Third Place Hammer Heads

"Why do I keep beating myself over the head with a hammer?, Because it feels so good when I stop."

We did it again. This time Kenton joined in and we all finished well. Me, my dad, and Kenton ran in the St. Mark's Heal 2 Heel 2 mile run yesterday. We ran through the neighborhood, across Hillside, through the WSU campus, and finally back down that hill to the finish line. Kenton blasted off and quickly left my dad and I behind, only to be passed by us at the half way mark. I came in a few seconds before my dad at 17:22 and Kenton was about a minute behind us at 18:10. (My Dad's 49 by the way.... that kinda of leves us without excuse about saying running is too hard... way to go dad, thanks for the inspiration). I was really proud of Kenton. He'd only ran that far two times before. Jedidiah (Kenton's baby brother) got the bug and saved his money to sign up for the youth challenge. He ran a 1k in less than 5 minutes. I was so proud of him. As you can see he was very tired. Little Judah got a medal for his hard work of running through the parking lot all morning. He kept his NeeNee on her toes as she held all our stuff and took pictures.




This run sponsored the health clinic at St. Mark's and they had a great day of fun going on. As Kenton was getting his free massage, we all stopped dead in our tracks when we heard over the PA, "Third place in the male 24-29 age group with a time of 18:10, Kenton...." "What did she say?" There was a long pause as the officials were taking pictures of the other winners. Again, we froze, Kenton had gotten up, "As I was saying, Third place, Kenton Hansen." We all just laughed, his first time out and he gets a medal. Even more to our surprise, I hear my name for the same category for females.

We all walked away with a medal and our chins a little higher that morning.

Running is hard. It's hard to breathe, you sweat, your mouth feels like you swallowed dirt, you constantly doubt yourself, you continuously lose your breath, your muscles, hurt before, during, and after. But when your done, it feels so good.

So why do we keep beating our heads with hammers?

Because it feels so good when we stop.