Give it your all

I do not like running! Three years ago I competed in my first 5k race because I told my kids I would. I started off the race running as hard as I could like I thought everyone else was doing not realizing that 3.1 miles is ahella long way. About 3 blocks in I was out of gas. I wanted to quit right there. At the one mile mark after going up one of the sickest hills in town I knew I could not finish this stupid race. At the 1.5 mile turn around two women, HEROS, came back to where I was at when I totally gave up and said, “No man left behind, you are gonna finish.” We walked slow, stopped a couple times, and just to show me I could they even made me jog a little bit here and there. By the time I was half a mile from the finish line, my son and all his friends came back to walk along side and even behind me. I DID IT! I finished my first 5k and I hated it. I even received a metal for 3^rd place in my age group despite finishing the race dead last, guess how many were in my age group.

Since then I have completed in numerous races and fun runs, still not liking running and usually walking most of the 5k but finishing every one. Again I don’t do these because I like them, I do them for a much bigger reason. I learned in my first 5k that I could accomplish things that I worked hard at and had the right support to do. I have since completed one college degree and in a few months will receive my second. I have found a career path that I would have never been able to get into on my own but through hard work and encouragement I have been blessed. I have become a calmer person, a better father, a more caring husband, and a nicer friend. These races have not changed my mind about running but they have changed my heart about give it my all.

This morning as I write this I wonder if I have given it my all, have I given my  training for each race my all, have I put my all into my school work, have I given it all to my Daddy, God, who has given everything to me? I can honestly say NO but I am training to do so and it all starts with one race. Getting ready for the Haslanger Classic in 10 days where it all began and its training time.

Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one gets the prize? Run in such a way as to get the prize. 1 Corinthians 9:24