How original, right? But also, nothing more true. We’ve all been through something that has either challenged us, changed us, or made us grow into who we are today.
I grew up an only child, which was always a very lonely existence once I was old enough to realize it. I guess when you are a baby you don’t know any better. When you get older you start to feel it – the summers that were oh so long. I spent them with my grandma during the day, and usually at her house. She always had toys and games for me there, and LOTS of snacks, as grandparents do. But it was never like home, never quite the same.
Each day I would settle in for breakfast, cartoons (cue the classics like the Flintstones and Jetsons), card games or puzzles, lunch, and then the hours of afternoon TV. The line up started with soap operas and ended with the 5 o’clock news. The ever popular 80’s and 90’s talk shows were sprinkled in, too, with 3pm ice cream and cookies.
At some point I got bored. Really, really bored. Grandma tried to entertain me, sure, but she was older and didn’t have the energy to keep up and could no longer drive. She did take me for bike rides and played a backyard version of 2-square with me. We gardened and cooked together, and I spent a lot of hours jumping rope and dancing to my Debbie Gibson boombox out in her carport. But I needed more.
It’s funny, I can remember it like yesterday, her backyard. The perfectly square shape with a thick viburnum hedge for a fence bordering the back. It is there that I found my ‘more’, there that I discovered running. I couldn’t have been more than 4, or 5 at the oldest, and I would run and run and run laps around the yard. And it felt so good, both the freedom it gave me and the release of what I realize now was the stress of those long days away from home.
When school finally started in the fall, I was so excited to go back! One of my favorite parts of the day, in those early years, was PE. Our oval shaped dirt track looped around the grassy back corner of the campus. Back then, PE was true physical activity and occurred every single day. We would warm up with jumping jacks and other calisthenics like toe touches, arm circles, windmills, etc. and then it was time to run our laps!
I always wanted to be the first girl to come in. And I did, lots of times. But there were other times I came in 2nd to a girl named Deana, and this used to drive me crazy! I would chase her around that track once or twice depending on what coach assigned us that day. We would laugh about it and were always friends, but I remember that feeling of wanting to win.
As I grew older and my body and interests changed, running faded away for a while. But when I was 13, something relit that spark. I cannot recall what it was, but I remember that first run around my neighborhood. The navy blue spandex shorts I wore and the midday sun shining on my skin. I did not know pace, time, or distance, all I knew was the love of the run and how it made me feel.
Over the next few years I began running more and eventually joined my high school track team for one season, but once again, running had to take a backseat. I had to choose either competitive dance or track. But those 5 mile runs with the other girls on the track team – out on the country roads by ourselves chasing endorphins – those made a lasting impression on my soul!
I stuck with dance all 4 years of high school, but I did not stop running. Instead, I managed to fit in 3-4 mile runs around the school track between dismissal and 4 pm dance practices. Or around my neighborhood after school before evening events. I would run on the days I didn’t have dance. Eventually I started running before school and later before college classes, as early as 5 AM which made my mom, and most everyone else, think I was nuts!
On September 4, 2000 I ran my very first race. It was the Miracle Miles 5k benefitting Arnold Palmer Hospital where I worked at the time, and coincidentally, also part of the same work family I belong to 22 years later. Reflecting on this, it seems very ironic how life can come full circle, just like the laps around that dirt track.
Running has always been a constant in my adolescent and adult life, even when everything around me shifted. I plan to run for many more years to come, God willing, and want to share my love of running with others. I’ve learned a lot along the way. I’ve made mistakes like we all do in this journey of life, yet I’ve come out stronger on the other side each time. Running has brought me peace in times of sorrow, joy on the best days, and confidence to handle everything in between. I can truly say I have found my ‘strength in running’.
Determined to Tri AND Run 