​Kelly and I never do this.
 
Not anymore, anyway. Not since having kids.
 
We’ve been friends for nearly 16 years, and in that time we’ve done our fair share of shopping together. First to buy décor for our apartments, work clothes, jeans that make your butt look good (the only thing jeans must do). We moved on to maternity clothes and then baby clothes and then more work clothes because your body isn’t the same.
 
You can’t go shopping with just anyone. You have to trust their opinion and recognize that while you may have different personal styles, you’ll still be honest with each other. And you know, no judging when someone buys yet another pair of ankle boots or whatever item they seem to have a ton of – for me, that’s shoes. And jeans. And navy blue anything.
 
Let’s start here: I’m not a huge shopper. I hate knickknacks and housewares. I don’t collect anything. I get most of my books from the library or Zandbroz Variety for book club.
 
But when Kelly suggested spending Saturday afternoon looking at running clothes at 605 Running Co. and then having coffee and browsing a few other stores, I was all in. It was a beautiful day – perfect to walk around downtown. And the kids each wanted to play with neighborhood friends, so I was content that they were occupied. Patrick went for a bike ride. The laundry could wait, and let’s face it, I’m apparently not going to actually put away any of my flower pots for winter – they’re just sort of rotting in the back yard and it seems fine.
 
It started out innocent, as all events like this do.
 
“I need to bring back these trail shoes I got and get a different pair,” I told Kelly when she picked me up. I had bought a brand I don’t normally wear from 605, and then decided I didn’t feel like trying anything new and never ended up wearing them.
 
We walked in and Greg laughed when he saw me.
 
“You can’t do it?”
 
“I can’t do it,” I laughed. “I want to just exchange these for new road shoes.”
 
Then he told me they were carrying Asics trail shoes – and I was sold. I know many folks love other brands, and I do, too – I loved a Mizuno trail shoe they don’t make anymore, and I have a Brooks trail shoe I like. But I still just love my old Asics trail shoes the best.
 
Sold.

Then I had to cruise the sale shoes – and ended up with two pairs of road shoes, including a pair of Brooks they had encouraged me to try and I had loved. Same with a pair of New Balance – after not having run in them for a decade. Now? I love them again.
 
“How many different brands do you run in,” Kelly laughed.
 
We moved on to the tights. Socks. Gloves.
 
I bought a pair of multicolored tights that are so soft I want to just live in them. Kelly got insulated tights that were perfect the next morning, when the wind was blowing.
 
We went next door for lattes at Coffea – which was packed. I haven’t been there in a few weeks. The night before, we had been downtown for the Parade of Lights – which was wonderful – and had watched a line form out the door there and everywhere else.
 
“I feel bad,” Kelly said. “We didn’t buy anything for our kids, and it’s Christmas.”
 
It’s true. It probably wasn’t exactly in the spirit of the season, unless you consider spending time with friends just fine, and I do. I’ll save holiday shopping for another day, and procrastinate like usual.
 
One of the women who works at the Great Outdoor Store asked if I’m a big Black Friday shopper, and the truth is no. I tried to answer that I just like to go where I like to go, and don’t generally just go looking for sales on whatever’s available. I just don’t like big crowds that much, either.
 
But I started to wonder how much local shopping I could do. Would you consider HyVee local, or just regional? Could I try for even just a month to shop only local? I don’t know if I could. But I also didn’t know if I could commit to being a vegetarian and decided to just try for a month, and now it’s been nearly a year – with no intention of going back, ever.
 
And I never thought the day I started running that it would be a lifestyle I kept up for the next 30 years – next year will be three decades of running for me, from age 14 when I went out for track in high school. But that’s what happened. And it changed my life in so many ways over the years, helping me find my way and rescuing me when I needed it.
 
Trying to go hyper-local for a month is a conversation that’s happening in my house, at my urging. We’re already pretty good – going to local restaurants more often than not. And I think that, just like with anything, you’d have to figure out what works for you. I’m not sure I’ll take the challenge this year.
 
