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It’s been a minute since I’ve written a blog post because to be honest, I was hoping the next time I posted it would be the happy, “we’re having a baby and that’s why I haven’t been able to commit to races” post, but life doesn’t seem to work on our timelines. I shared back in July 2023 that we had been dealing with unexplained infertility after undergoing lots of tests. The doctor had recommend at the time moving onto IUI and because I was in the middle of training for the NYC Marathon, I decided to wait on it till November after the marathon was over since our insurance unfortunately does not have any fertility benefits so everything we do for this is out of pocket; I wanted to make sure I was giving IUI the best possible chance of working and knew that being in a marathon training cycle while possible for some people to get pregnant in might not be the best for someone who was already struggling to conceive. So I didn’t sign up for any races, and I committed to just taking things a week at a time, still allowed to work out but not doing as much as I had been doing. By the fourth IUI after all 3 cycles prior had failed, I decided to completely cut back on workouts and see if that made a difference at all (for those into the details, I was responding well to the Letrozole I was on so there wasn’t necessarily a concern here, it was more for my own mind to be reassured that it wasn’t the running). Four cycles later, we’ve learned nothing new other than experiencing some of the deepest heartbreak we’ve ever had, being out almost $10,000 for what feels like nothing, among feeling angry and confused. I’m frustrated with my body – the body that I’ve always taken care of getting a regular period every single month because I am so intentional about fueling it and have always been at a healthy weight that is failing to work in the way I want it to at a “young” enough age (what is that TikTok sound that is going around now, “all that work and what did it get me?” That’s exactly how I’m feeling). I’m confused why this is happening to us – a healthy, happily married couple of over 7 years who have a stable income and warm, safe environment to bring a child into. I’m angry at the insurance industry in our country and how in a state that has laws in place to protect fertility benefits, that there are loopholes allowed for companies to get out of having to pay for them. I’m feeling a lot of feelings, and like the power once again has been taken away. We are not owed anything and we are not in control, but that doesn’t mean it hurts any less when you want something so badly and feel like you’ve been so patient for so long.

So we’ve decided to take back the power again after too many tears and too many dollars spent for what feels like nothing and take a little break from this journey for a little bit. It’s been 28 months of hope, then disappointment and it’s time to get off the roller coaster for a little bit. IVF is the logical next step, but what people don’t often understand when talking about infertility is that it’s not just the emotional toll that people are going through – it’s the physical and financial toll that it’s taking. Physically for a woman it means taking hormones, injections, making changes to your daily routine, etc., all of which make you feel uncomfortable and at times like a foreigner in your own body. For a male partner, I can imagine it feels like a loss of control having to produce a sample and hand it over to the lab and also removes any feeling of romance in the process. Financially, in this country, IVF can cost about $30,000 for a cycle, and if your insurance doesn’t cover it, it’s on you to find a way to pay it up front in a single lump sum. It can make you sick to your stomach to think about. Through it all, I have had the best partner by my side, and while I am embarrassed by how many tears I’ve shed and the shell of a person I become after each failed cycle, I feel so unbelievably loved and supported and know without a doubt in my mind that I am with my soulmate. I do think this process is more physically intensive on the woman, but emotionally, I think both partners feel the weight of things.

With running, I am used to being patient with the process while seeing tangible little milestones along the way to a bigger goal. With unexplained infertility, it feels like there are no milestones to look forward to and it can feel like you aren’t making any progress at all and that has been very hard to grapple with. It’s hard to know when the right time to take a break from all of this is but I feel lucky that age is on our side where we do have the time to take some time off before going into a more intensive cycle like IVF; it’s a small win, I suppose. I’m approaching a month without having a weekly doctors’ appointment – whether it be for an ultrasound or blood draw – and I feel like my body is finally getting back to feeling like it did before starting 4 months of these cycles. Because of all of the extra hormones I was taking, I ended up putting on some extra weight which felt pretty awful to run with since I was already at a healthy weight to begin with before going into these treatments; fortunately most of that has come off in just the month being off of them since it was likely a lot of extra fluid retention, but I still have days where clothes don’t quite fit right and that can be frustrating since I was more than willing to let my body change if it meant having a baby but instead I’m left with no baby and just some extra pounds to show for it.

I’m trying to focus more on the fact that I feel strong again, though. I ran a 5K a couple weeks ago in 19:56 which was the fastest 5K I’ve run since October 2022 and the fastest I’ve ever opened a season with which was pretty exciting especially coming off of some lower mileage weeks with no speedwork while we waited on the fourth IUI results. I did sign up for a bunch of races to have a spring training cycle and am trying to stay present and appreciate what I do have. I’ve been hitting some great workouts and enjoying seeing that tangible progress week after week again! As of right now I plan to race the Shamrock Shuffle, Lakefront 10-Miler, and the Indy Mini Half Marathon this spring. I spent a few weeks off of social media because I was feeling extremely triggered by all the pregnancy announcements I was seeing; I’m in that age range in my 30s where it’s going to happen a lot so I’ve been liberal with the mute button for people who I sincerely love but whose posts have been too much for me right now or with the unfollow button for people who I don’t know; it’s not that these people have done or are doing anything wrong, but you have to take care of yourself first and it’s not healthy to be triggered by someone else’s happy news on social media. I’m back online now as it’s unrealistic not to be being a small business owner, but I’m being more intentional with how I use apps and how long I use them, too. Beyond being triggered I had gotten addicted to scrolling on my phone and the break forced me to break that bad habit so again, some small wins to come out of a crummy situation!

Healing isn’t linear; I still have days where I can really find myself down in the dumps, but the good days are beginning to outweigh the tough ones and that’s showing in my running. I’ve said it before but life stress can really bleed into your physical performance because our bodies don’t know how to distinguish between different kinds of stress and can only take on so much. I’ve been really kind to myself during this time and while I’d never want to go through this experience if I didn’t have to, I think it’s made me even more empathetic in my coaching career because I have seen firsthand what months and months of stress can do to someone’s body. There is a time to push through things, but there are equally as many times that we should be holding back and honoring how we’re feeling. It might mean that timelines changes, but it doesn’t have to mean that the goal itself has to. And yes, we’re talking about more than running here 🙂

I won my entry to the NYC Marathon as part of the New Balance and Believe In the Run Train to NYC contest. We received free entry to the race and free apparel throughout the training cycle with the expectation that we’d race in a New Balance shoe on race day, so I trained all cycle only in New Balance and raced on race day in the SC Elite v3 NYC Marathon edition. I paid for my own flights/hotel/meals.

