Baby Steps Towards One of My Dreams

WARNING: THIS IS A LONG ONE... I'M IN A REFLECTIVE, NOSTALGIC MOOD!

One spring term while I was in college at BYU (probably about 1995), I decided to stay in Provo instead of going home to work. I worked full time... and that was it!!! No homework, no research, no papers to write... just work and then LOTS of free time. I took this rare opportunity to start something I'd never done before: JOGGING. It was nothing serious, just a mile or two running circles around the track. Fast forward a year or two. I graduated and moved in with my grandmother in San Jose. Again, I worked full time in an early morning job that was over by 2 or 3 every afternoon. Add to this the fact that I was in a new city where I knew almost nobody and where grandma and I got along best if I wasn't around too much (don’t worry, I love my grandma!). Once again, I took up jogging - this time a little more seriously. I worked my way up to about 8 miles and learned to really love it. Now fast forward again. I moved to Long Beach, where I got my first teaching job. I forgot about my running and became very much addicted to my teaching. I ate, slept and drank teaching. I soon realized that I needed an outlet in order to avoid burnout after just one month! I picked up with my jogging again- especially enjoying the trail that cuts through the sand and takes one right along the beach for quite a stretch.

During some kind of goal setting unit that I was teaching in my 8th grade English class, I remember so clearly standing in front of my class and publicly setting the goal and making the commitment to run a marathon (at the time, I thought it would be that year sometime). I looked up some training programs and even went to a meeting for a marathon training club of some sort. Then… another one of my goals suddenly entered my life: JACOB. Once again, running got put on the back burner. Although I did go on short runs occasionally, my life basically consisted of teaching and spending time with my honey. Fast forward: we got married, enjoyed one year as blissful newlyweds and then got pregnant (it continued to be blissful!). Ammon was born. On his first birthday, we announced that I was pregnant again. Abraham was born. Jacob graduated from CSULB and decided that graduate school was a good idea. We moved to Idaho and I kind of became a single mom to two active little boys as Jacob crunched his way through an 18 month graduate program. I may have gone on a few occasional short runs, but they never amounted to much.

I had a cathartic experience one day when we went to downtown Coeur d’ Alene to watch the Iron Man Triathlon racers finish up their competition. I’m not sure what happened to me, but as I stood at the finish line and watched athlete after athlete complete the race and then collapse into family members’ arms or onto the floor (or even straight into a first aid tent for medical attention!), I started to cry. The tears turned into sobbing… and all the while I couldn’t explain to Jacob why I was crying. The only thing I could figure was that these people were doing something that I wanted to do SOOOO BADLY, yet here I was more than just a few pounds too heavy to run seriously and further from my dream than I’d ever been.

Fast forward again. We moved to Alaska and after giving birth to my baby girl Ziya, I decided to take up jogging again. I tried to go around the block and almost died. My lungs burned and my knees ached. I got frustrated and gave up quite easily. Then this past spring after losing a little bit of weight, I tried once again… this time with a bit more success. One friend dragged me along for a very hilly run. She gently but firmly encouraged me to run the whole route with her, not telling me until the end that we had run five miles of constant hills. I’d caught the bug again! My sister Elisa talked to me about running in the Anchorage Mayor’s Marathon with her. I knew I couldn’t get myself ready for a marathon in time, but I looked up the event and decided to prepare myself for something that day. Although I can’t yet call myself an avid runner, I have enjoyed going on 2-5 mile runs either by myself or with Kristen, another one of my “budding runner” friends.

On June 7, my sweetie Jacob joined me in my first ever official race, the Kenai River Festival 5K. I was thrilled to be able to finish the race without any walking. Even this small race (170 participants, I think) did much to get me excited about running events.

This brings me to the present. Yesterday, June 21, Summer Solstice, the longest day of the year, my good friends (even better friends now that we’ve experienced this together!) Kaarin and Angeline and I ran in the Anchorage Mayor’s Marathon (Elisa ended up not being able to make the big trip). All day we told people that that we ran “in” the Mayor’s Marathon… which we really did! We just chose to run in the 5-Miler event! It was such a great experience. Angeline has already blogged the day with tons of pictures and a great description of our race. I sat down to do the same, and instead, all of this came out. I guess what it comes down to is that I feel like this has been a long time in coming (thus, the length of this post!). Some may be reading and thinking, “All this… and she only ran 5 miles???” I do kind of wish that we’d done the half marathon instead, but I am just so thrilled to have participated in such a big event without dying ;) I’m not going to commit myself to any marathons or anything like that for the time being (I’ve already learned that sometimes Heavenly Father puts more important things in my path), but an occasional “Hey, how’s the running going?” would be really great and encouraging! Angeline, Kaarin and I are already talking about a few more races this summer. We’re all reveling in a beautiful Alaskan summer when our present lives allow us to dedicate a little bit of time to this re-discovered love.