Joanie, Cokie and Sue B. stopping during run to pose under Magnolia tree.
I am so happy to be back running with my friends. Running brings me a lot of joy in a lot of ways. I get to be outside taking in all the sounds, sights and smells of Spring. Each day, I discover a new tree blooming or notice the way flowers are starting to break through the soil and that part of nature never fails to impress me. It often feels like I am seeing this lovely sight for the first time, even though I know it happens each Spring.
I love that my body is back to moving again and I love that with my friends we get to cover all these discussion items. Running has this great way of making you order your thoughts even without you realizing it. Many times I have come home and understood what I hadn’t before the run. Perhaps there was a problem I needed to work through and somehow running helped that process. I have read studies that testify that running makes you smarter and I believe it.
And I love this about running- it’s the real you. I don’t wear any make-up or pretend that I am a better athlete than I am because I can’t. Running requires that you be honest about pain. You simply can’t keep running when the pain gets too much. You come to really understand your body. I have had to come to terms with what my foot can and can’t endure. Each week, as we increase our mileage, my foot gives me a little more time until it starts hurting but I know, from experience, that it can only give me so much time. I had foot surgery in 2010 and have a screw left in my foot, near my toes. If I run too far and/or too long, the foot feels like it is being pinched. The pain can be relieved by taking off my shoe and bending my toes in different directions to get the pinch out. Then my foot will give me a few more miles until I need to repeat the process.
I am in my happy place when I am out running with friends on a beautiful Spring day. After brain surgery, I couldn’t stand the thought of my brain bouncing up and down in my skull. I stayed very still with my head while it healed. It felt liberating when I could finally run without the fear that I was permanently damaging my brain. Now the fear is gone and I am back to what I love doing. I am training for a half-marathon in Ogden in the middle of May. Alex and Taylor will be running the full marathon. Katie was training when her knee got injured. Joe and I will be doing the half. I am looking so forward to watching my boys come across the finish line. I always hoped that all my children would try a marathon. I have learned so much about life from running marathons. I didn’t realize that all my marathon training was to get me ready for the biggest, longest and hardest marathon of my life- cancer. Now it makes sense to me why I suffered through those long, sometime pouring rain, miles. I was training for life and I feel like that training paid off. It allowed me to persevere without complaint and look to the future with a “brightness of hope”. How grateful I am for my marathon training!
Running with my homies in April on Skyline Drive! Lori Hogue, Sue Buehner, Cokie Price, Joanie, Melissa Fabor and Jill Hays.
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