Blogger of Jared

So we (my wife and I) finally ran in our first real event. The “America’s Finest City Half Marathon”. Wow, what a rush. There were over 7,000 entrants (which means it took us 7 minutes just to get to the starting line!). The enthusiastic runners, the people cheering us on from the sidelines, the music blasting from different aid stations… it was all quite electrifying.

We were warned by our coaches when we started not to get too caught up in the early rush of the crowd. Apparently it is really easy to overestimate your abilities when you are full of adrenaline which leads to a major burnout a few miles in. Luckily I have a wrist-top GPS unit and so I was able to keep myself at a pretty even pace for almost the entire race (right around 13:00/mile).
As we ran the race, with all of its ups and downs, I must have had about 20 different “Ah-ha!” moments that I considered turning into a blog post. I saw life lessons in everything from the hill profile of the course to the aid stations to the injuries and more. I thought, as I reached mile 11 (right before the biggest hill of the course) that I had finally narrowed it down to about 3 potential posts and so I began refining my thoughts on those few topics.
We passed the 11 mile marker and about half a mile later turned left onto 6th Avenue. This was the hill which we had been dreading since we signed up for the race. This hill, approximately a mile long would take us out of downtown San Diego and up into historic Balboa Park (home of the famed San Diego Zoo) where we would finish up the last three-quarters of a mile on a flat/downhill amongst a cheering crowd, fluttering flags and rocking music finale. It was an absolutely grueling climb. The sun had just emerged and we were running on our last fumes of fuel. We made it though, with not much more than gritted teeth and Gatorade.
At the top of the hill, nearly spent, we settled into a soft pace in preparation for a final triumphant sprint across the finish line. Then, all my potential posts were blown away.
The bridge into Balboa park was lined with American flags. Crowds of people were cheering us on as we slowly trotted toward the end. And then we were passing an old man who looked at our race jerseys.
“Team in Training?” he asked, referring to the organization we are part of, wherein all of our fundraising efforts support the Leukemia and Lymphoma society. We both beamed proudly and nodded.
“Thank you.” he said, his eyes moistening with tears. “My wife passed away from lymphoma… Thank you.”
We passed by him too quickly for me to respond with anything other than a feeble “Thank you”. An attempt to express my gratitude for his short and sweet ability to make the last couple months of stressful fundraising efforts, long and difficult running and overwhelming time commitments suddenly come into a very clear perspective.

“When ye are in the service of your fellow beings ye are only in the service of your God”