But I know this. I love walking into my local running store, or bookstore or outdoor store or neighborhood restaurant, and being greeted by name and having a friendly and knowledgeable staff know what I might like and suggesting it. Or setting a glass of wine and cocktail down in front of us before our coats are off.
 
Sure, it’s good service for the business – they want you to spend money there. I’m not naïve about the reasons for it.
 
But as a consumer, it keeps me coming back. It’s working, this whole consumer experience, where I feel like I matter when I walk in to buy shoes, or go to a group run, or take a yoga class. Or just to say hi because I’m in the neighborhood.
 
“Why don’t we do this more often,” Kelly said when she dropped me off.
 
I didn’t have a good answer for that. But I know we’re going to try.

​Jacqueline Palfy is a longtime runner, reader and writer, marathoner, mom and board member of the nonprofit Sioux Falls Area Running Club. Her contributions to the 605 Running Co. blog will appear every other Tuesday. You can follow her on Twitter @runnerJPK or reach her at jpalfyklemond@gmail.com. Story ideas are encouraged.

​It’s been going on for 13 years.

Raised more than $120,000.

And every year it burns at least one pumpkin pie of calories. Maybe.

The “Run for Food,” an annual no-frills charity run on Thanksgiving Day, is one of the largest fundraisers for The Banquet, a feeding ministry in Sioux Falls. Every year, it brings together runners and walkers to do good works before celebrating the holiday.

This year, the run moves from the downtown location to the W.H. Lyon Fairgrounds, the Banquet’s westside location in the Nordstrom Johnson Building, says Rob Sevold, who founded the event with fellow runner Jeff Schmitt.

The new venue will allow for more parking and also highlights the Banquet’s work and services throughout Sioux Falls, Sevold says.

“The Run for Food is the perfect complement to the spirit of Thanksgiving,” Sevold says. “It supports a wonderful feeding ministry and is an awesome way to begin the holiday.”

Runners and walkers can choose from three routes: 1, 3 and 6 miles. A $10 donation per person is suggested, and all proceeds go directly to The Banquet, which serves nearly 200,000 meals each year to families living in poverty in Sioux Falls. Helping meet that need – and recognizing how fortunate he is – is part of what drives Sevold.

“I am humbled by the guests of The Banquet each time I go there,” he says. “There’s also a tremendous appreciation for the staff and what they do day in and day out. And then our runners, walkers and cyclists light a fire inside me – this is a gathering of people who want to be part of the solution.”

For me, it’s one of the highlights of my holiday season.

Like many of you, I know I’m probably going to go for a run that day anyway. And I know that in my life, even when things are hard, they’re still pretty good – and that isn’t the case for a lot of people in our community. People give back in a lot of ways – this is just one of mine.

Join us this Thanksgiving to Run for Food, support a feeding ministry in Sioux Falls and get to know your fellow runners.

What: Run for Food

Where: W.H. Lyon Fairgrounds (please enter from Madison Street on the north side of the fairgrounds)

When: 8 a.m. on Thursday, Nov. 22
​
Who: Open to runners, walkers, kids, families, friends. There’s something for everyone!

​​Jacqueline Palfy is a longtime runner, reader and writer, marathoner, mom and board member of the nonprofit Sioux Falls Area Running Club. Her contributions to the 605 Running Co. blog will appear every other Tuesday. You can follow her on Twitter @runnerJPK or reach her at jpalfyklemond@gmail.com. Story ideas are encouraged.

​ I feel like I’m packing some kind of bag all the time lately.
 
Lunches for kids. My work bag. A gym bag. Changes of clothes for all of us for bike races. A constant search for my car keys/work phone/piece of random paper.
 
The entire rest of the world is more organized than me.
 
That’s why I laughed when Karen Lechtenberg said, “Comin’ in hot,” on Saturday morning as I rolled up to the starting line of the Glacier Hills 50K about a minute before she yelled “Go!”
 
I had been standing with Kelly Thurman as I debated which of the items I had crammed into a string bag at 4:30 a.m. were the right items to carry me up and over the hills, the roots and the path carpeted in leaves in the pitch black at the start. I had three different headlamps with me, two kinds of gloves, and an entire change of clothes.
 
