New Achievement

Today I did something that I have wanted to do for quite a time. My daughter is a member of the cross country and track teams at her high school. For years now, I have watched with great envy as she ran in races all across the state. Even more amazing to me were the many adults who ran right along with her. I decided a while back that I really wanted to attempt to at least walk one of the races and my chance came today.

The route was a 2 mile length road race with only a couple of inclines and declines. The weather was perfect for it too- nice and cool throughout most of the route. I had not done much training, having only walked a night or two in the last two weeks. Nevertheless, I took the plunge and signed up in the 45-50 women's category.

When the starting gun echoed, I plugged in my iPod and took off walking. At points through the route I found myself praying to God to ease the pain in my shins so that I could at least finish the race, but I kept on walking. I shouldn't have been surprised that, even though I had my iPod on shuffle, God found a way to send me just the right words to keep me moving.

At the end of the 2 miles, I still had a smile on my face, as witnessed by this photo:

A bottle of water and a short walk to cool down and I was ready to wait for the awards. I hadn't really been sure how many of the women in the race were in my age category. (I will confess that I attempted to judge ages by appearance, but I knew that my guesses were probably well off...LOL!)

20 minutes later and I learned that my daughter had placed 2nd in HER age category and I had placed 2nd in mine!

When Kari heard my time of 33:08 she told me that next year I would make it a 31. I guess that means that I will be doing it again..... For now, I am just crossing one more thing off the bucket list..... Maybe I will add one too.... MAYBE..... just maybe..... I will work my up to RUNNING the route..... We will see.