Going Rogue: An American Life Read Online Free PDF

folks were smart: less TV meant more books. From The to Jonathan Livingston
    ro Animal Farm and anything
    by C. S. Lewis, I would put down one book just long enough to pick up another. The library on Main Street was one of my summer hideaways. I wandered through the stacks, thumbing through the smallish collection as though it were a secret treasure. One of my dad’s buddies said that he never stopped by the Heaths’ house when we didn’t our noses in a book or one of
    the magazines we subscribed to, including National Geographic, Sports Illustrated, or Ranger Rick,
    The 1970s also ushered in the running craze across America, and my family was hooked. Mom and Dad had their friends training for marathons even on subzero winter days, and in the summettime, we ran together in the sunlit nights. On weekends, we squeezed in 10k family fun runs. My parents and sistet Heather became decent marathoners. Dad qualified for the Boston Marathon and proudly represented Alaska twice at the Big Show. Mom, who was not at all athletic growing up, won her age group in the 26,2-mile Mayor’s Midnight Sun Marathon, a testament to how Alaska can change a person.
    At the time, running with my family was just a fun and expected thing to do, but it became a lifelong passion for me. For one thing, you don’t have to be particularly coordinated or talented to do it. Eventually, though, I realized that the road, and especially marathon training, holds invaluable life lessons. That to reach your goal you have to put in the tough, drudging miles. That the best rewards often lie on the other side of pain. And that when it seems you can’t take another step forward, there is a hidden reservoir of strength you can draw on to endure and finish well. Some would call it something spiritual, others would call it 27
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    SARAH
    PALIN
    personal resolve, bur I believe rhat reservoir resides in all of us. We all have opportunities to tap it. A couple of decades and four kids later, I finally reached my goal of running a sub-four-hour marathon. By a few seconds. When I finished that hellish exercise, I considered it one of my greatest accomplishments because it just hurt so bad.
    Every year in school I ran for something in student govern ment-vice president, treasurer, something. Curtis Jr. was usu- ally president, and I always served with him. One year, I served as one of the student representatives for the Mat-Su school board. Our rival school, Palmer High, sent a representative who was the undisputed queen of the Mat-Su Valley, a dazzling and brainy cheerleader, Kristan Cole, who would play an important role in my future.
    We were all expected to participate in most everything offered in our hometown: of course we’d be in 4-H, and Campfire Girls, and Scouts and ballet and band. Ofcourse we’d take foreignlanguage courses and join the National Honor Society. And we went from sporr ro sport to sport.
    One part of athletics I really appreciated was our local chapter of Fellowship of Christian Athletes, which I cocaptained under the leadership of the Wasilla Warriors’ wrestling coach, Mr. Foreman. At least sixry of us met in public school classrooms for Bible study and inspirarional exchanges that morivared us to focus on hard work and excellence. In those days, ACiD activists had not yet convinced young people that they were supposed to feel offended by other people’s free exercise of religion. As an athlete who advanced more on tenacity than talent, I wanted sports to be my future but was realistic enough to know I wouldn’t always be a player. That’s why with my passion for both sports and the written word, becoming a sports reporter seemed like a natural fit. There were few women in the field, but .
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    Going Rogue
    I couldn’t see any teason why more women shouldn’t bust through and succeed in this arena. Lesley Visser had already sharrered rhe ceiling, breaking inro rhe profession when the rules of the press box were plainly printed on