Reviewing

It's almost February, but I've been thinking about this last year, 2015, for some reason today. Just sitting and reviewing it all. Because it was one of the most amazing and challenging years that I've had in a while.

Chris and I got engaged January 4th, 2015.

I started my first job as a new nurse in February.

Meanwhile, Chris is in school to become a nurse too, but let's plan a wedding. Yes. Let's.

Oh, why not plan a honeymoon to Africa? Yes. Let's add that too.

Qualified for Boston at the Minneapolis Marathon at the end of May. Yay!

Look, it's August, Chris is graduating from nursing school!

Then the most sunshiny, happy, friend and family filled day occurred. Our wedding September 19th.

Chris started his first RN job in October!

Oh look, it's November! Let's go to Africa and climb Mt. Kilimanjaro. Sweet.

December. I started and passed my chemotherapy certification at work. Professional goal, check.

How humbling, right? To take a look back at the year that has come and gone. Mostly because we can get so caught up in the stress of it all, that we miss the bigger picture.

I got married. I changed my name.

I found someone that adds so much happiness and adventure to my life. Someone who supports my plans and encourages me to reach even higher. Someone who constantly wants to make me happy and puts my needs before his own. He will not end his day unless he knows I'm ok and we're ok.

Life in review. This beautiful and ever changing path that we are on; it deserves documentation. To remind us of how blessed we are that we get to keep living it day after day. Even when it's hard. Even when we don't know how we are going to get through it all.

Because each experience matters. I believe there is a purpose, something to learn, something to gain, from what we go through. To share, to give, to offer. You never know how you may impact someone because of what you went through.

So full

Sometimes, my heart just feels like it is going to burst. It is so full. So full of memories, so full of love, so full of life. And I have to take a second to stop and remind myself to breathe. That life is beautiful. And each step that we are taking, is good. Real good.

I am so young. And yet sometimes I feel so old. It’s so weird to think of everything that has come and gone. Family adventures, college adventures, running adventures, love adventures. Each experience, changing you and molding you, in a different way, for the next experience. 

I don’t think I have ever been in a spot before, to see the fluid changes life brings, and appreciate them in the way that I am in this moment. I’ve always been looking at something else, not seeing the forest for the trees. Seven months ago, I started nursing school. And in less than 5 months, I’ll be finished with nursing school. It’s just another drop in the bucket, another experience to add to the list. 

It’s like putting your hand in a stream, and feeling the water flow through your fingers. It’s a tangible substance, but you cannot grab it. It will slip through. You can cup some in your hands, but for a brief few seconds. 

I feel like I’m standing holding life in my hands, but for a brief few seconds while I write these words. This full feeling. This sense of calm reassurance, while I think about what has come and gone for myself, and for my family.

Because everything is changing. Always changing. Fluid and free. 

What a beautiful gift, our minds, to preserve the people and places and experiences we love the most.

So we can pause, and remember and love, amidst the change.

Game Plan

Here's my rough estimate at where I will be for the next two weeks. Go to www.shta.org if you want more information on the trail sections!

Day 1, August 18^th

Otter Lake Road Trail to Carlson Pond Campsite (This campsite is between the Arrowhead trail section and County Road 70)

Day 2, August 19^th

Carlson Pond Campsite to Kadunce River Campsite (This campsite is between Judge Magney State Park and Cook County Road 58)

Day 3, August 20^th

Kadunce River Campsite to Bally Creek Campsite (This campsite is between Grand Marais and Cascade River State Park)

Day 4, August 21^st

Bally Creek Campsite to Jonvick Creek Campsite (This campsite is between Cascade River State Park and Caribou trail)

Day 5, August 22^nd

Jonvick Creek Campsite to Onion River Campsite (This campsite is between Lutsen and Britton Peak)

Day 6, August 23^rd

Onion River Campsite to Dyer’s Creek Campsite (This campsite is between County Road One and Caribou River Wayside)

Day 7, August 24^th

Dyer’s Creek Campsite to South Sonju Lake Campsite (This campsite is between Crosby Manitou State Park and Finland)

Day 8, August 25^th

South Sonju Lake Campsite to Kennedy Creek Campsite (This campsite is between  County Road 6 and Highway 1)

Day 9, August 26^th

I will be going in to Silver Bay on this day. I will call in and let everyone know I’m still alive. Also, I need to pick up a food drop box at the post office. So, if anyone wants to get a hold of me, this would be a great day!

Kennedy Creek Campsite to Beaver River Campsite (This campsite is between Silver Bay and Split Rock)

Day 10, August 27^th

Beaver River Campsite to Gooseberry multi group campsite (This campsite is between Gooseberry and Castle Danger)

Day 11, August 28^th (MY DAD’S BIRTHDAY!)

