Finish

Some finish lines are huge and dramatic. Some are small or undistinguishable. All of them are epic symbols of a job well done.

One race I ran was a simple out and back 5k which ended right where it started. The chute was two ropes strung parallel to form a little line for the finishers and the end was anti-climactic almost. Except that I was one of only a few who ventured the heat that day to run the race and finish it.

I once ran this relay race that spread across Washington and Idaho, 189 miles in all. The race was broken into chunks and each member of my 12 person team ran 3 times throughout the 24 hours we ran. The finish line of each of my handoffs was nothing more than 4 cones set up in a square where the person to whom I was handing off would stand so we could have a proper exchange.

The Pikes Peak Ascent ended in blurred vision and victorious conquering, because the only thing more satisfying than running up a mountain is getting to the top. It is a big yellow banner they use for the finish line--pretty epic, in and of itself except they make you walk 20 extra inclined yards to the very top of the mountain becuase they couldn't put the banner up there.

The finish line of my senior year state cross country meet was at the end of a long stretch of freshly mowed and matted down stretch of grass. There were vertical banners running alongside the finishing stretch, and I remember thinking my legs had never felt like such limp pieces of flesh just dangling off my pelvis. That was a victorious finish becuase it was the last time I had to prove myself officially in the 5k and I did it faster than I ever had up to that point.

Some finish lines I've crossed aren't actually even finish lines. They are just my apartment door or my home's front porch, or the foyer at Doherty High School where our cross country team met or the lawn in front of my apartment complex. Just finishes really--to very hard, character-building runs which shaped my ability to push myself to every official finish line thereafter.

And then Boston, of course. The epitome of epic. Not only does it come at the end of a street crowded with hundreds of spectators, the blue banner of the finish nestled at the bottom of a stretch of the most pure blue sky, contained on one side by the John Hancock tower and on the other with a some famous skyscraping structure, but it comes at the end of the world's most famous 26.2 miles. I crossed the large, electronically stimulated finish line with thousands of the world's best runners, coming across, sacrificing strength I didn't have to hoist my arms triumphantaly in the air for the hundreds of news cameras and their viewers beyond to see.

One time I worked for hours with a group of three other girls on a final project that constituted half of our grade. It was the largest assignment I would ever turn in, 32 pages in all, and I even dreamt of stapling it with the huge stapler reserved for assignments of 25 pages or more. Passing it down the row to the hands of my professor was one of the most satisfying feelings in the world.

And now, I believe, I am reaching a finish here. A whole semester of sifting through my mind for my fondest memories, some of them with real finish lines, some of them races still being run. I don't know if you read all of these entries, but I did, and in fact, I wrote them. So I have thought of them fondly, and I think I will forever.

Thanks, Carol. This is a good finish.

Sometimes you don't have time

http://sloanshowcase.byu.edu/?x=2011winterjones&s=kristajroy

I hope this isn't cheating, Carol. But this link will lead you to more than 250 of my own words and hopefully some solid entertainment.

Thanks for understanding.

Anything I Want Carol to Know: Part II

My right pinkie toe can bend in a 90 degree angle becuase I have broken it so many times. I love Milkways and Three Musketeers. My favorite color is sunshine becuase if you can't choose between orange and yellow, you just combine them. I much prefer the view of city lights from a high place than stars, though I think both are lovely. I don't watch TV. My first crush was Jeffery O'Dale in kindergarten becuase he could hold the flag so straight when we said the pledge. My first friend was in the same class and her name was Monique. I don't really like olives unless they are just popped in my mouth or cooked on pizza. But definitely not on Subway sandwhiches. I consider my friends in a sort of solar system hiearchy, for there are some that are so close to my soul and others that I think are lovely but might be declared not planets at any day. I don't like talking about death or kissing. I wear K. Bell socks from Costco. I made a dress out of airplane blankets. My favorite book in the Book of Mormon is Mosiah. I hated the 3200 so much in high school track, but my mom would write stories for me on a big white board each time I passed the start line. The last time I cried was Saturday night. The last time I sobbed was November 11th, 2011. I don't anticipate crying again for quite some time. Becuase I don't usually cry. I have never gotten a C. Ok, so maybe I got one in my 6th grade Algebra class, but I am choosing to grace over that becuase I do not know how it happened. I consider one of my greatest strengths my ability to instantly connect with people and help them feel confident about themselves. I must say, I have not really demonstrated that skill in this class. Thanks for letting me talk about myself this whole time.

One time I went to Japan for a day by myself.

The scene is Narita, Japan. The characters are me and my bad self, traveling the world by accident. The time is unknown becuase that is what happens to you when you hop from time zone to time zone in a matter of days that don't actually exist, haven't happened, already happened, and are yet to happen tomorrow but were already yesterday. But it was dark outside when I landed. The thoughts are, "OH MY GOSH I'M IN JAPAN!"

Because I was. You know.

By the time I had driven from the airport to my hotel in the provided service shuttle, all I knew of Japan was sideways stop lights, crazy traffic, and other wide-eyed tourists. When I stepped into the front plaza of my hotel, I was in awe of the moist air and elaborate gold door linings at the entrance of the Narita Port Hotel, my home for the next twenty-four hours.

I paid in yen. Probably, I don't actually know becuase my mom made all the arrangements for me when she discovered I would have to fly to Japan in order to make it to Guam from Fiji where I had just landed after two weeks in Tonga so that eventaully I could get to San Fransisco to make it home to Colorado Springs. The point is, yen! I was in Japan, using a currency I had only laughed about in elementary school when I saw the square hole in the middle of a round coin.

The desk attendant spoke English. Thank goodness. She gave me a room key to a room on the third floor, one I found absolutely quaint and Japanese in every way. I walked in to find a small bathroom equipped with a toilet shrouded with a high-tech panel of buttons to operate the bidet. Of course, there was a bidet. I had seen more bidets than actual Asians since I landed in the Orient. Those people like their bidets.

A small bed with no frame and just sitting on the floor was nestled in the corner, complete with a pure white, down comforter. Folded neatly in the center of it was a black and white kimono. You better believe I put that guy on right when I figured out what it was. A bun coiled right on top of my head followed shortly thereafter.

I stayed up late (or maybe not? I literally have no idea what time it actually was) and planned the next day, since I would have until 5 that afternoon to gallivant around Japan by myself until I needed to get back to the airport and onto Guam. I found a shuttle schedule on top of a pile of fliers on a desk in the corner. Luckily, numbers remain consistent from culture to culture or else I would have been stuck. There is not even a hope of guessing translation from latin roots when everything is written in characters.

When I knelt to pray that night, I almost felt like I should place my palms together in front of my face in a reverent Japanese gesture instead of folding my arms.

And then I went to bed. In a Japanese kimono on a Japanese bed in a Japanese hotel with the Japanese world just waiting for me to enter it the next morning. And I slept a Japanese sleep, dreaming of bamboo poles and squinty eyes.

Qualified

You know how far 26 miles is? It's like running up and down my street at home 26 times. 26 times!! I can remember when I used to think just running up that street was bad, but 26 times!? Yikes. It's also twice as far as a half marathon, a distance which causes most normal, capable runners to buckle with fatigue upon finishing. It's so far that if you ran say, a mile, every year of your life, you could go through all of your schooling, k-12, four years of college, 2 years of graduate school, met someone, fallen in love, gotten married and had 2 kids before you even finished running 26 miles altogether. That is a lot of miles.

You know what else? After you run about 24 of those 26, you are tired. And when I say that, I mean, when I had run about 24 of those 26, I was exhausted.

My legs felt about as solid as a stick of string cheese on the sidewalk in Dallas.

My mouth was full of six cottonballs. Oh wait. Not really. It just felt that way.

My arms could lift a paper clip, maybe, if by some miracle I could get my fingers to close around it.

The sweat overflowing around my hairline, down my back, under my arms, between my legs, in my shoes, and from my tear ducts could have a filled a swimming pool. And i'm not talking about the kiddy inflatable kind in your front yard.

And that was with two miles left.

With one more to go, I called upon every fiber of mental strength still responsive and effective in my little crazy running mind and chanted the line my father taught me, "Anyone can run a mile. Come on, Kris. Anyone can run a mile. Anyone can run a mile."

People don't stop so close to the finish line of a marathon even though every logical and anatomical reasoning points to that end. Legs tired? Give them a rest. Eyes blurred? Let them close. Mind swimming? Pull it to shore. But people don't. I don't. Ever. Especially not when I have such a strong mental capacity to direct my energy--even when it doesn't exist anymore--towards a greater goal.

And so I kept running. Struggling, more like, but movement nonetheless, until I passed the sign with a huge 26 blaring in red letters. .2 to go. There were people, I'm sure, and they had to have faces, I guess, but I registered none of it. I turned a corner on a narrow street and heard a band somewhere close by playing "Build Me Up, Buttercup." Fitting.

There was a fountain. Kids were playing in it. I wanted to be them.

Last curve. I came to the straightaway of the St. George Marathon finish and thought there had never been an arch of balloons that seemed to be so far in another universe than the red and white ones far off in the distance. A greater momentum pushed me forward, that sense of a finish. A strong end to something far greater than just the 26 miles behind me. Me crossing that line would be a triumph of countless Saturday mornings on the trail and hurried speed workouts around the Provo High track.

My legs surged forward as I pushed myself to lengthen my stride with muscles that weren't working anymore. I heard Jamie's voice calling my name and the deep rumble of LaDon's baritone cheer beside hers, but I could not even turn my head to acknowledge them. My blurred eyesight glazed over them from my peripheral then back to the balloons, bobbing in the distance.