Friday

Ross and I flew into NYC Friday afternoon. I was hoping to be able to attend the Ali on the Run live show with Ellie Kemper but unfortunately by the time we made it to the hotel, it was already 3:45 p.m. with the show beginning at 4 p.m. over a mile away so the timing didn’t work out. I relaxed in the room for a bit and then Ross and I got some steamed dumplings and rice prior to heading over to the expo which was easy to navigate and not as crowded as I was expecting for Friday evening! I was in and out within 30 minutes and while I heard there were some cool displays to see, I wanted to make it over to a New Balance welcome party we had been invited to as part of the Believe In the Run Train to NYC team in time; what I didn’t realize was that the panel discussion didn’t actually start until 7:45 so not that many people had arrived at 7 when I was there and I definitely felt a little out of place since I didn’t know anyone (I actually didn’t even recognize a single face besides Tommie Runz who I did say hello to) and also wasn’t drinking (it was an open bar) before the race. Queue the social anxiety of, “is everyone looking at me because I’m sitting here by myself…?” Fortunately another woman from Indiana (Midwest gals stick together!) came and sat next to me and we both shared similar feelings about feeling out of place! The panel began and it was a nice way to set the mood for the weekend talking about running and sharing some laughs with other runners. On my way back, I grabbed a slice of 99 cent cheese pizza (a NYC staple) and Ross and I watched Friday’s episode of The Great British Baking Show in the hotel while eating pizza in bed – perfect end to the night!

Saturday

I had a shakeout run at 10 a.m. with Believe In the Run on the schedule for the morning so I made my way over to Lavan Midtown where all of the New Balance events were happening for the weekend. I met up with some of my teammates from the Train to NYC before heading out for a run along the West Side Highway which had incredible views and was a new-to-me route! I shared 3 miles with Liv Paxton, one of my teammates, and it was so nice to finally meet in person and run together (I will definitely reach back out when I’m in Charlotte!). After the shakeout, I headed back to the hotel to relax for a bit before heading out again to get my carb loading box on the Upper West Side from Meghann Featherstun and Meaghan Murray, getting lunch with Ross at a sandwich shop, and then going in separate directions as I went to go get my hair braided in Murray Hill (thanks, Bryn!) and he went back to the hotel. After the braids, I went back to our hotel for a quick nap, and then Ross and I made our way to Eataly where we had reservations for a pasta dinner. Lots of fresh pasta later, we walked back to our hotel where we watched the Blackhawks game before I turned off my light and went to bed with a 4 a.m. alarm set. I had ended up walking nearly 7 miles that day between everything being so far apart (I was taking the subway but it still required a decent amount of walking to each location) and was a little irked at myself because I knew I overdid it in Chicago 4 weeks ago with too many activities and time on feet, but have realized that this is just kind of the issue with a big city race like NYC unless you’re an elite where the people come to you to drop off food, you don’t have shakeout commitments, etc. Fortunately I wasn’t chasing a time this race but note to self, pick a lower frills race next time (except for Chicago – that’s easy for me being local and the logistics in general are much easier, just don’t commit to anything outside of a shakeout and expo).

Sunday

The 4 a.m. alarm went off and I didn’t realize it but apparently I hit snooze on my phone because the next time I woke up it was to the alarm going off at 4:09 – thank goodness I hit snooze and didn’t turn it off! Even with gaining an extra hour of sleep with daylight savings falling back, it still felt so early, but I got myself out of bed and into the bathroom where I changed, made coffee, and ate my breakfast to keep the room as quiet as possible so Ross could keep sleeping (the room was tiny – it wasn’t a big deal to hang out in the bathroom lol). I had laid out all my clothes and packed my bag for Staten Island the night before so this made it easy to grab everything quickly and head out to the buses at Bryant Park where I was meeting my local Chicago running team to ride over together. Hanging out with my team race morning really helped calm any nerves and before we knew it, a few hours had passed and it was time to head over to the corrals! I ended up starting the race with Liv and her friend, Olivia, who had both just come off of sub-3 hour marathons in Chicago and Berlin respectively and who were planning to run a similar pace to me for their fun run marathon. We all started together and somewhere in the first mile had the 3:20 pace group creep up which I decided to hang with since my plan had been to go out no faster than a 1:40 first half with the goal to run a strong back half on a challenging course. The first mile is known to be slow – you gain 160 feet of elevation going straight up the bridge and lose 0 feet – but on top of that the NYRR puts all of the celebrities and other special guests at the very front of Wave 1 which creates a lot of chaos and dodging/weaving for the first several miles (I really am not sure why they do this and don’t let them get special access to maybe the back of Wave 1 because it seems dangerous for everyone involved!). In addition to that, I should disclose that as part of a New Balance team I had the ability to change my corral/wave on race day which was much appreciated as I had been assigned a 3:40 corral initially but was hoping to run closer to 3:20 (and had the data to back it up with 3 marathons in the last year at that level) which started in wave 1; I lined myself up appropriately for my fitness level but I imagine some people who have access to this do not and also contribute to the weaving/dodging problem. That being said, I’m extremely grateful I had the ability to do this as I can’t imagine the amount of dodging and weaving that would’ve been going on starting in a corral 20 minutes slower than what I was hoping to run. There were also a lot of people standing up on the median in the middle of the bridge taking pictures…at least they were out of the way but I have to imagine hopping down off of that could take someone out.

I tried to stay relaxed here and not get too frustrated, as I had gone in knowing from the last time I ran this that this mile could be up to a minute per mile slower than what I would like to run. We hit the first mile in 8:20, which didn’t feel as easy as an 8:20 usually would, but then we hit the downhill half of the bridge and cruised to a 7:25 second mile before settling in once things leveled out the next few miles. I was manually splitting my watch at each mile marker knowing that the GPS can get a little wonky with bridges/city buildings. I ended up hanging out with the pace group for awhile until I lost them for a bit when we hit a rolling hills section in Brooklyn and the pace was feeling a bit hot for that early on in the race (mile 8ish), so I backed off and tried to run my own race for a little bit listening to my body. I saw Ross around this point who was holding onto another handheld full of Skratch for me; in 8 miles I had already finished the 12 oz. one which was a pretty good indication that I was running warmer since in Chicago it took me till 13.1 miles to finish that same handheld when it was about 10 degrees cooler out. We had planned on doing a handheld hand-off but I knew there was a possibility of not finding him with how many people were on course and had a backup plan to just dump cups of water into my current handheld if needed; having the extra bottle of Skratch really made a huge difference I think though because my sweat rate was much higher than expected, likely coming off of weeks training in the 30s-low 40s and now racing in full sun, upper 50s-low 60s where apparently I had lost all heat acclimation (usually I love these temps for running so I’m not complaining, it just meant I was sweating more than I typically would be).