In the end, I chose the lightest shorts I have, a pair of wool socks I’m hoping to wear on a multi-day backpacking trip through the Grand Canyon later this week, a Mizuno long-sleeve that was probably too warm for the day but felt right in the dark, and a Liv women’s cycling windbreaker I chose because it rolls up until a tiny little ball I could cram into my hydration vest.
 
I had on a pair of new Brooks trail shoes that probably would have been fine, but at the last minute I worried my feet slip in them too much, so I traded them for a pair of very old and very worn Asics trail shoes I can’t give up, even though they’re shot.
 
“Trails are soft,” I told myself. “These will be fine.”
 
I had driven down with Kelly and Jess Walhoff, and Jess and I lined up together. Neither of us is any stranger to long distances or to trail running, but neither of us had really put in a solid effort getting ready for this.
 
“There’s a difference between training and running,” Jess said, and she’s right.
 
Still, here we were.
 
“Is my light even on?” I asked her. It wasn’t, and I clicked it on just before Karen told us it was time.
 
I felt quiet and introverted and resigned to this race. I’ve signed up for a lot of trail runs this year I haven’t been able to do – snowed out of Zumbro, broken armed out of Black Hills, scheduled out of Afton and the entire Sioux Falls Area Running Club trail series, which conflicted with cyclocross races.
 
Adding another sport I love to my life has meant I have to reconsider when I do what. I think it means more spring trail races for me, and then keep bike racing to the fall. But I didn’t want to let the year pass without something that feels big, even if I didn’t have that much business being out there.
 
At the same time, I was anxious about a stack of things – I’ve never run an ultra essentially by myself, and I didn’t know if I had the mental strength to do it. I’m also a terrible nighttime trail runner, and I was afraid of tripping. And then I knew that I would go so slowly in the dark that I’d never have a decent time, accounting for slowing down on other loops as I got tired and the not-great training going into it.
 
“I hope these 30-minute bike races are working,” I joked to Jess at the start. We had done 18 miles out there a few weeks before, the most either of us had done getting ready.
 
We set out, and ran together for most of the first loop, with Jess pulling ahead and then waiting for me at the aid station we saw every few miles as the course winds back on itself, two loops of 2 and 4 miles, figure-eighting through the station.
 
“You don’t have to wait for me,” I told her.
“It’s OK,” she said. “It’s not like we’re racing this.”
 
Around mile 12, when I came through the station, I was feeling rough. I was cold – I had lost all dexterity in my hands and struggling to get any of my food open, and I had fallen twice on the trail – not getting hurt, but it forced me to go slower than the snail pace I already was running.
 
“What do you need,” asked Nate, who was volunteering at the aid station.
 
“Something hot,” I said, and he listed off several options. But I couldn’t think straight, and I didn’t feel like talking to anyone or making any decisions, so when he turned around, I just left and headed back out on the trail. “You have to eat something,” I told myself. “You’re going to crash.”
 
Nate knew, too, just like Karen did and Nancy and Natalie and every other experienced runner lovingly managing that aid station. When I came through again 2 miles later, Nate was standing there with a cup of warm mashed potatoes and another cup of noodles. I ate the potatoes. Natalie came over and crammed chemical hand warmers into my mittens. It wasn’t even cold, but I struggle with circulation issues, and sometimes it all just feels worse to me.
 
“Take some for the road,” Nate said, holding out more food, but I waved him off and kept going.
 
The next 4 miles I thought about those mashed potatoes – the next time I was going to ask him to combine the soup and the potatoes into one hot mess for me to eat. Then I thought about Natalie and how she wouldn’t take no for an answer as she took care of me.
 
We ran side by side for 12 hours a year ago, and she has a fairly good idea of how I just sort of shut down sometimes when I don’t know what to do. Patrick tells me I refuse help.
 
But that’s not it, not really out there at Newton Hills. It was more that I felt like an idiot – I’m at mile 12, I shouldn’t be this needy. It’s not like I’m at mile 40 or 60 of some race. I’m just two loops into five, and already feeling like a failure.
 