I could see the clock. Even with the margin of difference from the time the clock stared when the gun went off and when I actually got to cross the start line earlier that morning, the neon green numbers shouted a joyous refrain to my hazy eyes. The numbers there were less than the 3:40 I needed to qualify. 3:39. Three hours and thirty-nine minutes. I was going to qualify for the Boston Marathon.

With a final spurt, I let my foot land on the blue felt finish line, and the next step past it was into the arms of a man dressed in army camo. I crumbled into his arms, relieving all the muscles in my body from the strain and endurance they had just experienced over the past 4 hours. It was so hot. A boy shoved a finisher's medal around my neck and Camo Prince Charming shuffled my silly putty body over to a cage of PVC pipes shooting mist over a horde of limp bodies like mine, clinging to the pipe to stay up.

It was so hot.

The mist got me so wet. I leaned my forehead against the white surface and looked down at the watch, the real time. 3:34.

I was going to Boston.

Thanksgiving, As Requested

I would like to tell you all about the wonderful adventures my family and I just experienced during our stay in a tiny southern Utah town called Monroe, where my oldest sister lives. It might be nice for you to hear about the new race we instigated as an annual tradition, the Hot Pot Trot (a race up to the hot pots behind my sister's house), or about the pounds of food we devoured--homemade beef jerky, turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, cookies, pie, etc, etc, etc--or the four movies we watched or the Black Friday shopping trip we took to the nearest major town with a Wal-Mart at midnight or the nieces and nephew crawling over us incessantly or the time I spent laying around and doing absolutely nothing with little to no guilt or the hilarious hours of stories we told or the 18 fix-it jobs my dad did or the runs I went on in the early morning through the little farming town.

But I'm sure you're going to read about 16 other posts with similar stories.

So instead I will tell you about what made this Thanksgiving different. I brought my roommate with me, becuase she is from Georgia and had no alternative plan. This element proved to be most interesting to the dynamics of my vacation, though I think I was the only one who thought conciously of it throughout the weekend.

What were my parents thinking about her? Were they taken aback by her feisty nature or refusal to eat sugar or love for giving people money or passion for the effectiveness of home schooling or chaotic method of bowling or lack of familiarity with the Muppets?

What was she thinking of my family? Did she approve of their riotous and constant laughter, absurd topics of conversation, the frequent poking of fun at other people and each other, the non-stop, gogogo activity level of our family?

What am I thinking about my family now? It was so strange to bring a foreigner into the secret sanctum where I feel most comfortable in the whole world and have to process through what is so instinctive for me usually to perceive them as she was. It opened my eyes to the way my family is but guess what?

I realized that while I don't put on a false front in our apartment when living with her and I don't put on a false front around my family, there were some times when I acted differently than I would have if she had not been there. Nothing extreme. I was still my same crazy, sweaty, say what I'm thinking self, but there are just some conversations and things you would usually do with your family but don't becuase your roommate is there. But for the most part, I was the same. I felt pretty good baout not putting on a facade or anything and just showing her how we were.

Another thing.

What if the foreigner which infiltrated our family ranks was a boy? And because someday he will be, when I bring him home to meet my parents and family and experience full-fledged, face-stuffing, joke-telling, fun-poking, story-sharing, service-giving, not-showering-for-days Roy glory before he takes the Roy from me for something better, what will it be like? Will I still find then that even though I will worry about what my parents think of him and what he thinks of my parents that I am still the same Krista as I am with both parties when separate from each other? Should it be that way? If I am to assume that I can be different with both me's being true and not facade-ish, is it ok to act different around one person than you do around the other?

Just some thoughts. For which I am grateful.

Happy Thanksgiving.

Nothing

I don't have a favorite sister.

Ok, so sometimes I might. But every sister has been a favorite on multiple occasions throughout our span of sisterhood.

I have these moments with really the most unlikely sister to be favorite all the time. Not only is she one sister removed from me (meaning there is a sister in age difference between us) but she was cool and independent and gorgeous all growing up and I was a little greasy spazz ball. She was funny and charming and I was just wild and tactless. There was no obligation for her to be good to me like there was for my oldest sister (the sister just older than her), but she was good to me and we have had such hilarious times.

For all our differences, we were definitely the shnikes of the family.

One time my mom made a bunch of pies for a Relief Society activity and they were just sitting on the counter. Jamie loves crust, and it was the good homemade kind.

"I want some of that crust so bad." Longingly.

"Take some! Mom will never know." Daringly.

"I will if you will." Testingly.

"Ok. Let's do it. Relief Socieyt sisters don't like crust anyway." Acceptingly.

Relief Society sisters do like crust. Mom did know. Jame and I just laughed.

One of our favorite past times was a game we made up and played in the narrow hall of our upstairs connecting the bedrooms to the bathroom. It was called "Nothing." On one side of the hall was the craft closet and it was always just barfing up ribbon and materials and velcro strips and random little bells from some old sweater my mom dissembled to use as a different craft. I don't know how we originally ended up laying in the hall, but once there we discovered a tin of beads sitting on the floor next to us. I opened it up and poured some of the brightly colored bits of plastic onto the floor in front of us.

"Watch this." Jame picked up one of the beads and chucked it into the air, and it went soaring down the hall and across the open space to the living room stairs and into the bathroom where it flew through the dark and landed with a plop in the open toilet.

"Oh man! that was perfect!" I picked up a pink heart shaped bead and lobbed it through the air. Too hard. It bounced off the silver handle gleaming in the dark and onto the tile floor.

"Close!" She picked up another one, clear and glittery this time, and rubbed it through her fingers before chucking it. It fell short of the toilet and bounced across the floor, making a tapping noise as it went. Too short.

Bead after bead went flying through the air, red ones, round ones, green ones, big ones. Some landed short and bounced around the dark bathroom before settling in the corner next to the plunger or pile of towels. Others landed with a perfect splash right in the U-bend, and these were followed by joyous cheers from us in the hall. One that Jamie threw barely nicked the top of the doorway and fell to the floor, pattering on the ground and rolling to a stop against the edge of the shower. Too loud.

"Hey... girls? What are you doing up there?" My mom heard the beads bouncing and came to the bottom of the stairs. She couldn't see us becuase there was a corner between the hall and the staircase, but she knew exactly where we were.

Jamie and I looked at each other, the whites of our eyes sticking out in the dark of the hallway. Her eyes squinted up as we snickered because we knew we woiuld be in trouble if mom knew we had just chucked a pound of beads into our already failing sewer system.

Without missing a beat, both of us smiled and turned our heads toward mom's position.

This worked every time we played this game.

"Nothing!"

If you are trying to save a few minutes of your life, don't waste them reading this one

When my three older sisters were all at BYU at the same time, my parents and younger sister nd i would go out to Provo for Thanksgiving and Spring Break and stuff like that. It was always really great and inspired within me a new thirst to attend the school myself, and it also gave me great exposure to what college is like. One thing I always noticed was the innumerable runners dashing about the streets of the small college town. Girls by themselves in spritzy running shorts and swishing ponytails with headphones dangling out of their ears, boys sprinting between each stop light then bending over to wait for the street to signal a go, and, more than anything, boys and girls jogging together, doing more talking than running. It always made me wonder what it would be like to run with a boy becuase I never had and back home there weren't a lot of boys I thought I could get to go running with me. Besides, I didn't need them anyway.

However, there was one boy named Brandon Lange who had a constant goal to be the strongest, fiercest most able marine in the world and he wanted to work on his endurance. He was also the most eccentric individual I knew from Colorado and he was always saying weird things that, had I not grown up with him, would have left me in a state of stunned silence. But I'd known him since we were children and so most the time I just rolled my eyes or laughed along or retorted with some equally strange reply. The point is, the summer after my senior year, after years of doing all of this running by myself or with girls, Brandon asked me if he could go running with me and so we did. It was the first run I ever had with a boy.

He was a strong boy so I thought I would just take him up the street and around the mesa and back down again. I ran to his house and met him there.

"You ready for this?" I asked him as I stepped into his front room, already sweaty and ready to get going.

"Yeah, hold on. I need to put on my shoes." He snorted a huge snort before turning around and scampering down the hall in his mismatched socks.

"This is going to be great!" He yelled from some room down the hall. "Do you think we'll go for a long time?"

I sat down in a chair in the kitchen, shuffling through the newspapers spread across the table. "Eh... you know. We'll just go till we don't feel like going anymore I guess." How was I supposed to know? That's what I always did.

"Yeah, so I'm really going to try and work hard this summer so I can get down to a 7 minute mile pace for lots of miles in a row." He finally emerged from the hallway holding a pair of shoes splattered in what I assumed to be the remnants of paintballs. He was into that kind of stuff.

He sat on the floor and started tying his shoes. My sweat was drying on my head and my muscles were antsy to get going. This is why I never ran with anyone before.

"Have you ever army crawled through a slew of mud?" He asked as he wrapped the lace around his finger.

"Uh... no. I usually just run."

"Ok, well, the other day Matt and I were out in the canyon and we found this huge pit. So we went and put on our camo and we started crawling through it after the Japs." And this boy just graduated high school. I told you he was weird.

Not to mention, I've never seen someone tie their shoes so slowly.

"K, well. Maybe we'll run into some mud today." I said it jokingly, leaning forward in my chair with the hopes of helping him pick up his pace a little.

"That'd be awesome!"

Oh brother. Brandon Lange.

"K. Let's go." He finally hopped off the wood floor, but not before I had stood up, pushed my chair in and opened the front door.

We started running around his cul-de-sac to the other side where the a small trail ran between the houses and out the back into what the neighbor kids called The Gully. We kept a slow pace and I started asking him questions to start some conversation.

"So what'd you do today?"

"Oh, you tried to do backflips off the electric box in your front yard? Hm.."

"Oh, and you worked on your fantasy novel? Do tell..."