Somewhere in mile 9 I ended up catching back up to the 3:20 pace group unintentionally but seeing Ross had given me a little boost I needed to get my head back in it and I found myself stride for stride with them again. Around mile 10 all of a sudden my headphones stopped playing any music and I didn’t even try to fuss with my phone in my back pocket. It was very quiet in this section as it’s a community where there aren’t a whole lot of fans out, so I left the headphones in hoping maybe my music would turn back on. It never did so I took the headphones out around mile 11, put them in my shorts, and never reached for them again. It was amazing to run the rest of the race without them listening to the sound of the crowds around me, and even in the quieter sections like the mile 13.1 bridge or Queensboro where there are also no fans, I didn’t mind not having something playing which surprised me. I love running to music and podcasts but I’ve also done nearly every long run this cycle with teammates around not listening to music so that definitely helped me feel more comfortable not listening to something (that and the millions of fans constantly cheering – it was epic!). My headphones have become a bit of a crutch for me; I psych myself out sometimes when I start hearing myself breathing heavy since I have exercise-induced asthma and it scares me into thinking I’m having an asthma attack, but it’s been something I’ve been working on mentally to not be so reliant on it as there are instances like NYC where they just stop working!

Around the halfway mark, I crossed in 1:40:36 which was right where I wanted to be and I saw one of my DWR teammates, Emily, ahead and ran to catch up with her. She told me that she wasn’t feeling great and I shared similar sentiments. Everything just felt harder than it should at this point, and my hamstring which had given me no trouble in a long time decided that with all the hills it was time to start talking back again. I don’t know what it was though about sharing some strides with Emily but I think hearing that it wasn’t just me feeling like this was more challenging than expected helped calm my nerves a bit and made me feel not so alone in the pain. A little bit further up, I ran into Kim who I’ve known for several years now (IG friends turned real life acquaintances a couple times in races now!) and she shared that she was keeping it easy feeling the effects of some higher humidity (I don’t blame her being from dry mountain air in Utah; it was even more humid than I was used to in the Fall!). This was more validation that what I was feeling was normal and somehow a flip switched in my mind and I was back in race mode wanting to see how strong I could finish the back half.

When I got to the Queensboro Bridge around mile 14.5, I remember getting chills as we made the turn onto the bridge and started our ascent. This bridge had completely destroyed what was left of my morale in 2021 when I ran the race and this year I was hungry and ready to do better. It was dead silent on the bridge, especially without any music in, but occasionally runners behind me would whoop and yell words of encouragement and it was such a cool bonding moment with total strangers. I remember passing so many people as we made our way up the bridge thinking just how strong I felt this time around tackling this bridge. When we got to the top of the bridge and it flattened out, lots of the runners started cheering as we started our descent down the bridge and eventually onto 1st Avenue. The noise from 1st Ave. grew louder and louder until we made the turn and it truly did not disappoint. When I ran the race in 2021, it was half the field size and because it was still during the pandemic, I don’t think as many spectators came out and I remember being really underwhelmed by this section that I had heard would be deafening (honestly the whole NYC Marathon – and it was what I was most looking forward to this year to see if it actually lived up to the hype in a normal year). It was the complete opposite experience this time around and this was one of my faster sections on the course gaining momentum from the fans while still staying within myself while running (I had heard from so many people not to let yourself go too crazy here as it’s easy to get ahead of yourself in miles 17-19 and then still have a ways to go).

Around mile 20 on the Willis Bridge as we crossed into the Bronx, I remember hearing someone say, “is this the last bridge?” and knowing all too well that there was still one to go. These last couple bridges aren’t even that bad but at these later stages of the marathon, any incline feels a lot bigger than it actually is. I remember feeling really warm in the Bronx with the sun beating down and not much shade, and my pace did start to slow here (instead of high 7:30s/low 7:40s I started averaging high 7:40s/low 7:50s), but I was proud that I was continuing to battle and not giving myself an out. I remember seeing on a big jumbotron coming past mile 20 the female winners being presented with their prizes and saw that Hellen Obiri had won the race, which as a fan was cool to witness. There are 7 turns in the Bronx and I lost count of them but knew that I had to be getting close to leaving them and sure enough we were on the Madison Avenue Bridge where in 2021 I remember a volunteer running out to give me a bottle of Gatorade because she was concerned with how I was looking (not great lol). Not this time! Up and over that “last damn bridge” and time to start making our way home to Central Park. I was deep in a little pain cave when all of a sudden I heard someone yelling “Katherine! You look great!” and looked over and saw it was Kofuzi running on the sidewalk cheering for me! He was in the perfect spot around mile 22 where I needed a little bit of a boost as we headed into one of the most difficult miles of the whole race, the climb from mile 23-24 (seriously, who puts an 80 ft elevation gain mile at mile 23-24 of a marathon!). This was my slowest mile of the day at 8:27 and I just had no more gas but promised myself I’d keep moving and putting one foot in front of the other. When I made it to mile 24, one of my DWR teammates was in Central Park cheering and I did my best to pick up my stride (I did! That next mile was faster!) and knew at this point I only had about 2 miles to go and was going to finish this marathon! I remember thinking that I didn’t remember this many hills in Central Park the last time I did the marathon, but the only option was to keep moving forward! Mile 25.5 is a little deceiving as you actually exit the park for a few blocks prior to turning back in for another half mile to finish, but I knew this, too. I remember hitting mile 26 and trying my best to muster a kick to the finish (7:24 was the best kick I had at that point!) and crossing the line just so happy to be done running and also so proud of myself for how I managed myself out on the course. I did not feel good in the last 5K of the race and this 5K was the difference between a 3:22 and the 3:23 I ended up running, but I know without a doubt I did everything right to get myself from start to finish and think this race was one of the best executed races I’ve ever had (maybe only second to CIM which is still my only negative split marathon to date and PR!).

