The holiday weekend is now over. Emily and I were able to enjoy a little bit of fireworks last night at the RJ Corman fireworks display in Jessamine County. We also spent an evening in Nashville with my great friend Jason Spangler. It has been a busy weekend.
But my primary purpose in writing this blog is to update all of you on my involvement in the Bluegrass 10K here in Lexington, Kentucky.
I woke up at 5:30AM on race day to eat a piece of toast and begin stretching to wake my body up. Yes, my body does not naturally wake up at 5:30AM unfortunately. It must be awakened. Just before 7AM Emily came over and we walked together to the race starting line, which is only about two blocks from my house. Emily took all of the photographs that you see here with this blog today. When I arrived at the starting line, I was able to find most of our team by the custom running shirts that they graciously provided for us.
Now for the race: There were more than 1,500 people in this race, so you literally hear the gun go off at the starting line about three minutes before you start moving. Sort of like being in a long line of cars in a traffic jam. I stuck to my suggested training, and kept a slow pace even at the beginning, knowing that I would need the reserves in the gas tank to finish the race. The toughest part mentally was around mile 3. At that point I felt as though I would love to stop running, but realized that I was still only at the halfway point. The crowd was thick, and that made it easy to stay motivated. God really blessed us with fantastic weather. There were about three days of relief from the humidity and heat, and the race landed right on the last day of that relief. Just after the 4th mile I found Eric Geary in the crowd, the LLF CEO and my training partner. He and I stuck together for the last two miles of the race. I think he and I both agree that helped us get to the finish line. At one point in the race an Anglican priest threw holy water on me and blessed me. I think that must have helped as well. Eric and I both finished the race just fine. I surprised him with an attempt to sprint to the finish line and place just ahead of him. However, the man is more competitive than me and he managed to out-sprint me!
We had a great time. After the race many of us celebrated together at a Dunkin Donuts just down the street.
I can honestly say this was a great experience for me. Prior to this race the most I had ever run was 5 miles. The 10K is approximately 6.2 miles. I ran the entire race without stopping to walk, other than very short walk breaks to drink the water that is provided during the race. But it is a great feeling to pass the finish line knowing that your training worked, and that you have accomplished something that you didn't think you could do only a few weeks earlier. The human body is an amazing thing, able to adapt and build according to the pressure we put on it.
It may sound strange to say, but when I run I often think of the idea of suffering as it is communicated in the scriptures of the Bible. Read Romans 5. Suffering is designed to produce endurance, and endurance character, and character hope. In the scripture we encouraged to embrace suffering in order to have a greater reward at the end. When we spend out lives avoiding suffering, we wind up suffering anyways despite all of our best efforts to prevent it. Suffering is inevitable. But when we choose to suffer for the long-term gain, we are better equipped to handle the suffering that we cannot predict or avoid. I think about this when I run, and I ask God to help me with the willingness to suffer in order to feel the joy of the reward at the end of the race.
For those who supported me in finances and prayers in preparation for the race, I give you all of my thanks! Thoughts of you encouraged me on the hard moments of the run. I didn't want to let anybody down! I'm proud to have finished. The official times will be posted on the website sometime this week. In the meantime, Emily tells me I came across the finish at about 70 minutes. Not bad, but definitely some room for improvement. Eric is already talking to me about a half-marathon in the Fall, so improvement may indeed be in order! God bless all of you!
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