We had not run more than fifteen minutes when he fully immersed me in the thickening plot for the sci-fi story he was creating, his words choppy and interrupted by his labored breathing. When sixteen minutes rolled around he stopped talking for a moment.

"Man, I am breathing so heavy! Is this how fast you usually run?"

Oops.

I guess that's why I never went running with any boys before.

Poor Brandon Lange.

Resourceful, That's What

People have to go to the bathroom when they are at races. I've been to races where the whole starting area was completely surrounded by port-o-potties, lined up like stalwart sentinels, with people in turn lined up like anxious ducklings waiting for the red to flip to green and the former occupant to exit the smelly chamber. If anyone ever counted how many rolls of toilet paper racers go through, there might be enough to stock an entire elementary school for a whole year. Or two.

The point is, there is bathroom-going going on, and everyone knows it and everyone does it.

At our high school cross country meets my six varsity girls and I would go on our warm up run with one quest--find the hidden port-o-potty no other team was using. Every course had one, but few teams were ever motivated enough to find it and just stood in the ginormous line anyway. Not the Spartan Buggins. We would do laps around the course, weaving through pine trees and taking dirt paths until we found the random John lurking as back up and all seven of us would be in and out before the main port-o-potty line had even progressed one inch.

My senior year at Arapahoe we were not the only ones to find the random port-o-potty. In fact, based on our experience there, quite a few bladder bursters had been there before us.

We jogged up to it, arriving at the same time a boy in a red jersey and short blue runner shorts came sprinting to the door from the other direction. He got there first and pulled on the handle of the door, only to find it locked. We formed ourselves into a line as he leaned against the grimy corner of the biffy, panting to catch his breath and shifting his weight from one foot to the other. You know, "The Potty Dance." He really had to go and we could tell.

We talked among ourselves and hopped up and down to keep our muscles loose. We could see little beads of sweat forming at the boys hairline as his face became more and more troubled with each minute that passed. I hoped--more for his sake than mine--that whoever was in the port-o-potty would come out soon. That boy was about to burst.

"That poor boy!" Lynnea whispered it under her breath, swinging her braid over her shoulder to peek at him. "Haha... he really has to go."

"Happens," Jordan said, her eyes squinting with laughter. "He must have just finished running."

I looked over at the boy again just as the biffy door opened and a old man with a Leadville 100 hat came out. He was buckling his belt and smiled at us, but not before the desperate boy dashed into the door and didn't even bother to turn the handle so the red "occupied" side showed.

The man turned around and chuckled, looking back at us. "I was going to tell him, but I guess he didn't need to know."

We shifted glances then looked back at the man, our eyebrows raised.

"Well, it's all out of toilet paper in there!" He shook his head and finished tucking his shirt in then walked away, still chuckling.

"Uh-oh," I laughed before looking at my girls. "I guess that's ok. Maybe we can find some leaves or something?" We were runners. We didn't need too much to make it through.

We stayed in front of the port-o-potty weighing the lack of toilet paper as a lesser loss than waiting thirty minutes in line at the other place. We continued talking and laughing, waiting for the boy to come out again. He took a long time.

The door swung open and banged against the outside wall of the bathroom. He was using the structure to balance himself as he was bent over,for some reason, putting his shoe on.

"Whoa," I whispered it to my teammates. "He must have been working really hard in there!"

Lynnea turned to the boy, twisting her braid. "Was there anymore toilet paper in there?"

The boy slammed his foot on the ground to push his shoe over his heel and looked up. He smiled and laughed then straightened up. "No. But it's ok. I've got more black socks."

And he ran off, leaving us at the hidden port-o-potty, drowning in our hysteric laughter as we watched his socked and sockless feet alternate into the distance.

I Can't Wait To Tell You About Boston

I just want to cut right to the chase and tell you a little bit about the Boston Marathon.

It falls in a group with five other marathons that are world-renowned and prestigious in any crowd. The difference between the other four and Boston is that Boston is the best, biggest, and most well-known.

I can't remember why I know Boston is such a big deal. Do you remember why? No. We just both know that it's a big deal.

It is run on the first Monday in April ever year. That Monday is known as Patriot's Day.

It starts in Hopkinton, a little no-know town in the middle of Massachusetts. It runs through several similar little towns with quaint East coast houses and small side streets and Grandmas watering their petunias out in the front flower bed. Grandpa is in the back doing the same. May through March these little dots on the globe are nothing more and don't have much to offer, but by the time that first Monday in April has come and gone, those dots are magnified by streets paved with squashed gatorade cups and girls from Welleselly College still wishing they'd gotten their kiss from runner's at the halfway point. Those little points on a map have become ginormous landmarks for runners across the world, the most important cottages they ever ran by, the most sentimental side streets they every struggled on. Hopkinton is a hop into the start of memory lane, and from Ashton to Copley Square, all little marks on the course, these runners turn insignificant second thoughts to essential experiences.

Kind of like running. In general.

It finishes in Boston. If the runners weren't so delirious or overcrowded by the mass of spectators on either side of the narrow street, they could appreciate the sky scraping John Hancock tower on the horizon. I guess that's why they all go and pay homage to the finish the day before, when they can still stand without staggering and can pass by it without passing out.

That's it really. Or at least for now. Boston is a big deal and though the hardcore souls who run it can take 26 miles of it in one shot, an innocent bystanding blog reader can only take so much at one time.

The First Time

We sat in the airport for 6 hours before we finally filled the last four seats on the flight to Dallas and once we landed in Texas, we still had to drive 3 hours before we made it to our townhome in Tyler. 3 am and tired parents didn't bode well for the 10k I planned to run the next morning, but I still bid them goodnight and asked if I would see them in 3 hours.

"We'll be up," my dad said, crawling into bed next to my mom, who was already asleep. "Wake us up if we aren't."

I usually try and be accomodating. But i was really looking forward to running my first 10k and while I think I contemplated letting them sleep and skipping the race, my own selfish sense of adventure overruled it and I set up a pile with my shoes and my watch next to the bed Summer and I were sharing. 6 o' clock would come quick.

And it did. Dad was already up when I rolled out of the floral bedspread, and I slipped my tennis shoes on before tip toeing out to the miniature kitchen. Dad was always up before me on race days, and he was usually showered too. (editorial note to self: expand on this tender part of your running life in a different story becuase that's important)

Mom and Dad and I left Char and Bum in the condo and wound our way through the Tyler streets. It was still too dark for us to see any of the Azeleas, but if the race web page was telling the truth, I would get plenty opportunity to see them while I ran.

"K, Kris. Well, I don't know what craziness has possessed us to be here, but have fun!" My mom was wearing her yellow zip-up hoody and I nodded with enthusiasm at her sleepy-eyed encouragement.

"Kris, have you ever run a 10k before?" My dad was looking ahead on the sidewalk, glancing at the race registration booth and craning his neck to see the start line.

"Not officially. This is my first official race!"

My mom yawned and patted me on the bum as i left to stretch while waiting in the port-o-potty line. I jogged a lap around the park and stopped at Mom and Dad again. i didn't really know what to do with myself, and they were about to fall asleep while standing there. 3 hours of sleep doesn't do anyone a lot of good, and yet, I felt like I was about to take off to the moon.

After a few more calf stretches and lunges, people started herding over to a banner spread across the street. I looked towards them and then looked back at my parents.

"Well, this is it, I guess! Here I go to run a 10k!"

My dad smiled at me and raised a fist in the air. He pumped his arm and furrowed his eyebrows as if he were having a staredown with a tiger. Then he smiled excitedly and as I ran to join the others at the start he caught my eye and said, "Krista. You can win it!"

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Mom and Dad and Bum and I were good at traveling together because we had done it so often. This was the first time since the summer before my junior year that we were going on a road trip instead of a flying trip, and it hardly counted since we only drove for 5 hours, but we coasted down to St. George while Summer slept in the back and Dad talked to me about strategy and how to start out slow. I drank up every single one of his words, and I stared out the window a lot, thinking about the miles I would be covering the next morning.

We stopped by the expo center to pick up my packet and I was astounded at the immensity of the event. There were tables and booths and a whole center in the middle dedicated entirely to St. George Marathon t-shirts. There were 26.2 stickers and Goo packs and ShotBloks (we bought the rasberry flavor for my race the next day) and addidas shoes and hats and water bottles and every imaginable runner's accessory, all jumbled into one huge room with a bunch of antsy marathoners.

"I thought the Pikes Peak expo tent was huge. This is incredible!" I walked past a booth that advertised the Red Rock Relay and another that featured reflective wristbands for night running.

"Look at that guy!" Summer pointed to a man standing down the aisle from us, and I giggled. He fit every runner stereotype I ever knew. Bulging calves and close cut hair, a dri-weave tee hanging loosely on his gangly runner torso. he had a pair of sleek sunglasses on top of his tanned head, and he was munching on a protein bar. He talked to a woman I assumed to be his wife--she was a little over five feet tall, had calves to match his, and sported a swinging ponytail on top of his head. Runners. These were the people I would be spending the majority of my day with tomorrow morning.

We waltzed around the Expo center for awhile before shoveling some spaghetti in our mouths and driving to the hotel. St. George was dark by the time we were there, and I still knew nothing about the landscape where I would run. Our hotel sat overlooking the winking city lights and they seemed to shout out a reverent refrain.

"We'll still be here tomorrow! You will see us, as you come down the hill, the 26.2 mile long hill, and we will wave to you. But you might not be able to discern us then, so take this winking as the applause we want you to have. Good luck, Krista! Run like the wind!"

Now I thought lights were talking to me. This is why I try to avoid getting too nervous for anything.

Sum and I sat on the bed that night (the right bed, the one we always slept in whenever we traveled with mom and dad) and she squealed with anticipation.