My first half of the race was run in 1:40:36 and my second half was run in 1:42:53. I was hoping that by going out conservatively no faster than a 1:40 first half that I’d have the juice to close sub-1:40 in my second half and break 3:20 on this course, but for how hard things felt early on I’m so very proud of the way I managed my effort on a warmer day on a very challenging course that can eat you up and spit you out if you aren’t smart. I left NYC with no regrets on race day and like I finally can cross this one off the list not needing to come back for redemption anymore; I realized later on that I’ve officially run all 4 marathon majors now in a BQ time so that’s a pretty fun stat to have!

So What’s Next? Final Training Cycle Thoughts.

I’m planning to take a break from a spring marathon next year. I’m proud of how my body handled both Chicago and NYC this year and I enjoyed running Boston in 2023 on my birthday but I vowed to myself after that cycle that I’d be done with winter marathon training for awhile since I don’t love winter running in Chicagoland; super long runs in the cold wind and icy roads are not my cup of tea! That being said, I’m looking to sign up for some shorter races in the spring (I already signed up for the Shamrock Shuffle) and then have an entry to the Chicago Marathon with a time qualifier which will likely be the fall goal! I’m taking some time to think through what the rest of spring will look like but for now I’m happy to be going for long walks with Lola and enjoying some downtime.

This training cycle was everything I needed and more. It completely turned my year around and I feel so blessed to have been able to find community in running again. I usually have the words to say but in this case I don’t really know how to communicate what this cycle meant to me other than to say thank you to teammates, coaches, friends, and family who have supported me in this journey these last 4 months. I was a shell of myself when I started this summer and I feel like I found myself again and that means more than a PR ever will. But don’t get me wrong, this cycle had me seeing glimpses of past fitness that I haven’t seen in awhile and made me excited for all that’s to come in the future because I’m not done yet 🙂

I’ve gone back and forth on whether I’d share this with my audience or if I did, when the appropriate time to hit publish would be, as I sit here writing a draft on July 31, 2023. I’ve always wanted to be transparent with those who are following along in my journey not only because it helps me show up as my authentic self but I know that I appreciate when others are willing to be vulnerable and share their stories since many times it has helped me in my own life journey. But this just felt different. Too personal, almost, because I am in the middle of it and haven’t gotten to the other side yet. I’m not looking for sympathy in sharing or a whole lot of advice, I am mainly sharing to break down walls surrounding this topic and be part of a solution by hopefully opening up conversation. If you’re reading this, I suppose I decided to press publish, so here goes nothing…

Training for the NYC Marathon in 2021, I had big goals to go after a sub-3 hour marathon in my mind thinking it would be my last marathon for the next couple of years. I wanted to go out with a bang and do something really cool before settling on my next goal, growing a family. At that point my husband and I had been married for 5 years, and together for 10, and while we were nervous about making such a huge life change, we had both agreed that after NYC we would start trying to start our family. The NYC Marathon was also going to be my opportunity to run a Boston qualifying time for 2023 so that I could run the race on my 30th birthday since it fell on that date exactly, a longtime goal of mine. Unfortunately I ended up with the beginning stages of hypothermia on race day, ending up in the med tent after the race and not only had I completely bonked on my sub-3 attempt, I didn’t even run a BQ time with how awful I felt. A few weeks after NYC we had our 5-year anniversary trip planned in Antigua so I knew there would be no other opportunity to run a marathon that year since I didn’t want to train for a race during our trip. My thought was that even if I was a few months pregnant I’d be able to take it easy and run a BQ time and bank it for 2023; looking back now I laugh at how naïve I was thinking that getting pregnant would happen right away and also with that timeline that I’d be able to give birth and train for a marathon all within 15-16 months.

After a couple months of trying to conceive (TTC) and nothing really happening, I decided to turn my focus to a spring marathon, wanting to have something to look forward to but being ok with having to alter my plans if I was pregnant. After a very unexpected and devastating family loss early in the year, I felt a new pressure to try to bring some joy and good news to my family that was grieving, thinking that the news of the first grandchild being added to the family would provide some joy in an otherwise dark time. It was a pressure that no one besides myself put on me, and at that time they didn’t even know we were trying. Months went by and with no news, I continued training for the marathon, but training was not going very well. I didn’t feel like myself running workouts but continued to press on hoping that things would turn around the more I kept at it. When it came to race day and I completely bonked after mile 10 (at the time not knowing that I had covid), I was frustrated more than anything as I had accomplished neither my goal of running a PR in the marathon nor starting a family and rather just seemed to be stagnant in all areas of my life. What I didn’t realize at the time was just how much emotional stress can take a toll on your physical state, and that has been something I only recently came to realize in spring of 2023.

I took time off of structured training after the spring 2022 marathon, thinking that if I ran shorter distances and strength work that it would not only be better for potentially getting pregnant if I reduced my overall training load but also that if it did happen, I wouldn’t be as disappointed if I had to alter my training plans for the rest of the year. With a regular menstrual cycle (it always comes within a day or two of when it’s predicted to), I assumed that it would happen within the year, knowing that most healthy couples take about a year at our age to conceive. The summer and fall came and went and while running ended up turning around by October, we weren’t any closer to our goal of starting a family. This Christmas was probably one of the saddest holiday seasons I’ve had. Between spending our first holidays without my uncle and seeing pregnancy announcements left and right on social media (people tend to post a lot of news around the holidays), I was in a dark place feeling so confused about why my body which I had taken such good care of was not able to do the one task that naturally it was made to do. I felt like I was failing, even though I now know that things can be very much outside of your control when it comes to fertility.

Starting my next training block for Boston, I took a lot of the pressure off by not training with a time goal in mind; I wanted to run a strong race I could be proud of but at this point had recognized that my body just wasn’t the same as it was when I ran my PRs back in 2019. I was, however, still unable to recognize that it was likely because my mind wasn’t in a good place and therefore was very unable to push to tough places. I was hopeful that maybe I’d be carrying along a plus one in Boston – how cool would it be to make that announcement that I had a future unicorn on board with me for the race! Needless to say, it didn’t happen, and I actually felt awful the day of the marathon, being only a couple days away from getting my period. I felt so bloated and nauseous that I actually wondered if I was pregnant while running the race, but a pregnancy test after the race in the hotel bathroom would show otherwise. I had heard from other runners that they found they got pregnant shortly after running a marathon and was hopeful maybe this would be my experience.

