So I found out I had been tagged after reading our soon-to-be departed (to Colorado…not of this life) JLT comrade, TriTeacher (insert sad sniffles here).

But before we get to the fun stuff (and I throw around the word “fun” very loosely, just as an FYI), here are the rules. If you’re tagged, you will find your name at the end of this post. You should then copy the rules (or your version of them), and the set of questions onto your blog post, provide your own answers, and then tag 5 new people.

Just to be sure that everyone tagged knows they have been invited to play, go to their blogs and leave them a special comment letting them know, and refer them to your blog for details.

Once the chosen have answered the questions on their own blog, they should come back to yours to tell you.

Here are my responses.

1. How would you describe your running 10 years ago?
Ten years ago I was in my early twenties. When I wasn’t running track (indoor and outdoor seasons…I was a hurdler, believe it or not) I would do a four-mile run every. single. day. I knew nothing of training or heart rate, and had no real desire to compete in any road races. Rather, I ran to keep my weight in check and offset any calorie consumption I was doing in, um, liquid form, and I ran to escape my crazy roommates and lower my general stress level. I would leave St. Norbert’s campus, cross the De Pere bridge, turn left to run along Broadway until I came to the St. Norbert Abbey, and would either run through the Abbey (5 mile route) or turn around (4 mile route) and retrace my steps to campus. Most days, I would run with one of my non-crazy roommates, Jamie, who to this day has done an insane number of marathons and qualified for Boston!

2. What is your best and worst run/race experience?
There are so many ways to answer this question, so many runs to pick from. After reading that TriTeacher tagged me, I’ve let these questions settle on me for a few days, and was amazed at the memories, feelings, and emotions that came rushing back to me.

The thing is, sometimes your best runs are completely uneventful. You have a distance to cover and it seems to breeze by with ease. And there are some runs that you never should have started in the first place — the Madison Half-Marathon was perhaps one of those for me.

But then there are the runs where you do battle with yourself, or the elements, or both, and come out the other side, victorious. And those are the great runs. Not because of how they feel during, but of how they feel five, ten, fifteen years later.

For me, there was the first time I discovered I could run around “the lake” — Lake Antione” — at home, a 5-mile loop.

There was the drizzly night when I was living in D.C. and reeling from a horrible breakup. The night where, with no more tears to cry and a fear that I couldn’t keep myself away from the phone if I spent another hour near it, I laced up my shoes and I ran. In the dark, in the lightly falling rain, in the middle of November. I ran down Wisconsin Avenue until I reached Georgetown, across on M Street, up through DuPont Circle, and up Massachusettes Avenue, winding my way in and out of Embassy Row. I ran hard and fast. Every now and then, I’d slow down in front of a townhouse or many of the embassies and marvel at the lives other people lead, the opulence inside. I would wonder where I’d end up in life, if I’d ever feel happy again. And on that run, feeling so strong, I decided that someday, I most definitely would.

There was the run that wasn’t during my brief stint living outside of Trenton, New Jersey, where I could only venture a mile down the road in any direction before exiting safe places to run, where I sat down on the curb, put my head in my hands, and wondered what the hell I was doing there.

There was the first eight-miler I did in training for the Madison Marathon, my first. The run where, with Ellis Paul streaming through my headphones, I shuffled up Sherman Avenue, through Warner Park, and back to my condo — ankles screaming to be done a half a mile short of the end point, and even though it likely took hours, me smiling stupidly to myself that I had just run a whole eight miles.

There were the training runs for that same marathon, run in Germany, Dublin, and Florence…especially Florence…where I struggled to sort out a myriad of life-changing decisions I was facing that I wasn’t sure I would have the courage to make. In Florence, it was still-hot, the air tight around me. I didn’t take water with me, or food. My head was elsewhere. My feet had a fire all their own. I ran along the Flume Arno, through a park where I looked to spot a Vizsla, a sign of my life back home. I ran through a flea market, through more of the park, and then joined back up with the River. I ran until the sidewalk butted up into a walking path, and then a dirt trail. And I kept running right out into the Florence countryside. Stripping down to my sports bra then, I ran past run-down villas and sad-looking plots of land that might have been small vineyards or farms at one point. I ran until I couldn’t run anymore, because the river had turned and the trail ended with no way over or around it. And then I turned around and ran back. I was gone for nearly three hours.

There was the 20-miler I did on the treadmill in the Detroit Airport during my layover on that European vacation, only to find afterward that the shower facilities in the gym were closed for repair. And there was the 20-miler I did when I got home on a cold, April day when the rain was pouring down and my Ipod just ceased to work a mile in. I got 15 miles in that day, and then changed out of my wet clothes and went downstairs on the treadmill to finish the last 5 miles, despite the protests of my angry legs and shivering skin.

There was the Madison Marathon, with it’s 97 degrees and 110 heat index, where my pace leader passed out and my sister said to me when she met me almost at the exit of the Arboretum, “Just don’t look around you. There are some people on the ground up ahead, and some ambulances, but you’re looking good.” That race where I beat myself up for being so off my intended pace and only realized afterward how lucky I was to have finished.

There was the Green Bay marathon, where I kept telling myself, “This is going to hurt; you will not quit…” over and over again. So much so that I believed myself, and by mile 21, when I was in so much pain (hip) that I was sobbing, but kept running anyways, and ended up in physical therapy with a doctor-induced running moratorium for the next six weeks.

And finally, there was the Ironman marathon. It was hard, and I hurt, but it was amazing beyond belief all at the same time. In the dark, seemingly alone by with so many soon-to-be Ironmen running in front of me and behind me, my family and incredible crew somewhere out there in the darkness, and thinking with each step what I had gone through to be there, at that moment…to know that I had persevered, I had endured — a lot — and that soon, I would accomplish my goal. Whew. It was a truly spiritual experience — one for which I now feel ever-changed. It’s difficult to even find the right words to describe it. But anyone who has ever been out there, in the dense dark, running alone-but-not, I’m sure knows what I mean to describe. Because if we’re all honest with ourselves, those are the moments that make us go back for more.

3. Why do you run?
I like to say that if I was a size two, I wouldn’t own a pair of running shoes. But I don’t think that’s altogether true. I do run because I love food and want to be able to enjoy it. But it’s more than that. It’s the feeling of looking out over your running route along the lakeshore and being continually amazed that you can — and have — covered that distance on foot. It’s the challenging yourself to go a little farther, a little faster, a little harder…and surprising you in the process by just how far/fast/hard you can go. It’s the mental calm that running gives me, and the joy of lying in bed at night with aching legs feeling physically taxed. But more than anything, I run because I can. Because I know that if much of my life as I know it were taken from me — as it will be eventually by age — it is likely the running that I would, and will, miss most.

4. What is the best or worst piece of advice you’ve been given about running?

Best: You can do more, run father, run faster, than you think.
Worst: Pain is temporary, and should be ignored….oh, and that I should try three-stepping in the 100m hurdles. That one got me a reconstructed knee.

5. Tell us something surprising about yourself that not many people would know.

On this theme? I didn’t own a bike when I signed up for the Ironman, and hadn’t done a triathlon in more than ten years.

In general? Try this list. If I’ve left anything out, feel free to let me know.

6. Passing it on.

And now, I tag: Krista, Robby B, Badass McCue, Able, and Jen of MadisonDuo.