PIVOTAL MOMENTS IN EARLY ADULTHOOD
Continuing with the childhood story about our co-founder, Tara Ransdell, we pick up during a pivotal stage...
In 3rd grade, my parents decided we would move back to northern Minnesota, where they had grown up. This becomes very significant for many reasons, the most significant being we moved into a house 1 block away from my husband, Jason. Love at first sight? Not quite.
Living in East Grand Forks had its benefits. I was related to half of the town (this is a joke but not too far from the truth), and my parents knew almost the entire other half. I quickly took up as many sports as possible, and I was soon involved in volleyball, basketball, track and field and softball. Many of my favorite memories involve trips with my teams. After high school, I chose to stay in the area, and become a Fighting Sioux at the University of North Dakota.
After 3 years at UND, I was accepted into the Illinois College of Optometry a year early, and this small town girl was headed to Chicago! Chicago was all the things: scary, exciting, fun, exhausting, and a great new experience for me. I loved rollerblading along Lake Michigan and watching and playing beach volleyball. We enjoyed a couple weeks of that before school became pretty intense and time consuming! After sitting in my condo in 1997 and hearing the Chicago Marathon go by, I decided I was going to get involved. At this point, I had never run more than 3.1 miles at one time, and I did that once.
In 1998, I got married to the cute boy from the 3rd grade bus stop, and I ran my first marathon. I was hooked. I had my eyes set on running the Boston
Marathon someday. In 1999, I missed qualifying for the Boston Marathon by 2 seconds. That is all I want to say about that. After several marathon times of 3:41 (I had to break 3:40 to qualify), I decided I needed to do something different with my training and possibly my mindset. I decided to dabble in triathlon and thanks to my crazy friends, I signed up for and completed Ironman Arizona in 2009. This is still one of the coolest things I have ever accomplished.
In 2012, I ran a Boston Marathon qualifying time and I was headed to the 2013 Boston Marathon! The 2013 Boston Marathon is something my family will never forget. I wish it was for a better reason, but the day ended in a horribly tragedy, when 2 individuals decided to place bombs along the side of the course. I had finished the marathon, sat at the finish line for about 15 minutes, put on layers of warm clothes and had just made it to my family in the family meeting area. Thank God we were all safe, but I think about the lives lost that day quite often.
Two months later, I packed my bags and went to Duluth, MN to run Grandma’s Marathon to qualify for the 2014 Boston Marathon. I went back to Boston and instead of worrying about my time that day, I enjoyed the crowd and my ability to do that race again.
Another significant event that happened in the early 2000s was that Jason and I moved to Arizona in 2002. Our daughter, Jordan Taylor, was born in 2004, and we decided to do a little golfing here and there in between everything else. As Jordan got older, we tried to get her into golfing and the struggle was real. We would make her (yes, she would not have chosen to) swing the club here and there. We introduced her to Girls Golf of Phoenix, where the golf events were fun. There were years of soccer and dance and then finally one day, she wanted to try golf.
Jordan played her first year of golf her sophomore year in high school, and that was her only year of high school golf as COVID came along and she moved to online school and a golf academy for 2 years. Jordan is currently golfing at Shelton State in Tuscaloosa, Alabama and having a great time with new friends and a handsome southern boy she met along the way.
So, when in the world did we have time to throw in a golf apparel line? As you can see, I like to stay busy. I guess I must have had an ounce of free time one day and started thinking about these poor girls and women and what they had to do to find outfits and uniforms.
