I haven’t been running with any kind of regularity since I did the Missoula Half Marathon in 2007, my belly six months round with a Margot. And when I do run now it’s all different. It’s about getting out with my dog and kids, it’s about squeezing in exercise between naps. Also, I pee my pants. I miss when running was my meditation; when it was just me moving toward Mount Sentinel as the sun rose to meet me. I miss bladder control. I knew my friend, Running, would come back but I wasn’t sure how or when we’d reconnect. Turns out all I needed was a new bra and the unbridled energy of several thousand athletes.

Last weekend my family made the curvy, mountainous drive west to Coeur d’Alene, Idaho to watch our friend compete in his first ever Ironman Triathlon. The city was humming with people who trained for months, who pushed through injury and exhaustion, who zipped their special gear in their special bags and traveled to swim, bike and run from sun-up to sun-down. As I wove my double stroller through the amped scene the day before the race, I caught a contact high. I remembered when I was one of those fit, excited people with my special gear and my special bag at running races. Behind my oversized sunglasses, my eyes regularly filled with tears of amazement and reverence and I knew, in a big way, that I need to run. I need to run like I used to run.

My friend Heather talks about the running’s loyalty. She says, running is always there for you. And I know that. I know it when I see my shoes sitting by the door waiting to be pushed, when Margot wears my marathon medal around the house, when my dog looks at me longingly. It’s there for me, patiently and lovingly waiting for me to be there for it.

In the last few months the familiar itch to Run has been getting itchier. My savagefriend is running the Missoula Marathon next weekend and I find myself wanting to know details about her long runs and I find myself googling races and training programs. But I’ve held back. I’ve felt nervous to reengage. I wondered how I could prioritize it and, more nervously, what it would all look and feel like.

I didn’t even bring my running clothes with me to Coeur d’Alene. Before I had kids, my running clothes were the first to be packed when we left town as running is my favorite way to explore new places. My best friend’s fiance was the future Ironman and Lindsay had been looking forward to running with me while he spent days assembling his bike and preparing his legs. She and I were both surprised I hadn’t brought my stuff and decided to venture downtown to fetch a bra. She held Ruby while I tried on the high impact bras. I stood in the dressing room, my postpartum self staring back at me. My belly’s softer and tattooed with proof it grew and grew. My boobs hang lower. And I’ve never in my life had more confidence in and admiration for my physical self. That belly grew a human inside it and those boobs sustain life. It’s time to run.

So I secured my girls in their new supportive bra and I slipped into my new sporty running skirt that I last-minute plucked off the sale rack. And, with Lindsay and her encouragement, I ran toward the lake, up and around a mountain, through the crowds of triathletes and straight back into Running. It was about trusting myself and about giving myself the indulgence of some new clothes that fit well. It was the shift I have been waiting for, the shift that Running has been waiting for. Tomorrow I will purchase new shoes and this mama is running to meet the sun.

Every Sunday morning the training group I run with meets in the upstairs room above the Runner’s Edge, the running store in Missoula. We sit with our coffee, ipods, water, watches that can pretty much predict the future and listen to our coach as he tells us what he has in store for us.

Run against traffic, he says, for Christ’s sake. We’re almost there, he says, be conservative.

As we collect ourselves and our gear a hundred or so of us make our way down a flight of stairs and onto the street. Every Sunday I notice the poster of Steve Prefontaine as I start down the stairs. His eyes are piercing, even in a more than 30-year-old black and white photograph. Nearly every week I have to fight back tears.

I don’t consider myself a sappy person but Pre gets me every time.

Lately I’ve been a little marathon obsessed. I can’t really think about anything unless it’s in the context of the marathon. I remember this vaguely from having run other marathons but somehow I thought this one would be different. When I ran my last marathon I was 25, single with no kids. I was starting my second year of graduate school and I spent my time writing and running. Not a bad way to live, I suppose. But these days I chase little Lucille around the house asking her if she has poop in her dipes, I help Eliza put on her basketballin’ clothes about a hundred times a day. We go swimming on sunny days and read books when it rains. We go to water parks, we visit friends on farms green and deep, we curl up exhausted and try to sleep even though it’s 9:00 p.m. and it’s still light outside. Somewhere in all of this I run. I write. I thought I would be too distracted to get marathon obsessed but somehow I can’t stop thinking about it.