"You are going to run a marathon tomorrow, Krista!! that is a lot of miles in one go!!!"

Coming Closer

Monday: Speed workout. 11 400's at 90 seconds, 60 second recovery b/w each. 12 minute cooldown.

-workout was good. did the reps at provo high while the summer football team did drills on the field. Ninnies. Worked on my stride, felt so fast. Hit 90, 85, 85, 86, 84, 84, 84, 85, 87, 84, 72.

Tuesday: 8 miles easy/weights

-8 miles in the tree streets. Planks after, weight room. Don't really like it there, but it was fun

Wednesday: 6 miles

-6 miles, not bad. Remember when I wanted to run so much i would think 3 miles was a walk in the park? I think I made it

Thursday: Threshold (3 miles)

-Not as bad as I thought it would be. I ran down 900 to the cemetery and back. SO HOT! But i felt like a beast.

Friday: 4 miles easy, prepare for long run

-I wonder if I should've gone longer

Saturday: 20 miles long

-20 MILES!! TWENTY! I've never run so far in my life! BUT IT FELT GREAT!



And so the summer went. Week after week, run after run. The only thing bigger than the number of miles I ran was my calves that ran them. I sometimes forgot to eat because I would got straight from class to run then back to work after, but I never regretted missing a meal because of the runs I had. Sunrise runs. Sunset runs. Heat like Hell afternoon runs. Short runs. Long runs. Fast runs. Faster runs. I'm-running-a-marathon-at-the-end-of-all-this-and-freak-I-can't-wait runs.

I was coming into the front of the Regency lawn and down the steps that lead to our apartment at the end of a 23 mile run. The longest I had ever done or would do before the marathon. I stumbled down the steps just in time to run into Rachel and Chelsea as they were leaving our house to get their laundry.

"KRIS!!!" They shouted my name in unison, waving their arms and beaming. "How was it!!? Did you really go 23 miles!!?"

I didn't stop running becuase I knew if I did my little legs would collapse under me. But as I ran by, I squeaked out a response and smiled.

"I really did, you guys! I ran 23 miles. I'm going to run a marathon!"

LIFE!

Good thing I never got a room-roommate that summer. I don't think most college students like being woken up at six on a saturday morning in the middle of summer by their crazy roommate looking for her tennis shoes.

But I was up, and I was out with just a bite off the heel of my bread and a little sip of water. I didn't know what to eat or drink before such a long run. I had never run 16 miles without stopping, so really, I didn't know much at all about what I was supposed to do.

Ninth East was deserted, and I had the sidewalk to myself. As I headed north up the street, I watched the sun begin to peek over the top of Timp. My muscles were still waking up, too, stretching themselves as I jartled them from slumber and on up the road. It was pleasant outside. This was my time of day.

The flap of my feet echoed on the pavement as I rounded the corner by the MTC playing fields and I recalled the time I had run this same road with Dano the week before. He ran as smooth as a two ten elephant, and we had talked the whole way. Now I could be the only one alive, and my footfalls were gentle and patterned.

An hour later when I reached the mouth of the canyon, the world had rubbed its eyes a little more and people were milling around the parking lot in helmets and clips, getting ready to ride the trail I was running. Little sweat pearls formed at my brow as the sun waved to the cyclists. Little mile markers on the side of the trail told me I was at mile 8 1/2, but where the start was or how many miles there really were, I had no idea. My body knew though--its very capillaries could tell how much distance I covered and how long it took me. Call it conditioning. I think it might be a gift.

Coming back down the canyon felt like a dream. My legs were strong and steady in their pace, and I passed 13 miles with ease. Without even thinking! I soared down the trail with my heart pumping liters of fresh blood through my very much alive body. My breathing was quiet and calm and my arms pumped to a rhythm no one else could hear. I kept my eyes on the trail ahead and occasionally licked sweat droplets that trailed down the line of my cheekbone and to the corner of my lips. They tasted salty. They tasted like salty accomplishment.

On the way back, University Avenue was bustling with activity as I approached the main intersection by the fields. Cars zoomed by, missing the flow of existence coursing through my body. I was two miles away from the farthest distance I had ever run and two miles past the previous record. Who was I!? Was this crazy!? How did I feel so good!? More than I ever felt before, I felt I was born for running.

My apartments came into view and I strided towards the front lawn with confidence and a certain lingering feeling of relief. Up the six stairs to 108, I collapsed on the couch on our front porch. A ray of sun shot through the balcony overhang and onto my face as I wiped the dried sweat off my hair line and pointed my toes to stretch my calves.

"So this is what 16 miles feels like?" I said the words out loud to myself, letting them bounce off the neighbor's door. "Not bad, Kris. You're a beast."

Too bad I didn't have a roommate that summer. There would have been something satisfying about running 16 miles before she was even awake.

First Steps

I guess I knew I always would do it. When I ran cross country in high school Coach Schwartz told me people weren't supposed to run marathons until after they were 18 becuase it would mess with their bone structure. I respected him and he knew a lot more about running than I did, so I told myself I would wait till after I was old enough.

So the first step after that landmark was finding the marathon. I remember descending into the depths of the library at BYU and plopping down at a computer after a long day of classes. My brain was dead, my body was exhausted and considering I ate breakfast before eight, only a granola bar three hours ago, and wouldn't be home for two more, I was starving. But I googled Boston Marathon Qualifiers. A blue home page pulled up and in a bottom left corner was a box with a list of races in Utah, certified by USTAF for Boston qualification. St. George, Utah, October 2, 2010.

The reality and feasability of it was so distinct in that moment, it suddenly didn't matter that I was hungry and tired and busy. I was going to run a marathon. And it was going to let me qualify for Boston.

Later, after that semester, I sat in the computer nook of my Topaz home and pulled up google again. The search engine pulled out a million and one websites with marathon training programs almost faster than I typed in the keywords, and I set off browsing through them. 10 miles here. 14 miles there. Sprints. Weights. Cross training. Nutrition this. Clothing that. How the heck was I supposed to know which one was the best one to follow?

And that's where Coach Schwartz came in again. You know how some people have so much passion for something that it doesn't matter the circumstance or the convenience level, they will do whatever is required to be even remotely associated with that passion for even a moment?That was Coach Schwartz. The passion? Running. And me. Or people like me, at least, people who he had sparked the fire under a long time ago, running back to him as the dependable sage upon the mountaintop, the guru with all the secrets and the compassion to share with those who would climb. It was the middle of June and I drove to his house around the corner from Ute Valley Park and the two of us drove to the nearest Starbucks. He ordered some delicious looking drink while I pulled out the crumpled copy of what I had judged to be the best training program online. I think he might have even scoffed when he saw it.

"Roy, I know you can run a lot more than this has people running. See how it goes back down to 10 miles after you just ran 18 the week before? That doesn't make sense. If you build the miles, you keep them there. And I know you can do this stuff. You're an animal. You are much better than this. This is a training program for babies, but you're tough. No, no, this week we should bump you up to 20."

Sip from the frappe-cappacuino-whatever-it-was.

"Ok, so you got threshold every Thursday. That's fast, you know how to push yourself. That's going to get up to 6 miles at one point. You can do that in your sleep."

Yikes. I hated threshold.

"Repeats will be good strength training and they'll serve as a good exercise to kick in those fast-twitch muscles. Probably do those on Monday. They'll be good recovery from your long runs on Saturdays."

It was like watching a wizard pull out some crazy spell from his sleeve while simultaneously stirring a powerful brew in his cauldron. And I was going to be the product of all that magic.

I translated all his excited scribbles and formulated a beautiful, color-coded schedule in a word document. Groups of miles and abbreviated descriptions of speed workouts fell across the page like the black boxes in a crossword puzzle, and I saved it under my documents folder.

Then I grabbed my shoes, laced them up, and headed out the door on my first training run for St. George.

Runs in the Family

Summer

"I assume you are a big runner, too?"
"Well, I didn't used to be but then I just started running and last year I ran 500 miles. Next month I am going to run my first half marathon! Krista made me the training plan"

"This boy in my ward was just like, 'hey, we should go running!' and I was like, 'Yeah, sure! Let's go!' and then next thing I knew there were five boys that wanted to go running with me so we all started running and we barely got down the road and one of the boys was already tired and he tried to pull a move like that boy you ran up the Y with. Hahaha he was like, 'Maybe we should stop at this light for the crosswalk' I felt like such a champ with all those ninny boys!"

"I was just on this runner's high and I felt like I could keep going forever! I was so happy and joyous! My legs weren't even that tired the next day! I just beasted out 10 miles!"

"I knew I couldn't do it in less than 2 hours, but I knew I could be really close, so I just started sprinting like a crazy! That was so fun!"

"Kris, I am always so proud of you when I see you crossing these finish lines. I almost always cry"

I thought that was silly until I saw her sprinting down the straightway after 13 miles. My tight throat had nothing to do with how cold it was that morning.

CJ

"You look great, Seeg! You look like a teenager!"
"Well, it's track season now and so I just started running a few miles everyday on the treadmill after practice. I'm getting faster"

"And there I was, just running down to the finish line, a frumpy mother of 2, but a running frumpy mother of 2!"

"We won! Eric won and I won and we both just did a triathlon! We didn't get to train very much, but it was so fun!"

"I just thought, I am turning 29, and if Krista can go out and run 26 8:00 miles, I can certainly do one in under 8. So i went and I ran and guess what I ran it in, Kris!? 7:40!!! I am going to run a 7:30 soon!"

I actually run many of those 26 miles slower than 8:00. But now I want to do more 7:30's soon.


Jamie

"What do you do when you don't win a sprint race, Jame?"
"I don't know. I always win!"

"I tried to take Doug out running, but he was so excited that we were going and that it was raining that he just sprinted up the hill! I could hardly keep up!"

