October 15, 2009

I missed the exact date and now I am 6 days off, but we have now officially lived in NC for 5 years! We moved here when Levi was 8.5 months old and Bruce was 4.5. I can't believe how fast this time has seemed to fly by. On the other hand I can't believe how much we have been through or done in this time too! I try to tell the boys that they are from Joplin just like me, but all they know or remember is from Fayetteville. I feel like Matt and I have grown a lot too since moving here! Not in height (a little in weight), but mostly as Christians and in our marriage and maturity.


Levi started walking, talking and growing here!  Bruce started school, learned to ride a bike and has started to mature here. We have gotten our first family pet (Bella) since living here and we have lived in 2 houses. Matt got his first truck here. He went to Haiti and Iraq (although he had already been there before) and got promoted to E7 since living here. I volunteered in the PTA, FRG, at church and more in the past 5 years. I went from barely going to walmart or the mall and now I can actually navigate all over the town, and if you know me well you know I am good with directions and it is a big deal for me! I got to see the mountains and the ocean for the first time, and other times after that! We have traveled back to Missouri, Arkansas, Iowa and even Oklahoma since living here too and I feel very experienced with traveling due to the very long trips that we have made! We have had a variety of visitors here too. We have had winters with no snow and 80 degrees on Christmas and a few with a couple inches or so. We had 1 winter with an ice storm and this past winter we had a few snow "storms". We have had 100 days of over 100 degrees or more in the summer and no rain, which was the first few summers we lived here! We have picked Matt up and dropped him off at midnight or around there several times. We have said see you later and welcome back several times, which sometimes was for weeks, months or even close to a year. We have met so many people here, some that we still talk to and some that we have lost touch with. We miss our families and the get togethers they have, along with reunions, weddings, birthday parties, holidays and more.


I could keep writing everything we have experienced here, but I will not! I just wanted to get a few things down that have happened in the past 5 years! Who knows how much longer we have left to live here, but we will enjoy our time here and the times that we get to be together.

13.1 miles

Around May 21st I joined a gym. I can't remember the exact date, but I know it was right around there. I knew when I joined that I was going to attempt to run a half-marathon. I had no prior running experiences except for a mile here or there on our old treadmill. When I was a kid I usually got out of running in gym class because I had asthma. It wasn't that I didn't like to run, it was just that I really couldn't breath when I did. Anyway, back to May. I couldn't run a mile. I could barely run a .25 of a mile after a week. I eventually was able to run a mile without stopping and I felt like I would never be able to make 13.1 miles. Here is a look back at the highlights of what I did when I started up to now.


May 28-     I ran 2.04 miles in 30:41.
June 2-       I ran 2.00 miles in 26:23.
June 4 -      I ran 2.01 miles in 23:56.
June 24-     I ran 2.17 miles in 21:55.
July 17-      I ran 3.20 miles in 37:46.
July 19-      I ran 4.51 miles in 52:51.
July Total- 51.94 miles
Aug 2-       I ran 5.05 miles in 57:34.
Aug 30-     I ran 6.01 miles in 1:21:30.
August Total- 68.56 miles
Sept 6-       I ran 6.56 miles in 1:32:41.
Sept 11-     I ran 3.50 miles in 41:12.
Sept 12-     I ran 5.18 miles in 1:11:29.
Sept 18-     I ran 9.49 miles in 2:09:00.
Sept 25-     I ran 12.02 miles in 2:53:03 in the rain!
September Total- 87.22 miles
Oct 4-        I ran 5.01 miles in 58:05.
Oct 16-      I ran 5.00 miles in 59:21.
Oct 19-      I ran 13.17 miles in 2:55:52 (but the official race time was 3:01:25).


I did it! I ran 13.1 miles yesterday! If you had asked me in the beginning of May if I thought I would ever run a half-marathon I would have said that was a crazy question and probably not! I had a few injuries, nothing big, but a few minor things that halted progress. I can now proudly say that I have ran 281.9 miles (at least that I have tracked) since May! I want to run a 10k, a 10 miler and another half-marathon in the next 6 months or so! I will see if I can accomplish my goal of doing my next half in 2 hours and 40 minutes!


I am proud of Matt too! He also ran his first half-marathon yesterday and did it in 1:58! He wants to run more too, but he still hates running! Ha.


So, today in the Kruse house we are hobbling, limping and groaning every time we must get up, but we feel accomplished! I couldn't have done it without God, Matt and Betsey! My father-in-law helped too by making the Nike running app a competition in a way! Prayer, music, strength training, friends, family and running, running and more running made it possible!