The year is approximately 1991. I was attending an extremely small elementary school in North Albany, Oregon. It was track day, and our teacher was asking us to run a mile without stopping as fast as we possibly could. We were encouraged to meet the guidelines of the Physical Fitness Presidential award. This meant I had to run the mile in about 7 minutes and 30 seconds. It was cold and drizzly. I lined up with the other children. I looked around. Most of the children seemed very focused. The teacher yelled out, "GO!"
I was small and quick. I pulled out in front of most of the children. Only two of the boys in my class remained in front of me. I then proceeded to run my little heart out. My lungs hurt, it did not feel good. Running the mile fast, was hard. But I continued, placing 3rd in my class overall and 1st among the girls. I had met my goal running the mile in 6 minutes and some odd seconds.
Now lets fast forward to this year. Sage and I were talking about how I run on a regualar basis. I asked her how fast she could run the mile. She did not know. I began to pry a bit deeper. "Sage do you at least run the mile without stopping?" She responded, "No." A bit taken back I asked her, "Have you EVER run the mile without stopping." Indifferently she said, "Nope." Even more flabbergasted I asked, "Do they even encourage you to run the mile without stopping anymore??!" Sage said, "Not really." It was right then I decided that I would get Sage to run a mile without stopping by the end of the summer.
It was a Monday morning. I woke Sage up at 10am. I whispered to her that we were going to try and run a mile together. She moaned, dragged herself out of bed, and got dressed. We headed outside. We started to jog at a relitevely slow pace. Before Sage had even gone 1/8th of a mile she gasped and said that running was hard and she did not want to do this. I pushed her to continue. Run. Stop. Run Stop. She had just had the worst day of her life. "Mom, I don't like this! This is too hard. It hurts!." I replied, "I know its hard. I know that it hurts. But Sage you can do hard things. It is a mind game Sage. You have to conquer your doubts and physical limitations and just push through the pain. If you can do that, it will become easier. Remember... it is a mind game. And you Sage have a strong mind." I could tell that she needed some more encouragement. So I promised her I would reward her with something she wanted if she could run a mile without stopping.
A few days past. This time Sage came up to me and asked me to run a mile with her. So we went. She looked at me and said, "Its a mind game right?" We began. We ran the first 1/8 mile. No problem. On our next 1/2 a mile we identified trees as we ran, to keep our minds off of the fact we were running. At the last 1/4 of a mile I encouraged her to keep on going. On the last 1/8 of the mile we could see our finishing spot. I told her to pick up the pace, to go as fast as she could to the end. And she did. Sage had just run her first nonstop mile. She was glowing.
A few days later she came up to me again. "Mom can I run 3 miles with you today." I was ecstatic. "Of course you can!" 3 miles was a bit harder for Sage. She desperately wanted to stop on the last mile. But she kept on going. At the end, she was tired, sore, and red in the face. But you know what? She did it. She did something hard.
I have noticed that my generation has been raising many children to believe that they don't have to do hard things. We buy them Velcro shoes so they don't have to learn to tie their laces. We don't have winners anymore, because losing is hard. We clean their rooms for them, and dress them, when they are perfectly capable of doing it themselves. We carry them instead of asking them to walk. We give in to their fears trying our best to keep them from having to face them and overcome them. We tell them that it is ok to walk instead of run that mile. Well you know what, it is not ok. Because children can do hard things. We just have to give them some space and allow them to try. Yes they might fail a few times. But they will get it eventually.
I am so proud of my daughter. She mentally and physically pushed past her comfort zone and did something that was extremely hard for her. I am fully confident that next time they ask her to run a mile at school, she will run her little heart out like her mom did in 1991. Bravo Sage.
