Thanks, Judith, for sharing your story with us today! I don’t know Judith personally but she lives in Wisconsin very near where we lived for several years and her experience running was just what I needed this week to lift my spirits!

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Congratulations on signing up and training for your first half marathon! It is such an exciting experience! I wanted to share my story with you (and possibly your readers). I participated in the Fox Cities Half Marathon in September of 2013. The race route goes through a combination of small towns/cities that make up the Fox Cities; including Appleton, WI – the city I was born and raised and still live. As part of the Half Marathon that year, the organizers were looking for a few “Great Women of the Race” to share their stories about why they were running. The organizers choose 20 women who got to wear pink pinnies and be recognized at media events/publicity/etc.

I submitted my essay (below) and ended up being chosen as one of those Great Women. My story explains why I ran; but it truly became a way to pass the time of what would have been my pregnancy – the race was 9/22 and my due date was 10/12. It was such a great experience for me (and my husband – he ended up running his first half marathon with me) that we are both signed up to run again this fall.

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Judith’s Great Women of the Race Essay:
I became a mom in 2007 and again in 2010. My husband and I are blessed with two rambunctious, quirky, endearing sons. The time came to ponder adding another baby to the family. We pondered… and pondered… and finally just decided to stop controlling it and see what happened. I found out I was pregnant in January, but sadly, I miscarried at 6 weeks. The weeks that followed were painful for me physically and emotionally. More weeks passed and my husband and I agreed that perhaps it was best to just enjoy the family we already had. Now I needed something to move myself from a pregnant, nursing, baby-toting mom to a school-aged, soccer, and camping mom. I needed to make peace with the fact that I would never birth another child. How would I achieve such a feat? I chose running. I chose to run to push away the leftover pregnancy pounds. I chose to run for me time. I chose to train for the half marathon to transition my life from a mom of babies to a mom of big boys. I’m nervous, excited, proud and determined to make this my best race!

Thank you, Judith, for sharing such a neat, personal experience with all of us. Good luck running that race again this fall!