"I can't really run anymore cus of my back. But me and LaDon go out and I have this awesome stroller now. He runs ahead and I'm building up."

"Kris, I ran a whole mile today!"

At the half marathon I ran in October I didn't feel very good with one mile to go. But something pushed back and I knew for sure I could run that whole mile.


Charina

"You just can't run with me, Kris. You run too fast. I just chug along."

"Yeah, I go running sometimes. But just for a little bit. I usually run up to the parking lot at the Y and then back down. It's just so hard with my little lungs!"

"I just wanted to reminisce on all my good BYU times so I just went and ran all around campus and up by the Marriott Center and it was just so good. I was just running around all the good places where I have such good memories."

"I think I am going to do a half marathon, Kris. Is that a crazy idea?"

"It felt so good, Kris! I just ran for seven miles with this lady who was just talking to me but then she was going too slow and I felt so good so I just picked it up and ran my little booty on down and just finished! I ran a 2:07! Not bad, eh?"

Not bad, Char. Not bad at all!


Mom

"Mom, you walk so fast!"
"I got things to do. I don't really run, so I gotta walk fast!"

"I'm going to start doing the Neilsen Challenge every month. I just hope I won't be last"

"My goal is always just to get to the halfway point by the time the crazy winner guy gets there. I think they are starting to recognize me with my yellow sweater."

"I PRed, Kris! I had a huge PR in the Neilsen this month! I will post a blog about it, but Dad did it with me too!"

"They ruined my surprise for you becuase they changed it to be a 5k, but I was going to run the 10k next month! A 10k! Now I can't find a single one in Colorado until January."

My mom is really good at finding things, and who knew one of those things for which she sought would ever be a running race of longer than 3 miles!

Dad

"Just think of a good strategy and break it down into chunks. Don't think of it like, 'Ok, I'm about to go run 26 miles,' just think, 'Ok, I just did one mile of warm up, now I'm going to do 2 miles of pace setting, and then I will start on my 7 mile jaunt.....'"

"Hello, Krista, this is your father, how you are you, hope you're doing grreat! Just calling to tell you to remember in the Boston Marathon to start out slllloooowww, so slow, like maybe even for the first 6 or 7 miles just run slow"

"Slow down, you knucklehead!!!"

"And when you think of these things- G, Goals, R, Reaffirmations, E, Every Race Routine, A, Actions, T, Times and Seasons/Thoughts, remember, you can be GREAT"

"YOU CAN WIN IT!"

Head to Foot

Here are some fond images, cap-a-pie, which make me think of myself:

A messy bird's nest of a bun, piled on top of my head with the rest of my hair held back in a colored, plastic head band. When I first started running, I would wear my pony tail at the nape of my neck and it looked like a dead marmot hanging off my head because it was so long and lifeless. When I ran cross country in high school, I would clip my bangs back in with a bobby pin, but I've only gotten faster since I started with the headbands, and I love them.

Crusty, white salt marks under my eyes and at my hairline after a long race. Sweating against the wind makes these mini sand dunes when I stop moving, and after the Pikes Peak Ascent my co-workers were laughing hysterically becuase the white build-up under my eyes made me look like a little raccoon. I'm so used to them being there that I never remember to wipe them away after I run, and now, even when I remember, I don't wipe them away because it's a sign to me that i've worked hard.

Colored ribbons looping around my neck, a round medal dangling at the end and thumping against my stomach when I walk. Finisher's medals, first place, second place, third place, age group winner, overall winner, female winner. I've got a collection in my parent's house and a collection in my apartment, tucked away where no one can see them. But I know they're there. I don't really care so much that I have so many and I know no one else does, either, but every now and then I'll sift through them quickly, reminiscing on the memory attached to each one.

Runner's shorts. Different from other shorts becuase they are what they say they are, and to the greatest extreme. I have no less than ten pairs, and yet I usually wear the same two because they are the ones laying on my floor leftover from yesterday's run, easily accessible for today's.

Bulging--and when I say bulging, I mean it--bulging calves. My best friend is a basketball player and a sprinter and when she flexes her legs, her calves ball up in tight little packets of muscle--I think it's because she jumps so much. But not me. When i flex my legs, my calves jump to perfectly flat and elongated structures, like giant plateaus jutting out on the Arizona landscape. When i cross my legs at church, the leg on top automatically flexes itself and I always tell the person next to me to punch it. Their knuckles are usually sore for the remainder of the Sunday school lesson.

Desert-like achilles and lost toenails. I wear long enough socks, I really do, but with so much running, the skin on the back of my achilles is drier than a lizard's coat and about as attractive too. We don't have to talk about the toenails (or lack thereof), it disgusts me. That's not to mention the little leftover bunion pad marks. You know when you wear a bandaid all day and then you take it off and there's a little outline where the band-aid was and dirt builds up around the edges of it? I have bunions (not as nasty as their reputation makes them sound, as it turns out), and I used to wear little adhesive pads that surrounded my bunion and made them hurt less during the run. The little dirt marks which remained after the run are an endearing sight in my memory now. Needless to say, it's a good thing no one judges me by what my feet look like, or they might think I am some crazy runner girl who has too little time from one run to the next to actually take care of the vehicles which carry her so far. Heaven forbid.

Nike 410s, red laces tied up. Nike actually discontinued the 410s, but the image of them laying on my floor, ready to pick up and run at any moment acts as a memorial for the numberless shoes I've worn to shreds. When i was going to run the Boston Marathon, it was the middle of a stressful finals week for everyone in my apartment, and I was leaving to go to the airport hours before any of them woke up. When I walked out into the hall of our apartment that morning, my roommate had left a note on the floor wishing me luck and on top was a pair of red shoelaces. Shoes have come and gone, but those laces have run with me in every race since.

Everyone Won

The race was fine, just an out and back, which was good because then I could give my dad a high five as we passed each other on the way back. I came in third behind a little seven year old punk and a tall, slender woman who played volleyball for BYU Hawaii before she transferred to Provo. After I finished running, I trotted to the car where I got my camera so I could take pictures of Dad when he finished. I did fine, and Dad rocked it.

Afterwards we milled over to the parking lot where we had first arrived and waited to find out about the raffle. Everyone stood in front of the speakers the race directors had set up, sipping water out of soggy Dixie cups. I sat down backwards on a chair the bushy-eyebrowed man had occupied before. Dad stood nearby, sweat drying on his forehead.

"Ok everyone, we're going to get started with the raffle in just a few minutes. The prizes are lined up here on the table, and we're going to see if we can't get them out to some of you." The race director picked the ice cream bucket from the table behind him and we waited for him to pull the first ticket.

"475689? 475689, are you here? You have just won a $15 gift certificate to Zupa's. Congratulations!"

A gangly girl with a swishing ponytail trotted to the front of the crowd and accepted a white envelope from the man.

"475995, are you out there? We've got a free car wash and Dan & Dixie's and a game of mini-golf down at the Freeman's course."

This ritual went on for several minutes, the old man reading out the numbers as the audience waited, holding their breaths. Would they get picked? Who would win?

475284. 475119. 475382. Shoe discount, clothes coupon, free dinner, laser treatment. The tickets kept coming out of the bucket, and the pile of prizes on the table did not seem to be getting any smaller.

"475228, you've just won a free shake from Bully's and a car wash from the car wash on Center Street, congratulations!"

I looked down at my ticket in alarm and stumbled to the front to obtain my much desired white envelope. Not but four tickets later, my dad's number was announced. A dinner for two at Olive Garden and a 15% discount at Runner's Corner. What could be better?

More and more, on and on the name's kept coming. Just when it seemed the man would stop picking tickets and not a single person in the crowd wasn't the proud new owner of a lucky raffle prize, he would dive into the bucket again, pulling out a new ticket with the same flourish as he had with the first ticket. He was the only one who didn't seem to notice that every other person there had already won a prize and the specialness of it was rubbing off.

When the last ticket finally disappeared, the thanked everyone for coming and shouted out the date and time of the next CUCIL race in Utah. I stood up, stretching, and looked at my dad.

"Wow. That was a lot of raffle tickets!" I tapped my white envelope against my chin, widening my eyes in disbelief at my dad.

"Yeah, when they said everyone wins I didn't think they actually meant it. But I guess they did--let's go get a shake from Bully's and head on home"

CUCIL Run-Springville 2007

"K, Kris, well you have to decide before we go to bed so we know what the plan is for the morning." My mom was folding the last of the little girls' laundry and she was talking to me in her we're-tired-so-hurry-up-and-decide voice.

I spun around in the computer desk chair, looking at her in despair. "I don't know, Mom. Will someone go with me? Is it going to be making us late for the airport if I run it?"

"Kris, I'll go with you." Dad had his eyes closed and his arms behind his head, reclining in the couch as Brooke and Viana crawled all over him. He was the epitome of a grandpa in that moment, but I knew he was serious about coming with me.

"Well..." I paused and looked from Mom to Dad then back at the computer screen where the race information was pulled up on CJ's old computer, "what about the registration fee? Is the $15 worth it? I want to get a race in Utah, but I don't want to be a burden."

CJ walked in from the back hall then, picking up a stuffed animal as she came. "Just run it, Kris! You can do it! Dad will go with you. It will be fun!"

"Yeah, Kris, I'll go with you." Dad's eyes were still closed and I chuckled at his consistent noncholance before turning back to the desk.

Mom squished down the huge pile of folded shorts and tossed the last rolled-up pair of socks in a mountain of them to her right. "K, well hurry up and decide. We've got to get these girls to bed." She stood up and grabbed Brooke from off Dad, then stood looking at me, waiting.

