"You have brains in your head.
You have feet in your shoes.
You can steer yourself
any direction you choose."
Oh, The Places You'll Go!, Dr. Suess
As you may know, marathon training takes up a lot of time. And regardless of what kind of runner you are, if you're training for a marathon, you're likely going to make an effort to get your miles in. That said, you also have to live your life. And most of us are really freaking busy. Maybe you have a full-time job that requires travel. Maybe you're a parent with multiple kids and a pet. Maybe you're a student with two jobs. Maybe, like myself, you are some combination of all of these things - mom, two jobs, two dogs and elite sock finder. And I'm really good at the sock thing. I'm also currently training for my thirtieth marathon. And what I have learned over the years, sometimes the hard way, is that life, my non-running life that is, usually has to come first. Because marathon training is a choice. An "extra", if you will. For me, at least, it's family first, job second, a few other things third, fourth and fifth and then the training. And when I don't prioritize life, the critical day to day things very quickly start to fall through the cracks. That said, if I'm able get all the important regular life stuff done and I still have time for the training, regardless of where I am, who I'm with or what we happen to be doing, I'm going to try and make it work. Take last Monday, for example. Jeff and I were out in Utah with some friends for a ski weekend. This is our second year going and we're hoping to make it a tradition. So, in this case, friends and family first. Marathon training if possible. On our last day, we got up very early in order to shovel out our car which was buried due to the over two feet of snow we'd gotten over the past 24 hours. Well, Jeff and Chris shoveled. Full credit to them. Anyway, the roads to get out of our rental house and to the airport were wicked sketchy so we decided to just get up early and go to avoid any issues. We arrived at the SLC airport around 7:45am and our flight wasn't until 10:30. Now, normally I wouldn't have considered going for a run in an airport terminal. But, I had not been able to run the day before because the roads were legitimately closed for avalanche blasting. So, I was itching to move. I asked one of the Delta employees at the gate if they thought it would be okay if I went running in the terminal. He said, "Sure. Why not? People run for their flights all day. And I power walk all the time. Just stay out of the way if you can and you should be fine." Done and done. Off I went to the tunnel that connected Terminal A to terminal B, probably about a quarter mile long. I put on my tunes and started my run. I got lots of odd looks but more smiles and "good jobs" than I expected. I managed to get six miles in. And it was really fun. Seriously. Likely because it was something new and different and both I and the people around me were getting a good kick out of the scene. For the record, when I finished I washed my face in the ladies room, changed my shirt, grabbed an iced coffee and made sure I was in acceptable shape to sit next to my husband and a stranger for the next four hours. Because I'm crazy but I do respect other people's space. So, yea. This has to go down as the weirdest place I've ever trained. Would I do it again? No question. That said, I am now officially on the hunt for a crazier place to lace up. Stay tuned.
TOP 5 WEIRDEST PLACES I'VE EVER RUN
1. Salt Lake City Airport. You already know this story. By far the best, though.
2. At the top of a hotel in South Africa. Our family had been in Botswana and Zambia for Christmas. I hadn't run for 2 weeks for obvious reasons. Mainly lions. This was our last night. I felt like garbage. But I loved every minute of it.
3. In my basement during Covid. Meg McDonald of the Amity Island Running Club based on Martha's Vineyard threw out the indoor mile challenge and I jumped right on it. I did lots of dumb things during Covid. This was definitely one of them. I regret none of them.
4. The driveway of our AirBnB in Eden, Utah. That's right. We were on the same ski trip a year ago and we stayed on the mountain. Literally. The only road available was along the mountain itself which really wasn't an option. So, I ended do many, many laps in our driveway which was about .2 miles long. Good times.
5. And last, but as I said, definitely not least, Lot 2 in the town of Alta this past weekend. Twice. Lifts didn't start running until 9:15 and it really didn't get light out until about 8:30 so I had ample time to run circles in the dark. I was out there with Alta security who was checking cars to make sure people hadn't camped overnight, which I guess happens often. I was more than pleased to have someone out there with me. Both runs were lovely.
Listen to this:
Oh My - Luude (feat. Moby & Issey Cross)
