I am behind. I love this time of year, the start of Day light Saving time (yep, no “s”), but it always throws me off kilter for a couple of days. The extra sunlight is worth the minimal discombobulation. I am also exceptionally tired from back-to-back rough nights of sleep due to the spinning wheel of anxiety in my mind fueled by the disgraceful dipshit in Washington starting wars, skirting jail time, and offending women/humanity incessantly, meanwhile my body was disrupted from the REM inducing repeatable thumps from our million-year-old sixty-eight pound dog, Blueberry, who sleeps on top of me vs. Marion six out of seven nights of the week, and the last two were humdingers. Plus, in case you have your head buried in the sand, the bombs keep dropping in Iran while the clarity of message of why grows murkier by the minute, and I just can’t shake that furious/fearful combo when chasing slumber. Nevertheless, with or without disappointing sunrise sleep reports from my Oura ring, marathon training and weekly blog posts carry on.

I ran plenty during week six of twelve on the build toward Boston. The workout highlights included a long day of sixteen miles, again, a variety of bike workouts, a handful of quality swims, the addition of pushups back into my strength routine, (using dumbbells alleviates the strain on my handy-capped left wrist) and most importantly, being limber enough to confidently crouch down into a baseball-catcher knee-bending squat whenever I choose; a noble, yet subtle feat and layperson luxury I have struggled to regain since my body was blasted by the car in 2024.

I am still not positive of the extent of damage the car did to my left leg. The LA hospital chapter of my crash story was splintered and unclear at best, (I had to advocate/fight for imaging on my cramped and swollen left leg fearful of compartment syndrome, blood clots, etc.) but muscle tears were confirmed the second day at the hospital, and then a fractured toe about ten days later at an Urgent Care by the Dr. removing my stitches. Yet the painful clicking in my knee was never addressed or accessed which made gaining flexibility in my left leg over the last eighteen months gradual and (I believe) justifiably nerve-wracking.

However, last March when I was in Vancouver, I made the wise decision to seek careful training and guidance from an astonishing lad named, Keaton Van Dyke at the legendary PNW fitness facility, Restore Human, where he lent his knowledge and confidence to build my whole body and mind back to health.

The end of another stellar session with Keaton at Restore Human.

But I was never crouching care-free whilst living in Canada, that milestone arrived after diligently stretching daily every day I was there, gleefully grimacing under Keaton’s guidance, and doing it solo in our garage and while strolling along lower shelves libraries, supermarkets, et all, since I’ve been home, and thankfully today, I can crouch with a smile because the grimace is gone.

Present day. Room for improvement, but we’re getting there.

It’s the attention-consuming, unsexy, vital mobility and all-powerful strength stretch exercises I do not skimp out on these days (post battered and broken body or not) that I believe are the key to keeping my middle-aged body cranking out marathons, etc., until I choose to stop, rather than the choice being made for me.

Regarding the astounding human body, the book I read last week from Dr. Herman Ponzer, Adaptable, delves into the intricacies of how our bodies come to be after a wink and a nod from our parents, and then evolve depending on the physical, mental, and emotional settings of our environment. I read Ponzer’s book Burn last year, and loved it! I have never felt more proud and at-ease with the stunning skills of our kidneys, majesty of our muscly heart, and infinite AI busting potential of our brains than after reading his books and highly recommend them both.

Finally, I am introducing a new segment this week that will run until the end of this blog series toward the Boston Marathon, and I am going to call it, Why My Big Brother Is Amazing.

My brother Tim, the eldest of the four Kelly kids, was the first marathon racer in our family, and the first double Cancer survivor in our family. Yes, beating cancer twice is one reason Why My Big Brother Is Amazing.

You may remember that Tim came out of his marathon racing retirement to run the Boston Marathon in 2023 alongside his devoutly marathon obsessed younger sister, (“Hi!”) his cancer was already in remission on race day, but he still had his finale chemo treatment the day after the race, quite a unique and badass way to experience “race week”. In a terrible twist no one saw coming, Tim’s cancer returned in 2025, but AGAIN, with the help of a trial treatment from Dana Farber, he beat it back into remission a short time later, and lucky for his always up to run a marathon who earned a dazzling BQ last May little sister, (That’s me!”) we will both be lining up in Hopkinton on Marathon Monday, April 20th, to run 26.2 miles back toward Boston. Again.

If you want to find out more reasons why Tim is amazing, come on back next week, but in the meantime, you can support his fundraising effort for Dana Farber HERE.