Trigger warning: References surrogacy and traumatic birth.

Like so many people, once I had kids, I stopped running as much. It wasn’t intentional. I was always running, at least a bit, before I got pregnant. For some of the pregnancies, I stuck with it, even running a couple of races when I was showing enough to get some stares. But, at some point during each one, running got less fun, life got in the way, and I took the out. I always started back up again, but when you are pregnant, nursing, or preparing to become a surrogate for every day, straight through, from October 2018 until August 2025, it gets a little difficult to gain momentum. 

One year out from August 2025, I think I have some momentum again.

On August 1, 2025, at approximately 2 p.m., I was induced for my last birth. This one was not to complete my family of three kiddos, but rather to help another family. I was induced for gestational hypertension—not uncommon when you are “old” (I mean, “of advanced maternal age”) and the implanted embryo that led to the pregnancy was from a foreign egg (not mine) and sperm (not my spouse’s)—and pretty much nothing about the delivery was the same as my own biological deliveries. It ended in the early hours of August 2, 2025, with me in emergency surgery when the placenta did not detach and also included three blood transfusions to make up for the loss of 1.75L of blood.

Pre-Admission Parking Lot Selfie (August 2025)

Very slowly and with a lot of effort, I walked out of the hospital on the evening of August 3, 2025, a far cry from the ease with which I had walked into the hospital 55 hours earlier. 

Without a baby to take care of and instructions from my provider to “take it easy” and “listen to my body,” I attempted to walk to the mailbox a few days later. I couldn’t. In my defense, it is about a half mile away and up a hill (thank you, rural Vermont!), but I just could not get there while still following those instructions from my medical providers. What my body easily did 35+ weeks pregnant and pushing a two-year-old a week earlier was no longer possible.

As those blood cells regrew, I stuck with it. I took a picture of the mailbox and sent it to my spouse at work, with no caption or explanation, a couple of days later. My first run back, which included a lot of walking—again, please remember that I was sleeping through the night and not taking care of a baby, which makes everything infinitely easier—was before six weeks (and not a huge surprise to my medical providers) and started a slow return to what used to be my normal.

#proofofmailbox (August 2025)

I did my favorite trail half marathon: last completed the month before the surrogacy contract was signed.

I pushed my two-year-old on a 25K turkey trot, while he repeatedly flung every article of clothing out of the stroller until he fell asleep: last completed the morning after my first progesterone shot preceding the embryo transfer.

I started using Strava (and kept up with my weekly run streak). I started using Runna. I got a new Garmin (wow, have they improved since 2010).

I signed up for a fall 2026 marathon.

And then, on August 1, 2026, 364 days after giving birth, I did one of my favorite ultras for the first time since 2016: Moosalamoo Ultra, the brainchild of John Izzo and now produced by Will Robens and Ironwood Adventure Works. This is 36 miles of almost entirely trail—intermixing some dirt roads, bushwacking, and traversing a mud bog that likes to eat shoes—with more than 5,000 feet of vertical gain. It is beautiful, hard, fun, ridiculous, and worth every step of the journey.

At mile 27, just after that infamous mud bog, I saw my family for the second time. They were volunteering at an aid station (miles 20 and 27), and I was greeted with a “Mom, you are muddy.” As I left the aid station, I peeled up the athletic tape covering the face of my watch, just to get a quick peek. It read 1:55 p.m.: approximately five hours after I started the race and almost exactly a year, to the minute, after I was induced. The athletic tape was on there because, while I wanted this on Strava (and to confuse Runna with why I had done a 36-mile race in the middle of a marathon training block), I just wanted the day to be about having fun and getting to that finish line. In the moment, though, I realized that if I could do nine miles in two hours, I would achieve the cool milestone of a sub-8 at Moose. An hour and 55 minutes later, I was faced down in the dirt wondering if I lived there now. I had just tripped, and the change in motion caused both calves to cramp. It was more a shock to the body than anything else and I was back on the move and shuffling towards the finish line less than a minute later, crossing with a time on the clock starting with a 7, as the first “old” lady (what I affectionately call female masters runners), and my spouse and kids (who were taking a short break from the pile of 50 pinecones they had collected) cheering me on.

Muddy Legs at Mile 27 of Moosalamoo Ultra (August 2026)

From an emotional perspective, it was a good day to have a good day.

From a practical perspective, it reflected a year of making smart choices, listening to my body, and prioritizing ME and something I loved.

And from a family perspective, it showed that, for the second year in a row, my spouse and I can find a way—and maybe it involves early mornings, logistical finagling, and bored kids collecting pinecones—back to our 2018 normal, only a way better version of it. Not only are our kids here for it (literally, two of them were dragged to the finish line of Vermont 100 in a wagon in 2025 to watch their dad finally get his sub-24 at Vermont 100), but it seems that, with the wisdom of age, the cliché of time being precious, a pinch of salt (or handful of salt pills), and some wins from the Universe, we are now, objectively, better at this.

Greeted at the Finish of Moosalamoo Ultra (August 2026)

One of the things that I love about running is that you get so many firsts and so many opportunities to start with a fresh slate. You can have lifetime PRs, post-partum PRs, “old” lady PRs. You can have your longest run, longest run of a training block, longest run since an injury. And so on. If you are new to running, welcome. If you are returning to running, welcome back. I hope that RunVermont gets to be a part of your running journey, whatever stage of it you are in.