Gooseberry campsite to Stewart River Campsite (This campsite is between the new section of trail at Reeves Road to Lake County Demonstration Forest)

Day 12, August 29^th

Stewart River to Big Bend Campsite (This campsite is between Rossini Rd and Fox Farm Road)

Day 13, August 30^th

Big Bend Campsite to Heron Pond Campsite (This campsite is between Sucker River Road and Normanna Rd)

Day 14, August 31^st

Heron Road Campsite to my front door. This section goes until Martin Road and weaves along woodland for a bit. 

If I get adventurous, and feel like it, I might dump my stuff and run to Jay Cooke. If anyone wants to help crew or run with me, I’ll probably start in the afternoon on this day and finish late at night in the dark.

So, there is my trip in a nutshell. Check out my facebook page for more information about donating to the Erik Peter Person Childhood Cancer Center Fund. There will be a link posted with access to the sight, or you can see my address from my homepage. 

Cheers to being outside in God's wonderful creation! WOO HOO!! :) 

Soaked

I felt the urge to write today, on this lame cloudy morning. Was hoping for sunshine so I could skip work and make guacamole, but alas, my conscience kicked in and I find myself at work. Longingly glancing over my neighboring cubicle walls to see if the sun is shining yet…the moment it is, I’m leaving! (maybe… my conscience might keep me here…it sounds better to say that I shall conquer the day once the sun appears…)

Anyways, who wants to hear about the Superior 50k? It was a crazy-amazing day filled with lots of fantastic people and mud.

So, I spent the night before the race with 12 other people in a cabin at the Lutsen resort. It was super sweet to be able to relax knowing that I wouldn’t have to get up at the crack of dawn and drive many miles to the start. Or, feel bad for waking people up 5 hours before they really wanted to. So, SCORE! for not being that person.

It was really mild at the start. Not super cold, not super hot. The sky was grey and threatened to rain, but we didn’t get insanely drenched before heading out into the woods. Wooo hooo! It just started raining once we got into the woods… for the next forever…

P.S. I was nervous to the point of peeing 5 times within 20 minutes before the start.

The race director gave an epic speech and off we went down the hard road start (YEAH) for about ¾ of a mile until we got to the woods. And oh that first feeling of bliss when you know you get to spend the day in the woods!! It’s like an all-encompassing-hug/sigh of relief. I swear. I felt it as we got on the single-track and decided it was going to be a great day.

3 miles later… dun Dun DUN….

This is where everything went from “this is stupendous” to “HOLY CRAP MY ANKLE IS DEAD”. Yeah, my left ankle decided to go to the left when my body was moving to the right. Whammo. I started running like a drunken-sailor with a broken wooden leg. A few dudes ran by and asked if I was ok. I sort of said “yeah, peachy” with a plastered-strained smile on my face because inside I was ridiculously pissed. I seriously thought the race was over. Like oh great! I made it 3 miles out of 31… nice job wussy… So I just kept going. I knew if I took off my shoe, the race would be over. And who wants to do that???? I just proceeded to leave the shoe on and pretend like nothing happened…

Getting to the first aid-station was sort of a beast. A few intense climbs and insane down-hill got me thinking to myself that, if I feel like crap by mile 7.75 (the first aid-station) highly consider slowing it down and taking it easy. Well… I felt fantastic if I blocked out the throbbing ankle! So I just kept trucking. I distinctly remember calling out as I was leaving the aid-station, “WE MADE IT THROUGH THE SECTION OF DEATH!” because that is really how beastly that first section is. I heard a random clap, so maybe someone else agreed…

The next section, from what I had heard, was supposed to be mild and relatively flat. I agree with this on the way out. I had about 5 guys that were following behind me in this section and we had a great time. Ran smart and conserved the legs for the journey back. Besides the fact that I face-planted in this section, the only other highlight was seeing the leaders blaze back the other way. I hadn’t made it to mile 13 and they were already on their way back!! Flying. They were flying.

The turn around was pretty cool. There was a dude at the top of Carlton Peak that looked quite epic. I gave him a high five and proceeded to bomb back down the mountain. Returning to the second aid-station left me feeling a bit wonky. My stomach hurt and all I had tried to eat was oranges, so I chomped down on a bit of PB&J and drank a bit of ginger-ale. Didn’t go well, but didn’t lose it either.

