Wednesday, October 04, 2006

My father, mother and a lady named Junebug



I remember making it a mile without stopping, then a mile and a half. Tonight it was two miles without stopping and I owe it all to my father, mother and Junebug. I read a blog about this lady in Houston that has been running for a little over a year and is planning on running the Houston 1/2 marathon. She said she is making a list of people for each mile she's going to run. I assume that means that she's going to think about these people for an entire mile. So, tonight I thought about my father during mile 1 and my mother for mile 2.

There they are in front of the Alamo. I guess this would be a better story if the lady from Houston was from San Antonio. But, she's not. Anyway these are my parents. I'm their fourth, last and best (?) kid. My dad was stationed in Japan during the Korean war. His parents told him to bring them something back from Japan. So, he brought a wife and kid. They raised us four kids in College Hill, a great little neighborhood on the northside of Cincinnati. My dad, the army cook worked as a restaurant manager for 40 plus years. Many years with either my mom or one of us kids working along side.

So, that's what I thought about tonight. I ran splits of 11.42, 12.46,14.54 and 15.58. OK, so that first two miles kind of wore me out. It was still a good run.

I do need to mention one more thing. I'm losing lots of weight, but my son made a comment and I think he needs to get grounded for it. I told him the street light go out a lot just as I'm running under them at night. He said it was probably due to the vibrations. Yes, I'm big, but I'm not that big.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

I love, love, love the idea of running each mile for someone. I just ran my first mile straight so I need to add a name to it now. Great thought!!

The street lights often go out on me as well. The first time it spooked me!

Keep up the great work!

Pat said...

I get 2-3 street lights go out and it's always the same ones. I wonder if that's how the city knows to change the bulbs?

Junie B said...

oh my goodness! thank you!

and is it weird that my dad was in Korea too and was also an army cook? that my friend is very coincidental!

keep up the fabulous work!

Unknown said...

June's the best. Happy thoughts, Pat!

Phil said...

Pat ... congrats on a nice run ... with all the weight lose you'll soon not get worn out on the first two miles. Loosing weight excess weight and running go together hand in hand. The more weight you loose, the further you can run ... the further you run, the more weight you can loose. You're doing great!

David said...

That's some good counsel- Thinking about my boys during a tough 5K race helps me- it sure can put the discomfort in perspective and help sustain the pace.

That's uncanny about both your and JuneBug's dad being cooks in the Korean war...