Lessons from the Mini

One thing I've learned is that little in my life ever falls in one category. God often uses lessons from one to teach me principles that can be applied in other areas.

Saturday I ran the Indianapolis Mini-Marathon and being me, I looked for lessons and principles. Here are a few I extrapolated out...

1) Be prepared. Eric didn't know that the T-ball game would be canceled, but it was. He ran 10 miles without training, but imagine what he could have done if he'd kept up with it -- even on a reduced basis. Moral -- we don't know the outcome, so train and prepare for the eventualities.

2) Stick with it. I did not want to run the mini. By Friday and Saturday morning I'd about talked myself out of it. I was the craziest person who'd ever lived. Now, I can't wait to sign up for my next one -- though I still have no desire to run a marathon! I could have talked myself out of it -- after training since January. But sometimes we have to stick our heads down and do the work. The reward can come from that alone.

3) Live in community. If we didn't have a community, we wouldn't have been able to call Eric's sisters to help out. We also bumped into a friend and her mother who graciously volunteered to help with the kids. We can't do crazy things alone. So reach out :-)

4) Walk a self-disciplined life. None of this would have been possible if I hadn't worked for 16 weeks to train. Running on days I wanted to and didn't. But as I ran day after day, I built up the base I needed to shave 5 minutes off my time from two years ago. My average mile pace dropped to 10:30! Now to hit 10 minutes a mile next time :-)