“How dead last am I,” I asked Nate as I ate the potatoes. “Don’t worry about it, it doesn’t matter,” he told me, in one of the gentlest voices I’ve ever heard.
 
I thought about that out there, too.
 
Who cares. I didn’t train for this. I came out because I like the woods. And because I know every runner out there and I love seeing them.
 
As I ran, I thought about this Facebook post a friend of mine had about being present, and I tried, really tried, to be present. About how Patrick tells me the heart of life is to be grateful and forgiving, and I tried to forgive myself for my piss-poor training, to be grateful I could be out there, to look at the leaves or the stars or whatever else I could.
 
By now I was alone most of the time, with the occasional runner ahead or behind me. Jess was long gone ahead of me. The runners in the other races were coming by, and I lost track of who was in what event.
 
I’ve never done this all alone.
 
“Think of it as a meditation,” I told myself.
 
“You feel like you never get any time to yourself,” I said. “Well, here you go. Hope you like it.”
 
At mile 18, I came through the aid station and saw Patrick. He had gotten the kiddos up in the morning, took care of them and dropped them off with their dad, so he could come and stand in the cold and see me every 45 minutes. We talked for a bit, and then I was off again.
 
Things perked up for me – I felt better after eating every stop. My hands warmed up and I was able to eat a gel as I climbed one of the three monster hills on each loop. I did the math in my head for how much more I had to go, and chose to not look at my splits or elapsed time. I knew it was a personal worst, but it doesn’t matter.
 
It can’t matter.
 
That clock can’t be the only thing I judge myself against, and nobody else is judging me about it.
 
It was a lot to let go out there. I asked myself if I was just making excuses for not trying very hard. I asked if I was letting myself down gently. Someone told me I had to learn to radically accept myself – with all my flaws, just like I would accept anyone else – and I asked myself if that’s what was happening out there.
 
At one point, my friend Adam came blowing by me, on his way to taking second place overall in the 30K and joked about how we would see each other later in the week, as we spend a few days with some friends in the canyon.
 
With each mile on the second half of the race, I felt better. I wasn’t running any faster, but I just felt better inside. With each loop I talked to the people I love at the aid station, ate something, set out again.
 
One loop, I missed Patrick at the aid station and wondered where he had gone, but as I came back onto the trail, I saw him waiting for me, and he ran with me for a quarter mile or so, pulling Nancy’s dog with him, but Sydney had other plans and dragged him back to the starting area.
 
On the last loop, I ran into Annie out there, knowing her by her hair and colorful running clothes as I came up behind her.
 
“I’m so glad to see you,” I said, and we ran together for about 2 miles, into the aid station, and then lost track of each other heading into the final loop. I did the next section. “This is the last time I have to hike up this hill,” I told myself.

Came through the aid station. Patrick had running shoes on this time. I ate more potatoes. Took a cookie for the road, headed out.
 
We ran for a bit, got onto the trail where I hiked and ate the cookie and talked about how it was going. At the base of the next hill, I told Patrick to head back and meet me at the finish.
 
“You only have 4 miles to go,” he said. “You’re doing great. Jess is a few minutes ahead of you, and she’s in the lead.”
 
What? How did this happen.
 
I kept going. Hiked the muddy hills. Ran the ridges. Stepped gingerly down some of the downhills, my quads killing me and wishing I could climb more instead because it hurt less. I talked to myself out loud a lot. I thought about music it might be nice to hear. I looked out at the leaf-covered hills and decided not to get my phone out to take a photo – it wouldn’t capture what I was seeing and feeling at the same time.
 
I knew I wouldn’t catch Jess, and instead was just happy for her – I’ve never won a running race, just my age group here and there. We learned later that several women didn’t finish, which pushed all of us in the back ahead a few places. You race against who shows up, and sometimes better people show up but have a worse day. It’s just how it goes.
 
I finished the race, came through the stretch behind the aid tent and stumbled a bit on a root. “Don’t fall there,” someone yelled and I laughed, thinking there should be more heckling in trail running, like there is in bike racing. It makes me laugh.
 
