Fun Run

Just a few days until the Jingle Bell 5K Run. I think I'm ready.

We lived on Vashon Island for 5-6 years,
in the area so originally called "Center"

Another hope I have with this running thing is to go slay a childhood dragon. Yes, sometime when I'm in the NW I want to borrow a car, drive to Fauntleroy, take the ferry, and make my way to McMurray Middle School to run the two-mile "Fun Run" which we were expected to complete once a week back when I was twelve. As you might guess, this was not something I could do when I was twelve.

As you may recall, I've had a life-long problem with "fun"! Especially when it had to do with sports. All through school P.E. was my least favorite class. And I loathed the Fun Run. It was a low point of my existence. I could run about 100 yards, then walked the rest of the way around the route before getting back to school, shivering and shamed.

Had I then a fraction of the maturity I have now I might have enjoyed the chance to go for a walk in the rain with friends... though of course being clad in yucky gym clothes and left in the dust (er, mud) by friends may have dampened that experience.

This week I asked myself, "What was the message of the Fun Run?" "That you are a pathetic loser," came the answer. Yikes. Harsh, huh? I don't think my P.E. teachers would like to know they left that kind of legacy. I'm pretty sure that wasn't their intention. (Personally, I think that message was Satan's idea, since he'll use anything that works to steal, kill, and destroy.)

"So, why do you want to go back?" I continued this conversation with myself. "Because I'm not a pathetic loser. Because I can do it. Because doing something that seems to be out of character is completely different when you choose and prepare for it instead of being forced into it, forced into someone else's mold for you. Now, I can do it, and I think it would be... fun."

If you live in the Seattle area and would like to come with me, let me know. It might be hard to get there over the holidays this month, but maybe that would work out. If not, I should be back in the area for a visit sometime in the summer.