erica danielle

  50 miler: ✔️ Finished in 7:49 2nd female  3rd overall    What a day. I was so sick of bagels and carbs going to bed on Friday night. But I woke up Saturday morning and stuffed another down and then headed to the race briefing which was to start at 5:45am. It didn’t start at 5:45, it started closer to 5:55 and then all of the sudden basically mid-sentence the race director looked at the clock and said it’s 6am! Go! I hadn’t even started my watch to get the gps signal and ended up running about a tenth of a mile before pressing start 😝 ultras are just so different than road races. There is absolutely no urgency— it’s wild.  I started running with a gal named Emily about a 1/2 mile in and we stayed together through mile 32.  My goal was 8 hours which were 9:36 splits, her plan was 8:30’s so that she could spend a couple minutes at each aid station and that worked well for us. We stayed on pace through the 1/2 way point and beyond and then she started having...

Got home from work/school yesterday and the kids and I headed to the library. I got an alert that the cookbook I had been waiting for was ready and the school library books are due already for EOY, so everyone needed books.  How do you feel walking into the library? Me? I feel giddy with excitement. Endless possibilities. Quiet rows. The smell of knowledge and power and the hope and thrill of getting lost in another world.  I didn’t realize the after school crowd was going to be young parents trying to kill time during the “witching hour” and the library would be crawling with toddlers and babies. But even that was such a treat to see.  One mom even said: I was looking at how different your life looks. I have a 4 yo, 2yo and one on the way. You look so calm. Then I said the cringy statement I HATED hearing when my kids were that stage: it goes fast.  Dang it. But it does. And it was the only thing I could think of in the moment. Olle was snuggled up to me deeply engr...

These 3. And the Joy they bring me.  Sten. His unconditional love, loyalty, kindness, support, strength and humor. And his singing :) A room to clean and quality time with my girl.  Time w my mom and sister. The theater. Brunch. Walks through the city. Sunny skies.   xo. edc. 

The last 2 weeks have flown by and now I am less than a week out from my race and I can't believe it. When you put something big on the calendar it feels so far away- and those middle months where you have so many weeks to go, feel like a daily decision to do the hard thing. But now, I have barely any miles to run this week, lots of time to think and rest and be. 50 mile race training was equal parts hard and fun and I enjoyed so much about it, but I will also be glad when it is over and I can resume normal life :) My running friends gave me a tote full of all the most amazing race necessities and it was so over the top I couldn't even find words. It made me feel so READY and gave me a weird confidence that all I have to do is get out there and do what we've done together countless times for countless miles.  I feel so lucky to have the strongest, fastest, most amazing friends to share the miles with. The flowers were in full bloom and while running last week I smelled so m...

May is here. My favorite season-- Spring. As a mom spring means-  dirty house dirty children lots of bruises and skinned knees first sun burns easy bedtimes later dinners sunny mornings green grass stains on every article of clothing extra snacks clothes everywhere from starting the day in a long sleeve and ending with a tank top water bottles all over nightly front yard ball clean up. permission slips end of year concerts graduations class parties sign ups excessive emails teacher appreciation week trying to plan for summer Only coming inside to sleep and get food ready :) All the May memes are truly accurate. There are about 7,000 things happening this month. So here we go with a few of them: I never put my preschool kids on my blog-- but COME ON. this is adorable. We made binoculars for cloud gazing this week, and I couldn't get enough of them.  Lucy exudes more joy while singing than any other child. Multiple people stopped and told me they couldn't stop watching her. Even...