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“They say a picture is worth a thousand words, but I'll give you a discount. Post a picture and write 500 words on it.”
Sure. This is the one that’s on my monitor at home:
This is me in September of 2007 on a Sunday morning at the Cheyenne High School football stadium and track in North Las Vegas. I was joined this day by several of my coworkers, as well as my co-captain, Lisa Zelazny, and her daughters, Mary and Sara. That’s Mary’s bicycle visible on the left side of the picture, and Mary herself on the very right side. For the uninitiated, that’s my son Jarren standing on the bench; at the time of this photo he had just turned 5. My younger son Jayson is in my right arm; here he’s 2.
When I first started trying to get in shape, I had a series of ten goals. The first one that I had was to provide a positive example for my children. I knew that some of this was accomplished when Jarren took a camera bag off of the back of the closet in 2005, flung it over his shoulder and announced he was going to the gym. But ultimately, he wound up liking distance running and running fast; a whole lot more than his dad ever did at that age.
He’s got his arms over his head in triumph because he’s just run six laps. That’s a mile and a half. Remember, he’s 5. He tore around that track as fast as he possibly could in a pair of Stride Rite shoes, and to this day he’s never forgotten how to run a mile for distance. He is literally growing up doing it in a way that I never did, even though my own father and I ran at the park a lot. I remember walking with my dad once when he pointed out when I got home that we’d gone a mile and a half; I think I was seven at the time. The smile Jarren’s wearing is the same as the one that I wore when my own father told me that. I smile now at Jarren’s stories of racing older children on the playground. He’s smart and he’s fast. I’m a very, very lucky dad.
Look closely at Jarren’s hat and you’ll notice the Silverman logo. I’d gotten the hat when I’d volunteered for the 2006 race. In this photo I have no idea that I’ll be running the half distance in two years’ time.
The young man in the silver and yellow shoes had run a total of two laps, that day, but in a most unusual fashion. He’d start parallel with the letter E that you see behind us, then run about a quarter lap around the track until his shadow beat him. Then he’d put his arms up and ask to be carried back. I’d usually carry him like this the remaining ¾ of a lap.
The thing that this picture always reminds me of is that I have the power to change lives. There were five coworkers at this event (they’re in the other pictures I’m not showing you) and I’m not sure that any of them would consider themselves runners. Since this picture was taken, two of them have done 10K races, one does a lot of soccer and 5K races, and two have done half-marathons. The reason that Mary is there with her bike as well as Sara is they would participate in their first kids’ triathlon two weeks after this photo. They did triathlon because it’s something their mom did. Their mom found out about it because it’s something that I did. The two guys with me in the picture are going to know more about endurance and determination from the guy in the yellow shirt the same as everybody else, and I can’t wait to see how it turns out.
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