It's not all sunrises and shooting stars...

Since the vast majority of our runs have been morning runs, we typically get to run in both dark and light.  We start out under the stars, witness a sunrise, and end in the early morning light.  We have seen up to a half dozen shooting stars in one run.  We admire the way the sun streaks through the clouds.  We've seen rainbows and full moons,  and listened to the howling of the coyotes.

But it's not all sunrises and shooting stars.

Here is a list of some other things seen on our runs:

snakes
scorpions
quail
roadrunners
deer
cats
dogs
squirrels
tarantulas
frogs/toads
lizards
cows
rabbits
peacocks
skunk
mice
millipede
sheep
owls

Heather and Ryan, have I missed anything?

Some notes:

One run I saw 9 lizards in four miles.
The skunk was WAY too close for comfort.  We had to literally stop in our tracks and wait until it retreated, tail pointed to the sky, into an irrigation ditch.  Phew!
The deer nearly caused us to wet our pants when it startled out of the high brush in the fields one dark morning.
I literally stepped on the tiny scorpion, but he was too small to sting me through my shoe.
Both Heather and I nearly stepped on a tarantula on one long run along the marathon route.
Little field mice kept peeking out of the grass to investigate our flashlight beams.
Cats eyes look super creepy when you just catch them in the beam of your light for a second.
Ryan rescued a toad from certain death in the middle of the road.
Peacocks sound like children screaming.
A millipede looks super eerie the way it moves across the ground.

Sunrises.

The camera on my phone is not that great, but even with a sub-par camera, I have caught some beautiful moments on my runs.  Most of these moments occur as the sun is rising.  If possible, I like to time my runs so that they begin in the dark, and end just after sunrise.  There is nothing like watching the world wake up, especially in the beautiful area in which I live.  

The Fields.

Airport Hill

the dirt road down the bluff

overlooking the neighborhood

sunrise over the track

blue dawn at Pine Valley Reservoir

More Fields

Sunrise on the river

the vertical rainbow over Snow Canyon on our 22 mile run

early morning traffic over the "5" in Anaheim, California

Tower of Terror, just after sunrise

My last run in California while on our Disneyland trip.  The sun rising over the palm trees and freeways.

One day, as Rick was looking at my phone, he commented, "Are all of your cell phone pictures taken while running?"  Yep. Pretty much!

Breaking it down

Wake up.

Training for a marathon in the desert, in the summer, requires a lot of waking up early.  Many of our runs start before 5am, simply to avoid the triple digit heat. I have never been a big fan of being awake when the clock reads 4:anything.  As traumatic as it is to climb out of bed at unholy hours, that is not the type of waking up that is hardest for me.  For years I had been locked in an endless cycle of stress, exhaustion, excuses, and "rewards".  I was looking for a way out in all the wrong places.  It was wake-up time.  And much like hitting the snooze button, the waking up is not always immediate.  I feel like I have woken up in stages.  Some days I can see very clearly how much better my life is now that I am running.  And still some days, I have a really hard time waking up.  It's so much more than fumbling for your running shoes in the dark.  It's realizing that change is necessary.  It's drawing the connection between what you are eating and how you are feeling.  It's seeing your life from a different perspective, allowing you to be aware of the things that are really dragging you down.  In this sense, I am still waking up.  All.The.Time.

Run.

I used to think of "run" as a definitive word.  Either you were running, or you were not running.  "Do or do not, there is no try."  Well, sorry Yoda, but that is not the way I have found things to be.  Running is truly relative.  When I first started, a run for me was at a walking pace for many.  It took every bit of my energy, and I was still barely more than crawling.  But I didn't care.  Compared to sitting in front of the computer or taking a nap, it was a sprint!  Through this process, I have had to forgive myself over and over for not being as "fast" as I want to be.  I saw real increases in my speed at first, when I was just going a couple of miles.  But as I ventured into long runs, my pace slowed again.  It used to frustrate me.  But now I have learned to be OK.  When someone passes me along the trail, it's alright.  More power to them.  Maybe that will be me someday.  There is no benefit to beating yourself up over not being fast enough.  Instead of spurring me onward, it made me want to give up.  So as far as I'm concerned, as long as one foot keeps going in front of the other, you are running.  And keep it up.

Be Awesome.

Awesome:  Inspiring feelings of wonder and awe, or fear.  Fear!  I think that aspect of the definition of awesome is really interesting.  I have harbored a lot of fear through this process.  Fear of failure.  Fear of injury.  Fear of those dark blobs just outside of the flashlight beam.  Fear of not completing the marathon.  Etc.  I wouldn't take those feelings back.  Those fearful thoughts have helped me to work harder.  The aspect of fear has made the aspects of wonder and awe that much more pronounced.  If it wasn't hard, if there wasn't some part of me that wondered if I could do it after all, then the victory would not be nearly so sweet.  I remember telling myself that I could just do another 20 yards and then I could walk, and when I got there, I would do another 20 yards, and then another, and when I reached the end of the trail, I felt like yelling out a victory cry.  After one such run, I realized something.  It had been a while since I had felt that feeling of victory.  I certainly didn't feel that way after making dinner or helping with homework.  Some days I had a sense of accomplishment, but not that true thrill of victory.  Of doing something that I didn't think I could.  This training process has brought out of me the desire to be awesome in other aspects of my life.  I am no longer a spectator in my own life.  I am the one out there doing it.  And that's a pretty exciting place to be.