adventures of the miebs family: home is where your heart is.

yep, it's true. it's not just a saying stitched on a pillow or painted on a piece of wood adorned in your hallway. and even more so, your heart is where your family is. it's where you feel complete. content. happy. i may have been raised in apple valley, but my heart has always been in alaska; i was born here, my (extended) family was here. growing up, there was never a dry eye when leaving ted stevens international airport. no visit was long enough. goodbyes to grandparents, aunts & uncles and cousins was never easy. this is where i was meant to be.

on an almost daily basis, i'm reminded why i love alaska so; the memories of my family that once resided here and a very close second being the mountains and the smell of alaskan air. really. you see pictures of alaska and think that it's beautiful/gorgeous/breathtaking/i-wanna-visit-there-someday... i've heard it all from people in the lower 48. it's all true, and then some. pictures of the scenery and surroundings are great, but there's nothing better than viewing it all for yourself. and, if you think i grow tired of it, am used to it - i don't, i couldn't. never. not once do i ever not notice the mountains. so, you can imagine how great it is to workout and run along the trails, the mountains cheering you on the entire time.

i scan the runner's calendar obsessively now. i check and recheck, seeing if there are races that i've overlooked or talked myself out of at the time. i knew the mayor's midnight sun marathon was coming up but couldn't remember when exactly. so, on thursday night, as i was scrolling through all the upcoming races, i excitedly discovered it was on saturday. a quick phone call to nana lynn confirmed that the kids would be cared for. and, more importantly, still consuming antibiotics confirmed that i likely wouldn't come down with a bug at the last minute. goodness. as i shared my news with the husband, he assured me that i would likely do better than last time because i wasn't coming off of an illness... and then we both had a good laugh.

as easy as it would be to not participate in these runs, i push myself to do it because i know how good it feels and how much i deserve it. yes, i just said that. i deserve to do something for myself. it has taken me a LONG time to get to this point where i'm ok with doing something that is just for me. i'm also 100% ok with doing any and everything for my fantastically adoring children. that is what my life is about. being a mother takes sacrifice and time and more effort than you know you are capable of giving. so if i want to burden my babes by waking them up once a month at 6:30 in the morning, i can be ok with it because i know this is not their every day, regular life. jackie is now at the age where he will protest if he doesn't feel something is right, but knowing that when we wake up, we're gonna go see nana! is super-exciting and worth the rousting. just as long as the truck ride is equipped with powered donuts, ok?

5.6 miles. as crazy as it sounds, i really debated between this distance or the half-marathon. i really did. i know i could do it, but all factors aside, i chose to go with the easier run after being ill. and, i have no regrets. the run felt great. the course was well mapped throughout anchorage and running along the coastal trail, you really can't beat it. oh, and goodness! the weather on saturday? could not have been better. 60-some degrees at 9 in the morning. clear, blue skies. the anchorage skyline with the chugach mountains in the backdrop, and here's the real kicker, mckinley was out in plain sight - that's how clear it was. as i crossed the finish line, i felt so good, like i could have kept going. this was sooo not the case at last month's race. when i completed the 3.8 miles, i was done. this is what's so incredible about the human body. endorphins are the best drug. (you ladies need to remember that for childbirth...)

so in my category, my time was 1:02:13 and my overall place was 270 out of 529, men and women combined. i guess that's right about in the middle. it's so funny. i grew up playing team sports, never knowing what it felt like to do something that was just me, responsibility falling only on my shoulders. now, at 30, i do. being a mother, a wife, taking pictures and blogging, cooking, keeping a home, all these duties i perform land on me, and yet it's taken running for me to realize that i've always been able to do whatever i've wanted. it would be so easy to compare yourself to everyone else out there. that feeling when you get passed by a pair of faster legs, it can make you crumble and yet, there's the time when you are the faster set. this example can be applied to practically every situation you're struggling with. there's always someone better (in more ways than one) but don't you just wanna be happy? isn't that really the point? it's funny how our wake up can come to us; there's always room for improvement, but here's to hoping we're all happy along that trail we're running.