bout Me

      It’s a mild spring evening in Northern New Mexico. I’m 7 or 8 years old and my little brother is 5 or 6. At this time of day we are outside playing somewhere around the property. My grandma and grandpa drive up and get out of the car. My little brother and I drop our slingshots and run over for hugs. We then head to the white wooden shed to grab the tools we will be using while grandpa retrieves the bucket of cut up potatoes kept by the basement. As he grabs the bucket of potatoes we will be planting, he also fills up other buckets with water. We meet at the top of the soft, tilled dirt garden and I ask him where we will begin. He takes the shovel and sinks it into the earth, then leans it forward just enough to create a small hole on its backside. I drop in two potato eyes and fill up the remaining space with water from one of the water buckets. Carefully, but swiftly, grandpa pulls out the shovel, which quickly covers the potato with dirt, and plunges it again into the ground just a little further down the row. Potato after potato, row after row, and year after year I would repeat this pattern with my grandpa, father, and brother. And while the Pontiac Red potatoes were delicious, the true prize of the harvest wasn’t a tuber as much as it was the memories and relationships planted and grown with my family.

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     This planting ritual established a core value in me. No matter what I’m doing in life, nothing will give as much meaning and value as loving and focusing on the people I’m with at any given moment. I could sit here and spew a list of places I’ve worked, degrees I’ve been awarded, or the host of Olympian and national champion runners I’ve coached. But the one thing I want you to know about me is that I love God, and I love you. In the grand scheme of things, and as a stand-alone activity, marathon PR’s and split times don’t matter. But it’s not really a “stand alone” activity, is it? It takes a lot. Running etches a mark on your being and teaches you about who you are and what you’re capable of. You could do it alone, but just like planting potatoes it’s so much more rewarding when you do it alongside someone.

So, let’s go together.