Eva Runs Through It

Noah works full-time,but has Wednesdays off.   A fact I’d forgotten, until he padded down the stairs at 11:11 (his number).  “You’re home!”  he said.  I’d just returned the night before from a much desired, very fulfilling, A+ training run.  “Let’s go to lunch”, he continued. I love my 1:1 time with my boy.  We talk about anything and everything.  Today’s topic was his next marathon.  “I’m just not sure why I’m doing it.  I don’t have the same reasons as last time”.  Granted, I found out he wanted to do another marathon on Facebook…’Today I start training for marathon #2’.  Wait...What??? Sigh...how do I explain it to the boy?  “Noah, you do it because it’s hard, but you are tougher.  You do it because you can learn about yourself.  You do it because once it’s done, no one can ever take it away from you.  Noah, you do it because you can.” Fast forward to the Montour 24.   This was another training run for me.   I registered simply to get

No.  Not today.  Last year, I signed up for this race, completed half of it, and walked away.  I had the strength, but I also had my reasons.   I just couldn’t run through it.  I chose to say, “no”.  I took my ball and went home. Fast forward a year.   I got my ball back and I wanted to play.  But, I was physically tired.  I didn’t get to sleep in as planned, the six-hour drive to the race was difficult in the pouring rain, and to top it off, I was woken by a bear as I camped.   I had reasons this year too, but I was going to race. I teach my students about the three types of conflict in literature.   For some reason, they passed through my thoughts. Man vs. Man;  I was going to push during this race, and it was a race.  But, if someone had more oomph than I, by all means, go ahead.  If not, no worries, I’ll pace you.  This was a race, but I was not in competition with anyone else. Man vs. Nature:  What can I say?  Mother Nature is a bully.  Besides the bear, this tim