I think it is funny how skewed our memories can be from childhood. I will have arguments with my brother or parents about details that we remember differently. Like how I KNOW my brother used to have friends over and check to see if I wet my pants right in front of them. I may have been only four, but that’ s mean. And none of his business. And maybe it was poop.
I don’t know if you saw the article a couple of months ago about how today’s kids apparently “run a mile a minute and a half slower than children three decades ago.” This is supposedly due to children being more sedentary these days. Ugh. That is a whole ‘nother blog post.
I mentioned this article to my 12 year old daughter. She asked how fast I could run a mile when I was her age. Uhh…obviously it was a 3:30 minute mile, my child!
I actually told her I have no clue because I was never in track or cross country and I never ran except when I played flashlight tag. In fact, in my entire life I have never run a timed mile (not to say I haven’t done 1600s, but I never just went out and ran a mile as fast as I could and made that my “mile time”). She’s like, “That’s weird mom. I thought you were a runner.”
This discussion led to me telling her that while I didn’t run, but I was really active. I went on to lecture about how I can’t believe how she complains about riding her bike or walking (downhill!) a mile to school. I told her, “You would not BELIEVE how far I walked to middle school every stinking day. It was at least 3 miles one way.” And, I was totally serious about this.
That’s when I got the idea to do a “mapmyrun” mileage check of the actual route I used to walk to school, back in Columbia, Maryland. I wanted to for once and for all prove to my kids how easy they have it.
The results? I’m embarrassed.
How is that even possible? I swear it took me 3 hours to walk to school each way. Maybe I walked a 3 hour mile? I guess it falls into that category of the parent who tells their kid, “I had to run 9 miles to school in 7 feet of snow carrying a pre-schooler on my back and with no pants on.” Our memories get so warped over time!
A similar memory warp happened to me the last time I visited my childhood home. I SWEAR the boulder/rock in our backyard was at least six feet high. It took me years to be able to climb to the top of it. I kid you not, when I visited my old backyard, I found a medium-sized rock not even 2 feet high. I KNOW it shrunk. Do you think it’s because I was so little that the rock looked so big? NO! It’s because whoever lives there now obviously had the rock replaced with one at least triple the size, but otherwise looked the same!
Now it’s your turn.
Do you have a distorted memory from childhood? I also used to think the hills I skateboarded down were HUGE. In reality, not so big.
Take the map my run challenge if you remember your walk/bike ride to school. Was it as far as you thought?
Do you think your kid can run a mile faster than you could at their age? I have no clue. But I could do a back handspring better. Or climb a tree.
SUAR
