Local women dream big with bucket list
As her tennis shoes pound the pavement, Paula Thomas contemplates her meal menu, her lesson plan and the world’s problems.
With each exhale, she releases the week’s tensions and focuses on what is ahead and what the next step is for accomplishing her goals. And with each step, she comes closer to reaching the completion of her bucket list: running a half marathon in all 50 states.
“I was the unathletic one growing up,” Thomas says with a smile. “My sister was the athlete.”
First steps
During her time in graduate school at Middle Tennessee State University, Thomas signed up for an aerobics class hoping to work out her tension from her full class load, work, and, well, life. The first morning of the class the professor informed the students that aerobics was running.
“Guy Penny was my professor. He taught me how to run,” Thomas recalls. “We ran 3 miles three times a week.”
Thomas finished her master’s degree, got married, moved to attend a doctorate program, and had children. All the while she continued to run 3 miles three times a week.
After returning to Middle Tennessee, Thomas says she received a flyer about running a half marathon for Special Kids, a faith-based pediatric nursing care and rehabilitation facility. She was wary of going from3 miles to 13.1 — the distance of a half marathon — and was concerned with taking time from her growing family and its responsibilities.
“I just couldn’t throw it away,” Thomas said of the mailer. “And then my son came to me one night and he said he had heard me talking to his father about it. He said, ‘Mom, you and dad always tell us we can do anything we want to do. Go for it.'”
She was inspired by her son’s words. Until he followed them up with, “And you might as well do it before you get too old.”
That was 2001.
Today the MTSU accounting professor lacks only six races to cross off all 50 states and the nation’s capital. She has completed the Country Music Half Marathon, the Cincinnati Flying Pig, and many others, all within about five years.
“It’s sooner than I expected,” Thomas admits, saying she had hoped to complete the list by the time she was age 60. “I’m not that old yet.”
50 before 50
Gayle Jordan made the decision just after her 49th birthday to do 50 things she had never done before she turned 50.
Her proudest accomplishment was completing an Iron Man competition, even if it took two tries.
“I don’t do anything in small measures,” Jordan says. “That was my biggest accomplishment.”
Finishing an Iron Man — which requires the participant to swim 2.4 miles, bike 112 miles and run a marathon distance of 26.2 miles — requires a great deal of training, stamina and mental focus. The same could be said of Jordan’s current pursuit — her law degree.
“It isn’t simply about education. It is about a dream,” she says.
Jordan also did simpler tasks. She got a tattoo that had a very special meaning to her. And she drank an authentic British lime gimlet, made with Rose’s Lime Juice and gin, with her daughter’s British friend.
“I said that if you made the suggestion for my list, you had to do it with me,” recalls Jordan, who also climbed a 14,000-foot mountain in Colorado with her son, at his suggestion.
Jordan, like Thomas, finds great joy in crossing off another accomplishment from her bucket list.
“The list is still there. I want to see the Tour de France, and I have lots of hiking on the list,” Jordan says. “I have to gauge what is more urgent versus what I can do later.”
All about the journey
Jordan says it’s about the experiences you have and hopefully inspiring others.
Thomas loves telling stories about the places she has visited while traveling for races or sights she has seen during her runs. She has completed the Goofy Challenge at Disney World, which requires athletes to complete a half marathon one day and a full marathon the following day. This was one of her favorite races. She also counts running across the Golden Gate Bridge in 2005 a highlight.
“It’s hard to compare with shutting down of a big city street to run, but I also love running in the red sands of the desert,” Thomas says. “I’ve been to Arizona multiple times.”
By her birthday in September, Thomas will complete the final races of her bucket list, including Delaware, New Jersey, Michigan, Nebraska and Hawaii, finishing her last race in Chicago.
She is still unsure what she will do after completing her list, but she is looking for “some fun fall runs.”
“Completing the bucket list is not the point,” Jordan says. “You can’t be greedy. You just try something new and enjoy the experience.”
Recent Comments