When you grow up, you notice things about yourself and your world. Self awareness is a wicked cool thing. Some of it is total bull. Some self observances I've had this week:

1. I wake up from my afternoon nap and like to have chocolate milk for a snack. 

2. I'm running in Pittsburgh this weekend and well on my way to running in 12 new places in 2016. Goals. 

3. Jesus may be the reason for Easter, but the real modern miracle here is how much better chocolate bars taste in egg form. Thank God for Reese's eggs. 

4. I finally learned how to bridge with cards. I'd like to think maybe I'm an adult now, but comment 1 disproves this. 

5. I have no real qualifications for the thinks I love and the things I hate. Sometimes I just hate things because I do and I just love things because I do. Sometimes I have a shit-ton of opinions and can justify all of my feelings. I like to think this makes me interesting and unpredictable, not flighty and self-centered. 

6. Growing up is pretty freaking awesome. I think I get happier, more confident, and love myself more. Or that might just mean that growing older makes you care a whole lot less what other people think. So cheers to more naps, running, and chocolate. 

    There are few relationships in this world I value more than my running buddies. It’s hard to find someone to run with. For me, there are the simple matters of finding someone who runs my pace, is willing to run outside when it’s negative 20 or 90, and someone who I don’t mind sweating with and, potentially, doing the number 1 or 2 with. Then there’s the far more complex issue of finding someone that I’m willing to let into my most sacred time.

      For the last four years, I’ve been incredibly lucky to have my Wednesday morning run with my friend, and former boss, Lori who checks all of the aforementioned boxes. She’s fantastic. She’s even willing to water jog or stair climb or elliptical with me if I’m injured and can’t run. She’s talked me through family and boy drama. Our Wednesday runs kept her from completely losing it when her job started to get rough. When Lori switched jobs last summer, part of her work agreement was that she could keep running with me on Wednesdays. That, my friends, that is how valued a good running buddy is. I’m forever grateful I found her.

     It was hard for me to let my ex into my running life. Running is holy to me. It’s what makes me, me. Bur running with me is probably what made him like me—it’s when I’m in my element, at my best, worst, most honest, and most vulnerable. After we broke up, a friend who comes to my workout classes asked to run with me.

     Karyn is athletic and fun. The farthest she’d run in her life before our first run was seven miles. We started trail running on a Sunday. Eight miles at Hitchcock—easily the hardest place I’ve ever run on trail. We found out not only have we lived a very similar life of sports, divorced parents, awesome younger brothers, love of boating, and dudes, but we actually share a step sister. Crazy freaking small world. We ran together the next Sunday in snow and the following in zero degrees. Karyn bartends on Saturday nights, so each Sunday she was running on four hours of sleep. We went a little father each time out, celebrating how each run was the farthest Karyn had ever run.

     In January I was teaching a cycling class and someone asked me what races I was doing in 2016. I said the only thing I knew for sure was Run Rabbit because my mom already had the date down in her planner. Registration opened in one week, I told them. “What?” Karyn said. “That means I have one week to decide if I’m going to run 50 miles?!” I about peed myself. I had no idea she was thinking about running it with me.

     We ran thirteen miles the next Sunday. That night she signed up for Run Rabbit Run’s 50 mile. We started meeting for my Thursday runs too. When I hurt my back and was out for a week, she ran with Yadi.

     My most wonderful best friends who I run Run Rabbit with, Molly and Cade, moved to Stillwater Oklahoma last year. Stillwater had a 50K dirt road last weekend. Molly and Cade had asked me to come down for the run. I wanted to so badly, but it was the same weekend as the Big Ten basketball tournament. Sixteen days before the race, I changed my mind. Karyn and I signed up for the 50K. We ran ten miles one day and then 20 miles the next of the weekend we signed up. We were as ready as we were going to get.

     When we got to our Thursday run, Karyn’s knee was hurting. She went to the physical therapist and he said she had IT band syndrome. That hurts like a mofo. It’s treatable, but one of the most painful injuries I’ve had.

     We went to the race and just thought we’d see what happened. We ran hard the first 15 miles because we were afraid if we stopped or slowed Karyn wouldn’t be able to start again. After the turn around, Karyn was in a lot of pain. We slowed down. Cade caught up to us and gave us new life. At mile 25 Karyn and Cade told me to go on and finish fast. My running buddy crossed the finish line shortly after me, running over ten miles farther than the farthest she’s ever ran, with IT band syndrome, finishing a 50K in under 6 hours, and placing as the 3^rd female. I’m so proud of my friend.

      The greatest friends I’ve found have been the ones I can run with, bike with, do yoga with. The ones who I want to go out for breakfast and lunch and talk to for hours about anything under the sun. I hope that everyone has someone in her life as good a friend as my running buddies.

I've been coaching 7th and 8th grade girls basketball and, obviously, have taken a break from writing. In that time, though, my short story for teens came out in the UK. You can purchase a copy of the anthology here. Pretty dang cool!

The other night, we couldn't get in the gym to practice and so we went to the other coach's' house and went over plays and then did crafts. While we were doing crafts, one of the girls was playing music. She was playing Aaliyah, TLC, old Destiny's Child--all the jams of my youth. As I knew all the words to all of the songs (because that's what I do--I can't dance, so distract from my dancing, I sing loudly. I can't sing, so I know all the words to all of the songs to distract from my singing), the girls were pretty impressed. I'd gained my cool card. Imagine how I could have amazed them if they'd played Outkast, Nelly, Tupac, Jay-Z or honestly almost any rap song produced between 1996 and 2007. I didn't get to show my sweet rap game, but that these songs resonated with me over 10 years ago when I was their age and younger and they are still listening to the songs now, and we all know all of the words, made me think about music and how girls will always be girls. Who can't relate to No Scrubs or Bug a Boo? 

One of my girls recently competed in a city wide academic competition on a team for her middle school. The kids on her team didn't know their tests were being sent in for the contest. They didn't study beforehand to prep like they could have had they known what the tests were for. They placed 4th out of 76 teams. My girl got first in Literature. I cheered her success as loudly as I could, but she told me she wished her parents shared my enthusiasm. Her parents made it to every basketball game. They were our only fans. I told her maybe they know how to cheer for sports but not for academics. She then asked me what I was like when I was her age. I laughed. I was just like her. Smart with nerdy friends. Athletic with jock friends. Never fitting in quite with either crowd. She then told me the greatest thing. She said, "That's the thing, Erin. Some people just don't get it. And some people are just gonna judge and I just gotta do me every day. I like myself. I don't want to be anybody else." "The sooner people can think like you," I told her, "the happier they'll be." 

We then started talking about poetry and music and how often people don't think about words. I had to play her my anthem of the last few months Elle King's American Sweetheart. (Listen to it. Read the words. It's the greatest.) After we jammed out, my wise eighth grade friend told me that Elle's song sounded like really living. "Being yourself and loving being you with as much passion is behind that song," she said, "that's really living." I was blown away. I don't know how she got so smart, but I hope we have some serious writing days in the future.