The week after Boston, I was at my OBGYN’s office for an appointment to talk about next steps since it had been about 18 months of TTC with no success. I took part in a diagnostic cycle, which included a transvaginal ultrasound, lots of bloodwork, and an HSG to check to make sure internally things were acting as they should, and Ross also had to do his own testing. While it all went towards my insurance deductible, that also meant I was on the hook for all of the testing until my deductible was met, so a few thousand dollars later and we’d find out that there wasn’t anything really conclusive coming back and so the next step would be to meet with a fertility specialist to do further testing and discuss our options. During this time I was also dealing with high iron which I talked about on Instagram, and if I had to guess it was likely caused by the iron in my prenatal vitamins I was taking; since switching to non-iron prenatal things have felt so much better. I met with the fertility doctor in early July, had additional testing done including more bloodwork and an SHG, and everything came back…normal. On one hand, it’s a blessing that everything so far appears “normal”, but on the other hand after nearly 2 years of trying it’s pretty confusing when nothing is happening. We spend so much time in our younger years trying to avoid being pregnant by being on something that controls our hormones like the pill just to find out that maybe our bodies never could on their own anyway? It’s a tough pill to swallow (no pun intended).

I think one of the hardest things about this journey has been the waiting. You feel like you’re living in 2-week increments at a time waiting either for ovulation to happen or after that to see if “it worked”. With doctor’s visits, because so many women are also going through the same thing, you’re waiting a month in between appointments just to get in to talk to someone and feel like you’re wasting more time. When you do share it with those around you, you’re met with mixed responses. I know in my heart that everyone means well but the most frustrating thing you can say to a woman going through infertility is to “stress less and it’ll happen when you least expect it”; doctors will tell you it doesn’t work that way and on a podcast I recently listened to, a fertility doctor actually said, “if it worked that way, I would be out of a job” and it was incredibly validating. What has changed for me in the last couple of months since doing the diagnostic cycle is knowing that it’s not anything we’re doing or not doing now; unexplained infertility is incredibly common and just isn’t talked about very often in general, let alone in sports. It’s why if you’re reading this, I decided to click post, because I want to share a side that isn’t talked about as often because it’s raw when you’re going through it, uncomfortable, and just downright depressing. But if there’s anything I’ve learned over these last 22 months now it’s that this is a very common thing for women to go through and I want to be a part of the group that talks about it and makes it more normal to have these conversations and not be so taboo.

I alluded to my running starting to come around in July in my Instagram posts because of getting my iron levels back to normal, and while that is certainly true, I think a big piece of it has to do with mentally being in a much better place right now about all of this. I felt responsible for a long time for my body not doing what it was “supposed” to do, but between having a wonderful partner who has been so supportive through all of this reassuring me that it’s not anything I can control as well as now medical science backing that up on top of supporting that it’s not my training causing it either, I feel like a weight has been lifted. I ended up joining a local running and racing team to try to mix up my training and do something for myself and am really excited about having training partners to push me outside of my comfort zone and to be doing something new with a local community. I am excited for the races on my calendar this year and eager to keep chipping away at my fitness. I feel like I’ve taken back some of the control by getting answers, and making decisions that are for me and not just planning about what some version of the future could look like; I’ve learned that plans are adjustable but I’m done waiting around for something to happen. For now, we have our next steps but I’m enjoying a little respite from being poked and prodded with needles and other metal instruments for a little while.

Infertility is hard, and I wouldn’t wish this experience on anyone. It can become so clinical, and can take a lot of the romance out of a partnership, but I’m very grateful for having a partner who is truly a partner in all of this and has continued to remind me that my worth doesn’t lie in my ability to have babies. We love our life together, it’s a really great life and we are incredibly blessed! I do wish more than anything we’ll have some little humans to share it with some day, but our little family is enough, and I am enough, too.

Wow. I haven’t whiffed like that in a long time and it doesn’t feel good. I was feeling mostly ok about how things transpired yesterday afternoon at the half marathon but come evening time the sadness hit me like a ton of bricks. I truly don’t think it would’ve been a banner day for me with the conditions and my asthma/general issues with super cold weather, but it could’ve been a little less bad.

I knew going into the race that it was going to be cold; the forecast continued to drop as the week went on and by Friday it was pretty locked in that we’d be starting in a windchill of 8 degrees Sunday morning. I had concerns with how my body has reacted in the past to super cold conditions; my asthma often flares up when it’s super cold and makes breathing difficult and overall my body has a hard time staying warm. If I had to pick an extreme, I’d always choose warm because my body seems to handle heat a lot better than cold; I’ve set PRs in Boston when it hit 70 degrees and CIM when it was in the 60s. My half marathon PR is actually from Indy when it was 28 feels like 22 at the start, so I’m no stranger to cold (especially living in the Midwest) but a 22 degree windchill is much different than an 8 degree windchill. My coach was confident that I was in shape to run some fast paces and it excited me to go and try for it, especially since she’s usually right about the type of fitness level I’m in, but in hindsight I think I should’ve been a lot more conservative given my personal history with these type of conditions and that’s on me for thinking my body would handle this day any differently than the past (but hindsight is always 20/20).

Prior to race day, I did a 1-day carb load using Featherstone Nutrition’s carb calculator. I worked one-on-one with Meghann for 6 months last year and really got dialed in on pre-race fueling but I appreciate she has this tool up for free. Carb loading went perfectly and I woke up race day morning and topped things off with coffee and carbs. I made the drive out to the race and met up with Karly to do a warm-up and strides. I was pretty cold only a few minutes into the warm-up and when we made the turn back into the cold headwind, I had a pretty good feeling this wasn’t a “PR” kind of day, but tried to brush the feelings aside. After our strides, I hung out in the high school lobby which was open to runners to stay warm in for about 20 minutes and took down my Maurten caffeinated gel (I had read from Meghann that it takes 1 hour for caffeine to peak in our bloodstream so I wanted to time it out to hit at the right point in the race).

