Bo Derek's got nothing on me

When I was in the BYU Ski Club (we'll deal with the alarming nature of that first sentence later if it comes as a surprise to you; worry not! It's totally not the point of this post) we all piled in a van and headed from Provo up to Salt Lake City to hit the slopes. The BYU Ski Club was probably the organization most purely devoted to its mission, no frills, of any group I've ever joined. We had exactly one meeting: to get a head count of who was coming skiing. Then we got to have the perks of a university van, a budget, and as I recall some discount on the lift tickets for our Saturday adventures.

Being an officially university-sanctioned activity, however, there had to be some kind of liability/waiver/accountability. On the way up to our first ski adventure, my friend Amy and I sat in the back seat of the van, all wide-eyed and freshmen-ingenue-like, riding along with hard cores who had been skiing for basically three years straight and if nothing else would be sad to see their university careers come to an end because they might have to actually work five days a week and ski two instead of the opposite.

We filled out a form. It asked the usual stuff -- emergency contact, do you have health insurance?, and the like. It also asked us to rate our fitness including a question like this:

If in an emergency situation you had to run ten miles, could you do so?
-very easily
-somewhat easily
-with some difficulty
-with extreme difficulty
-not at all

At the time, I'm pretty sure my pencil hesitated over "with extreme difficulty." I may have even considered checking "not at all." At the time I was a confirmed half-ass jogger and I hadn't done crap for athletics my entire senior year of high school. This was all about to change as I embarked upon my skiing years, but at that moment I think I was lazy and I know I had never run ten miles before. Extreme difficulty, then.

Not anymore, my friends. Today I reached the ten-mile-run day in the training schedule of the 25K for which I am preparing, and indeed I ran it! Not with extreme difficulty either. Not even with "some." I don't want to go crazy or anything, but I do believe that I could now check the "somewhat easily" box. My training has paid off, and I am officially no longer the person I was on that early ski season day at age 17.