This is Homecoming Weekend at CSB/SJU where my husband I attended college and ran track and cross country. In past years, CC Alums were invited to run in one of the college races and that was generally poorly attended because once you have graduated, the idea of running a college race does not sound that fun...especially if your graduation year begins with 19, like 1994. This year, the Coach Robin, who was Captain Robin when I was a first year runner, changed the event. Alums were invited to the 1st Annual Run with the Bennies. This was also to commemorate the mascot name change from CSB Blazers to CSB Bennies. We were invited to run anywhere from 3-10 miles with old friends and current runners followed by brunch in the dining service. That sounded like way more fun to me and I encouraged a couple people to come, too. The event began with Robin passing out CSB T-Shirts to the alums. Nice! Then we gathered in a large circle out in the grass for a welcome message and each alum introduced herself along the grad year, major, what we are doing now and a favorite memory. The memory I shared was a run I had gone on with a couple other gals with the intent of running about 10 miles and end up back in St.Joseph. Well, at around 10 miles we realized we were very near St. John's, a solid 6 miles off course. Fortunately, my boyfriend (now husband) was at practice at SJU and we were able to hitch a ride back to our own campus, but our lack of direction was tough to live down. For those who have run for many years, you may be able to guess that there were a number of stories involving bathroom emergencies...one involved two different Bennies stopping in the same section of the woods to eliminate about 2 hours apart. When the second one came back and reported to friends that she found more poop in the woods, the first girl know whose it was! Yuck!!! The Athletic Director was present for all of this and when it was her turn to speak, she said that the CC team might be the grossest one on campus. Of course she meant this in jest...kind of...because we all know sh!t happens :-) Next came the running. My college buddy, Patty, and my work running friend, Marian, and I set off on the 7 mile course which was a familiar route from our college days. Marian split off to "take care of business" after a couple miles. Patty and I had years of adventures to talk about and update on each other's lives. She said one of her highlights is that when she married a man with an adult son, she got grandkids pretty quickly and she loves being Grandma! I think she was most shocked that we have Charlie as I was petrified of dogs as a college runner and petrified might be understating my fear. We agreed to not let so much time pass between our next meetings and Patty urged me to give her a call when we are in the Twin Cities for Haley's track meets this spring and she'd try to come. Here we are at the end of our run. Patty hasn't changed a bit. After the run, we went to brunch. Patty wasn't able to stay for that, but I got a chance to visit with some other fascinating alums. One spent some time in the Marshall Islands teaching after graduation, but the interesting part of her story was the six day ride on a fishing boat to get there. She was the only one who spoke English, so it was a pretty silent journey for her. Another works at the U of M in the athletics department, several teachers, coaches and a few accountants. Eventually I looked at my watch and discovered I'd been gone 4 hours! Time to get home.
I was amazed at the turnout for this first ever event. There were probably 30 alums--and those are the ones who were still willing and able to get out there and run. I texted Stephanie's kids a good luck message for their race today along with the words that some of my best friends have been made on the run. That goes back to high school, through college and into adulthood. Amazing how you can jump back onto the road with an old friend and the time between your last runs seems so much shorter. I hope you have and will make some very dear friends on your runs! Happy running--Missee
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AuthorMissee and Stephanie are two Minnesota sisters and moms who love to run. We are not experts in running, parenting or anything else, but we do have years of experiences that may be helpful or entertaining to others. Archives
May 2020
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