My first Half Marathon

On February 19th I ran my first Half Marathon-5 Points of Life Half Marathon in Gainesville. My goal was to finish in 2 hours-My time was 2 hours and 3 minutes! It was a lot of fun running with so many people. When you run a 5K I feel you are racing against everyone-in competition. When you run a distance race you get a lot of encouraging and pushing from all the others around you-comradary. Jason, Wil and Elie greeted me at the finish line. Jason had to go see a few patients so he let me take the kids home with me and I was absolutely tired, worthless but extremely pleased with myself!! I enjoyed every aspect of the experience. I knew I would get stronger physically so I wanted to do something to help me grow stronger spiritually as well. I wrote up verses on notecards and lyrics to hymns and tucked it in my pocket or sports bra. I told myself if I stopped to stretch I would break out my "motivation" and by the end of the run I had a verse memorized and the hymns helped me up the hills! Through the training I learned about my faith, my God, my purpose with running and relationships with others. God told me to run for my happiness and the happiness of my family-anything other than that is vanity. It really made me examine my reasons for running and put competition in perspective for me. If I am running for any other reason than what my purpose is, my heart isn't in the right place. I may go on to do more races but I am running with a new purpose now. If I compete its just to prove that God made us a beautiful machine when he made our bodies. It can be molded, shaped and tested. And when you push yourself to new levels it really gives you confidence mentally and physically. It also gives you gratitude that you can run, gratitude for those who support you, and gratitude in achieving goals. God guided every footstep and lit my path to get there!

13.1 - free slideshow