I think about the marathon when I eat. Does this have enough protein? Enough carbs? I think about it when I go to sleep. I think about blisters and icing my shins. I think about the 20-miler this weekend. But when anyone asks me about training, as a friend did the other day, I choke. I can’t talk about it without, well, I can’t even talk about it. My stomach drops. I change the subject.

It’s not a sense of dread that renders me speechless, it’s excitement, anticipation. It’s thinking about what a difference a year can make.

Prefontaine once said, “I run to see who has the most guts.” And there is something in that statement that resonates with me.

Prefontaine was a kid from Coos Bay, Oregon, with one leg shorter than the other, who found himself on the University of Oregon track team. He was one of the most talented runners this country has ever seen. He died, at 24, in a car accident in Eugene, Oregon, where he’d set records and created an adoring fan base who would shout “Pre! Pre! Pre!” during his races at Hayward Field.

I went to the University of Oregon for graduate school, even drove down the road where he died. I walked by Hayward Field nearly every day and didn’t have a clue who he was. That’s the tragedy of youth I guess.

I know who he is now and he stares back at me each week with a look of determination. Do this, he says. Do it with guts.

Prefontaine once said, “You have to wonder at times what you’re doing out there. Over the years, I’ve given myself a thousand reasons to keep running, but it always comes back to where it started. It comes down to self-satisfaction and a sense of achievement.”

It always comes back to where it started. Self-satisfaction. A sense of achievement.

I’m not the fastest. I run 10-minute miles. I’m no Steve Prefontaine. But it’s a gutsy thing to run a marathon and seeing that poster of Pre every week reminds me of that.

The three of us were walking through the golden sunny hills on Greenough Drive, our babies all within a month’s age of each other and strapped into our matching Baby Bjorns. We walked with gusto, like Mom’s who wanted to see the familiar shape of their derrieres return after the spreading of pregnancy. Truckin’ through stands of trees, becoming breathless on the winding uphill climbs – we were invigorated. Except it was hard for me to “keep on truckin’.” I had to keep stopping to tend to my baby.

I know to this day that the ladies would say that they didn’t mind every time I had to flip Marquez the other way like a pancake in the Bjorn. Or every time they had to wait for me to nurse him while they stared at llamas and while the llamas stared back. Or when I just slung the Bjorn over my shoulder and held Marquez for the last half mile, slowing me down. But I felt terrible holding them up – of course their babies slept the whole time. I wanted to be in a bigger group of exercising moms where maybe there’d be at least one other baby who was a non-stop nursing pancake.

These days, as a runner and a mother, I know that it can be intimidating to join a running class or training group – I might be the slowest, I might have my baby in the jogger and lag behind if he needs me. So with running-mom Eva Dunn-Froebig of Run Wild Missoula, I helped to develop the New Parent Training Class.

We’re gonna train for a 5K and we don’t care how many times we have to stop and feed, change or cuddle our babies. We’re going to run, walk and learn together in a supportive environment and achieve a goal. This is a training class “Where parents are understood.” Yep, parents. Dads/partners are welcome, too. You’re welcome to come with baby* or without—it’s up to you.

Neil Chaput de Saintonge at the River City Roots Run in August 2008

Here’s what you get: Comprehensive training program to complete a 5K, weekly group runs on Tuesdays at 6 p.m., speakers, a nutrition plan, a nifty “Run Wild Missoula New Parent Class” hat, and other parents to run with! It costs $25 for Run Wild Missoula members, $50 for non-members. Class starts Tuesday, May 18 at 6 p.m. and continues until the Hellgate Village 5K on July 10, the day before the Missoula Marathon and during the Missoula Marathon Expo. (oh yeah!) Class meets at Runner’s Edge, 325 N. Higgins Ave. Check out www.runwildmissoula.org for registration information, and if you have any questions, please email me (Nina Alviar) at ninatanna@yahoo.com.

