory of how hard the past six hours and forty-three minutes were. Would anyone ever do another race if it wasn’t for the post-race amnesia? Something to ponder.




Nine and a half weeks until my 50 Miler.

RAAAAGNAAAAAARRRR: ALL NIGHT LONG

I keep talking about how races have been sneaking up on me. But really, THIS RACE TOTALLY SNUCK UP ON ME. That’s what happens when you have such a packed schedule I guess. One day you’re organizing a bridging ceremony for a bunch of Daisy Scouts and the next you wake up and find yourself at the starting line of a 197 mile relay. That happens to everyone, right?

Let me say that I knew for the most part that the people on team 12 Sweaty Nuts were rad. But nothing highlihghts the innate rad-ness of people’s personalities like spending 30 odd hours in a couple of stinky vans with them. Some people would argue that this could go in the completely opposite direction and we’d all end up clawing each others eyeballs out by Saturday morning but with runners this cool I have only love. Big stinky, sweaty love. (Ok, maybe that came out a little bit wrong.)

For me, the running was secondary. Sure, i was responsible for completing 16.5 miles. A five miler, a five and a half miler and a sixer. But the REAL challenge (and the fun) was staying up all night, consuming mass quantities of sugar, and cheering on my teammates at each exchange point. And coming up with as many euphemisms as possible. We were a team called 12 Sweaty Nuts so what do you expect?




So we ran. And drove. And ran some more. And drove some more. I got to run in the middle of the night with a headlamp and reflective vest on which was quite frankly the most badass thing I’ve done in quite a while. I even knocked out a couple of 7:45 miles up a gigantic hill during this leg. Heeeyyyyyy. Yeah, I don’t know how I did it either. We painted peanuts on our van, emptied a two pound bag of Sour Patch Kids and had a 90s dance party where I did the running man in a parking lot to C&C Music Factory. We also made a video of us saying the word RAGNAR like we were death metal singers.

These are good times, I tell you.

And so it all ended on a beach in Chicago- coincidentally down the street from where I used to live in college- and there was BEER! Sweet, glorious beer. And I don’t know if you know this, but if you’ve been running and not sleeping for hours and hours then beer tastes FANTASTIC. Also, you need very little of it for you to be very, very happy.



And then we saw Krista! And then the second van with the rest of the sweaty nuts showed up! And then Marty brought in the anchor leg and performed the astounding feat of be-shirting himself without stopping running!

You should watch this video now:



And then there were medals. And pictures. And high fives. And this was something I will never, ever forget.



RAAAAGNNNNNNNAAAAAAR 4-EVAR.

Photobooth Fun