Coffee? Well, yeah.

Yes, I enjoy coffee.  A lot.

For most who know me, this is not a shocking revelation.  It takes a lot of strong will for me to turn down a coffee date.

But why do I call it out?

I guess for me the answer is less in the brown aromatic liquid than the experience it brings with it.

As a child, I remember both of my parents drinking pot after pot of coffee.  I remember that more than I remember them drinking anything else.  I don't even really remember them drinking water.  I do recall that they both enjoyed an ice cold beer in the summer.  But even that wasn't in our fridge all that often.

You might think that I am pointing my finger in their direction.  I grew up around it.  That really has nothing to do with it.

When I was a teenager, the current coffee boom was just getting started.  In fact, I recall my first trip to a coffee bar in 1993 with my best friend Katie and her dad.  It was this little bitty counter in a hallway behind Main street shops in Plymouth, Michigan where I grew up.  We started out innocently enough.  We had Italian Sodas.  Not a drop of coffee in it.  We did this a few times and moved onto some yummy coffee shop hot chocolate.  So much better than the instant powder stuff!  Katie and I looked forward to hanging out in that coffee hallway.  The smells, the laid back 'hanging out' that was what kept us coming back.

My senior year of high school saw the opening of the next coffee business to hit small town Plymouth:  the Plymouth Coffee Bean Co (and yes, they are still open, albeit under many changes of ownership).  A quaint coffee shop in an old house on one of the side streets of downtown.  I can still picture the three original rooms.  There was overstuffed furniture, bookshelves of books, a corner fireplace, a tiny little alcove with a table by the window and the back room with the soft green walls and clouds painted on the ceiling.  You could not sit there for just five minutes.  It was impossible.  Katie and I started to hang out there.  A lot.  We started with Ghiradelli hot chocolate.  Yummy.  Next we experimented with a shot of espresso in that hot chocolate.  This was a new, better experience.  We spent the better part of that school year studying and hanging out at PCBC.  When they decided to hire someone at the end of my senior year.  I applied and was hired.

Turns out working in a coffee shop was a great fit for someone like me.  I have said before that I have a great work ethic, which I do.  I found joy in getting the job done.  I also am quite a social person.  Not in the let's go to party way, but in the way that I can easily converse with people I just met.  Kind of in a bartender way.  And that's exactly what people want in addition to their hot caffeine.  I met so many people working there and made quite a lot of good connections.  I got to know my town in a more intimate way.  People appreciated that I could start their beverage before they even ordered, and being a morning person - I was able to be alert and ready to serve them.

I continued to hang out there in my off time and the people of the Bean (as we called it) became my social circle.  I have very fond memories of those days (and consequently of those people).

Time came for me to leave for Michigan State University, and I had a connection with a coffee shop up there.  I applied for a job at Espresso Royale Caffe and had the job I wanted.  I was able to open the place up before I went to class and get working out of the way.  Again I got to know that community and made great connections.  A great side benefit of working in a coffee shop was the tips.  We made regular wages and had pocket money on a daily basis from the tip jar.

Katie came to MSU with me, and we found ourselves hanging out at coffee shops to study and hang out.  Back then I couldn't imagine going into a coffee shop to get coffee and leave.  Part of what I was paying for was the experience, the environment.

As I grew older, graduated and in general had less free time, coffee became my relaxation event.  It was the memory of a feeling distilled into a cup.  I crave the caffeine, yes.  But I also crave the moment that comes with holding a hot mug of coffee in my hand.  Its a slow jump start to my day, or a moment to make a connection with a person as others might do over a cold beer or a with a wine glass in hand.

A beer drinker, or wine aficionado I am not.  A coffee drinker I am.

Why running?

I have always tended to the well... lazy side.  If it was too much work, maybe it wasn't worth doing. (Ask my mom).  Funny thing is, I have a great work ethic.  Go figure.

As far as taking care of myself, I would get to it eventually.  I could see where I wanted to be and I pictured it happening someday.

I was a mom with a 9 year old, 7 year old and 3 year old.  I wasn't getting any trimmer on my own.  I had done softball leagues in the past but let's all admit this right now.  Softball leagues on their own are not a tremendous weight loss plan.  I love the sport, but it wasn't helping me to improve my physicality.

A little background:  never having been physical I was in awe of people who could run.  I thought it was the most challenging sport out there.  To go and sustain a run for over a minute?  And there are people crazy enough to do it for 3.1 miles, 6.2 miles, 13.1 miles and even 26.2 miles!  Do you know how long those distances take?  Well, depending on your fitness, the shortest can take anywhere from 15 minutes (really fit) to an hour (just getting started!).  But I digress.

So here I was, unfit and not doing a thing to change that.  Enter my friend Beth.  Beth mentions casually that she is taking a running class.  To which my husband, Don, and I met with a snicker.  "Wait, you're paying someone to teach you how to run?!?  Couldn't you just go outside and well, RUN?"  Time passes and eventually I ask "so, what do you do?"  She told me about the class that our local running store (Up and Running in Dayton) and I started to think about it.  Every other time I tried running on my own I gave up.  It was too hard, I couldn't breathe.  Who wants to run anyway?  After a little consideration, I decided to enroll in the class during the next session.

That was June of 2010.  I am cheap.  The kind of cheap that once I lay down my $50 to learn how to run you better believe that I am there in class every time putting forth a good effort.  It was humbling.  You think "I am going to run" and you learn that maybe when you start running you have to go REALLY slow to maintain it even for a minute.  And you picture yourself flying down the road, the envy of all those around you because you are just that talented.  But that is just a picture in your mind.  And you learn.  You learn how to stretch 1 minute to 2.  Eventually you make it 4 whole minutes with just 2 minute walk breaks between. 

The last class the coaches told us we were free to try running the whole time, the whole distance of the path we took on our Tuesday night class.  I attempted to run the entire thing and do you know what?  I did it.  I was so happy I could have cried.  I was so overwhelmed with what I had accomplished that I wanted to sing it to everyone I passed.  'Hey did you know that I ran the WHOLE distance?'  And we had yet to run our graduation 5K.  I was worried going in whether I should do the race in intervals or try to run the whole distance.  With the support of some of my classmates, I decided to try to run the whole thing.  I was slow as molasses, but I did it.  We had a motto in our class "We are doing it" and we did.  I was lucky to meet my best runner girls in that class.  We are still running together today.

Lastly, I owe a great big Thank You to Beth.  You lit the fire that changed my life.