My dad and I always used to say, after a tough run, “It hurts good.”  Now that I made it through my first real week of training in 2014, I can assure you that by the end of the week I hurt good.  This week I invited several old friends back into my routine.  My boxing gloves, my goggles and my yoga mat, just to name a few. If variety is the spice of life, then I was cooking with the big dogs this week.  By Thursday night I had been to the Boxing Gym and the pool, I had run on roads and trails and I had made use of my time at home with the kids on the bike trainer and doing a yoga DVD.  Oh, and even though I haven’t used them this week, I stopped to pick up my hockey skates that I had sharpened.

By Friday, my body was screaming at me, wondering what in the world I thought I was doing re-introducing all of these activities at the same time.  While I know that the pain is a good thing because it means I’m stretching, growing, making progress, I also know when I need a break.  So I decided to take a Friday off.

But yesterday I was back at it.  I coached with the Fleet Feet trail group.  I led the long run group of Reindeers through the Al Foster trail, into Castlewood and back.  As we all know, I love to tell stories, so it won’t surprise anyone to learn that I earned myself the title of the “Ghost story telling Sherpa” today.  But 10 miles leaves a lot of time for stories, so I didn’t stop with the ghost stories. I told many other stories too.  Appropriately, since I was running with the Reindeer group, I told the story of a conversation I had with Silas about a year ago, just before Christmas.  It went like this…

Silas: Mom, you are a reindeer.

RRG: I am?!  Which one am I? Am I Dasher?  Or Vixen?  Or…

Silas:  No.  You are Gassy.  Gassy the reindeer.

RRG: Wow, that’s an unfortunate name.  Are you sure I can’t be one of the others?

Silas: No.  I like Gassy.  You are Gassy the Reindeer.

And so a nickname was born.  Warning: Gross Runner Girl Disclaimer once again.  Anyone who has ever run with me will tell you that I spit and blow snot rockets.  A lot.  Just ask Nick and Steve about Thursday night on the levee how they kept dodging my snot flying in the wind.  Sorry, Guys.  People who have run with me will also tell you that I have healthy GI track.  Therefore, I should probably embrace my Silas given nickname.

Anyway…

At little after 7:30 am we started our run with a group of about 6 of us on a brisk morning with a sky of bright pink that quickly faded to a dim gray.  A few miles in we sent a pair on a loop back to the parking lot since they were doing the short course.  4 of us continued on.  Eventually another pair dropped back a little bit.  So it became just two of us plodding along, sharing our stories, our legacies.  Chera’s story was pretty amazing.  She had been a single mom for a while too.  I asked what made her take up running.  This is something that always fascinates me because as someone who has been a runner since the ripe old age of 9, I find it hard to comprehend how difficult it would be to start at this point of my life.  Everyone has a story, everyone has a different reason for doing what we do, everyone has a specific favorite area of expertise, but we are all endurance athletes.  We all run or tri or what have you in an effort to prove (more to ourselves than anyone else) that we are conquerors.  On Friday at work there were 4 of us in the store, Will, Rosie and I were all talking to a customer who is preparing for a 100 mile race.  Rosie has completed a 100 mile race.  Will has completed an Ironman.  As this customer said, “Hats off to you” about training for my Ironman, I said, “That’s only going to take me about 14 hours, you’ll be running several hours longer than that.”  Why do we choose to do the things we do?  We want to believe that we are capable of great things and we push ourselves to the extreme in order to find out what our limits are. We want to have a good story.

So, as Chera and I led the way along the slightly snow covered, very frozen, gravel path, I told her a story about pacing my friend Jess on a tough half marathon course through Clayton a couple years ago.  Jess wanted a sub 2 hour half marathon, I agreed to run with her to get her to get the goal time she was seeking.  There is a lot of pressure when you pace someone and this was a first (and only so far) time for me.  If you fail to hit the goal, you aren’t just letting yourself down, you’re letting someone else down too.  I told Jess stories during that race.  I sang songs to her.  I ran ahead and checked out the course.  And when I turned around to find her walking up a small mountain of an incline, I yelled at her to get her ass moving up that hill.  I don’t remember what our exact finish time was when we crossed the line, but I know that we made our goal.  I think we were right under 1:59.  And that remains one of my favorite racing memories ever.  Getting Jess her goal was even better than getting one of my own.  As I told Chera today, when you pace someone like that you take someone under your wing and you own it, it’s like… “your baby”.

Sometimes I forget to look in the window of my own house and see that I am raising 3 little stories of my own.  Yesterday I didn’t forget.  Yesterday, after running with the Chera and the other reindeer, I went over to the school to watch my boys play basketball.  As I watched Silas, who appears to be somewhat afraid of the ball, I smiled at the little dance he does when he plays defense.  He might be better suited for martial arts.  Or ballet. Silas has his strengths, but they may not lie in athletics.  However, watching Ethan play, I am watching the continuation of a legacy right before my very eyes.  He’s good.  His ball handling skills are pretty impressive for a kid who has limited experience with basketball.  He scored 12 points in the first game of the season and matched that yesterday.  But more importantly than scoring points, watching Ethan play I can see that he is carrying on the Jacobs story.  I said yesterday, it reminds me of sitting in a gym watching my brother.  Ethan celebrates the victories of his teammates and at one point I watched him ask a kid on the other team if he was ok after being elbowed in the ear during a rebound attempt.  Ethan is consistently the first one to the other end of the court, he never stops moving and he puts his whole heart into the game.

Watching him was a flashback to watching my brother.  It was like watching my dad’s passion for sports.  And it was like watching…me.  I say all the time, Ethan is exactly like me.  He is stubborn, and feisty, and loud, and easily distracted.  But he is caring, compassionate and selfless.  He is energetic and spunky.  He is passionate and he goes at full force until it’s over.  And through it all, he never stops smiling.

Yesterday I had the privilege of seeing the next chapter of my story as it begins to unfold. I won’t ever claim to be perfect, not even close, but if Ethan is an indication of what my legacy looks like, then I must be doing something right.

Saturday morning…setting the sky on fire.