It felt cold on the starting line, but at least the sun was shining and we had the wind at our backs. The race started and I eased into the effort, wanting to run no faster than a 6:35 first mile but close to 6:40-6:45. I moved my way up through the sea of runners in front of me and my first mile came in at 6:38, and it felt pretty good. I felt good on the uphill climbs and took advantage of the first significant downhill in mile 2, hitting 6:30 for the mile. The plan had been to run this mile a little faster with the downhill knowing what was to come. When we turned the corner onto a new road, I could feel the crosswind but continued to push knowing that another big descent was ahead. I felt like I was slowing on this mile but was pleasantly surprised when my watch clicked 6:35 despite having a side-stich come on during this mile. Shortly after, we turned onto another road for over a mile straight into the nasty headwind. I felt myself slowing down here and couldn’t get my body to move any faster. 7:06. Oof. I knew the headwind and gradual uphill was partially to blame here but something just seemed so off with my body and sure enough, I looked down to see my HR was already in the high 180s/low 190s. Not good for so early in the race. I took a Maurten on course around mile 4.5 and it was tough to get down with how cold it was out, but I managed to eat it all shortly before mile 5 which hit at 7:08. Ok, at least we were consistent, but it was at this moment I knew that this was going to be a rough road back to the finish line as paces weren’t exactly getting faster. Mile 5-6 contains the first significant climb of the race and it felt significant effort-wise; the last time I ran this race, I was able to pick up my pace once I got over the hill and into the descent on the other side, but this time I felt like I was just coasting down the hill trying to catch my breath again. 7:42. Wow. What the heck is going on and how embarrassing is this to start having all the people I passed in the early miles come catch up to me again and blow by me.

Despite slowing down so significantly, my heart rate stayed in the 180s here (and the rest of the race) even as I was running paces that I can usually hit in an easy long run. I stayed consistently slow for a few miles and when I was around 7 miles in, I heavily considered dropping out because this appeared to just be a slower and slower push to the finish with not a whole lot of added value in fitness, but thought about how we don’t just quit things when they’re not going our way and more pressing that I’d still have to walk back to my car so it was faster to just run. The feeling of frustration that my body wasn’t cooperating was more masked by the feeling of embarrassment. At just the right moment, my friend Marie who had told me her pacing plan Saturday came up next to me encouraging me to go with her. I shared several strides with her and tried to keep up, but she looked so strong and continued pulling ahead. Her encouragement, however, helped bring my pace down to a 6:56 mile for mile 9, my first sub-7 since mile 3. I tried to keep the momentum going by taking a second gel, only to rip it open and it still to be sealed. I yanked on it with my teeth and still couldn’t get it open, so I never got my extra fuel. That was a note to self to bring extras to Boston in case this happens again; I nearly laughed out loud with the cluster that was this race day.

I knew having run it before that the most challenging part of the course would be miles 10-12 as they are pretty uphill and on this day, into the headwind. At this point I was just clawing my way back to the finish line to be done but my pace slowed to low 8s for the last 4 miles; physically, I didn’t have much more to give, and mentally, after such a terrible race, I didn’t want to give a whole lot more. I do like having a finish line kick, however, so I pushed my pace down to 6:30 to close it in. 1:38:05. My worst half marathon finish in 5 years (in a race I was trying to race myself, not pace others) but in the moment I didn’t care a whole lot about that and was mostly just happy to be done. I downed lots of Gatorade at the finish and waited knowing Karly wouldn’t be too far behind. I was excited to see how happy she was about her race and that really lightened the mood. She invited me out to brunch with her sister and husband and it was so nice to chat with them and share some laughs over coffee and skillets!

When I got home, Ross was gone for the day with some of his own plans, so I had some time to be by myself and decompress. I felt like I had made my peace with the day, but in the early evening the sadness found me and I sat with those feelings the rest of the night. No tears, nothing like that, just a feeling of being pretty bummed out by the whole situation. Looking back on it now, I know it was too ambitious to try to go run my fastest time in conditions that have never worked well from my body, and I regret not listening to the voice inside my head more in the week leading up to the race telling me that I should adjust my strategy for this race. I told myself it was me being nervous about racing again trying to give myself an out, but I don’t think that’s the case anymore. I know my body, the same body that ended up in a med-tent after the NYC Marathon in 2021 because of blue lips and a low body temperature from having had to sit out on Staten Island for 3 hours in the 30 degree weather the morning of the race and never recovering from that during the race. That same exact feeling I felt at that race after about 8 miles is what I experienced yesterday when my heart rate was sky high even as my pace got slower and slower. If I could go back and do things differently, I think I would’ve started off at marathon pace and worked my way down from there, with the secondary goal just being to average marathon pace across the whole course. Instead, I think I burned my body out way too early in the cold and it was just never able to recover from my heart rate spiking so quickly which ultimately led to running the majority of the race at a pace I usually do easy long runs at but at a much higher effort level.

As I type this today, I feel tired, but not sore even despite all the hills (700 feet of gain and loss in this course). It tells me that one hand I did give it a hard effort yesterday, but that I’m stronger than that performance after all the hill training I’ve been doing and workouts I’ve been hitting. My confidence is still in tact and bad days happen because we can’t control all of the variables that race day brings. I’m hoping to put this experience aside for the rest of the cycle and use it more as data for future runs and races; it could mean deciding not to line up when the windchill is in the single digits in the future, or if I do throwing any sort of fitness expectation out the window and running off of effort. On the plus side, running the distance did remind me just how much I love the half marathon so I hope to put some more of those on the calendar in the future!

I have four more weeks to sharpen up and hopefully get a couple more confidence-building long runs in. The journey back to 26.2 hasn’t been easy and I don’t love sharing about all the lows, but I know I appreciate when people share the whole journey and not just the highs so I hope that by doing so it helps paint a more realistic picture of what a whole training cycle looks like. Hopefully there are more highs to share in the weeks to come!

This time last year, I was in the middle of making one of the biggest decisions of my life so far, the decision to leave my comfortable, safe corporate job and to take my coaching business full-time. I had recently been promoted to management and truly loved the people I worked with and the opportunities that I had been given, but had known since leaving college that I never truly studied or went after what I was passionate about. I went after what was safe. In 2018 I became a certified running coach and began coaching runners shortly after in 2019. After 3 years, I had built up my roster of athletes with Team Sugar Runs to the point that I really needed to make a decision – did I continue growing the business and make it my full-time job or did I cap my athlete roster and focus more on my full-time job, because doing both with the number of athletes I had and the amount of responsibility I had in corporate just wasn’t sustainable anymore. I went back and forth on the decision, talking with Ross daily about where my head was at, shedding a lot of tears, and ultimately deciding to be brave and take the leap. I put in my two-weeks notice at my job and as of the beginning of 2022 was a full-time running coach. Telling our families was the scariest part because it wasn’t a traditional “path” or “job” and I was so scared that they wouldn’t be proud of me or think I was making the right choice (I think this says a lot more about me and how much I care about what others think and less about them), but I was pleasantly surprised by the support I received.

