Oddballs Family Fun Run

After we had grown up and moved out of mom's and dad's, my brother and I were finding it difficult to connect. He was living in Ashland and going to school, and I was newly married and working in Salem. We had been close, but my leaving for college had put a distance between us that we weren't sure how to bridge.

I had started running to keep in shape, and he was skiing a whole lot. He came home for Thanksgiving, and we decided to run a Thanksgiving Turkey Trot together. This was in the early days of the Portland Turkey Trot, so the course followed the challenging hills of the Wildwood Trail. This was his first race, so I reassured him that I would wait for him at the end. I was still thinking like the older sister.

He ditched me in the opening mile. I'm not even sure that he ever looked back. It was the first time that my little brother had so completely destroyed me at something that I was shocked. I shouldn't have been. He's a natural runner, and me - well, I have to work at it.

Since then, we've made it a point to run together on every Thanksgiving morning that we can. We've braved sideways wind and rain on the waterfront, enjoyed the fall leaves on Leif Erickson, and charged up the hills of the Turkey Trot. It's our chance to connect over something we both enjoy, and it is the one time of year that he'll run slowly enough to stay with me. I've taken to calling it the Oddballs Family Fun Run - an homage to our last name - and it is one of my favorite runs of the year. When we finish, I'll have my first Christmas latte of the year.

I can't wait.