Oh life and the gentle reminders she gives us to stay healthy! My focus on centering myself in the last five years has mainly been from going on long runs. Although I see the value in meditation I have not mastered the practice of sitting still! (Does any mother?) Running provides me with a repetitive motion where as my body becomes busier my mind seems to become more still.

One day I went out on a long run. There had been much on my plate that week. I couldn’t find a different plate OR a bigger plate! I needed my meditative run, where my mind clears and opens to new perspectives. I purposefully left my ipod and my phone at home. No interruptions, no running partners. This was ME time.

I started out with a slow stride until I could feel my body warm up and relax into the movement. When I could feel the tension start to ease I started thinking about some challenges I was facing. Around this same time I felt a small pebble in my shoe but it did not warrant taking the time to stop and remove.

I continued on my journey: through the park, over the bridge, and into the beautiful Rattlesnake wilderness. My mind was settled into the familiar routine of problem solving, yet nothing seemed to present itself as a viable solution to a situation I was facing. Meanwhile the pebble started becoming annoying, but yet not enough to break the stride and discard.

So, the thinking and running and running and thinking continued. Up the creek, past the horses, enjoying the solitude and stride, but angry internally that my run wasn’t providing me with the usual problem solving skills it gifts me.

Meanwhile, the pebble in my shoe started screaming at me.It had embedded into my heel and was not happy to play any part in my zen run. I, however, only had the five miles back to the van, and darn it! I wanted to solve my creative block before I got there!

The five miles back was quite the reminder of how stubborn I am. I did not stop. I continued against my own instincts and made it back to the maxi taxi. As I removed my shoe I had my “aha” moment. The little pebble; this tiny stone; had created a huge, painful welt on my heel.

It was then that I realized the significance.

1. I had ignored the pebble because I thought it was small. I had ignored my feelings of being compassionate to myself because I didn’t feel it was solution oriented.
2. The pebble was present the whole time even before it became painful. I sometimes search too deep for solutions when the answer simply could be to be more kind to myself. Our life doesn’t always have to be dictated by solving problems, and when we let go of that misconception sometimes the solution will just appear.

How many of you have a pebble in your shoe? Don’t let it become bigger than it is. Acknowledge it, remove it and learn from your own compassion and wisdom.

Jen Slayden is a long time Missoulian who thrives in the chaos of being a mother of three while also being a Certified Life Coach, musician and educator. She enjoys writing about all of life’s little lessons on her blog, which you can find at www.bigskylifecoach.com .

Ellen’s words struck me today as I was thinking about New Year’s resolutions. Achievable? Stupid? Wishful thinking? I’ve been bombarded by news reports regarding the number of people who make and achieve their resolutions. The numbers were discouraging. Statistics show that 97% of resolutions are never achieved. Ugh.

Last spring, I sat outside Bernice’s Bakery drinking coffee and chatting with my good friend Angie. Angie was on the planning committee for Relay for Life and although very enthusiastic about the mission of Relay, she wished she was raising money specifically for the cancer that she had been living with since 2006.

Angie has a Gastrointestinal Stromal Tumor, or GIST for short. As we sat there talking an idea hatched. Oregon Health Sciences University, a facility directly involved in GIST research, is in Portland where I had run my second marathon in 2008. Somewhere along the line of conversation, we agreed I could run again and raise a little money. She could walk and hope to portray a healthy mom to her three beautiful daughters who had seen mom sick for too long. It would also give her a break from dealing with cancer and let her rejoin the “world of the healthy people”.

When she got home, Angie posted an update on Facebook about our decision. Soon, curious friends from the Bozeman Senior High class of ’86 responded. One friend, Gail, sealed the deal hours later by posting that she had officially registered for Portland. Within a week we had a group of long lost classmates who wanted to walk or run the marathon. Later, we added another Missoula mom who is a mutual friend. Our group includes a dentist, a musician, a Spanish teacher, an administrator, a stay-at-home mom, a landscaper, a life coach and more. Five of us are moms, so we don’t need to mention all the other hats we wear every day! We share a common goal: to walk/run or support a marathon, raise money for cancer research and grow in mind, body and spirit.

