For the past few weeks, I have been walking around town
sporting a nice, new purple running jacket.
And I have received my share of grief for it.
Wearing purple in Forest Grove, especially when one works at
Pacific University (where our colors are red and black), is like someone
wearing a bright yellow shirt in Corvallis.
For the uneducated, Pacific’s primary rival in athletics is Linfield
College. Their colors are purple and
red.
Our golf coach nearly called me a traitor, seeing the jacket
on the back of my chair. The story
behind the jacket elicited simply two words.
“You’re weird.”
But this jacket has nothing to do with the right or wrong
colors, the right or wrong school or whether I am truly weird. It is about goals achieved, dreams to come
and the hard work it will take to get there.
At the beginning of 2013, I accepted the challenge of the Oregon Road Runners Club’s
“1,200 Club” program. A new offering by
the club, it challenged members to run 1,200 miles during the calendar
year. This translates to 100 miles per
month, or roughly 22 miles per week over 52 weeks. That’s the same as driving from Portland to
Rapid City, S.D.
Running 1,200 miles is a lofty goal to be certain. Over the first two months, I managed to just
meet the required 100 miles to keep pace.
But by the end of February, some amazing things started to happen that
proved to be life enhancing.
For starters, the 1,200 Club challenge re-ignited my love
for running. I have always been an avid
runner, but had been in a lull after completing my first marathon in 2010. Accepting the challenge and putting the miles
in reminded me of why I love it. The
stress release, the oneness with nature, the focus of being in tune with one’s
body.
That reminder encouraged me to drop extra weight that I have
carried for so long. I joined a Weight
Watchers group in February and since I have dropped 20 pounds and plan to lose
more. Conventional wisdom says you gain,
on average, two seconds per mile for every pound lost. For a runner, that is like finding a gear you
had forgotten existed.
I found that gear over the course of the year, dropping 10
minutes off of my half-marathon personal best at the Helvetia Half Marathon in
June and running under 42 minutes in a pair of 10-kilometer races over the
summer.
The challenge also made me dust off of my longtime bucket
list goals: To qualify for the Boston Marathon.
The bombings that took place at the marathon finish line on Apr. 15,
2013, only helped resolve that goal of sometime soon toeing the start line in
Hopkington, Mass., to run that fabled route to Boylston Street. I took a major step towards that goal by
finishing the 2013 Portland Marathon in 3 hours, 23 minutes, a 35-minute
improvement over my 2010 marathon. It is
just 13 minutes off the Boston qualifying time for my age group.
That Portland Marathon, that dedicated training, that
improvement would never have happened without the 1,200 Club challenge. And because of that I wear my purple
jacket. Proudly.
As I work my way through an injury that has kept me
sidelined for over two months, that purple jacket is reminding me of why I need
to keep my focus. It’s a reminder to
myself of the hard work already banked and the hard work I still need to do to
make my goals realities.
So I will wear that purple jacket, looking down every so
often at the stitching proclaiming me a 1,200 Club member, thinking proudly of
the journey experienced and many miles I will still travel on my two feet.
Purple is the color of goals achieved, dreams to come and
the hard work it will take to get there.
I’ll see you on the roads.
This story is scheduled to appear in the May 2014 edition of the ORRC's "Oregon Distance Runner" magazine.
