April was a whirlwind of hikes (18 miles at Stone Mountain and 13 miles at South Mountain) and races (Rock ‘n’ Roll Raleigh and the Country Music Half Marathon) totaling 9,385′ of elevation gain! When I laid out my proposed April schedule, my physical therapist said “that’s a lot” but half-way through April, I moved to fewer physical therapy sessions, with only one currently scheduled for the end of May. The game plan, now that my strength has improved, is to wait until I finish my (even crazier) June running / hiking plans to begin truly working on the agility and pivoting that will be necessary to get me back to playing soccer later this summer. 

I’m just over a week away from the Trailblaze Challenge and my amazing supporters have helped me raise over $2850 for the Make-A-WIsh Foundation. I have officially surpassed my goal and truly appreciate all of the support I’ve received from family, friends and co-workers throughout the last few months of training. I’m still trying to figure out how I want to commemorate the official hike, but I’m currently thinking of doing something on Instagram, so make sure to follow me and cross your fingers that I will have cell phone reception out there!

Resolution Updates
Walk the dogs for at least 30 minutes, 5 days a week – How does non-existent sound? I’ve definitely been neglecting this resolution a lot. I am getting outside with the dogs more – while I’m working in the yard, they’re running around playing with each other or running the fence line racing the neighbor’s dogs, and they’ve been able to have a lot more access to the outdoors while I’m at work now that the weather is cooperating again, but I haven’t been purposefully taking them for walks, so for this month, I’ve got a big ol’ Goose egg

Drink more water – Still struggling with this one a bit too – I’ve been using an app to track my water intake, but there were some days when I looked at it and realized I hadn’t recorded anything for the last two days, so I had to go back and try to do an estimate. I need to get back to accurately tracking this again in May.
12 / 30 days drinking at least 39 oz. of water

2,015 miles in 2015 – Surprisingly, April was my second-lowest average daily miles so far this year, with just 5 miles per day (last month, I hit an average of 6 miles per day). I expected April to be a bigger month given all of my weekends were filled with either a long hike or a half marathon, but we did have an abundance of rainy days, which made my weekday average slip quite a bit.
151 miles in April for a total of 623 miles so far in 2015

March brought a few more races, Rock ‘n’ Roll DC and the Elizabeth 8k, warmer weather and more hiking. After the half marathon, my physical therapy sessions moved down to once a week and we started working on agility drills. The drills aren’t as hard as the leg lifts, but they did make me sore. A few weeks ago, I started with a ladder drill which has four components – high knees (forward & sideways) and quick feet (two in / two out and forward / backward) – I’ve done this twice now and the first time, my knee was sore for almost two days after the drill, but I did it Tuesday afternoon and while I could feel it in my knee as I was finishing my last two sets (just on the sideways high knees), after I iced it, I didn’t feel anything else, so I’m definitely making progress. The other move they had me trying was the “ice skater” which makes me appreciate how hard skaters work – I had to do three sets of one minute each and that was rough! In the words of my therapist, my schedule for April is “a lot”

• April 4: 18 mile hike
• April 12: Rock ‘n’ Roll Raleigh
• April 18: 22 mile hike
• April 25: Rock ‘n’ Roll Nashville

To be fair… I did warn them that my goal was to accomplish the 28 mile hike in May, so I’m not sure why this seems out of place… Yes, I added the half marathons, but I would have been hiking those weekends if I wasn’t running, so I’ll probably be covering a shorter distance than I would if I was hiking!

I also want to highlight the great support I’ve gotten from friends, family and co-workers who are all helping me reach my goal of raising $2,500 for Make-A-Wish for the Trailblaze Challenge in May. Over the last two weeks, I’ve raised almost $1,000 and I only have about $500 to go to hit my goal, so a big THANK YOU to everyone who has donated so far!!

Resolution Updates
Walk the dogs for at least 30 minutes, 5 days a week – I’m still way off on this one, but I have been outside with the dogs most days of the week the past two weeks, just not formally walking them. They love to run around and play with each other / run the fence line with the neighbors’ dogs while I’m outside working on my raised garden beds or mowing the lawn, so while my official totals are lower, I do feel better knowing they’ve been able to get some exercising playing together.
3 walks / 31 days – 8.3 miles

Drink more water – March was a rough month for this one too. For some reason, I’ve had quite a few days when it’s been hard to force myself to drink a lot of water. I’ve definitely found it’s harder to do when I’m working from my home office, so that’s something I’ll continue to focus on going forward, but I think overall, I’m definitely more hydrated than I’ve been in the past.
24 / 31 days drinking at least 39 oz. of water

2,015 miles in 2015 – coming out of February, I was trying to average 5.66 miles per day to get caught back up on the slow(er) start to the year. I’ve definitely picked it up in March, with an average of 6.02 miles per day. I still only hit or exceeded my goal in 9 out of 31 days, but in 5 of those 9 days, I doubled or even tripled the mileage, so I’m catching up a bit.
186.5 miles in March for a total of 472.2 miles so far in 2015