Fan Club

I just got back from a run with four of the coolest people I know.

My sister Grace has been a constant running partner since coming to live with us in August. We run together at least one or two times a week. It makes it so much easier to be motivated to walk out my front door and take that first step when I know I'm not doing it alone (and I'm accountable to someone too!)

My husband Danny is my biggest fan. He is a REAL runner in my book. He has run four marathons and is an overall athlete. I admire his discipline. I also think God blessed him with a naturally athletic body, although he has struggled with a calf injury over the past year (we all gotta get old sometime!) But ever since we started dating he has wanted to run with me.

(This picture is of Josiah, Hannah and I helping Danny run the last mile of his Indianapolis Marathon in October)

I have gone through a lot of running spurts in my life. I did a track season my 8th grade year at Delta Middle School and then again my sophmore year at Penn High School. I was never very good, but I was determined. In college I picked up recreational running for exercise (coincidentally right as I was hooking up with Danny, or maybe that isn't a coincident). I am always on again off again. I got pregnant and then we moved to Kenya. And then oddly enough I started running again in Kenya. That was an experience that would make a real runner out of anyone. I ran in a dress. With lots of Kenyan school children running along laughing. Or in a small little circle around my house, around and around with the neighbors watching and wondering about that crazy muzungu woman. In Kentucky I continued running and I brag about how I ran in 22 degree blistering cold weather on snowy, icy streets. I have run through shin splints, knee problems, weak ankles, and most recently hip pain. It's always something. I'd give up, but my husband and my own stubborness won't let me. Sometimes I wonder if it's worth it--all the pain I endure and the stretching and icing and muscle strengthening I have to do just to be able to run a few miles.

My husband and children make it worth it. I have a lot of family history of high choleterol (which I've already struggled with) and heart disease, heart attacks etc. I want to be here to celebrate 50 years of marriage with Danny. I want to see my children's children's children. . . And I actually feel good when I run. I feel good about myself and that it's good for my body and that I am building up my endurance and going farther without dying. It's good for the soul too. And today was fun. I went on a run with Danny and Grace while Danny pushed Moses and Noah, all bundled up, in the stroller. Talk about a fan club. There is nothing sweeter than a chubby cheeked, long lashed, blue eyed little face pressed up against the plastic window of his stoller saying, "Hiyee Mommy!" And Moses saying, "Go! Mommy!" Melts my heart. And keeps me running. And my husband says, "This is the most fun." He is, and always will be, my biggest fan.

I am a runner. And I am blessed.