Weird memories and the St. Jude 5k

So I'm a little weird when it comes to memories. Only because I can barely remember anything, and I mean anything, before the age of 10. And since then I do remember a lot of things - but whats weird about it is that I remember the most random things and I remember them essentially in full color. Meaning I remember the place it happened, the people that surrounded me, the conversation that took place, and sometimes even the clothes that were worn. Now, I think this is normal. Morgan, on the other hand, thinks its weird. {but in a good way.... I think. :)}

Ok anyways - I remember this one night in the summer of 2009 - when Morgan and I were not officially 'together' yet - it had been a few months since I had moved here and I had just been to a branch FHE. I know this because there was a big group of us at Buffalo Wild Wings watching the monday  night football game {actually it was pretty much only Morgan and I watching the game and everyone else being loud and obnoxious} ANYways, our friends Lara and Ryan were there {they are married now but were engaged then, and thus in the singles ward with us still} and Lara and I were talking about our work out regimes - or lack thereof - and she told me that she wanted to run the St. Jude half marathon that December and wanted me to do it with her. {psh. she obviously didn't know me that well... yet} Morgan was apparently eavesdropping on the convo and immediatly interjected that he had ran it the year before... to which I promptly rolled my eyes... {ok actually I just made that part up but it is plausible, he was always trying to impress me, and I was always {jokingly} rolling my eyes at him {as I still do}... } - anyways so I just flat out told both of them that I didn't like to run long distances and had never ran in a real race even though I loved to run, and they both started giving me a hard time about it, so I jokingly suggested we start out by doing a few 5ks {lara had also never ran a race either} together... and they both agreed. I was sort of caught off guard, not only that they were serious about it, but that a 6'1" 250 lb guy agreed to run a 5k. So I looked into it and we all signed up for a 5k in September - and blogged about here in October.

Then the rest is pretty much history, since then I've done 6 5ks - {all trained with the Morgman.} Got 1st and 2nd(s) in my age group. Got 126th overall. Got asked "what's wrong, is your leg hurt?" during a race. Gotten cheered on from the sidelines. Got cramps, ear aches, and hunger pains (yep.).  Got 4 medals, a trophy and a ceramic tile (big time right there). Got runners high, courage, confidence.  Even with the {made up} eyeroll he managed to inspire me, and he has every day since.

So fast forward a year and a few months and we found ourselves not at the St. Jude half marathon {he does know me well}, but the 5k and it was so much fun to do together, creating more memories :)



friends from work - janell and nicole also ran
pope was in a boot due to a stress fracture ... from running.