I was happy to still be running. Happy I hadn’t fallen again. Happy to be done.
 
A kiss from Patrick, a hug from Kelly and Jess and Jackie, who was behind me and took third place woman. High-fives from everyone I know. It’s a great community of kind, friendly people who are just so happy to see you.
 
I ran across one woman who was hiking the last few miles of her race and she said she was really hurting. I offered her everything I had, but she said she was OK. Later, when the race photos were posted, I was so happy to see her come across the finish line in one. I knew it wasn’t easy for her – it’s not easy for any of us.
 
And yet.
 
I really considered dropping at mile 12, but I thought about a friend of ours who drops in races when they aren’t going his way, and I told myself I didn’t want to be that person. I wasn’t injured or sick. I just was having a hard time. And I remember what Stamp, Natalie’s husband, told me once about your body can do it, it’s your mind that shuts it down out there. He should know, having crewed her in a slew of 100-milers.
 
It was a beautiful day. I was present. I finished my third ultramarathon. I came home and hosted a slumber party for my daughter’s 8th birthday and wanted to cry every time I had to bend down and do anything.
 
“My mom moves like that because she’s old,” I heard Viv tell one of her friends.
 
Not quite, lady. I am – clearly a master’s runner – but that’s not why I was struggling.
 
It’s because I’m trying to show them what perseverance looks like. What an active lifestyle looks like. What surrounding yourself with supportive people who won’t let you quit looks like. What unconditional love of yourself and your friends and your lovers and your family looks like. That a Saturday morning alone in the woods is maybe just what you need sometimes.
 
It was what I needed.
 
It was what I got.

​Jacqueline Palfy is a longtime runner, reader and writer, marathoner, mom and board member of the nonprofit Sioux Falls Area Running Club. Her contributions to the 605 Running Co. blog will appear every other Tuesday. You can follow her on Twitter @runnerJPK or reach her at jpalfyklemond@gmail.com. Story ideas are encouraged.

​Everyone I know is recovering from a race, tapering for a race or wishing they were running a race, or that’s how it seems anyway.
 
If you watch the bike path or the trails or even all the social media feeds, you see this massing of training and people every spring and every fall, when the weather either finally warms up enough to shed layer after layer come May, or cools down enough to do more than melt in a hot wind as fall blows in.
 
This is what it’s like to train in South Dakota, and we all do it.
 
My training isn’t amazing, not for what I’m signed up to do – the Glacier Hills 50K -- but it never really is for the past few years, and I wish I had a good reason for why that is. I tell myself I just don’t feel like training like I once did. Sometimes the reason I give myself is that I’m running away from less in my life, and I don’t need as many miles to find salvation. Sometimes I go the other way and just think I’m lazy.
 
The truth is probably somewhere in between. It is for most things.
 
I have a month before the race, and I’ve been doing OK. I’ve settled into a fairly regular routine, meeting different friends a few days a week to keep myself accountable. One is a woman who is training for her second marathon, Twin Cities this coming weekend, and it’s been fun to live in her excitement for the past few months as she ramps up her training and wonders where to carry her gels and if the belt she uses for her phone will make her crazy come mile 22.
 
My advice? Yes. Leave the phone in your drop bag. As you climb up Summit, carrying your phone will feel like you’re hauling a piano with you. Go minimal.
 
On other days, I’ve been doing some biking with the Parallel 44 cyclocross team, which I was kindly asked to join earlier this year. For the past two months, the kids and I and Patrick have traveled the upper Midwest, riding in races and cheering for our friends and watching my kids do things that make me so proud I want to cry.
 
A 7-year-old girl carrying her bike over a barrier, pushing it up a hill, getting lapped by the bigger kids.
 
A 10-year-old boy learning to ride in clipless pedals, tipping over in the back yard and then so excited when he figures it out that he clips in for everything – trips to get slushees and races alike.
 
