In the last of our newbies, I’m proud to introduce you to Jake, Lindsay’s hubby. As I mentioned in her intro, I’ve known the both of them for more than 20 years but with Jake, it goes back much farther than that. I’ve known him since early grade school as he was just a year ahead of me.
We went to grade school and high school together. Jake can partially be blamed for my intro to track. I had just been cut from baseball tryouts and still wanted to be a part of a team. I had talked to him and he said they’d still take kids on the team so I came out and the first week trying to hang with him was hell. He was on the long distance team and they’d been practicing for weeks at that point and I….hadn’t. It was miles upon miles that first week and I just couldn’t do it. The straw that broke the camel’s back was a 2-3 mile run to a course away from school, followed by about 5-6 mile relays with him, and then the 2-3 mile run back. By the time I made it back, I was green. Proudly, I never threw up but my mom was the last car in the parking lot and obviously worried about me. I became a sprinter and long jumper that next week.
I always come back to this but my Junior year, his Senior, we ended up in a study hall together but routinely, we didn’t have any homework to do. Our first semester of it was really laid back. The teacher basically had very few rules and we just hung out that whole hour. It was the last “class” of the day so it was an easy way to finish the day off and get ready for track practice.
The second semester was much different. The teacher demanded silence, no sleeping, and you had to be working. That was a problem for us. Again, we oftentimes had our work done ahead of time so that was going to be a long semester, until he worked out the best last semester of his Senior year and something that I still look back on and laugh about.
Because we were deemed good kids, he sweet talked a teacher, who was known for being pretty tough, into letting him and somehow myself, grade papers occasionally for her. And when I mean occasionally, it was maybe once a week and for that, somehow we were allowed to, unsupervised, hang out in this teacher’s room and watch TV while finishing up any homework, if we had it. We got in trouble one time because we found Saturday Night Live on TV and were laughing too loud at it. Late 90’s SNL was much better than today. I thought we were done for then but we weren’t. We even, as Cubs’ fans, watched the Kerry Wood 20 strikeout game in that study hall. I think we made it to about 12 when the day was over.
Long story short, Jake’s always been someone that I’ve enjoyed being around and a few year’s later when he and Lindsay were getting married, I had the pleasure of being in the wedding. He’s always had a way of including me in things like that and I’ve always felt fortunate.
It’s why when we were looking at the prospect of 3 new runners that I had to ask them. I’ve known that Lindsay’s been a runner for a long time and Jake and I had run the Fort 4 Fitness 4 miler together the first or second year they had it and he’s run half marathon’s more recently.
I just didn’t know if a Ragnar Relay was the type of thing they’d be into but I had to ask so when I saw my shot, I took it. It was after church and I through out this, “Not sure what you think but….” And gave him the speech about it and what we’re looking to do. He didn’t even hesitate and said, “yea that might work.” I got his email and sent them both the info and within a day they were both signed up in the ragnar site as members of Runners Doing Good.
It’ll be great to have both Jake and Lindsay running with us this year. They’re awesome people and I think they’ll fit in perfectly with our team. It’s just hard to believe we’re only a week away….
If you’d like to support Jake, the team, and the Dee Family, please donate through the Facebook page if you’re reading this through that site OR, please visit our GoFundMe page below to give today.
Runners Doing Good 