As I’ve mentioned before, I am training for my run with the “Flex Team” for Team in Training. That means that there isn’t a team based in Juneau who is running in the Disney Marathon weekend. As far as I know, it’s just me. My “team” is located all over the nation and we communicate over e-mail. I admit; it’s been a drag. I have a coach, but he doesn’t check in with me personally unless I ask him a question.
Aside from having access to an on-location coach, there are other benefits to training with a team physically located in your town.
One of the things teams do prior to going out for runs is to talk about why they are running with Team in Training. It’s not the, “I wanted to prove to myself that at 40 I could run a marathon” kind of testimonial one might expect. Instead the runners tell heartbreaking stories of friends and family they have known who have survived cancer, or who have lost their battle. These stories inspire the runners prior to going out for the team run.
Obviously, as a solo runner in Juneau, I don’t get to tell the stories about why I’m running and who I’m running for, though I do think about my reasons all the time while I’m out.
I’m not running to prove anything to myself or anyone else. I’m running for the people I have lost to cancer- Don, Wendy, and my Aunt Pat. I’m running it to raise money in their honor for cancer research so that we can prevent losing our loved ones in the future. In previous blogs, I’ve talked about my Aunt Pat and Wendy, but I haven’t said much about my friend and mentor Don Goffinet
Growing up, Don was my parent’s friend, so he was more of a father figure to me than a friend. An amazing carpenter and wood worker, Don worked as a shop teacher at the High School in Ketchikan. When the wood particles started causing health problems, he became the swim coach.
My family spent nearly every Thanksgiving at Don’s beautiful log house out on Susan Point Road. I remember being out at his house a lot during cold winter nights, sitting in the wood fired hot tub he built and gazing up at the stars. I saw many shooting stars on those clear winter nights, and it was Don who taught me how to wish on them.
When I was about six, my parents asked Don to be my legal guardian in case they ever bit the dust. Don agreed and mom and dad told me their decision. It wasn’t morbid or gloomy; it actually just made me realize that Don was very special to my family, but I already knew that.
A lot of thought goes into who you would want to raise your children if you were to pass. Most commonly, one turns to family, naming their brother or sister as legal guardians. Others turn to people they admire or who they think would raise their child the way they would have raised them. Or less likely, they match their child with an adult who they think is like their kid or who has the same interests as their child, which I’m pretty sure is why I was paired with Don.
Don had a sense of adventure. He loved the outdoors and spent most his free time hiking, kayaking and biking around Alaska and the world. He had a passion for good food and music and I’d say he was a semi-environmentalist and a borderline hippy. He lived in Carhartts and Patagonia and had every piece of gear imaginable including fold up kayaks that he traveled around the world with.
It’s not that my parents don’t appreciate or encompass these traits to a certain degree, but it’s definitely not how I would define them. Dad is a rugged and hard working commercial fishermen and mom is a homemaker who also worked on the boat with my father. Up until a few years ago, the only travel they did was just to go visit family and attend Fish Expo in the lower 48. I’ve never seen either of them on a bike, and dad really only hikes with a gun- while deer hunting. Dad has joined me several times on paddles, but mom prefers a skiff.
Then there’s me. There's a reason I always believed my brother when he said I was adopted. I was like no one in my family. I started a recycling club in high school, I joined the Tongass Conservation Council while my father was logging trees, I refused to get my license until I was forced to at 18 because I could “bike everywhere I needed to go,” I hung out with the arts crowd and drank coffee and sang at the Monthly Grind, I put my kayak overboard nearly every time we dropped anchor while fishing, and I ate hippy food at the 5 Star Café. I spent all my hard earned fishing money on gear, and I’m not talking about fishing gear.
I was like Don, and my parents knew it, even when I was six.
When I graduated from high school, Don came to my house the night before I left for college. He handed me an envelope with a card inside. The card was not your typical graduation card with pictures of mortarboards and confetti. It had a picture of a tent. Inside was a large sum of money, and in Don’s handwriting, “Don’t spend this on books, spend it on an adventure.” I knew exactly what Don meant.
Growing up, Don always told me that the most important education I could receive was just immersing myself into the world and learning from it. Don was an avid traveler. He didn’t just breeze through towns, he lived in them. He would find jobs like sheering sheep in New Zealand where he worked side by side with locals learning about them and their culture. He camped and stayed in hostels, even though he could probably afford fancy hotels. He sent me postcards from all over the world, which only planted the seed deeper in my gut for my urge to get out, explore and learn.
