An Interview With Adventure Racer and Mom: Maren Christensen

Last October we participated in this adventure race in Arkansas called Outback in the Ozarks. One of the teams was made up solely of women, and let me just say it appeared they were having a blast. A few months later, one team member stopped by our store and after following her on social media, I decided to ask her for an interview. I sat down with Maren to talk about juggling life as a wife and mom while still perusing her own passions.

After giving Maren my spiel about the blog and its purpose, I asked her to share a bit about herself.

Maren: First of all, I love this idea because I think that from the outside it seems that everybody has things figured out. I think that it’s really intimidating when you feel like you’re the only one who doesn’t. You may feel like everyone’s got their thing… but when you start to really talk with people, you realize that’s not necessarily the case. So, anyway, my name is Maren Christensen. I’m from Utah. I grew up in the mountains there around Ogden.

I’ve lived in Tulsa for nine and a half years now, and I’ve really come to love it. I moved here after marrying my husband. I was just barely twenty when we got married, which is so crazy to me now: I was a baby. We’ve been married ten years now. Anyway, he grew up in Northwest Arkansas, and he and his younger brother started a company here. So that’s what brought us here and I just thought, “Well, I guess that’s my first adventure, moving to Oklahoma!” Talk about being lost. When I first moved to Oklahoma I didn’t know a single person here. All the things I was used to, like the mountains and easy access to trails, were gone. It was a major change.

Lindsey: So how did you deal with that? How do you make a new place your home?

Maren: I think you have to be very intentional about it. For the first time in my life I had to seek out friends. I saw this woman shopping at Retro Den and thought, “Oh I think she’s cute and I like what she’s picking out,” so I actually walked up to her and got her number. I just tried to look for ways to make friends and then be intentional about doing that. And then I also tried to think about what makes me happy and make myself do those things. That seems like an easy thing to do, but it’s not always.

Lindsey: That’s something we talk about a lot: happiness. How do you search for that? How do you look for true happiness?

Maren: That is a really hard question. There’s lots of things in life that make you happy; like family, blood or not. Family is certainly a big one. But I also think having something that’s yours. I went through a lot of changes, like moving to Oklahoma and having kids… and I started to think, “Who am I? What do I love to do?” Having kids was really awesome, but it’s also really easy to lose yourself in that.

I think it was really challenging for me to carve out time and a space for myself. I had always enjoyed running and exercise and being outside. So I decided to be really intentional about those things: spending time with those I love but also taking time to be by myself. Even if it’s hard and a little inconvenient because I don’t think full-sacrifice is sustainable for anyone, at all. You have to take time for yourself.

Lindsey: So tell me a little about your relationship with running.

Maren: Well, I’m really not like a great runner. I ran track and cross country in high school but I was never the best or anything. When I moved to Oklahoma it gave me a goal to work towards. My sister-in-law, who’s an incredible athlete, encouraged me to sign up for a half marathon. It seemed daunting, but working towards that goal gave me so much confidence. Running when I was younger was more of a chore, but it was becoming something that I chose to do. It was my time by myself to think through all my thoughts and sort my life out. It shifted from something I did to keep in shape to something I did for my mental health.

Once I made that shift, it became so much fun! It was a way to explore my new home, too. Running is how I get to know a place. It’s also important for me to be outside; that makes me happy. Running outdoors helps me feel in tune with God, with a creator and with nature. It’s cool to be outside experiencing this beautiful earth that we have with these bodies that can do amazing things. So running just gives me gratitude for those things and makes me happy.

Lindsey: So what’s been your most memorable race?

Maren: I ran the Post Oak Challenge a few times- it’s a great race, with a lot of different distance options. But the last two years it has been crazy weather. Last year I was supposed to do the 50k but bailed and did the 10k because it was like a monsoon. And last weekend it had been raining all night the night before… I knew there’d be mud up to my knees so I just told myself I wanted to feel good and have fun and that was the only expectations. And it was great! It was like chocolate pudding out there and people were falling everywhere. We were all covered head to toe in mud. But I thought, ya know, this is what I like to do! I was outside, exercising, listening to great music and just had a great time.

Maren and I’s conversation began to wander as we bonded over a mutual love for running and the outdoors. We chatted about our similar experiences with Outback in the Ozarks and how much we appreciate meeting people who say “yes” to crazy adventures, because honestly, so many people will say no when something sounds too hard or a little too far outside their comfort zone. We acknowledged that we’ve both been there too, but that we now strive to grasp at crazy things (like running relays through the night or trail running through several feet of mud) whenever we get the chance.

Maren: For a long time I was afraid of looking stupid. I was afraid of failing. So I stuck with things I knew I’d be good at. As I get older, I realize that I have a lot of life ahead of me. I’m not too old to start new things and maybe be really bad at it for a long time.

If you never try new things, you might miss finding the one thing you would be a natural at or walk right past the thing that would set your world on fire.

Maren: Isn’t regret just the worst thing in the world? I would much rather think during something, “This may not have been the best idea,” than think later, “Oh I wish I had tried it.”

Lindsey: What’s your advice for someone that feels stuck “in-between”? For someone who doesn’t know what’s next or feels as if they don’t really belong; what’s your advice for coping with that feeling?

Maren: I think, first, it’s important to recognize that everybody has found themselves in that situation before. I think one of the scariest things about feeling that way is the isolation of it. We look around and think, “Oh, she’s got it together” or “He knows what he’s doing, and I must be the only one that’s struggling.” So I think recognizing that everyone either feels that way or has felt that way puts you in a community of people that can help.

We think that’s good advice. Join our “in-between” community. Comment below and we’ll add you to our email list (launches next week!)