feet in motion: Running History: Guest Post Part 1

The following is a guest blog written by my mom about her memories of me and my path to becoming the runner that I am today. This will be posted in a four-part series, so please come back over the next week to complete the series.

My Daughter, The Runner

We lived in a neighborhood with a dozen kids and only two were younger than Sam. She always wanted to hang out with the “big” girls, so she was always running to keep up with them.

In 2^nd grade Sam was invited to play recreational soccer and even though she was a little worried about being hit by the ball, she joined the team. Sam played for the same team for several years and everyone always commented about how long her legs were and how fast she ran. She wasn’t a top scorer and she usually played defense in the backfield. She was very aggressive and could run down the opposition and strip the ball away. Of course, many times it resulted in a penalty, but she played hard.

(Yes, I knocked that girl down)

Each year during elementary school the kids had to pass the Presidential Fitness Test. I don’t remember how much they had to run – I believe it was meter or yard dashes in elementary school – but Sam would always come home beaming because she would beat everyone in her class, even the boys. During her fifth grade year, she came home and was all excited because she was the fastest in her grade.

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Sam’s father and I have never been athletic so we never knew about running clubs or track clubs outside of school, so all of Sam’s running was for gym class at school. During middle school the Fitness Test turned into a mile and while the majority of girls in her class would walk, she would run. She would even ask the teacher to run and be timed to see if she could improve her time. All of her classmates thought she was crazy. Her gym teacher said she needed to run cross country or track in high school.