1,000 Miles Since Having a Baby, and a New 5K Personal Best

I thought I was going to take 5 or so days off running and strength training - no work outs of any kind - because I'd been feeling overdone and overtrained since not taking a break just after my first two 50k races just two weeks apart.
But today's Sophie's birthday. She turned 1 year old today. A year ago I had a C-section and our second daughter was born. I am extremely blessed.

But as I've also talked occasionally on the chronic medical condition I face each day with, my health is a constant aspect of this life that I focus on and celebrate. And so I realized tonight that if I ran 1.6 miles, I would hit 1,000 miles for the year. But with the date that Sophie was born, and the fact that I then had to sit out 6 weeks of mandatory C-section recovery, that means I could also hit 1,000 miles in the 1 year since having a baby!!!
 
So why is 1,000 miles in 2012, and 1,000 miles a year after childbirth a big deal to me? I didn't count miles run before 2009 but in 2009 I ran 457 miles. In 2010, while pregnant, I logged 426 miles + a lot of miles on the elliptical thanks to the pregnancy. So with one month left in the year, and having sat out the first 2 weeks of the year, I'm already over double my biggest previous year!
 
This has been a great running year for me, and I am thankful every day for that. And I recognize how hard I had to push myself this year to come back from the harshness your body endures physically and hormonally through pregnancy, childbirth, and postpartum, and I look like darling Sophie and see how worth it the fight has been, especially knowing that for the things within my control, I'm giving myself a larger chance of being around for a LOT of her birthdays.
 
SIDENOTE: I also had an amazing run. Instead of 1.6 miles, after a 1/4 mile slow run warmup, I changed my run posture a little based on a general physiological observation my new trainer had made about me yesterday. And all of a sudden, the speed came from nowhere. I did a personal best in the 5K on this training run, took 49 seconds off my previous best to bring me to 31:09!!! Hmm, might need to run a 5K race this month to see if I can reproduce this and make the PR official!!!