I fell in love with running on a mucky cross country course in Ireland.
For an individual sport, it is notable how many of my early memories are filled with shared experiences: rainy chat-filled miles, bus trips of laughter, turning race mud splatters into face paint and persevering through tough races knowing every point mattered for our team performance. To this day, the satisfaction I still feel from progressing as a non-scorer to eventually leading our team remains one of my greatest reminders of the power of consistency and courage.
My next few years were filled with challenging lessons of physical and emotional resilience through injury. By fall of 2021, I wasn鈥檛 sure what my future with running was. Pain-free miles became my measure of success, and it often felt like I was failing. I decided to make a massive life change and move to Flagstaff with just two suitcases, 10 days of accommodation and a dream of rekindling a positive relationship with running. It seemed crazy to some people, but it felt right to me.
When I first moved to Flagstaff, I heard about the community running group Team Run Flagstaff (TRF) and its weekly track workouts, but it seemed a bit intimidating to me -- and I kept my distance from what I thought would be a competitive and pressure-filled environment. But in early summer 2023, I found myself walking the outside lanes of TRF practice at Coconino High School with the now editor of this column and her sleeping newborn. We were as welcome walking as the crew clipping off sub-5-minute mile pace at the front end. Those few weeks of walking and witnessing TRF practice from the outside lanes planted the seed that track workouts might be significantly less scary than I believed, and maybe even fun.
A couple of months later, I found myself being led through a series of running drills by the TRF coaches before hearing the now familiar 鈥� 鈥�3, 2, 1, hit it!鈥� as around 100 runners and walkers embarked on a time-based workout. On the sporadically snowy spring evenings, when we鈥檝e moved back outside after our winter sessions in the indoor track of NAU鈥檚 Walkup Skydome, the TRF coaches talk about consistency -- the value of showing up week after week -- the same lesson I learned as a teenager back in Ireland.
But what I鈥檝e learned over the past few years is that the value of consistency applies to so much more than just fitness. Consistency builds community -- on and off the track. In consistency you might even find courage, the courage to stand on a start line once more and embrace competition -- whether that is early in the morning on July Fourth for the Downtown Mile or a track meet or really anything that feels daunting.
I鈥檓 grateful that something that once felt daunting (for me, TRF practices) quickly became a consistent community that I fell in love with, only because I had the courage to join.
As my next chapter of life just began with another big move across the Atlantic Ocean, I find myself longing for the Tuesday evening time calls and encouragement from the TRF coaches. But even in that longing, I鈥檒l smile and look forward to one day hearing that encouraging 鈥�3, 2, 1, hit it!鈥� when I return to my favorite Flagstaff community once again.