The Distance

I have been BFFs with running for a while now. Like most friends we have had our ups and downs. Those bikini bottoms I was forced to run in during high school track was almost a deal breaker. But I some how found the courage to get back out there and become a recreational runner after my blink and you missed it stint as a lady bruin. To me running has two faces. One is the distance mileage mediation side and one is the short, fast and hard bad ass side. Now, don't get me wrong. When you take the first run - that first one ever, and you make it down two blocks and back with out stopping to walk and you are huffing and puffing outside on your drive way when you get home, you feel like a bad ass, a crazy fool, but a bad ass-and believe me you are! But the kind of crazy I am talking about is when you are at the gym on a treadmill moving the incline up and down, when you are so adapt at changing the RPMs you don't even look at the control panel to do it any more. When you are huffing and grunting through the challenging parts and only a little less in your recovery stage, so much so that the people around you get nervous. When you know what you are doing on your treadmill is making people turn up their machines as well. That is amazing. For the last three years that is the type of running I have been doing.  My farthest distance run since moving to and from Germany has been five miles. I would love to train and accomplish my first marathon now that I am in the states and I am sure I will, one day. Being a mother and an army wife often shapes my goals and accomplishments. Long distance running and training takes planning and team work. Being an Army wife means I have moved about five times during my seven year marriage. I have also had two babies and faced two deployments.  So I have had to adapt: to new places and to new environments. We are growing up. We are marrying our best friends. We are having babies. We are leaving behind the trails that led down those first runs.  For the first time, we are beginning to move away from the people and places that have shaped us. My first and only distance race was the Army 10 Miler. I ran and trained for it with my best friend. Someone who has held my hand through college, the birth of my first child and continually shows up when I need her most. Though she has stayed close to our hometown, I have moved from Hawaii to Germany and some places in between. We can't train together in the same way we did for that first race. But it does not mean we don't inspire and encourage each other. And though she has new friends to encourage her, train and race with, I own the memory of that very first one. Growing up is hard and sometimes it leaves you opening your front door and facing a place so new you will have to completely trust your GPS to get you back to it after lacing up your sneakers and heading out on that first run. Those first steps into the unknown can be lonely but the rewards can be amazing. Those first steps have taken me from my neighborhood in Burke, Va to the monuments of Richmond, from the hills of O'ahu to the vineyards of Stuttgart.  Currently I run with my dog past the historical "white elephants" of Ft. Benning GA, tracking my mileage with a "nike +" shoe pod because I don't know the area well enough to gauge distance on my own. And though I am in a completely new place, every mile I log makes it feel more like home. After all, "Home is where the the Run is....." and every run sticks tough to you.