As many of you probably already know, I completed the Half Marathon course for the Rock CF Rivers Foundation on Sunday. Let me take you through the race – bear with me. There will be a point somewhere along the way. 🙂
Training: I did really well in January, running nearly every day and running up to 7 miles on my long runs. Most of this running was done on an indoor track, running around in circles (which I hate). Then February rolled around, and I started to feel under the weather, was battling both a Pseudomonas infection and a MRSA infection, and my training came to a screeching halt. March came rolling in, and the weather was supposed to get warmer. Clearly, it didn’t. Every time I tried to run outside, I couldn’t breathe – it was too cold. I managed to train a little bit in March, but not nearly up to the mileage that I really needed to successfully complete the race.
Sunday: A screeching alarm woke me at 3 am. What an awful time to wake up. I did my medications and got my stuff ready to leave, and around 4 am, I started to drive. Temperature: 22 degrees F. The race was about 2 hours away. I made it onto the island where the race was being held, and got on the shuttle to go to the start line. Temperature: 24 degrees F. I obtained my packet and race bib, and sat down on the cold tile of a high school to stay warm. Most of the race participants were milling around the gym, but as a CF patient, I had to stay outside of the large spaces to try to minimize health risks to other CF patients. There were 29 runners with CF at this race, and over 1000 other runners for the Half Marathon and 5K races. But I digress. A woman named Gail happened to be waiting next to me in the hallway, and we struck up a conversation. She and her friends are trying to run half marathons in all 50 states. This was her 20th. Around 7:30 am, all of us began to make our way outside into the chilly morning air to the start line. Temperature: 28 degrees F, wind chill of low teens. “It’s never been this cold for this race,” the race director said to the crowd, “but we’re going to run it anyway, just like we’re going to keep outrunning CF.”
After the national anthem, the gun sounded and we were off. The first mile was great. People were still very bunched up, being that there were a lot of us, but slowly the field started to separate. Mile 2 was pretty good, hit the first water station and still feeling good. Miles 3 and 4 proved to be slightly more difficult, as my body started fighting me. The wind on the island combined with the very cold temperatures and my apparent lack of appropriate running clothing and wind breaking materials and dearth of training proved to be too much. My legs began to seize up every time I would try to go from my brisk walk to jogging (which I had been forced to resort to about mile 3.5). So, as a very stubborn person, I began to just walk quickly. And every mile sign I hit made me realize how cold it was. It wasn’t until about Mile 8 when the race marshals started asking me if I was okay, that I realized just how cold my body was. I had clenched my hands during the first half of the race, and now I found it difficult to straighten my fingers or open the protein bar that was in my pocket. I began to methodically shake out my hands and arms to warm them up while telling my legs to just keep walking.
Back about miles 2 and 3, I asked myself why in the world I was doing this. Because I want CF to stand for Cure Found. Because so many people have helped support me over the years. Because I can. Mile 4, I asked God why he let me do this. Because you were foolish enough to sign up for it. Because you have to rely on me to help you finish. Mile 5, I asked myself why I did this (physically) alone. Because you wanted to prove that you could. Because you have a hard time trusting people. Because you don’t ask for help. Mile 6, I was a wreck. I was crying behind my black sunglasses (which I didn’t really need because the sun never made an appearance). Mile 7, I was emotionally drained. I now knew why I was doing this, and why God let me do it, and why it was so hard. Because I was doing it alone. Or so I thought. Physically, yes. I was the only one there for me. But God quickly brought my attention back to the amazing number of people who were praying for me, at that very moment. The sheer incredible number of people who cared, and who were rooting for me to finish.
Mile 8 brought more clouds in the sky, more wind, and more cold, and at that point, I got out of my own head, and started worrying about if my body was physically going to make it across the finish line. It was SO cold. I could no longer see anyone in front of me or behind me, and the water stations I reached subsequently were starting to shut down and pack up. At mile 9, I was mad at myself for being the last person to finish. I was angry that I hadn’t lived up to the expectations that I had set for myself. And at mile 10, as I was going through the airport hanger, God reminded me (none too gently) that my goal was not a time, or any sort of show for anyone else – it was to finish. Finish the race. Endure. To keep pushing even though I was exhausted and worn down. Yes, I had wanted to do well for myself, but I really wasn’t doing this for me, was I? As miles 11 and 12 slowly showed up, I realized something that God has had to keep teaching me (and will have to keep teaching me). I can’t do it alone. I can’t go through life alone, expecting to save myself, from CF, from the grip of sin, from the enticing lies Satan tells me. I can’t do it alone, and I don’t have to. First of all, I have God. He is all I need. And it is truly by his grace alone that I saw the Mile 13 sign. Stepping onto the track to the finish line, I started to run. Ten steps from the finish line, I couldn’t run anymore. I had to walk (more like limp) across the finish line (the pictures are awful, let me tell you). But I crossed the finish line. With tears in my eyes, I accepted my participation medal and my awful time (3.5 hours), not in sorrow, but in thankfulness. For the ability to cross the finish line. For the grace of God to get me across the finish line. For the people supporting me all over the world. For the opportunity to “run” 13.1 miles. For my CF, and the ministry tool that it is. For the fact that I don’t go through this life alone. For the fact that I finished the race.
I was hypothermic and stubborn and exhausted by the time I made it inside the high school. But I finished the race by the grace of God. I’m not going to lie – I was still incredibly disappointed in myself and the slow time I put up, but I was NOT the last person to finish! As I ran my hands under warm water to unfreeze them, I slowly moved toward being thankful again. There’s nowhere to go from here except up, right?
As I began my two hour drive home, I thought about what I was going to tell people about the race, how honest I was going to be about how hard it really was, emotionally and physically. How I was going to answer when people asked me if I would do this again. And I realized, I had to be completely honest if I wanted to be true to what God had taught me over those 13.1 miles. The struggles, the tears, the pain, the triumph, the lessons, and the realizations. All of it.
So there it is, honestly. I finished this race. There are so many more races to come in life – both physical half marathons and the marathon of life, toward the words “Well done, good and faithful servant.” I’ll run this race again, and I’m sure I’ll fall and fail and cry again. I’ll fall and fail and cry in the marathon of life, too. And people will be there to pick me up, and God will be there to remind me again and again of why I’m running this race.
I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. 2 Timothy 4:7
Therefore we also, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. Hebrews 12:1-2