As for me, I’m doing everything wrong, and it feels right anyway. I slid down a flyover – twice, on my side, and hand to pick up my bike and run over it. I steered myself directly into the barrier on the side of a racecourse, supermanned over my handlebars, leaving my bike on the course and my body thudding into the woods.
 
I was fine.
 
My bike was mostly fine.
 
My pride was, too. Cyclocross (which I’ve written about here and here) is a fairly forgiving sport, where you could do everything you’re doing better – better bike-handling, faster riding, experience on the terrain or rubbing elbows with other riders – but you can’t really do it wrong. However you do it is just fine.
 
It’s a lot of freedom to just try.
 
It’s kind of how I felt about trail-running when I started. It was this feeling of just playing in the woods, of power-hiking when it was faster than running, of recovering at the top of the hill, of flying back down.
 
And then a community of people who were there because they love to be outside, because they love to be active and push themselves, but also because they just like to be together, this camaraderie that was intoxicating. I keep finding it at events, at bike races and trail races and community events.
 
So maybe I’m not as fast as I once was, and maybe I never will be again. Maybe this 50K will be a personal worst by an hour, if I’m lucky. Maybe I’ll never make it back to Boston, even though sometimes I think pretty hard about it, just to have a race not marked by an international news event, just to run it, just to finish and rejoice instead of start working, terrified.
 
Maybe people will judge me based on my times. Maybe they’re judging me already when they see me at a bike race, two surly kids in tow and an inability to get back on my bike after a barrier looking like I’m doing anything but taking a leisurely trip to the library.
 
Maybe.

But probably not. Because when I’m out there training or not training, racing or not racing, standing at the starting line, or sitting on my bike, trying to figure out how to ride as hard as I can without crashing into someone else, I’m not judging anyone else.
 
I’m trying to be friendly to the woman next to me, to take a moment to say, hey, I’m super nervous, how are you? And most of the time? They’re nice about it. To say at a trail race, I hope I don’t trip over a root in the dark, or I hope somehow I’ve cobbled together enough training to make this less horrifying than it should be, considering.
I saw a post the other day from a guy who was wondering why his wife, who brings up the back of the pack, is never in any race photos. I’m sure there are logistic reasons – a photographer is only hired for a certain amount of time, or whatever it is. But it’s always good to note that people have that feeling – am I the one who looks out of place?
 
And the answer is no. It’s always no.
 
Because we’re all really, really glad you’re out here.
 
I know I am. And every time I talk to anybody, they feel the same.
 
Complain all you want about crowded races or events so competitive they sell out in record time. Sure, it’s frustrating, but what it also means is more people discovering what we all already know: Running or riding or however we propel ourselves forward outside is growing in popularity.
 
And that’s a good thing, for all of us.

​Jacqueline Palfy is a longtime runner, reader and writer, marathoner, mom and board member of the nonprofit Sioux Falls Area Running Club. Her contributions to the 605 Running Co. blog will appear every other Tuesday. You can follow her on Twitter @runnerJPK or reach her at jpalfyklemond@gmail.com. Story ideas are encouraged.

​It’s fall, or almost.
 
Though the past few days haven’t felt like that. As I sit here in my kitchen, it’s about 85 degrees upstairs in my house. I’ve only turned my air conditioning on a handful of times this summer – I can’t stand being cooped up in a closed house – but it’s testing me more than ever today.
 
Maybe I’m just ready to be done with it. I want crisp, cool air. I want leaves crunching under my feet. I want to start wearing ankle boots and stop painting my toenails.
 
My social media feeds have been full of people doing what we all love to do this time of year: Spend time outside.
 
Trail running. Ultramarathons. Hikes through state parks. Bike races.
 
Here in Sioux Falls, our options for those things is getting better every day.
 
Last year, I wrote about Falls Area Single Track, a local nonprofit raising money to build trails at Tuthill Park. They hired a firm out of Rapid City to build professional trails, and as of this week, they have about 1.5 miles built and have raised about $55,000 of $75,000 needed.
 
The hope is for another 2 or 3 miles at the park, built in a way to make it accessible for most levels of mountain biker, and created in a sustainable way that doesn’t require constant maintenance – a lesson FAST learned after building a few miles of trails at Leaders Park.
 
