The other day when I left work, I was desperately in need of a run.  After a crazy weekend of working the GO! St. Louis Marathon Expo, Trivia Night at the kids school that went until 11pm, the Home Depot kids workshop, Ethan’s baseball game and driving all over God’s green earth, I was ready for some solitude.  Throw into that the fact that my anxiety was at an all time high in anticipation of a pending meeting on Monday.  To say that I needed the calming effects of endorphins would be an understatement.

Sometimes when I “need” a run like that, there are certain places I go.  When I’m angry or frustrated, I need hills.  Those are the times I run Babler.  Sometimes I just need to run fast and furious with no one around.  Those are the times I go to the “secret place”.  But on Sunday, I was in search of peace.  There is one place that has been like my second home since I moved to St. Louis a few years ago.  It’s my safe place.  Ironically, back in the days where my physical home didn’t feel safe, I would go lose myself in the woods and I felt like the scariness of the world would just melt away.  In light of the anxiety I was facing on Sunday, I needed Castlewood.

What is it about running that makes me feel like I can solve all the world’s problems?  Endorphins? Maybe.  Perspective?  Absolutely.

I’ve had a lot of conversations about perspective lately.  The first of which was on my short, spontaneous run with Kristen a few weeks ago.  I said, “Ugh.  I feel fat and out of shape.”  Her response was something like, “I know you aren’t where you want to be, but most people would kill to be in the shape you’re in.”  She was right.  I knew it.

Last week I joined Steve for a bike ride through the extreme hills of West County.  In reference to the 112 miles I will face in November at the Ironman, he yelled, “Hey, 10 Miles.  Only 102 more to go!”  I said, “You have 10 miles?  I only have 9.”  He responded, “Eh, 9, 10, whatever.”  True, when you’re talking about 112 miles, what’s another mile more or less?

So, on Sunday, Barb and I closed up shop at FLEET FEET Town & Country and in the parking lot we parted ways bidding each other a good run.  As I drove down Manchester, I changed from my work shoes into my trail shoes.  And on Reis Road, I did a quick change of my shirt at a stop sign.  I threw my visor back on my head and strapped my Garmin on my wrist.  By the time I pulled into the third parking lot on the right in Castlewood, I was pretty much ready to roll.  I set my ipod, locked up the car and I was off.

I had a route mapped out in my head that would give me about 8 miles.  But as I have often said, things don’t always go the way we plan.  I started running out the road, under the railroad tracks and made a sharp left onto the trail to run the River Scene.  After about half a mile, I started hitting water where the river had breached its banks.  Now, I’m all for getting muddy, and I’ve run through the creek at Castlewood so many times I’ve lost count, but this was totally impassable.  I started climbing on downed trees and crossed one like a balance beam before I decided this was going to be more trouble that it was worth.  I was there to run, not lead an expedition.  So I went back across the tree, jumped to dry ground and proceeded back the way I had just come from.

I got out to the road and headed out to the river along the railroad tracks.  I was aimed for the stairs.  I was planning to stay along the river if it was reasonable and head out into more of the flats, or run up the stairs if it was too flooded.  About halfway to the stairs I was met with a total flood.  Drat.  I had to turn back…again.  So I ran back along the railroad tracks, across the field, along the river as long as I could and then back up the road to the parking lot where my car sat.  I had only gone 3 miles.  This run was not over yet.

I pushed myself up Lone Wolf hill.  I’m used to starting out on that hill when my legs are fresh, not fatigued from a full weekend of activities plus a 3 mile warm up.  My steps were short and slow, my lungs wanted to explode, but in true RRG fashion I reminded myself, I don’t walk.  The reward at the top of the bluff always makes it worth it.  I ran along the ridge to the top of the stairs.  I paused my Garmin, walked out to the overlook and took in the scene.

The Missouri landscape is beginning to turn green again from the vast amount of rain that has been dumped on us already this month.  You know what they say, “April showers…”  More like April showers accompanied by multiple trips to the bomb shelter in the basement while the tornado sirens scream at us several times a day.  But I digress.

From the overlook I could see the swollen river, bursting over its banks into the woods that I cherish so much.  It was obvious from that vantage point that the route I had been considering all day was, in reality, not an option.

What’s the saying about the forest and the trees?  You can’t see the forest through the trees?  Something like that.  The point is I had to do that literally, in order to get it figuratively.

Sometimes we map out in our heads what things are “supposed” to look like and when they don’t go exactly that way we freak out.

True, my training for Ironman Arizona has so far not been what I pictured.  I thought I’d be running a marathon at the end of this month, but since I accomplished my longest pain-free run of the year yesterday totaling 8 miles, we all know that a marathon is not in the cards for me this spring.  Yeah, that sucks.  But there are other, more important things that require my attention right now.

Like that meeting on Monday.  I stressed about it.  I cried about it.  As parents we always want to do right by our kids.  We hold their bright, amazing, wonderful little futures in the palm of our hands.  What if I make the wrong choice?  Will I screw him up even more than I already have?  What IS the right choice?  We agonize over the decisions we have to make for our babies so that we can set them up to succeed.  But what if we fail them?  Well, what if they fail?  Will we love them any less?  Of course not.  So if I fail one of my own, will they love me any less?  Uh, maybe.  In the short term anyway.  I haven’t hit the teenage years yet, but I’m sure there will be days my kids definitely will not love me when we get there.

I left that meeting with a line from a movie ringing in my head, one that I’ve quoted before.  At the end of Bye Bye Love, Vic says, something to point out that all we can really do is just love our kids the best we can.  “That’s all, just love ‘em.”

Nothing about the path of parenthood has looked anything like the picture I had mapped out in my head.  And this is just one of many times that I will question what is the right thing to do.  The reality is I will fail my kids on occasion.  But in those moments where the path gets blocked and I have to turn back or go a different direction, I hope that just like on Sunday, I am ultimately led to a place where I can reap the benefits of seeing the bigger picture.  And hopefully, I will allow myself to pause for a minute to see the forest, not just the trees.