finishing the race

Although I already posted about this on facebook, I had to put it in our family blog... Chris ran the St. George Half Marathon on January 18, 2014 and finished in 2 hours and 1 minute! I am so proud of him! If I had run it with him he would have "smoked me"! Our normal pace is about a 10 minute mile so he was really booking it. Chris' Mom came with us to cheer him on and Dad Crosby came to our rescue by taking George to his bball game. Russ also came to congratulate Chris and it was fun to see him. Incidentally, Chris finished fast enough so that we could run over and catch the last minute of George's game - which they won! Dad said that George did good too:) and it was fun to see him playing when we walked in.

Chris was a "runner" before I ever considered giving it a try, but lately he's shown more interest in it-so for Christmas, with the help of some Christmas money, we surprised him with his own Ipod touch and his mom surprised him with a gift cert. to buy some good running shoes. I was surprised to find out though that he and his boss, Mustufa Saifee, signed up for the half marathon only a week and a half before the actual race! They both did great and I am so glad they/he had a good experience. He's even made it a goal to run the St. George Marathon which I hear is also a goal for a certain brother and niece of mine!

You know, running is an interesting thing... I remember being an overweight child at the park with my siblings and having them "encourage" me to run with them. When I finally did, I remember hating every second of it! I couldn't keep up with them, my lungs felt like they were going to explode and it just didn't make me feel good physically or emotionally. The funny thing is that I still don't like running:) but I do it because NOW it does help me feel better physically and emotionally...

A month or so ago I read an article in the Church News about a marathon runner in the summer Olympics in Mexico during the 60's, I believe. I can't remember his name or many of the details of the article and I'm too lazy right now to look for the article, but the jist of the story is that this runner was expected to do well. However, early on in the marathon he fell and was injured. As you may have guessed, he didn't stop, but continued to run and, of course, came in last place. The reporter who reported on the marathon focused more on this runner than the winner. The reporter asked this injured runner why he had continued and finished and the runner simply said that his country didn't send him to start the race, but to finish the race.

I've thought about this article a lot lately... I've thought about running a lot lately too and I've thought about all those "cheesy" comparisons you can make about running a race and life and no matter how cheesy it sounds I know that Heavenly Father didn't send us here to start the race of life, he sent us to finish our race. We will all fall down and injure ourselves, it's inevitable. Trials come to all of us in all forms and to be honest, I hate that about the race of life! I hate facing sorrow and loss! I hate the temptations that come! I hate how unfair life is to all of us really... I hate how these things slow me down and I hate seeing these things slow those around me down. That's a lot of hate... In the end though, I don't care if I'm the last one in - all I care about is that I finished.

I was reminded of all of this again yesterday as I watched my husband come in 10 minutes earlier than I expected and cross the finish line with Paris, Erma and John all running behind him:).