:: Update:: The latest news is: Our little house is featured today in an article on Apartment Therapy! Go to their site to read the great piece that Carolyn wrote! Thank you Apartment Therapy!
Yesterday, beneath a beautiful Montana sky, I pinned a race bib on for the very first time. It said 10k in the corner. And I couldn’t help but wonder at all this.
Because I’m not a runner. Oh, I’d hurdled windrows of fresh-cut alfalfa when I was young, and I’d raced to the end of the dock on hot summer days, trying to be first to leap into the lake for a swim, but I don’t remember ever having been in any kind of coordinated race. Running for sport or pleasure just never made it into my range of interests.
Until two years ago.
It came from nowhere; at least nowhere that I could tell. Suddenly, it was just there, that urge to run. We were in northern California at the time, spending several weeks there that summer, and I had time, and I found a path along a river, and I had three boys on scooters zipping along ahead of me, and I had my husband, most mornings, running by my side, coaching.
So, I ran.
I ran slowly, but I ran.
Muscles woke up, yawned, stretched, and began to work. It was sore work. Crazy-sore work. But I found that I loved it, this running beside the river, watching birds and butterflies, listening to all there is to hear in a place like that, feeling the wind brush across my face.
There was no plan or intention for this running, except to run quietly in my own time, in my own place, at my own pace. It was a portion of solitude in my days during a time of incredible tumult, stress, and loss. This was the beauty of it. Running didn’t come at me like a heavy burden with a list of bullet-pointed instructions attached that commanded me to set goals, strive, be better, be faster, and by such-and-such a time, sign up for this race, then go sign up for that one. It didn’t yell at me: Achieve! Achieve! Achieve! No, running was a gentle friend who met me in the morning, took me as I was, and hugged me when I finished, no matter how long or how far I’d gone.
It taught me so much about life.
So, there I was, yesterday, gathered under the big Montana sky, with runners 100 strong. For two years, I had put one foot in front of the other as quickly as I could. I had suffered injury that set me back more than once. I had learned about patience, learned about my body, learned about healing, learned about strength, learned about running. I’d learned that this whole thing was least about labels and most about heart.
Now, I was ready for my first official run.
The course took us from a smidgen of a little town, alongside a glittering river, up a steep grade between red rock canyon walls, across a dam that held back inky-blue water, down a mountainside that was drawn with wildflowers and puffed green trees, and back onto a gravel road, ending just past the coffee shop back in town.
My people were there, standing at the sidelines, looking for me to come down the road and make the final turn onto the gravel. They were cheering, snapping shots like the paparazzi, taking video. My man reached out, and I reached out, and our hands touched as I ran past. He said he was so proud.
The kids fell in beside and behind me, our kids, and friend’s kids and they were cheering and they ran the last few yards to the finish line, too.
It was sweet. So very, very sweet to know just how much had crossed that line in the dirt. This was the run that took two years, but lasted one hour and ten minutes.
There’s something I’m quite sure about: this is not the end.
I’m in the running, now.
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