Birthing a porcupine

Holy moly.

I once heard a Comrades veteran (a lady) liken running the world's greatest ultra marathon to giving birth to a porcupine with a pineapple clenched under each arm (paw?)...  Ouch.  And even though I've never run the Comrades Marathon myself (yet), this visual has always stayed with me in challenging times.  Like this past week.

While every man and his donkey was posting pictures of sun, sea and holiday fun on every social media channel imaginable, I was still battling to give birth to a (work-related) porcupine.  And I'm pretty sure it clenched two pineapples and a prickly pear under each paw.  It.  Was.  Excruciating.  I'm happy to announce, though, that my porcupine has been successfully delivered and that I've finally joined the ranks of the fun-in-the-sun brigade.  Sela.

Successfully birthing a porcupine calls for cake.  Rich, dark, chewy chocolate cake.

As you can imagine, running and birthing a porcupine is mutually exclusive (except in the case of the Comrades Marathon, according to the veteran), so my runs have been few and far between.  Until today.  

Let the holiday festivities and the running begin!