A Free Belated Christmas Present- Check it out!

#nofilter #soakingwetrun #gottastart2017somewhere

Do you remember me? I am your favorite blogger. You haven't heard from me in awhile. I took a short hiatus from blogging on Mamamgottarun the last few months (although I did still blog on the official Des Moines Marathon blog if you are interested). I have a million excuses for my taking time off from the blog, but I won't bore you.

However, I do want to make it up to you.

I have the best belated Christmas (or Hanukah or Kwanza or And Everyone I Am Forgetting...) present that you can ask for: I am going to start blogging again! Yep, that's my gift to you.

You are welcome.

I know, I know... this gift is just too much, right? You are completely overwhelmed with my graciousness and generosity, right? It's okay... no need to cry... oh you are too much, truly. I really want to give this to you.

Well... truth be told, this gift is for you, but it is also a bit narcissistic and cathartic.

I need my writing therapy back!

I miss sharing my running progress, healthy eating attempts, and crazy parenting successes and failures just as much (probably more) as you miss reading about them.

So to kick off the new year I have set 4 goals. I'd like to share these goals with you so I feel guilty have public accountability and continue to work on them all year long.

Goal 1: Run another marathon! It is time. My husband won't let me put another 26.2 sticker on the new SUV until I run another one. I'm kidding, but he did actually jokingly say that. Motivation enough for me!

Goal 2: Complete my team portion of 2017 miles in 2017. My hometown has an amazing running group, Sole Crazy Runners, that I follow on Facebook. There are two ladies responsible for this group, both of whom I graduated high school with (one you can find here, the other here). This group has allowed me, even though I live 6 hours away, to join their challenge. I have been placed on one of four 4-person teams, each attempting to reach 2017 miles in 2017. If you recall, I did this challenge with three women in 2015 and it was really incredible to complete.

#firstrunof2017 #solecrazy2017miles

Goal 3: Eat cleaner. I am currently on my second round of #Whole30. It is a clean eating challenge that you take on for 30 days in order to retrain your brain to eat healthy while breaking your bad eating habits. I did it last year and was able to lower my cholesterol levels to normal range with no medication, seriously minimize my migraines, and relieve chronic inflammation in my shoulder (I had surgery last year). Right now I am on day 4 so I basically feel like ripping off my husband's face if he looks at me sideways, crawling back into bed with exhaustion, and/or sneaking into the chocolate ice cream in the freezer. Obviously I will not do any of those things, but let's just say that coming up with sarcastic comments to write in this post were not difficult today.

#whole30 #crockpot #freshproduce #day1

Goal 4: My gift to you friends: I will try hard to blog weekly. My schedule has slowed down some this semester (I am a college professor when not running, parenting or blogging) so this should allow me some free time to get back to my first love, writing.

That's it. Those are my goals. If you took the time to read this entire post, I actually do have a free gift for you. I have five 2-pack samples of KT Tape left so enter the giveaway at the top of my blog, you can enter daily if you like, for multiple chances to win all of them. Ends January 19th at midnight. I will email the winner for their contact information once the giveaway expires. Phone users: If you are having trouble viewing the giveaway at the top of my blog, try logging in from a PC or tablet instead of your phone. Or simply click "View Web Version" on the link below from your phone.

#giveaway #kttape #mamagottarun

Here's to 2017! Happy reading.