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!"