For all the things I do fast, I go slow in decision making. But I finally looked back at my peaceful Dad and nodded. "Ok. I want to do it. If we leave here at 7 we can be there in time for the race, and it won't take us too long so we can come back and shower before going to the airport. Is that ok?"

"Yeah, I'll go with you, Kris." Dad's eyes finally opened and he sat up, nodding his head, his boyish grin encouraging me. "Let's go!"

It was only a small 5k in Springville, something for the handicap people in Utah or something, but I wanted a race in Utah and I saw this as the perfect opportunity. We went to bed (finally) and in the morning I woke up on the floor of the small Wyview apartment where my oldest sister lived. I tiptoed to the back room where my parents were sleeping on an air mattress and my dad was already up and putting on his tattered shoes.

"Ready, Kris?"

"I'm ready! Let's go!"

Springville was much closer than I thought, and we pulled into the parking lot of the community center at 7:45. A line of old people sat cluttered behind a small fold-out table like a bunch of withered buzzards, and they handed my dad and I registration forms and our t-shirts.

"Is this a pretty good race?" My dad scribbled his information in the form then pulled $30 out of his wallet. An ancient race director looked up at him, bushy eyebrows spilling over his squinted eyes.

"It's a good race!" He muttered the words, a little dribble spilling out of the corner of his wrinkled mouth. "Be sure to put your raffle ticket in the bucket. Everyone wins a prize at the end!"

My dad laughed as he dropped the red stub into a hole cut in the top of the ice cream bucket. "Everyone!? Ok, well, we're ready to go!"

The start line had been constructed out of two posts hammered into the ground on either side of a cracked asphalt road. Our small group squeezed themselves onto the path, and I scooted ahead of my dad in the group.

"Kris, you can win it!" My dad flashed a huge smile at me as he pumped his fist in the air and I laughed before checking that my watch was clear. This was a small field. He might be right.

RunThinkCryRealize

One summer I worked on top of Pikes Peak and I loved it so much and I knew when it started that it was going to be an awesome summer. I even started a new journal document on my computer and since I always title my journal documents in really cryptic names so no one can find them and read my secret life tales i called it RunWorkPlay becuase I knew that is what i was going to be doing all summer long. So i did it. I ran like crazy becuase I was training for the Pikes Peak Ascent and I worked on top of the mountain and that was time consuming because you have to drive up there andt hen work and then drive back down and then drive home and then i would come home and then i would play, mostly frisbee or volleyball with Beau Kelly or something with Summer in our rooms becuase we had nothing better to do or something with Karalee becuase that is who I alwasy played with. Anyway, one day I came home from work and I was really stressed and distraught and sad and I couldn't figure out what was bothering me so much but all day and even all week I had been feeling pretty rough and I didn't get home till like 9 and so when I wanted to go running it was already dark but I just went for it becuase I was so distraught and stressed that I thought it would do me some good becuase that's what I do and so I went out and i just was pounding the pavement and running really fast because that's what I do when I am really thriving on emotion when I run and so I was just pumping and running and the wind was blowing except there wasn't wind that's just how fast I was moving and I was coming down that road which I think is like... poleplant or something but I can't remember becuase I didn't like in that neighborhood long enough to remember but anyway, I was running down and I was just talking out loud to myself becuase I do that and I was just trying to figure out what the heck was wrong and I was just crying and my throat was tight but I could still breath becuase I was running so passionately and then in a moment, right when I passed that stupid median with the pine trees in it, it hit me that I had been slacking very much so in reading my scriptures. I read them, but late at night after all that running and working and playing and it was hurried and insincere and worthless and it also caused my prayers to be faltering becuase i would jsut whipser them quickly into the dark before getting in between my sheets because I was so tired from all that running and working and playing and as I was just flying down the hill with the wind and the tears and the words flying behind me I just realized I was so distraught and stressed ebcuase all I had been doing was running and working and playing and not studying my scriptures or strenghtening my testimony and so of course it built up and bit me in my ever running little butt and that made me realize that i wished that distraughtness upon myself when I named that journal entry RunWorkPlay and not StudyRunWorkPlay or PrayRunWorkPlay or better yet StudyPrayRunWorkPlay. I wasn't doing anything bad, per se, but I just was not doing something good.

That summer was awesome, as it turns out. Especially after that RunThinkCryRealize.

Did I ever tell you about Summer?

I will.

She looks like Pochahontas, but prettier. She has hair like a horse's tail, but shinier. She has eyes like chocolate, but livelier. She has a smile like a string of pearls, but whiter.

It looks like spring, but greener. It has grass like a football field, but freer. It has beams like the sun, but brighter. It has warmth like a sauna, but cooler.

She laughs more than a laughtrack, and louder. She dances more than a TV star, and spazzier. She loves more than a president, and sincerer.

It buzzes more than a busy kitchen, and fresher. It grows more than winter, and newer. It loves more than fall, and longer.

She talks and giggles and secretizes and creates and plays and works and jokes and stresses and teases and wonders and dreams and aspires and sweats and cares and magnifies and honors and repents and understands and testifies and flirts and runs and questions and accepts and investigates and introduces and drives and serves and does it the most.

It shines and grows and lengthens and heats and provides and allows and explores and liberates and frees and discovers and runs and denies and extends and demands and teaches and shows and blows and gives and hollows and carves and reads and rotates and overcomes and brightens and forgives and introduces and drives and

Summer does them both the best.

The End

(this story is dragging. But I feel an obligation to finish it. Who knew writing about it would be harder than actually running it? Sheesh!)

With two switchbacks left to go, an indescribable surge of energy came up from my worn feet, through the developing cramp in my calf, up my hunched and sore back and suddenly I was running. My arms pumped back and forth with effort as I rounded the final switchback where I was overwhelmed with a crowd of people and a yellow finish banner hanging somewhere up ahead. I heard Summer from somewhere to my right, but my eyes were so focused on the finish and my efforts were so concentrated on preventing my calf from cramping I couldn't tell where she was.

And then in an instant I passed the neon clock and cross the finish line of the Pikes Peak Ascent.

Someone shoved a finisher's medal over my head. Another person put his hand on my shoulder to make sure I was ok. The next person shooed me ahead, telling me to keep walking until the end of the mountain.

Was it some kind of joke that they made me walk more after I was already done running up a 14,ooo foot mountain!?

I swayed. My legs began to quiver. My arms dangled like spaghetti noodles. I wanted to sit down.

Then my mom was there and she grabbed me into a huge embrace, supporting me at the exact moment I thought I might fall. My throat suddenly tightened as the immensity of what I had just done overcame me, and I squeezed my mom with what strength remained in limp limbs. The hug was a familiar one, and I registered it as one like the hug we shared four months ago.

"Kris you did it!!!! You ran up the mountain!" My mom squeezed me again before Summer came bombarding me, grasping me up with a grin as wide as the Nile spread across her face. The pride in her eyes made tears spring to mine, and I gave up all effort and relaxed into her arms.

"You did it, Kris! You just ran up Pikes Peak! That was awesome!" Her pearly smile beamed from beneath the hood she wore, and it reminded me that it was probably cold up here.

"Thanks for coming, Bum. I'm so tired. I wanna sit down!" I was so happy to be with Summer, but my legs were about as useful as pick-up sticks at keeping me up, and if Summer had let go, I would've tumbled right to the ground.

She walked me over to the wall of the Summit House and I slumped against it, the cold of my finsiher medal bumping against my thigh. Grandma and Grandpa had come over by that point and were smiling down at me, congratulations beaming from their eyes.

Mom pulled out her camera and started recording.

"Here's Kris, sitting on the ground. Kris, what did you just do?"

This was typical. Posterity will appreciate these interviews someday, I have no doubt.

"Uh.... I think I just ran up Pikes Peak!" The words fresh out of my mouth sounded unreal, like I had just told a lie. But I a huge smile of satisfaction spread across my face as I looked to the camera.

"You look tired. Would you do it again?" I could see mom's eyebrows shoot up over the top of the camera, and I licked my lips, smoothing over a layer of salt.

My eyelids drooped as I beamed again, this time taking a breath and nodding my head vigorously. "Oh yeah. I'd do that again."

My roommate went to a party for everyone from Texas on BYU campus. They ate Bluebell ice cream and talked about cows and how big everything is where they're from.

It made me wish they would have a similar party for people from Colorado. It would be much better, of course, than the Texas party, and it would be a lot prettier too. There would be tables of people eating fresh herbs and healthy salads, and there would also be a long dessert table in the back with Rocky Mountain fudge. The entire evening would revolve around discussions of purple mountain majesties and rolling plains, and we'd top it all off with heart felt compliments to each other. The best part is, it wouldn't be in some ninny room in the Wilk. It would probably be in a beautiful meadow, which, although the Utah version would pale in comparison to the real deal, would remind us fondly of the gorgeous landscape back home. Lots of strangers at that party would probably fall in love because they would be so giddy with fresh mountain air and nostalgic doses of true Colorado humility.

Speaking of, I think they should have a party like that for all the people on BYU campus who know Krista Roy. It would have to be in the mountains too, sometime in the middle of summer because that's her favorite season. There would be big blankets laid out where people could sit cross legged and ask each other lots of questions because instant friendship is so important to her. They would eat milkways, gummy worms and maple bars; fajitas, grilled cheese and teriyaki chicken; hawaiian punch, chocolate milk and water. They would play Egyptian Ratscrew, but not for very long before they all took off and went for an endless run through the breathtaking mountain trails. They would paint their nails with their sisters, solve problems with innovative solutions and look at pictures of old times. They would be happy. And even though they wouldn't all know each other, they would feel perfectly comfortable because Krista would have it no other way.

