Good Chris and Other Chris - There Can Be Only One

It’s been an interesting few weeks of running, punctuated by a terrible training run this past Sunday. I have a marathon coming up and despite having trained for the last five months I feel relatively unprepared for the endeavor.  Upon coming home, somewhat frustrated, one of the little angels asked me a simple question, "Why do you like running if it's so hard?"

To understand why I am writing this we should probably go back a couple of years. I started running in January of 2013. I didn’t start running because I wanted to; it was more of a stroke of self-preservation. My wife and I had recently had the third of our three girls, my father had fallen ill and I was in a dead end job. The combination of these factors had produced a stagnant fellow with gravy in his veins. Side note, when you are struggling financially, there is no worse shopping trip you can make than buying bigger pants to accommodate your ever expanding posterior. I had blossomed to a sweaty 250 pounds and felt something had to give.

Unfortunately, what ‘gave’ was my father’s health. In early January, my dad called to let me know that his cancer had spread and taken a firm hold in several areas of his body. His prognosis had gone from positive, to tentative to grave in just a few short months. His once constant optimism had become more transparent and for the first time in the few years he was battling cancer, he was beginning to look sick. I decided that I would start to run to lift my father’s spirits. The old man was an avid runner and had run the New York, the Boston and many other marathons. It’s a bond he and my sister shared. I thought he would like to see me run a little and maybe shed a few pounds.

Starting to run when your body has been fairly dormant is zero fun. I doubted my decision early in virtually every run; the conversation went something like this…

Good Chris: “You’ve got this, buddy. Just keep pushing! It’ll get easier!”

Other Chris: “Don’t listen to that guy. Let’s get outta here. I think there’s a bar in this gym.”

Admittedly, ‘Other Chris’ won more often than I’d like to admit. He’s quite the salesman. Being a father of three young girls, trudging through work hours of a job with little satisfaction and my father’s failing health made walking away pretty easy. I’d like to say that there was an encouraging phone call from my dad that turned the whole thing around. The phone call we received was much worse. By March, we were burying my father.

My sister is an avid runner and she talked me into what I thought was a crazy idea. She talked me into running a half marathon in my Dad’s honor. The race in question was a couple of months out and she had already signed up. In what I consider to be a moment of weakness my sister pounced on, I brazenly agreed. Clearly it was the movie ending I was looking for. I trained for a few weeks and felt like I was perfectly capable of running…a 5K. As it happens too often in my life, my need to fit in outweighed what the smart decision should be and I took to the starting line at the Colfax half marathon. Fast forward past the first ten miles where I was passed by a ten year old, a teenage girl running in bike shoes that punctuated each step with a ‘clicky-clicky’ sound and a septuagenarian pushing an air tank in a baby stroller (all of which are true but perhaps not in that order). It was the last three miles where death would have been welcomed. My lungs burned and I felt like my legs weren’t working. I crossed the finish line in around two and a half hours. I was embarrassed as my wife and sister had time for a beer and a snack waiting for me to finish.

Chris from 2012 would have left it at that. Something I didn’t do well is something that should be left behind. But 2013 Chris was a little different. 2013 Chris decided to get better, to try harder and to learn from defeats instead of running from them. August of 2013 I ran a race called the Wild West Relay. It is a 200 mile relay race from Fort Collins to Steamboat Springs, Colorado. Again, it wasn’t perfect, far from it. One of my teammates offered that he thought I may have preferred that he run me over with the van rather than finish my last leg. But I finished. It was a race that I looked at as impossible and now I had a medal.

The running stuck. Over the next couple of years I would drop fifty pounds and shave a couple of minutes a mile off my pace. Last May I ran my first full marathon. It was slower than I wanted but instead of walking away I took it as a reason to train harder. “Other Chris” almost never rears his ugly head. Frankly, I don’t know who the guy in the mirror is some days.

So that brings me to my training run. It was supposed to be a twenty two mile run but it was abbreviated to a slow eleven. Something in my back was bothering me and it made it hard to breathe. I stopped running, not because “Other Chris” told me to, but because my body did. It was the right thing to do. Don’t get hurt and postpone the training run by a few days. It’s optimistic. Sure, I still worry about the marathon, but not in that “I hope they aren’t taking me away in an ambulance” kind of way. It’s more of the desire to run it in a time that I can enjoy and without aggravating any injuries.

So the base question is “Why do you run if it's so hard?” The answer is too long to list. There are the easy things, it gave me back a wardrobe that I had considered dead and made it possible to ride bikes/swim/run/coach my little girls without wondering if I can handle it. Running has given my things to do and people to do it with. I will be running my third Wild West Relay this year. I have made friends and come to a better appreciation of my wife, sister and others. It has been an example to my children of what a healthy lifestyle looks like. It helped me cope with my dad’s passing and gave me something to help my sister and I bond during a rough time. But the biggest thing is the guy in the mirror. I didn’t always like him. He was someone who gave up rather than swim upstream. I hadn’t seen that guy in a while. The guy in the mirror now smiles easier and sleeps better. “Other Chris” has officially kicked rocks and “Good Chris” seems here to stay, all thanks to running. That's the lesson girls.  It's hard, but completely worth it, almost always.  Most things worthwhile in life are hard, and completely worth it, almost always.