The group is holding a fundraiser at Fernson on Wednesday to make the last push to build the trails. The event, which begins at 6 p.m., includes several raffle items – including a bike and a pair of trail shoes. And Fernson will give $1 of each beer sold to the group.
 
The Sioux Falls Area Running Club also is giving money to FAST. Profits from the trail race series – which includes the run at Good Earth State Park this weekend – will go to the nonprofit.
 
It’s part of giving back to the community and supporting other recreation groups.
 
“We’ve already started planning to try and help with trail maintenance days and getting the two groups together for some joint relay events,” club president Nathan Schwab said recently.
FAST board member Clay Austin said he’s all in on working with other groups to spread the word.
 
In the decade or so since FAST got started, they’ve already heard from grateful neighbors like those near Leaders Park who were happy they had somewhere new to go for after-dinner walks.
 
Building trails isn’t just about making a place for mountain bikers.
 
It’s about making a place for recreation in Sioux Falls.
 
Those of you who read this blog know that our family does it all – I’ve been running for a long time – nearly 30 years at this point, from the day I laced up my running shoes for high school track – and I was a mountain biker in college. Then I took time to just tool around on a bike with my kids and now I’ve been doing cyclocross (which is stupid fun, come join me).

Beyond that, I like to just be outside. I drag my kids to road races and trail races and now weekend-long bike race events. I make them go hiking with me every Mother’s Day and endure their complaining while we wander in the woods.
 
I like it all.
 
And I like it the most when I can do it right here in Sioux Falls, when I can be out there with my friends and family, and give a nod or a high-five to a familiar face on the trail. When I know the money I give isn’t just for me – it’s for dog-walkers and Mother’s Day and some kid who says, hey, I wonder where that goes.
 
I broke my arm earlier this spring – and whined mightily about it on this blog – and when I went for my check-up, the hand surgeon said she had been thinking of me because she and her son, who is about 10, were riding their bikes along the bike path. They saw the split in a fence along the side, the dirt path, and dipped down.
 
They rode the single-track trails through the woods.
 
And had a blast.
 
These are trails that FAST built and maintains.
 
And here was a mom and a curious son and that moment as a parent when you just say, “sure,” to a kid, because why not? As a parent you say a lot of “no.” And sometimes you have to ask yourself why – is there some legitimate reason you can’t say yes to ice cream after dinner or hammering nails into this random piece of wood or taking a detour to who knows where on the side of the bike path.

A lot of the time, there’s no real reason to not say yes.
 
And because of this opportunity that FAST created – not just for mountain bikers or trail runners – this mom and her son were able to say they spent part of their day mountain biking.
 
I love this.
 
And I want to support it. I have to go to a meeting on Wednesday to talk about how to help recruit runners to the Jingle Bell 5K the weekend after Thanksgiving – let me know if you need details on the race – but when I’m done, I hope to swing over to Fernson and have a beer and buy a raffle ticket.
 
I’ll find out when the next trail maintenance night is, and drag myself out to do what needs to be done.
 
Sign up for one of the running club races – there’s still Newton Hills if you’re not ready for Good Earth this weekend.
 
Do whatever it takes to support the many local nonprofits trying to make better recreation a possibility in our community.
 
Being outside is all I want to do. I want to eat outside, sleep outside, take a walk or go for a run or ride to the park with the kids. I want a picnic. I want coffee on the deck. I want the windows open when I sleep, a fan whirring or curtains blowing.
 
I want to see a ribbon of dirt peek out from the trees and know that if I take a step on it, it will take me somewhere I need to be.
 
Wherever that is.
 
Thanks, FAST, for helping make it happen. Cheers to you on Wednesday.

​Jacqueline Palfy is a longtime runner, reader and writer, marathoner, mom and board member of the nonprofit Sioux Falls Area Running Club. Her contributions to the 605 Running Co. blog will appear every other Tuesday. You can follow her on Twitter @runnerJPK or reach her at jpalfyklemond@gmail.com. Story ideas are encouraged.