Some of my 2011 race bling and bibs

Happy New Year!!  I’m looking forward to a new year of running and the new goals, challenges and opportunities it will present, as well as continuing my quest to run the world.  But before I get to all of that, I’m looking back at my running in 201. The good and the bad.
  
It was the best of times..
I’ve run through a castle in a tutu and tiara in Disney’s Princess Half Marathon…

through my neighborhood in the CPC Loop…

beside the azure waters and palm-tree lined avenues of the French riviera in the Nice Half Marathon…

and at night cheered on by 150,000 spectators in the ING-Europe Night Run in Luxembourg.

I’ve had the chance to meet and run with runners I’ve looked up to at the Princess Half Marathon, 

With Jeff Galloway at Disney’s Princess Half Marathon

and the BlogHer 5K, where I met founders of the blog, Another Mother Runner, where I recently  contributed a guest post…

BlogHer 5K with Dimity and Sarah (in pink tanks) of Another Mother Runner.

I’ve run across continents…

and with my virtual running buddies for National Running Day and a turkey trot via DailyMile to raise funds for clean water.

It was the worst of times…
I’ve run when I had absolutely no desire to…

and through back pain, dropping my iPhone, and setting a PR – for my worst half marathon time ever – all in the same race. 

In terms of numbers, 2011 was not my best year of running. It took turning in my worst time for me to realize that I needed to push the restart button. I decided I would only run a few miles a few times a week, like I had in the beginning, and get back to basics. I often had hard time getting my mojo going and at times, it showed. Runners run. And in 2011, for better or worse, I did just that.  While I didn’t race during this time, I kept my goal of “running the world” in mind, and continued to run during travels to Paris, Toulouse, Los Angeles, San Diego, Valencia and Copenhagen.

Preview 2012 
I will continue to run in 2012, and things are is shaping up to be even better.  In my continued quest to run the world, my races for the first half of 2012 include CPC, my favorite neighborhood race, anchoring my first marathon relay team, which I put together for the Milan Marathon, and running in the inaugural runs of the Rock ‘n Roll and Warrior Dash series in Europe.