Alex Karras and Snowmageddon 1978

A couple of thoughts going through my mind this morning.  I'm looking out at my backyard and seeing what is being referred to as "Snomageddon 2016".  In all actuality, I think it fell a few feet short of such an auspicious title.  The other thought was that of my Aunt Rosemary.  She recently fell ill and is spending a week or so in the hospital.

So what so Snowmageddon and Aunt Rosemary have in common?  Well Mel Brooks obviously.  In the spirit of transparency, the events in this story took place a long time ago, long before my bald spot and mortgage, so if some of the facts don't jive perfectly, blame the foggy memory of childhood.

A little background.  My Aunt Rosemary often had a hard time saying 'no' when we were kids.  Generally speaking, this inability manifested itself in Star Wars figures and Atari games, but occasionally it went a little deeper than that.

Here is where the ol' memory gets a little dodgy.  My brother desperately wanted to see Blazing Saddles, but it's R rating put it as off limits to my older brother, Steve.  Why I question my memory of the events is because Blazing Saddles came out when I was three years old, but I remember the story fairly distinctly that I couldn't have been that young.

As the story goes, Steve was able to cajole Rosemary into taking him to Blazing Saddles, but there were a few sticking points, namely my little sister and myself, and "Snowmageddon 1978".  My aunt hates driving in the snow.  She hates the snow with an intensity reserved for intestinal flu and audits.  She had promised Steve that she would take us to the movies, but Blazing Saddles was playing in the town over from us and the snow was already falling.  She loved her nephew but hated the snow.  Steve should take homage in the fact that her love of him outweighed her hatred of the snow.  Rosemary and the kids loaded up into the car and set off into the storm.

Fast forward to the end of the movie.  It ended later at night and the car was under at least a foot of snow.  Rosemary was dealing with the one-two punch of the recognition that her niece and nephews had a better working knowledge of the R-rated dictionary because of the movie they had just seen and the twenty mile drive in really awful conditions.  Silver lining?  At least she had an hour and a half to figure out what to say to my mom about the movie we had just seen.

My aunt is a very strong woman, so the face that a seven year old could recognize the white knuckle experience Rosemary was going through means something.  The fact that I can still visualize it to this day means even more.  We made it home okay, but we were all damaged in our own way.  For Rosemary, it was a hairy drive and the knowledge that she had let her niece and nephews talk her into seeing some of Mel Brooks' best work, for me it was seeing the Alex Karras campfire fart scene and knowing that no movie would ever match up.

So the lesson girls?  This one is about your Aunt Jen.  Aunts are amazing people, and they will let you get away with a little more than Mommy and Daddy will.  There is a fair chance that your first R-rated movie, your first beer, hell, your first tattoo will be while holding your aunt's hand.  It doesn't make it okay, but I'd rather you get your ears pierced under the watchful eye of Aunt Jen than with a safety pin in your buddy's basement.

Feel better Aunt Roe.  Thank you for braving the snow for us.  Thank you for giving me the campfire fart scene.  Thank you for everything else you have done over the years.  Incidentally, I'll be braving the snow here in a few minutes to come visit, so clearly we are even.

Okay, I Get it...She's Faster Than Me!

Kids are funny and expectation is even funnier.  My eldest, Avery is getting ready to turn nine years old, and like most eight year olds her interests are as varied as her skill level in said interests.  As a parent, we tend to overestimate our children’s abilities.  I see it in soccer every year, “why isn’t Billy getting more playing time? He’s the best player out there!”  My internal dialogue usually goes something like this “Because Billy (chose option) tackles other kids…asked to come out…is hiding in the net…has to potty…is thirsty, hungry, tired”.   But I’m the same.  To me, all of my kids are the smartest, funniest, prettiest and most athletically gifted.  It’s probably not true but good luck convincing me of that. 

That brings me to this week.  I’ve always known that Avery was a very good runner.  She has always had a unique ability to run for days.  I've been hesitant to consider her to be as fast as she actually is.  She's fast, but coming from her parent's stock, how fast could she actually be?  Her soccer coaches recognize it.  She has always earned extra playing time because she always appears fresh regardless of how long she has played in a game.  Her P.E. coach has acknowledged on a number of occasions that perhaps Avery belongs on a track team of some sort citing her form and her endurance. 

Last weekend she ran in a 5K and did very well…and I mean VERY well.  She finished third out of the youth group.  This means she was third out of 112 kids aged 15 and under.  The race director pulled me aside and questioned whether or not she had actually run the race and despite my verification, the director didn’t believe me.  He was ready to award her medal to someone else and I couldn't believe it.  It wasn’t until another woman who ran with Avery confirmed that Avery had blown by her at the second mile marker that she was allowed to receive her medal. 

Yesterday, the track coach from what will be Avery’s middle school reached out to my wife asking if she would be continuing to compete.  Middle school is three years away.  It seemed like a crazy conversation to be having.  Frankly, all of this seemed crazy.  The medal, the sub 24 minute time, the call from the middle school track coach.  It would have all seemed even crazier if it weren’t April Fools Day, but alas, here we are.  Happy April Fools Day!