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A tiny bit faster than I'm supposed to do (I'm running 8 minute miles in the marathon so I should be doing 9 minute miles for my long runs), but I was pretty happy with this since it's not that long a distance. I have a tendency to zip a bit too much when I'm feeling good, and I was feeling pretty good.
Long runs are the few times I actually get to think, uninterrupted. I am so unused to thinking, uninterrupted, that it takes me a few miles to focus.
Yesterday my father was inducted in the Ranger Hall of Fame in Fort Benning, Georgia. I'm pretty proud of him, and wish I could have been there. Today I was thinking of all the stuff I learned from him, and from him being a Ranger, and from Rangers in general. Here's what I got, in no particular order:
- How to be tough. One of my first Ranger-related memories is Ranger Day in Savannah. They were playing..Ranger football? I'm not really sure--I wasn't sure then, and I'm not sure now. All I know is that most of the guys' shirts were ripped by the end, some were bloody, and there was am Ambulance parked alongside the field. Ha!
- How to approach a tough thing with humor. Maybe this is my father's doing (regardless of who gets credit, I'm grateful). My father and his Ranger buddies would always laugh and joke about how tough something was, but had a somebody's-gotta-do-it mentality, and they knew that the buck stopped with them.
- How to define family. Your brother was the guy fighting (or snoring, or cracking jokes) next to you. Your sisters were the neighbors who brought your family dinners when your father was away and someone was sick. Your family were those people who came to your Christmas dinner when you were too far from home to get home.
- How to push yourself. People who know me think I'm nuts because I exercise as hard as I do. "Your intensity is...too much" I hear. Well, what the hell is the point? I have seen people--usually guys--grunt with pain and know that if they can push through it, I can, too.
- How to have a few beers and kick back. It's something I still enjoy, especially with my Peace Corps friends. But there's nothing better than watching your straight-laced dad loosen up and laugh until he can't talk reminiscing about the crazy shit he and his friends got themselves into in Ranger School...
- That brawn is as important as brains sometimes. Maybe I'm not talking about muscles here, but just the willingness to be part of a team, to be a follower, to do the stuff that needs to be done. Especially when that job is related to public service, to protecting our freedom. What can I say? I'm more patriotic than my neighbors.
- That it sure seems that guys have more fun than girls. In second grade, I realized the Girl Scouts sucked so my father happily volunteered to show my sister and I how to live off the land in grade school. The list goes on, but... Most of the time it seems like this is still true. Would I change my gender? I guess not, because of the whole motherhood thing, but...jury's still out.
I turned around at mile marker 22.5 and the weather warmed up a bit--I was lucky to have it cloudy and almost drizzling for the first 5-6 miles. To add to my Ranger-ish thoughts, I put on the album of cadences on my iPod and listened to the jodies that I listened to growing up. Immediately I was brought back to West Point, to Savannah, to Fort Lewis. Back to a happy spot in my life, a much simpler time.
I am proud of my dad, and I'm proud to be his daughter.
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