Memories of Alycia

Thursday, July 18, 2024

Alycia’s life and my life couldn’t be more different but at the same time we think almost exactly alike. She is outgoing and popular and always the brightest source of light in any room and I am happiest sticking to the shadows.

When we talk on the phone, she can talk for hours but she is so aware of my emotions that she can tell when I am ready to get off the phone. I don’t know why, but I can only talk on a phone for about twenty minutes but if we are in person I could talk all night.

If we’re on the phone, and we hit the twenty minute mark, she will say, “you’re about done aren’t you”.

Some of my favorite moments with Alycia were when I tucked her in at night. That is when she would want to talk, and we would talk about everything. She would talk about her friends and school, and we would even talk about boys and her goals in life. We would talk about religion and potential careers.

Tucking her into bed was something I always looked forward to and made time for.

Not much has changed even today, except that I have a twenty minute limit on the phone and I don’t see my children nearly enough. One of my favorite memories is when Alycia and I ran our first marathon. A bunch of us, Justin, Ben, Alycia, me, Sarah and Sam all decided to run the St George Marathon. I think it might have been the first marathon for all of us (maybe not Justin).

Alycia was living in Provo at the time and somehow, we were able to get together several times a month and every time we got together, we did a training run together. If we were in Provo, we would run ten miles down Provo canyon and that was perhaps my favorite run of all time. If she was in San Diego, we ran around mission bay. I remember one time we did a twenty mile run together around the bay. Our pace was nearly identical, so it worked for both of us.

When we ran the marathon, we started together and ended together and the only time we separated was once when she had to go pee in the bushes and then when I had to go poop in a porta potty.

Early in the race I set the pace, and she complained about keeping up and I kept encouraging her and then late in the race our roles reversed, she set the pace and encouraged me to keep up. It was a great day, and I can’t tell you how much I loved spending those five hours with my beautiful daughter.

Years later Alycia had decided that she was done with marathons, but she wanted to run a half marathon. I immediately jumped on board, and we were also able to get mom and Kira’s family to run as well.

In the end Justin and the boys bailed on us, but the rest of us all ran. Mom and the kids ran shorter runs but Alycia, Kira and I ran the half. What a great run that was. Alycia wasn’t able to train as she’d hoped (kids will do that to you) but she set a goal to run at least until we were out of the Snow Valley Park. I believe that would have been around seven or eight miles. She did great and ended up running until very close to the end. Even then I think she walked less than a mile and then ran the rest of the way.

Sadly, Kira and I ditched her because we had goals to not walk at all. That was another great day spending that time with two of my beautiful girls.

--------------------trivia--------------------

The human body can produce up to 2.5 liters of sweat per hour while running and each step you run involves you moving over 200 muscles

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