What is it about places and times you want to be so close to you that makes them much farther than normal places and much, much farther than foreboding places and times? This was one of those times and the summit was one of those places, and I wanted it to be so close but it was so so far away. I looked back down at the granite gravel. Then I looked back up at the peak. I could still hear the man. And then I could hear the whistle of the Cog as it left. Or came. I had no sense of time becuase I was so focused on lifting one foot off the ground and putting it farther on the ground then doing the same thing with the other foot, inclining all the while. My toes hurt.

I am moving faster than I usually do. And I've been moving faster all the while. I turned a sharp switchback and a mountain sized gust of wind bombarded me in the face, making my weak little limbs wave like the aspens below. Tears sprang to the corner of my eyes, precious water leaking out of an unsuspecting portal.

The Cirque, a girormous valley on the side of the mountain, plummeted to my left as I made another turn, but I had no desire to go stand on its edge. None of the other Ascent runners did either.

"Happy Birthday to you! Happy Birthday to you!" A portly man next to a middle-aged woman in a blue zip-up jacket on the side of the trail sang out the happy tune. Was that really happening? Or was I that delusional?

The very tip-top far edge corner of the summit house came into view as I approached the 16 Golden Stairs, and I winked at it (perhaps subconciously) before starting the serious ascent. The 16 steps straight up the mountain formed from jumbled piles of granite toppled on top of one another ate weakling's quads for breakfast. But it was lunch time, and I was hungrier than a pile of rocks. I pushed the stream of people ahead of me as I rocketed up the stairs--or rocketed as best a mini spaceship runner can after shooting 13,000 feet into the air with only the sheer power of her legs. My legs hurt.

I straightened my back ad took a deep breath. It smelt like rocks, the good, solid, earthy kind you can smell when you go to the gardening section of Wal-Mart. And it smelt like sweat. My own. The man's in front of me. Maybe eve the finisher's wafting from above.

"Come on, Kris. You can do it." The solid words came from my own mouth, slipping past my chapped lips with a little effort. And once they were out, they bounded past my face and into my mind, motivating my muscles to move more.

Three more turns. Just like at Barr Camp, but I knew it was real this time. Three more turns. Between the temporary shade of the rocks piled on top of each other.

The Basement

I usually am endeared to things that are smaller than the normal size, but I think since I grew up with that little door at the foot of our stairs, I never noticed it was smaller. It was the right size for me when I needed to use it, and so I was more concerned with what was behind it than the smallness of its structure.

With a turn of the faded gold handle, a pitch black space would greet me, filled with nothing but dark outlines of indistinguishable shapes. A single light switch installed upside down on the beam closest to the door was always the first thing I reached for before even stepping onto the first cement step becuase I did not like being in the basement in the dark. We tied a red yarn to that lightswitch so we could turn it on and off from other places in the basement, and for years, I yanked on the yarn before anything else, because it served to quicken the process of bringing light to under the house.

The room was no more than four feet tall. Wooden beams running parallel across the roof of the basement were actually the floor of the kitchen above. Nails jutted down at random places on the makeshift ceiling, threatening to scalp us without warning. The floor was lumpy and uneven, covered in brown shag carpet and almost never visible. Too many toys. Everywhere. Card games. Dress-up clothes. Clue. Stuffed animals. Barbies, barbies and more barbies.

The basement smelled like dead mice, wet sand and unvarnished wood. Rust lingered on all of the pipes lining the ceiling, and the only thing more numerous than the boxes forming random walls all around the 20 foot crawl space was the cobwebs hanging in every corner. There were spiders--not just daddy long legs either--and mice. There was dust and dirt. There were only two light bulbs, and only 60 watts at that. There was a corner heaped high with random inherited clothes and a shadowy half for storage--we weren't allowed over there. (But who hasn't built a secret fort where they aren't allowed? Ours lasted all the way until mom disovered it ((and the forgotten saltine crackers)) years later). While sitting in the basement, the pounds of footsteps from people in the kitchen created an eerie feeling of impending doom, and the scratches of the dog's nails up above were reminiscent of nails on a chalkboard. It was a creepy place.

But we spent hours down there.

Tucked somewhere between Dad's box of old English notes and Grandma Halcyon's trunk, nestled next to a broken shelf and sidled between the old mattresses and the Christmas decorations was a sprawling kingdom of barbies.

So many barbies. Sum and I would spend days huddled amongst our miniature world, one which she had constructed with careful precision and crafty eye. The junk Mom discarded became the precious keepsakes of Summer's barbie world; a scap of cardboard covered in black construction paper to become a chalkboard; the fallen petals of an artificial bouquet neatly arranged in a vase molded from blue tack for home decor; the broken spring of a click pen turned into the tiny slinky of the youngest barbie. She would play, and I would do the hair. I would make the clothes, and sometimes, I would jump into the world my sister considered a real part of her own.

With every first day of school, new puppy, and first date of the barbies, the scent of the dead mice faded. There seemed to be no more cobwebs when we planned a family vacation or made dinner. The wooden beams served as platforms where the bad guys held the barbies ransom on our adventurous days, and the uneven ground was the world's greatest roller blade park.

No one would ever know, without turning that faded gold and pulling that red yarn, the magical world beneath that old 60 watter.

Blah

The three miles between Barr Camp and treeline were NOT as easy as people made them sound. They were long and they were hard and I did quite a bit of walking. And strangely enough, I was quite alone on the trail.

I didn't stop walking though. All that advice from my running customers all summer didn't go to waste there.

I grabbed a hadnful of skittles at the switchback to the start of treeline but didn't eat many of them before tossing them to the side of the trail. I glanced at the summit some three miles above and quickly looked back at the ground. That was still a lot of mountain, and every inch of the trail was defined by the steady line of neon-clad runners inching along from one side of the face to the other, until they disappeared behind the boulders just beneath the summit house. It looked like I could jsut run straight up the face, but it always looked that way and I knew it was better to switch back and forth between the mountainside.

The sun was right above my head, and so close to me, I could feel its hot fingers striking my part with intense sunburn. There was nothing but gravel up here, and it crunched steadily beneath my feet. I shot a quick prayer of gratitude towards the summit house because I felt well-supplied with bounteous oxygen becuase I was accustomed to having only this much at work all summer.

Not eveyrone was so lucky. A mile and a half into the final climb i passed a grown man, wincing on the side of the trail as he sat to try and catch the breath he would never have up here. Poor man. He wore a purple wristband, which meant he had started 30 minutes earlier than me. I wanted to pat him on his head, but just kept moving instead. Time was ticking and I was trucking.

More Ascent

The supposed half mile to go to Barr Trail creeped by as I wound through trees and across little bridges constructed from knotted logs laid side by side. I knew the halfway point was just around the corner, just around the next corner, but it seemed that some conniving hand had crafted seven extra corners I had forgotten about from the last time I hiked the mountain. When I finally rounded the turn to the straightaway towards Barr Camp, I was thrilled to hear music blaring down the trail.

Barr Camp resembled an anthill more than it ever had, and I was taken aback by the countless volunteers scampering around in blue Ascent shirts. Two tables laid out on either side of the trail were burdened with finger foods- lunch meat rolled up in tortillas like little sushi balls, pretzels and grapes overflowing out of plastic bowls. There was a colorful array of skittles and M&Ms on the next table, nestled beside hundreds of Dixie cups full of water and gatorade.

"You can do it! You're looking great! Keep going!"

The enthusiastic shouts of the volunteers pushed me through the camp as I grabbed some grapes from the table and slowed to let a man fill my water bottle with water from a pitcher. "You're looking good!" he said. I smiled and muttered a thanks, then kept running past the party.

I passed the last boom box and threw the stem from my grapes within the trash zone. I thought I would be again enveloped by the silence of the mountain, but I was surprised when there came a booming voice somewhere above me. I couldn't make out the words it was saying, but I looked up to figure out what was going on.

A lady in front of me turned slightly to talk to me. "Are they finishing already?"

My jaw dropped as I identified the voice. It was the announcer at the top, celebrating the runners as they crossed the finish line. I could hear a man some 7 miles above me in the sky? And not only that, but people were already finishing and I was still at the halfway point?

My legs were a little tired, but I was ready to go join them. Three miles till treeline, and I knew I could run that in my sleep.

Ascent

The cobblestones on Ruxton Avenue seemed to move beneath me like the flat escalators in airports. The crowds cheered enthusiastically for us, and I appreciated the fact that none of them said anything about being almost done or a simplifed countdown of only so many miles to go. I paced myself, beaming at the people, alternating between glances at their supportive faces and the summit I was racing towards. We passed the Cog depot and when we started up the gravel trail to that linked with Barr Trail, people had already started walking.

Already!? We weren't even a mile up the mountain yet!

I settled in between a slender man with a balding head and a woman in a neon running top, bottles of water bouncing on her hips in those water carrying contraptions the serious runners wore. After winding through the shaded forest which paralleled the real trail at a less steep incline, we finally joined with Barr Trail and I felt the same joy bubble inside of me that comes when I run into an old friend in the grocery store.

"Hey there, Barr Trail," I thought as my breath remained steady in beat with my footsteps. "How you been? You ready for this?"

I remembered the first time I got to this part of the trail in my training. That was two pairs of shoes ago, but today I knew I would outlast the gravel beneath my feet.

We trudged up the switchbacks, one long caravan of crazy runners hardly believing they had talked themselves into this, or, for the veterans, that they had kept coming back for more. The sun was already up and we were already up, a mile or two, and I turned to look at Manitou Springs. It was there, as I always saw it from this view in my training runs, but this time it was better than when I saw it in the evening after work and it was better than the sunrise climbs I had made with my Peak co-workers or cross country teammates.

