I'm a little over a week late...

but don't worry I am not pregnant! Thanks goodness too because that would truly throw a wrench into all our running plans this year...  No, I am a little over a week late with my Mother's Day story. So here it is, The Sisterhood Mother's Day 2018 story...


First I have to back up a little to when 2016 rolled around and all of us Bicentennial Babies were busy turning 40. It was a stressful time in history. Realistically, I knew the big4-0 was going to happen, it's not like I can stop time, but I didn't like it one bit. So I went ahead and had a midlife crisis...

It isn't as bad as it sounds though and "crisis" might be too strong of a word, but I got really sad, sulky and completely out of sorts. How could I be turning 40 years old, when I didn't feel a day over 25 and I typically behave like a teenager?!  Where had the past 15 years gone? How was I not still young and hip?  I was definitely struggling with my age.  I was down and out. Yes Club 40 was totally kicking my ass and I felt powerless to change my reality.  But then I decided to copy my awesome mom by leaving town for the occasion **--on a birthday running adventure-- and my attitude totally shifted.  In the wise words of Ed and Taylor, "Everything had changed".  Click to hear that awesome song! So the sisters started planning what would become the most EPIC 40th b-day party ever.  To read about that adventure click Cheeseheads

Back then, I fear Mird and the rest of my family were probably researching this on my behalf...

Once I decided to leave town,  we found ourselves shopping for an extraordinary running adventure worthy of a 40th birthday celebration. We will get a little off topic here, but honestly this is the only kind of shopping either of us enjoy so I feel it is warranted...

You see, we inherited a deep hatred of shopping from our mother and it runs deep. Really deep.  Think Grand Canyon deep!  Why do you think Mird spends so much time and money on Amazon?! And each and every time I go to Meijer, I have a mini panic attack and oftentimes leave my full cart, mid store, and run because it is too overwhelming for me to be there.  Too many grumpy people all in an enclosed space for this gal and also I don't like long lines.  Don't call me maybe...Call me impatient.  So the only time you are likely to find Mird or I say "let's shop til we drop" will be when we are busy shopping for running adventures!  Generally when I am forced to go grocery shopping because there is no food left in our house and these people keep wanting to eat it goes something like this:

Anyhow, back to the story. We got to shop for our adventure and landed on our Wisconsin Ragnar Trail Relay which was the absolute PERFECT 40th birthday party for me.  Last year we hit up an Island Trail Run in Boston and Ed's concert and so this year had to be big. But how the hell do you top Ed Sheeran and a race on and island?

We were stumped so we decided to leave our future to fate and went old school.  On Mother's Day, in smelly day old running clothes and standing in a poorly lit high school parking lot, we finalized our plans sort of...

On separate pieces of paper, we wrote down all the awesome races on my birthday in 2018.  A total of 4 awesome enough race options made the cut.  Then early (like 5:30 AM) on Mother's Day surrounded by fellow awesome mother runners, we drew a single slip of paper out and EUREKA we are going to visit Dominica and run a trail run in Maryland and just in case she was unavailable, we drew a back up- BINGO Kansas City/Manhattan KS double races- is our alternate plan.

This is a reenactment of the actual live drawing because we didn't think to snap a selfie when we did the drawing!


So the next amazing birthday adventure will invole Maryland or Kansas/Missouri.  Only time will tell...so be sure to keep following us so you can see how this all shakes out!

*(side note when mom turned 60 we started a girls adventure tradition because she wanted to leave town for her birthday too; now each year we take a females only trip to celebrate our mom! The way I figure it, I am just a couple decades ahead of schedule.  Us girls decided a long time ago... 

What we've also learned is this may be true, but this just proves I can afford one crazy running adventure a year in order to avoid another mid life crisis...It just makes good financial sense and it makes me very happy.

and most importantly,

Vern Out