Shortly after having made the announcement to my family, Christmas-time came around and I was able to talk to extended family more about the path I was taking. One conversation had more impact on me than I would realize at the time. We always get together with my uncle and his family shortly before or after Christmas just the small group of us and this year we all got together at my parents’ house the day after Christmas to play games and have a meal together. I remember sitting around my parents’ dining room table talking with my uncle and aunt before everyone had been seated about the big job change and telling him, “I won’t make as much money as I did in my corporate job so that’s a little scary,” and him almost immediately responding with something along the lines of, “so what? You’ll be much happier and that’s worth a lot more.” It meant a lot coming from him because I knew he had lived this; moving up well within the corporate world but it not necessarily being his “passion”. It’s what most people do in this world and most of us never are able to make our passions our careers. I had been inspired by him, however, when he published his first children’s book, doing something a lot of people would be afraid to do out of fear of failing/trying something new, but he did it proudly and excited to try something completely new. It’s from this that I knew just how much he meant when he told me how important it was to be happy vs. chasing the money.

Exactly one week later on January 2nd, he passed away very unexpectedly and suddenly leaving our hearts broken. It felt surreal having just been sitting across the table from him the week before, or playing games together in the family room. My uncle always had a smile on his face and could make anyone laugh. He was so young and it didn’t seem fair to me that this could be happening to his family or to my mom, losing her last relative after losing both of her parents so young. I was so sad, but I was also so angry. Death is hard no matter when or how it happens but this just seemed so unfair. I struggled for a couple months, being old enough to understand that bad things happen to good people but seeing it first hand happen to someone I love made it so much more confusing.

The anger passed quicker than the grief, and I was thankful to have my running during this time for consistency it provided during a tough time and additionally the endorphin boost that I was severely lacking. The day of my uncle’s death I went on an afternoon run on a day I would’ve normally opted for the treadmill as the roads were still full of snow not having been cleared yet by the plows. I put sunglasses on to hide the tears streaming down my face and just ran, not planning any sort of route and just taking random streets as they came. I ran down the street my childhood friend lived on, not realizing that he was home at the time, and at the exact moment that I ran by his parents’ house he and his wife were in the driveway loading up their car to head back to Minnesota. They didn’t know what had happened and I didn’t tell them in that moment, but getting to hug both of them brought a lot of peace to me that they were there at the exact time that I needed a sign that things were going to be ok. What’s still crazy to me looking back is that had I left any earlier/later or picked a different street to run down that day that I would’ve never known they were home and passed them. This was an early, but important part of my healing process knowing that I was being watched over.

I had just started to train for the marathon at this time and while this would have been a good reason to consider dropping down in distance or taking some time off, something inside of me wanted to keep trying. The winter in Chicago was brutally cold and windy earlier this year and seemed to go on forever, so when I learned in late February that my goal marathon had been canceled, I really wondered if it was yet another sign telling me that I wasn’t meant to run a marathon this spring/it would’ve been another good reason to stop training. But again, something inside me wanted to keep trying and to not give up so easily just because the cycle wasn’t going as smoothly as I had hoped. The biggest thing driving me during these months was the gift of life and the ability to be able to run; it’s something I know I have taken for granted in the past and in losing someone I loved, I started looking at things a lot differently than I had before.

I had set a lot of goals for myself and my coaching business for 2022 but what I didn’t realize at the time was just how burnt out I was. I promptly got sick the week after I left my corporate job, sicker than I had been in years, and could barely get out of bed for about a week feeling so awful. When everyone went back to work in early 2022, I was at home a lot more feeling sad and a little lonely, which didn’t lead to being as productive as I thought I would be with less responsibilities on my plate. I felt guilty for awhile with how I felt and how I wasn’t being super productive, able to rely on the stability of a husband who has a great job, but he was the one who helped me realize that it was ok to take a little break from being overly-ambitious for a little while and to just live and enjoy the newfound extra time I had. It took me until the summer to start feeling re-energized and excited to start advancing on some of the goals I had set for myself, like passing the NASM Certified Personal Trainer exam. I passed my test in July and as of writing this blog, was offered a job as a personal trainer at my local gym which I’ll hopefully begin soon. I continued working with many of my athletes from 2021 in 2022 and have enjoyed bringing new athletes on board working with them towards their running goals. Although also a little embarrassing to admit, I finally found a routine and schedule in October that has been working well for me to structure my days at home to be more productive.

As someone who is very goal-oriented and driven, it was tough for me to be struggling so much this year with feeling “aimless” and unmotivated. It became very clear that I needed a break after burning the candle from both ends for so long trying to balance a corporate career, my coaching business, my own training, and my personal relationships, but when I took the break I felt “lazy” and undeserving of the time off, thinking every minute needed to be filled with something to justify my decision to work full-time from home in coaching. I would tell someone else going through this type of transition to have more grace with themselves and that it’s ok to take time for yourself. I think I probably would’ve been more productive earlier in the year had I stopped fighting with myself so much about taking the break and just taken it. We can only be the best, most productive version of ourselves when we are happy and healthy and I wish I would’ve accepted that truth earlier and extended myself more grace.

After the marathon and a positive covid diagnosis, I struggled with running for about 10 weeks, never feeling very good on runs and barely being able to run my half marathon pace for even 1000 meters at a time. I felt so down during this time because here I was having all this extra time I never had before when working both jobs and I felt like it was being wasted on not being able to train. Looking back now, I’m sad for that version of me who was measuring success in life only by the ability to run and run fast. I think it’s reasonable to be upset when your running isn’t going well but I had inadvertently made running my entire life between my career and my personal running, and had forgotten how many other good parts of my life there were that were worth pursuing and spending time on. Ironically by seeking more balance in my life I had become very unbalanced.