Now, whoever said that the middle section coming back was nice and flat should be mildly kicked in the shin. Yes, there were no intense mountain climbs, but the mental challenge was ridiculous! No walking/hiking up steep cliffs to take your mind away from what you were actually doing. I bonked pretty badly. An amazing runner that I met on trail that day (BJ!!) sort of saved my life. He listened to me whine and complain for far too long. He eventually blazed by me… because I was ready to fall over. Which did occur just a mile later, as I was gallivanting through the forest. I was coming up to an intensely slanted boardwalk, and since my brain was sort of fogging out, I said to myself, “Andrea, you’re going to completely wipe out on this thing. You’re shoes are wet, the boardwalk is wet. Try not to break your face.” My feet came out from under me and I landed flat on my back. Well not really flat, more of like slanted due to the incline of the wet boardwalk. I let out a fierce wounded animal cry, collected myself, and continued on.

Finally, the last aid-station!!!!!! I was beyond excited to be out of the “mellow, flat section”. I needed to use the restroom. There were two at this aid-station. And the lines were 5 people deep. SERIOUSLY!!?? Then I realized they were all 25k’ers. OOOhhhh. Got it. At this point, I was walking in a delirious state, wanting to continue forward, yet needing to pee, but also wanting to lie down and sleep forever. After far too long, I went, came back out and saw a 50k woman runner heading out of the aid-station in front of me… That’s when I knew I had bonked pretty badly. I must have wasted a good 15 minutes in the “flat” section?? Most of which was bent over in a failed attempt to crawl into the fetal position. So, now that I had someone to chase, ONWARD!

This was the last great section. The section of 2 mountain climbs. Soldier up Moose Mountain, bomb back down, soldier up the switch-back of Mystery Mountain, bomb back down to the glorious road finish. Well, I caught back up to the 50k woman going up Moose. She was going at a slightly slower pace then I wanted to, but decided to just stick behind her and conserve. Once we got to the top, everything changed. I had a HUGE desire to finish strong. Like, “I am mud-trail-warrior, hear me roar, watch-out because I’m seriously not stopping until I get to the finish”

I passed the 50k woman and just started booking it. I came across A LOT of 25k’ers in those last 7 miles. It was sort of a challenge. I just kept saying every time I got close, “on your left!” or “on your right!” and they seemed to move. I didn’t collide or face-plant on anyone, so that was good. Bombing down Moose Mountain was fantastic. My body was in a state of complete runner’s high euphoria, so nothing hurt. Weird, right? It was like a 180 flip after bonking so badly in the last section. So I just went with it. No need to conserve anymore. This is what all of that conserving earlier on had been for! Push like there is no tomorrow to the finish!

After grabbing my lower back and stomping up the Mystery Mountain switch-back, it was “all down-hill” from there. Just cruised. Felt like I was flying. Came across some more 50k runners that had passed me a while ago. Cheered everyone on. Whooping and hollering. Big smiles. Lots of mud.

As I came out of the woods, and ran that last ¾ mile on the roads to the finish, a lot of things came to mind. First, was that I was insanely blessed to be finishing a 50k in happy spirits. Second, was the fact that my body DID NOT want to run on a flat surface. YIKES. Third, was that I couldn’t believe the race was almost over. Fourth, was that I knew I had dirt on my face because I could see it on my nose and cheek if I looked down.

And last, but not least, I was overwhelmed. I couldn’t believe that I would be finishing at the front of the female pack. Me. The girl who used to hate running. Who used to think that running 1 mile was pure torture and the concept of doing 5 was insane.

And now to be finishing a race on treacherous trail after running for 5 hours and 42 minutes.

Wildest dreams come true.

Everyone starts somewhere.

I believe that continued passion for active adventure leads to epic feats of human endurance.

Because after all, it’s just a 50k, right? J

Congrats to all of the other runners! And to the Storkamps for an amazing race day! Wouldn’t have been able to do it without the volunteers, either! Thanks to everyone that made the day awesome.

Cheers!

Good Grief

Oh, this winter is horrid and I’m completely sick of it. I waved my white flag in February. It’s now April. And still winter.

So, what will I talk about that will make this post not depressing?

My grief.

Ha. What? I’m going to talk about grief and somehow that will not be depressing?

Yep. Stick with me, here.

Today, my sister has been in Heaven just as long as she spent time with me and my family here on Earth.

13 years.

Dude. My brain is having a hard time wrapping around that. How could that much time have passed? I can still see her big, blue eyes, her huge smile and her snarky attitude appear right before my eyes. I haven’t lost any little bit of her, but it’s seriously been 13 years?

This is where the good comes into play. The way that this post will not end badly or sad. It’s what I think of as “good” grief. Thinking about every wonderful thing that has happened in my life that contains my sister.