When I graduated from college, I wasn’t quite sure where to go next. I had immediate plans to backpack through Europe with my friend Penny and then I was going to stay in Amsterdam where I had secured an internship with a non-profit which was going to be my big adventure post college. A week before I left for Europe, my internship fell through and I didn’t know what to do. My mom was with me when I found out and I told her my dilemma. She told me to just come back to Ketchikan, but I wasn’t ready to do that yet. I knew I needed my adventure, I needed to immerse myself into a situation where I felt completely uncomfortable and learn from it. I got out my atlas and opened it to the US. I had my mom hold the atlas open and I closed my eyes, did a few spins and stuck my finger on the map like an adult version of pin the tail on the donkey. Before I opened my eyes I told myself I was going to move to wherever my finger landed. My finger landed on Metairie, Louisiana on Highway 10 between New Orleans and Baton Rouge. I chose Baton Rouge and moved there a few weeks after returning from Europe.
I had two jobs in Baton Rouge. The first was at southern version of REI where I sold kayaks, hiking gear, and oddly enough- ski gear. I was the top salesperson selling ski gear, which is absolutely hilarious since I’ve only been skiing once in my life. The other job was working at a hockey store where I spent my days on rollerblades maneuvering around racks of equipment and shooting pucks into a net. Let’s just say there wasn’t much of a market for hockey gear in Baton Rouge.
Funny side note about the hockey store- The manager of the store was stealing from it and giving a lot of gear to his friends. Lots of money was leaving the store and I felt I needed to say something to the owner. After review of the video surveillance camera, the manager was fired and the owner called me into his office. He thanked me for being honest and said that after viewing the security video; he realized that he had a crook working for him, and a girl who had good puck handling skills. (gulp.)
Working for the outdoor store and the hockey store was great because it fed two of my passions- outdoors and hockey. I made $4.75/hour at both my jobs, but it was worth it because of the incredible employee discounts! Before I left Louisiana, I filled my car with new skates, several hockey sticks, three backpacks, two tents, two sleeping bags, two camp stoves, two headlamps, two sleeping pads, tons of Patagonia and Mountain Hardware clothes, three new pairs of hiking boots for different types of hiking, a new paddle, a Yakima roof rack system worth my than my car designed to hold two bikes and two kayaks, and a bright red 16 foot kayak that I named “Rouge.”
I vividly remember driving my 88’ Accord off the ferry in Ketchikan and pulling up into my parent’s driveway, my car bottoming out as I tore up the gravel leading to the house. My dad stepped out of his shop in his coveralls and his jaw dropped and he threw his hands up in the air- he saw what was in and on my car and it wasn’t me! My dad didn’t say much to me for about a week. He was upset because a few months earlier, I had to call and ask for help paying my rent, I was after all only making $4.75/hour. Yet, somehow I managed to cram thousands of dollars worth of “gear” into and on top of my car. Granted, some of the things my brother purchased utilizing my discount, but the majority of it was mine.
Don came to visit me after I returned from my Southern adventure and wanted to hear all about the people, my experiences, kayaking with the alligators in the swamps and bayous, my drives across the country, hiking in Mississippi, camping on the beaches in Alabama, being forced into a gown and attending a Mardi Gras ball, and learning how to properly say, “Ya’all.” I remember my dad finishing my adventure story complaining about all the crap I came home with. Don smiled his trademark smile and his eyes twinkled like only Don’s could do and he just laughed. He laughed. He got it. He got me.
Don lived his life to the absolute fullest. He taught me it was okay to find more value in spending time outdoors than in a classroom. He taught me the memory of sleeping in a train station in Brussels is way better than any 5-star hotel. I’ll always remember sleeping on a park bench outside Notre Dame and waking up to the sounds and smells of Paris, and the people looking at what they thought was a homeless girl with a terrible sunburn. But I can’t remember the smells of the 5-star hotel I stayed at in Baltimore Harbor. I can’t tell you a thing about it, not even the name, other than the fact that I stayed there because a good friend was getting married.
Don died a few years ago after a very short battle with pre-leukemia. I can’t stand the thought of strong, invincible, and adventurous Don in a hospital bed, nonetheless dying in one. I expected him to go out like Steve Irwin after being stung by a stingray while swimming. I’ve never fully accepted his death. I like to picture him off roaming the planet; I just don’t get postcards in the mail from him.
He will be with me on race day. Don's been my coach throughout my entire training. I already imagine him pushing me from behind and telling me encouraging words when I start to slow down. Just like he used to do when we’d go out for long bike rides along Tongass Highway or for paddles with a headwind in Clarence Straits. I can see his smile through his bushy beard and hear his laugh telling me hurry up. Just like I can hear Wendy laughing at me and saying, “What the hell are you doing this for? You’re crazy Franny Pooh!”
They will all be with me. Just like the thousands of others that will be with the other runners.