I took a break from structured training for awhile and decided to give myself a season off from any big racing goals. I said yes to long weekends visiting friends, going to events, staying up late, traveling, etc., something I’d usually say no to for fear of not getting enough sleep/getting sick during training. I feel like I fully lived this summer and fall and during that time, my workouts and local 5K races ended up feeling pretty good and I ran some of my fastest times without being so laser-focused on it. I ran better because I was happy. I’ve been working harder because I’m happy. Happy in my career, happy in my relationships, happy in my life. It truly is the secret sauce behind success.

We were listening to the sermon at church last week and I felt like the year came full-circle for me. The sermon was about learning to give thanks in all situations, even the ones that don’t seem like there would be much reason to be thankful for. A few weeks ago I was involved in a hit and run while I was working at the running store and my car was parked in the parking lot. In that moment I was upset, but one of the first things that came out of my mouth was, “it’s just a thing and things can be replaced.” I wasn’t in the car, I had no bodily damage, it was just a metal frame of a car that was damaged. It was un unexpected cost for us and of course I wasn’t excited about it, but 2022 has reminded me of what a gift it is to live, to be loved, and to be happy. To have all of these things means everything else is just extra. The extras, like running, weren’t great this year, but the core – to be healthy and alive, to be loved by a wonderful family, and to be happy with who I am and the life I am building – that is such a beautiful gift.

After the Eugene Marathon in May, I knew I needed a break. Physically my body felt burned out, and mentally I was struggling with wanting to continue to train, even during the marathon cycle itself. I had just run another sub-par marathon and felt like I wasted another 4 months of my life in pursuit of a goal just to epically fail in front of so many people who had watched my journey and knew the goals I had for myself. I found out later that week that I likely had covid when I ran the marathon which would explain the result, and although that gave me some peace of mind, the road to recovery after that was a lot more challenging than I was expecting and it took me about 4 months to feel more like myself running again. Getting covid was just the tip of the iceberg, however. Looking back I know I was on a track to burning out much earlier than that but kept forging ahead knowing that I could take a break once the marathon was over.

Initially I hadn’t been planning on running a spring 2022 marathon, but after the NYC Marathon didn’t go so well, I wanted redemption. I initially picked the Illinois Marathon to go after a sub-3 goal which was special to me because it was where I ran my first marathon and where I went to college. Because of its smaller size, I also time-qualified to have table service which meant I’d be able to put bottles out on the course and be able to time my nutrition needs. I was excited about this race and all of the amenities that came along with it. I had also just quit my corporate job and taken coaching full-time so I had full control of my schedule and was looking forward to seeing what I could do with ample time to recover, get enough sleep every night, and have time for training more.

This winter was pretty frigid and it made training less enjoyable when every day it would be windy, gloomy, and downright bone-chilling. In mid-February, the Illinois Marathon emailed us to let us know that they would not be able to support a marathon at the end of April and it left me questioning if I should proceed with my cycle or not. I wasn’t particularly enjoying training through the winter and with a death in the family in January, was dealing with my own grief and the grief of my family around me. Emotionally I was pretty drained, but I had invested a lot into this training cycle so I found another race that was on the same weekend as Illinois and had a similar elevation profile and continued to chip away at my goals.

I won’t rehash the whole cycle, I talk about it in past posts, but what I haven’t talked about much is that I think ironically by having more time to train and recover that I put even more pressure on myself than I had before to succeed because there was seemingly no excuse anymore. I also felt pressure to perform to attract more athletes who would want to work with me since coaching was my full-time job now, because as much as we don’t want to admit it, results do boost business (after some of my bigger PRs I’ll get an influx of interest forms for coaching so the proof is in the numbers; can you tell I used to work in data analytics?). It became a recipe for disaster – overthinking every workout or result and it quickly stole my joy for racing and training.

After Eugene, I took a couple months away from structured training, running when I wanted and what I wanted, struggling quite a bit in the post-covid recovery. My heart rate was pretty high even at easier efforts and I felt like I was trudging through cement on every run. I put a lot of focus on strength training during this time because I didn’t have the same issues in the gym that I was having on the roads since my heart rate wouldn’t get as high not doing cardio. I kept running, however, not because I had to, but because instinctually it’s what I felt called to do. It didn’t feel great for a long time and I was concerned that I’d never get back to the level I was at pre-covid, but something inside me kept wanting to lace up anyway, and I honestly think it was just out of consistency having run for the last 15 years of my life and not knowing a world without running.

In August I ran a 5K at 6:23 pace as a rust-buster while visiting friends. We hadn’t been planning on racing initially when we were going to visit but an opportunity to run for free came up and I jumped on it. It was a low pressure, low expectations race, and ended up being one of the best paced 5Ks I’ve ever done. Most of all, it was so fun, and I wanted to do it again! I kept training throughout August and September and somewhere along the way my body started feeling a lot stronger and better on my runs, which enabled a lot more confidence. Every week was not perfect and sometimes I’d feel like I’d make good progress one week just to take a couple steps back the next, but I put a big emphasis on listening to my body, shifting workouts when I knew I wasn’t feeling quite right to give myself a shot when I’d feel better (and also to keep my confidence going in the right direction). I ended up closing out my season of speed this past weekend running a 6:18 paced 5K, a PR pace for me in the distance, and the week prior a 5:38 road mile. It would be tempting to keep going now that I feel like I’m on an upward trajectory, but this cycle served its purpose in restoring my fitness and my confidence and I want to hang onto that going into training for Boston later this year, and also recognize that it’s important to take scheduled breaks between training blocks even if the race is much shorter than a marathon!

Over the past week, I’ve been doing a lot of reflecting on my year of running, and though I initially described my spring marathon as a failure, what I didn’t recognize at the time was that I failed forward. In Eugene I ran a time that only 3 years ago I would’ve dreamed of running, but my perception had shifted as I got faster and the bar had been raised. Today, my “bad race” is a time that previous me would’ve been thrilled with, and that’s a sign of progress even if in a roundabout way. We don’t wish for failure and we prepare to succeed, but if there’s anything I’ve learned in 15 years of running it’s that failure is part of the process and success is often just around the corner if we are patient and consistent in showing up. Riding the lows in running can be hard, especially when they last for a couple years at a time, but if I gave up when it got hard, I wouldn’t be where I’m at today. Fit and ready to push my limits again training for the Boston Marathon, this time keeping fun at the forefront and doing it for me.