The Race

"Therefore, since we have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let us also lay aside every encumbrance and the sin which so easily entangles us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us." Hebrews 12:1

I wasn't planning on running a race today. The Little Bro and I had been talking about the Firecracker 4K for several months, but after some crazy recent weeks and the subsequent slacking off on the training, I pushed those plans aside. Until last night. The Little Bro informs me at 11:01 pm that he was going to run the race in the morning. My thought process went something like this, Run a race or sleep in? Hmmm. Well, if the Little Bro is running, I might as well run, too! And so it was decided.

The alarm wakes me at 6:30... that IS sleeping in compared to the normal 5:00 am wake-up time, so I'm feelin' pretty good! It was mostly quiet on the drive into town, besides the thumping running music that we deemed appropriate for the occasion. We even had a theme song. :) We arrived at the race registration about 45 minutes early. It took me a little while to get over the fact that I paid $18 to torture myself, but whatever. The T-shirts and weird little digital timing chips were pretty thrilling though. We saw a few acquaintances, stretched a bit, prayed together and positioned ourselves about 10 feet behind the starting line. There were over 730 runners/walkers, so I was almost convinced of the possibility of getting trampled. Yikes! One minute 'til race time... I-pod is ready to go. With a race name of "Firecracker 4K," what else would start us off but fireworks? Too bad I don't know where they are.

*BOOM*
And we're off!! There's definitely some adrenaline that comes in with that size of crowd. Running is such a solitary thing. For it to take place in a crowd, the dynamic just intrigues me. The race totally slaughtered me... which says alot about my lack of training. My time was decent during the first mile, and then it all went downhill from there. Figuratively downhill, I mean, because it really got hard during the uphill climb. :) A fellow runner told me that they liked my T-shirt (24/7 - Living for God: All Day, Every Day shirt), haha. Nice. I tried to up the speed a little bit on the home stretch. As I came into the finish line, all I see is the Little Bro waving and yelling, "17 minutes!!" He was going for 21 minutes, and his official time was 18:02. Yeah, happy little camper. He hasn't been training either. I know, we're both stupid. Or just really busy. Eh. And no, I'm not telling my race time. It was pretty pitiful. But I finished the race!

We were hardly done with the race a few minutes and I was already talking about running a 5K. On my vacation in Maine, no less. Training begins tomorrow...

"Do you not know that those who run in a race all run, but only one receives the prize? Run in such a way that you may win. Everyone who competes in the games exercises self-control in all things. They then do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable. Therefore I run in such a way, as not without aim; I box in such a way, as not beating the air; but I discipline my body and make it my slave, so that, after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified."
I Corinthians 9:24-27