Training takes time and dedication, and family and friends stepped up the support to ensure our success during the long process of training. My kids often joined me for runs on their bikes, carrying water and words of encouragement! My sister-in-law who is a family practitioner and mom is our medical advisor.

Our group has laughed, cried and hugged via teleclass, email, Facebook and phone calls. Our journey has been humbling, humorous, enlightening and motivational. Unfortunately in that time we have also had major setbacks. Angie’s plans to “rejoin the world of the healthy” changed when more tumors were discovered. The drug that had kept her cancer under control for three years stopped working. In early August, surgeons removed several small tumors — exactly two months before the marathon.

There is sadness that Angie cannot walk this year, but she will still join us for the trip to Portland. Perhaps with the help of donations we can ensure she will walk next year. A targeted therapy developed at Oregon Health Sciences University gave her three additional years but it was not a cure and she developed resistance as many do. It will take additional drugs to keep her here for our future marathons.

Many of us will meet again for the first time after 23 years, as much more than friends. We are comrades, warriors against cancer, and seekers of living life to the fullest. Through all the challenges and unexpected surprises we have had each other.

Who would have thought? A cup of joe and Facebook opened up a whole new door of friendship, love and support. I can’t wait to see my dear friends in two weeks. This time face to face!

Life Lesson? Nothing in life is a coincidental. People you encounter, opportunities and challenges that arise are all meant to be used for a higher purpose. Life is your marathon…….live it!

Want to donate? You can donate online here. You can donate in honor of Angie Adams or the Portland Marathon Group.

Jen Slayden is a Certified Life Coach, Educator, avid runner and musician. She helps women tune into their creative side to live for today and believe in tomorrow. Jen is married and has three children and a Marley-type dog. Quality family time is always a priority. When combined with life coaching, marathon training, working with the Center for Music by People with Disabilities, and teaching cello lessons, it’s safe to say that Jen leads a full, busy life. “I dwell in the simple pleasures of life to keep me balanced and healthy.” In her spare time she plays music with her children and niece in their family band “Blue Mountain Music Makers”. Read more about Jen and Life Coaching at www.bigskylifecoach.com .

Women — of all ages, generations, fitness levels, running enthusiasts, walkers, wheelers, strollers — can all benefit from the coming together to encourage each other, celebrate and enjoy a grand day for themselves. The grandmothers can inspire their granddaughters, the young ones can hop, skip and jump their way to a finish, mothers and daughters can cheer and run side by side for support.

Race day registration is $30 and packet pickup starts at 8:00 am on Saturday. The 5K race begins at 9:30 and a Free Family Fun Walk follows the run at 11:00. Following the walk, Runner’s Edge and Betty’s Divine will strut their diva fashions during the fashion show.

Check out www.runwildmissoula.org for more information.

The Missoula Marathon includes a full 26.2 mile marathon, 13.1 mile half marathon, marathon relay (teams of 4) and kids marathon. The kids marathon utilizes a log system over a period of months for kids to walk or jog 25 miles. The day of the Missoula Marathon the kids complete the final 1.2 miles, and have ultimately finished 26.2 miles.

The Missoula Marathon is put on by Run Wild Missoula, the local running club, which is a 501(c)3 non-profit organization. The Missoula Marathon is the club’s primary fundraiser. The Missoula Marathon encourages local participation and also promotes the event regionally and nationally. It is purposefully scheduled for mid-July, tourist season, and also because it allows local people to start training in March… a much more reasonable time to begin training in Montana than, say, January. The goal is to put on a national caliber event with local flavor, to encourage people to participate in a healthy lifestyle as befits the mission statement of Run Wild Missoula, and to promote our beautiful area to people from all over the United States and the world.

Missoula Marathon
Caras Park in Downtown Missoula
Sunday, July 12 (Expo Saturday, July 11)
6 am, 9 am for the Kids Marathon
Jennifer Straughan, Race Director, 406-214-7140
www.runwildmissoula.com

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