The switchbacks were ruthless as ever. I focused on breathing slowly, savoring the oxygen I knew would leave as I climbed. I watched the heels of the woman in front of me, and around a wider switchback, I passed them to gain on an old, old man with a tattered Ascent hat covering his gray hair. Forty minutes passed and I had already made it to the top of the famous "W's," or switchbacks of the first three miles of Barr Trail. Right on pace.

I couldn't see the city anymore. It was veiled by the first part of the mountain I had just climbed, and I was in the cooler part of the trail now. Large aspens and poky shrubs lined the trail, and I smiled as we sidled past the entrance of the trail to the top of the Incline. Been there, done that.

The forest was beautiful. Beyond beautiful. Maybe it was because I was running where I had only ever hiked before, but the whispering aspens seemed to hold some mystical nature as they chortled with the short pines and hummed in harmony with the trickle of the small brook alongside the trail. No one spoke in our line of runners, but it was more fitting as our patterned breath and concentrated strides contributed the descante of an already orchestrated display of God's handiwork.

I was still running up, and I passed the place where I peed when I hiked this with Mom and Char for the first time. The line became more spread, and I focused on the woman in the red shorts up ahead. She was listening to her music, and I used the pitiful fact to justify my ability pass her. Anyone listening to music in this secret sanctuary deserved to be passed.

If this was apparently the "easy" three miles, I needed to take adavantage of it. Running around a slender pine tree in the middle of the trail, I looked ahead and calculated who was ahead of me. Barr Camp lay nestled just two miles from that point, and I saw a blond head bopping down the trail in front me.

I will get that blond before we get to Barr Camp. I will get her."

Barr Trail was lovelier than it had ever been, and I thanked it as I skipped around Red Shorts girl to close the next gap.

Sister Shnike

Charina had a bright green long sleeved shirt on over her tshirt. The elastic around her head didn't match--it never did--but it matched her runningness becuase this is what she looked like every time she went running. The silky black basketball shorts still had holes in them from her her knee brace rubbed, and trailing from underneath the front of her shirt came the white wire of her headphones. She held the old mp3 in her hand as she hopped from one foot to the other, her high, thick, horse-tail hair do swinging from side to side.

"Please, Char? Can I please go with you?" I was bundled in a ball in the corner of the couch, mostly becuase I knew she wouldn't say yes, but if she had I would have been ready at a moment's notice.

"No, Kris! I just like to run slow. I just am a slow runner, k? You go so fast!" Her little brown eyes squinted up and she gave me her receptionist smile before turning toward the door.

"Char, I will run your pace!" No budging. "Ok. Well, will you tell me where you are going? Maybe it will give me a good idea for a route." I said it hopefully, innocently. Just wondering, you know.

"I'm just going up Alta Loma around to the Borrego ditch then out by the Becars to get to Keller Park. It won't be long enough for you anyway, Kris. Sorry." She turned the doorknob and went out onto the front porch; i could see the raindrops bouncing off her shoulders as she trotted past the large front window.

I didn't lose a moment's time. Jumping off the couch, i dashed up the stairs two at a time and down the hall to my room where I ripped off my hoody. I slipped on a white long sleeved shirt over my t-shirt, much like Charina, and forced my feet into my shoes. Charina didn't have to know I wasn't still nestled in the corner of the couch. That was the point.

I ran down Topaz, past the fire mailbox, the duplex, Brianne's house, the woodpecker lightpole, and the mini hill half way down. At the stop sign on Meadowland I turned right, the muddy corner causing me to slip in my haste. I flicked the mud off my hands before resuming my jaunt past the church where Meadowland intersected with Alta Loma and started heading towards Keller Park. The sidewalk had just enough moisture to feel like it was splashing beneath my feet, and I trundled past the pine tree cluster where we had our seminary socials. If I timed it right she would be coming out by the Becar's on the other side of the park in about 2 minutes.

The grass squelched beneath my feet as I skipped through the rain across the park. I could see the fence lining the park and the point where it would open to the Becar's cul-de-sac. Still a quarter mile away I saw her emerge- bright green glimmering through the rain, flying ponytail knocking rain drops out of their paths.

My whole face broke into a huge grin. Just seeing Charina come out of the rain, running toward me with a conviction in her stride, hand clasped around the precious mp3 probably blaring Colors or Kelly Clarkson made me lengthen my stride over the clumped bits of aeration.

She eventually looked up and her eyes trailed over the landscape. I couldn't see every detail of her face, but I could tell she did a double take when the horizon was suddenly interrupted by my bounding figure.

The gap closed until I was right in front of her. "Kris! How'd you get here!?" Her lips were still pursed, but she wasn't mad. She rolled her eyes as I turned to run the same direction as she was, and the raindrops started making way for the two of us.

"Char! You look great! I was so happy to see you just forging your way through the rain just now!"

Eye roll again. She switched the mp3 over to her left hand, and I'm pretty sure between each swish of the ponytail and the bright green blur as her arms moved back and forth, I saw a sneaking smile spread across her face.

And Then The Ascent

And then I ran all summer, up and down that mountain, on the trails around Colorado that reached higher than normal elevation and until the Incline was my best friend and I knew Barr Trail like the back of my hand and my running shoes were tattered pieces of hard work and my thighs bulged beneath my Sunday skirt.

And then it was the week of and I took extra caution to look both ways three times before crossing streets and didn't participate in sports and tied my rugged nikes extra tight to avoid rolled ankles and drank more water than Pikes Peak's total annual precipitation and went to the pasta dinner with Mr. Mac and his old timers who had run the mountain more years than I had been alive and dreamt of the Ascent every night.

And then it was the night before and I watched Chariots of Fire which who knew it was actually a religion movie and not a running movie but it was inspiring anyway while i painted my toenails pink and took a break to talk to Jordan when she brought me a good luck card and went to bed early but didn't actually fall asleep until I had mentally run the race and gone through the GREAT analogy completely and told my beating heart to stop beating so much becuase I would need that pulse in the morning.

And then the alarm clock went off but barely before I sprung out of bed and looked in the mirror and thought today is the day it is the day i run up Pikes Peak and read Summer's good luck sign she made for me and gathered my energy jellys and my initiated shoes and tiptoed around the kitchen i had come home to all summer after every run and ate mom's toast and drove with mom down the road I drove all summer, down to Academy where the Peak was looming and down to Garden of the Gods where the Peak was peeking and down to Ruxton Ave where the Peak was beckoning and its invited guests milled around Memorial Park, sipping Gatorade and stretching while they pinned on their numbers.

And then to the start line where I talked to someone who had run it 34 times in a row and asked another woman about her five finger shoes and listened to a talented woman belt Katherine Lee Bate's resounding lyrics with the inspirational summit just winking in the background, winking, wninking, the Incline pointing straight up to its teasing apex, knowing i would be there in just 4 hours, knowing those 4 hours were proceeded by countless hours running the city all summer,knowing that summer lead to this moment and to that moment 4 hours away.

And then.

Hand on watch.

Feet on toes.

Eyes on Peak.

Finger on trigger.

Mind on edge.

I took off.

Images From Childhood (no story, sorry Carol)

The sandbox was all the way at the end of the backyard, nestled beside the rundown horse stable in the back corner. The wooden fort Grandpa built us before I could remember dominated the right-hand side of the sandbox and off its second story came the top of a swing set, reaching down and posting in the sand. The sand was full of treasures and holes. The eggs we once buried are probably still there. All of us played there together, digging into the soft sand with our overgrown fingernails and filling the cracks in our callused heels with little grains of earth. Maybe we started when the sun came up or when the chores were done or when Mom was busy, and always we started whenever another sister was with us. And when were we done? Never really, but we would take breaks--in the middle of the sand village war or the pioneer pine cone gathering fest, a loud knock would reverberate from the very front of the backyard, where mom pounded on the kitchen window to call us in for dinner. Then the roles would swap, village defenders became enemies surrendering, pioneers became wild indians, and we would flee to the back door and around the dogs to wash off because Mom knocked and told us to.

I was always the first one up. The sun would come in through our open window, streaming light over our rumbled bed spreads and past the red carpet, hitting our large mirror doors on the closet. The Looney Toons on our wallpaper seemed to dance in the reflecting sunlight, and I wiggled my toes beneath the blue tie quilt Grandma made out of old flour sacks. This is where I mastered the art of silent travel, for I would fold my blankets under my body to tidily make my bed without waking Summer, then tiptoe to the door and into the hall. Silently past Jamie and Charina's room, around the corner and a leap across the hallway intersecting Mom and Dad's door to keep them asleep too. I would switch the bathroom light on only after I had carefully closed the door and even when I was done, I wouldn't flush to ensure the silence in the house remained. Then down the seven steps while clinging to the handrail Dad crafted himself, slipping onto the tile floor where the same sun from my room was now greeting the kitchen. Then around the final corner till the cereal cupboard was in sight and I would look--only to jump back, startled by my silent father, sitting at the table and quietly reading the paper, softly munching his raisin bran while the rest of the house slept on. So that's where I really learned it, I guess.

I think the rooms in the Meadowland Stake Center all look the same, but I could still point to the exact room where I had this Sunday School class. The same people where there with me then as were there when I was 17--Kyle MacGill and his brother Korey, Taryn Smith, Ryan Jensen and Rachel Guasp. There room smelled like the generic cleaning solution you can buy in bulk, and the cold air from air conditioning blew through the room as constant as the Wyoming winds. THere was a big, black chalkboard on the wall, set out against the cinder blocks painted white which constituted the whole building. My teacher was a woman, and she sat next to round table, brown like the chapel's pews. Propped in the chalk tray was a poster, a picture of a large forest with lots of sunlight and green leaves. Kneeling on the floor in this forest was a boy in peasant's clothes, and there were two people that looked like angels floating above him. She said that was God? This boy asked a question and God came to answer it? It sounded familiar, and from the first time I heard it, I liked it.