50

Sometimes I look at the man I'm married to and think, "Who are you?"  

Not often, but every once in awhile I will have this strange thought process where I recognize that even though we are "one" in marriage and we feel like "one" most of the time, really, he is this individual person with his own thoughts running through his head that I don't know anything about.  

Who is he and really, what is going through his head?

Such is the thought I had when Brian decided to run 50 miles.

I do know of some of the thoughts that led to this decision.  He had a goal, a dream, I guess you could call it.  And although it was sometimes hard on our whole family, supporting his dream was important to me.  I wanted to be able to do that for him.  And every time I would start to feel annoyed, frustrated or resentful of all the time and effort he was putting into the training, I would go back to that.

One thing I really love watching is the prep that goes in to the night before a big race.  This was the biggest yet.  I love seeing his supplies laid out perfectly the night before, just like I used to do with my Easter dresses when I was little.

That whole day I was kind of in a fog.  Brian started running at 5:00 a.m.  At 10:00 I realized he'd been running for five hours.  Every couple hours I would calculate his progress in my head.  By the time we ate dinner he had been running for 12 hours.  It just completely blew my mind and I had a really hard time focusing or being productive at all that day because my mind was with him.  

We were all able to gather at Big Springs to cheer them on at the last aid station.  We waited quite a while, and finally we saw them coming down the trail.  

Brian was focused, emotional and serious (and maybe quite miserable) and McKay was as smiley and cheerful as I've ever seen.  They got their drinks and whatever else they needed and stood with us for a few minutes, and then they were off again to finish the last two miles. 

I really love this picture.  These two are great partners.

We went back down to the bottom to the finish line and in soon enough they came running through!  They did it!

I am so proud of him!  He is such an example of hard work, motivation, dedication and self control.  They finished within their goal time.  And really, they finished.  That is just impressive in and of itself.  I know he would have liked a faster time and to feel better after, but I think they were amazing and am so proud.

Brian was in a bit of a daze at the end.  He had pretty bad kidney pain for the last ten miles and was dehydrated.  He sat down on the grass and the kids gathered around him like he was a celebrity.  

I love how amazed they were at their dad.  They don't really understand how far he ran and how hard it was, but I kept trying to tell them that it was a big thing he was doing and I think they got that.  He is their hero for sure, and I'm glad he's such a good example of working hard at a goal and completing it.

  

At the end of the night as he was laying in bed next to me- sick, exhausted, dehydrated with his legs involuntarily twitching with exaggerated movements every few seconds I knew that he would do this race again.  I thought maybe he might die that night, but I knew if he didn't, he would be running the Squaw Peak 50 another time.

I have said all along that we'd see how this race went before he went on to another.  After this, I felt strongly that I would not be able to support a 100 mile race.  No question.  But I knew that he would have to push himself again, to improve. . .to prove to himself that he could do this 50 miler better, stronger, faster.  That's just the way he is.  And at least one more time, I can support that dream of his.

Good job Team Matthews.

love, change, etc...

This whole family-history-keeping thing is funny.  For some time now recording our life has seemed like a chore and something that nags at me a little bit.  I have been good to myself though, and not allowed much guilt to come from not doing my chores.  But then every so often, when I haven't done it in awhile, I get a different feeling about it.  A heavy, almost pressurized feeling that if I don't write and record some things, I might just explode.

That's how I feeling right now.  I guess its great that happens to me.

I sit here writing, not knowing exactly what will come of this post.  I do know that a post about my children- each of them individually- is long overdue and if I don't write those thoughts down about them, I will not feel release.  But not tonight.

Tonight I might want to write about how much I love my husband.  That's one of a few subjects that I don't usually write about very much.  I have been thinking about how young we were when we got married.  We were.  And thinking about how when I was that young, I thought I would for sure have everything all figured out by the time I was in my thirties.  Thirties seemed SO old.  Now here we are.  And we definitely don't have it all figured out.  But I think back to ten years ago...even six years ago...and realize that there is a whole lot that we have learned.

It's interesting to me though, how you can still learn things about each other that you never knew.  And you can learn things about yourself that you never, ever saw before.  I think I am doing a lot of that lately.  Learning things about myself.  Some of them are good, some are not very favorable to me, but exposing those things and learning from the things you learned about yourself is a good thing.

A lot of times when I am driving in the car these realizations will hit me.  Often times they are in regards to prayers I have been praying and I know they are my answers.  Learning things you need to change.  Most are too personal for me to be comfortable sharing, but one I have been learning continually lately (so thankful that Heavenly Father is patient with me when I can be so slow in changing myself) is that I have a problem with being judgmental.  I know I am not the only person to struggle with this, yet I also have been able to see the ugliness in myself in a new way- making me realize I need to change.  I am learning over and over again that everyone has struggles.  I pass judgments sometimes that are rude and terrible, and then find out a key fact or piece of information that changes my heart to the situation completely.  I am trying to tell myself to not judge because there will always be information that I don't know.  I cannot judge fairly, so I should not judge at all.

Sometimes I get these huge epiphany's though and then it's hard to actually put change into action.  It's hard to change.

Now I haven't even written about how much I love Brian, which was my original intent.  I guess why I got from Brian to change to ugliness to being judgmental is because there are things I am realizing in regards to me being a wife that need to change.

I have a friend who had a personal motto in her marriage of saving their best for when he got home from work.  It's a great motto, isn't it?  She refused to have her or her husband treat everyone they were around all day better than they treated each other when the day was winding down.  Save your best self for your family.  I like this.  I would like to do better at this.  Sometimes when you are so comfortable with someone, it is hard to give them your best.

*wrote this without finishing it completely, and decided to publish it anyway.