After a long and well needed hiatus I am back. I want to thank all of those who sent emails wondering what happened to the blog and expressed their hopes that I would continue blogging. Your encouragement and interest is much appreciated.

I needed to take a break to focus on my personal life. I never intended to take as long of a break as I did, but a long inward journey pulled me away from expressing myself here.

Sometimes life takes us on a journey that we never anticipated, down paths that we would rather not take. You know those paths — seldom traveled and barely maintained, the ones that go careening down a mountain with treacherous drop offs, and then on relentless uphill climbs. Sometimes life ends up leading the way, tugging us along. The past seven months have been one of those journeys for me.

Seems like no matter how much a person has been through, difficult times are still difficult. I even had to swallow my own medicine as many people reminded me of things I said in various interviews. This quote: “Like in life, sometimes the most difficult times bring the most clarity…” was one of the bigger “pills” for me to swallow. And it was true. As with races and training runs, summits of those long climbs come into view and at the end of the journey we arrive with greater clarity and ultimately a deeper understanding of who we are.

In addition to this inward journey I had some great journeys both on and off the race course. One thing I never gave up during the blog hiatus was racing, and I’ll be filling you in on these experiences with upcoming entries that will include race reports, what I learned while traveling and racing, upcoming events, and training tips.

So thanks for staying tuned, and keep climbing those mountains!