Playing barbies, watching Disney movies, singing to Backstreet boys, Boyz II men, N-Sync, and 98 degrees. (HA!) Oh, and Celine Dion. We spent so much time cutting out pictures of Leonardo DiCaprio from countless teen magazines and ‘sticky-tacking’ them all to the wall. (yay Titanic!) Sometimes with blue sticky-tac that my mom hated because it left blue marks on the walls. Whoops! We would pull out our baby-books and photo albums and stare at all the pictures from when we were really little (like 1-3 years old) and laugh and laugh, even though we were still really little. I remember road trips to see family for holidays in our big conversion van, in the big bench seat in the back, sharing a portable CD player. Dad got us an adaptor, so we could each put in our own set of ginormous headphones to listen to the Backstreet Boys, Boyz-II-men, N-Sync or Celine Dion at the same time.

I remember watching her play the piano, so little, but so proud. And so much better than me! J Singing in church, as loud as we possibly could. Looking at each other around our Dad, and laughing. That giggle! I won’t ever forget that giggle. Sitting at the kitchen breakfast nook at my grandparents, eating Kix with about 5 tablespoons of sugar on the top, so then at the end you could basically eat all of the sugar that didn’t dissolve in the milk. I remember doing those paint by number posters that we worked on in the upstairs bathroom(?) of my grandparents farmhouse because the bathtub up there was really cool, according to Laura. It was pink. J

These little memories. They are so fantastic. And they are always the things I think about on this day. She was a gift. My awesome big sister.

See, I told you.

The good grief.

May these memories make you smile today, too. 

Hesitate

So, I haven't really been blogging that much lately. I made it a goal last year to blog once a week, and post something related to the news. I pretty much blogged every week, but I only made it til like June posting anything about the news. I got bored after that...

Anyways, since the beginning of this year, I've blogged like 3 times. Who cares, right? Well, I thought so, too. I got busy in January and let the blogging mind slide and kind of left it like that for most of February. I didn't feel compelled to plaster my random thoughts and verbage out there into cyber-space.

But after thinking about it, I stumbled across the real reason why. I was hesitant.

The last year and a half have been a reflection time for myself, a soul-searching, nitty-gritty, come-to-terms-awareness-of-myself sort of thing. It's hard to explain. Mostly, I feel like I'm being really selfish. Selfish now because I didn't take that time to "find myself" during college. I was too busy with my degree and working to pay for it, then to ever let myself think about what I wanted to do with it when it all ended. Yeah... good thing I was getting educated, right???

So, how does this all relate to me and blogging? Well, because blogging has become a way for me to express how I feel about the revolving door that is 'discovering my sense of self'. And when I'm not blogging, I'm not reflecting or working on trying to be a better version of myself.

Ah ha! Yeah. Light bulb for me, too.

That's when I realized I was being hesitant because I was getting worried that maybe other people would think "oh, she just talks about herself all the time... who really cares if she ran in the woods today or discovered that there are actually roses to stop and smell... she's just being really selfish..."

And now I know that is not the case. (well, maybe people do feel like that. ha) But it doesn't matter. This process in growing up, finding ways to love myself, and being true to the One who has brought me to be able to experience the life that I am living, is what matters.

And that is why I will boldly walk this random life, laughing whenever I can, singing at the top of my lungs in the car to Mumford and Sons every morning on my way to work regardless of who sees me, crying when I need to even if it's over something ridiculous, and loving with all of my heart even over the smallest of things.

So, cheers to being yourself every day! Who cares if that sounds lame. :)

Happy almost Friday.

Tantalizing

I was in Kentucky two weekends ago. It was grand. It was sunny and almost green and snow-less.

It is not green here. I can’t cross the street at some intersections because the snow-piles are too high. The temps are less then pleasant… Both of my windshield wiper squeegees have broken off from the ice... 

Oh dear, sweet winter, just go away. I’m sick of you and your coldness and grayness and lameness. You’re making me want to flee my favorite city!

So, I've gotten the ‘travel out of this depressing hole’ bug.

Sweet lands of green, sunshine, and warmth are calling my name. Plentiful happy trees, cool, dark earth, and lots of room to run in shorts.

Oh goodness. The tantalizing opportunity to be a ‘snow-bird’. Travel to warm areas while it sucks here, and then come back here when it’s the best time of year. I always disgraced these people for not being able to brave the dead of winter. Like put on some big-girl snow-pants and suck it up.

But seriously, I’m right there with them. I apologize for thinking you were less of a person then me. You’re actually quite smarter.  

I’m tucking away my big-girl snow-pants and waving the white-flag.

Winter. You have gotten the best of me.

Blast.

Cheers to those who are still treading water a midst the winter-blahs!

I've officially sunk.