Beauty on the Backroads

Stories of grace for life's unexpected turns

Give Thanks for Lebanon

We smell like bacon and we’re here to pick up our race packets

Pre-race meal: Chicken carbonara.

We cooked bacon this afternoon. And chicken.

Then, we headed to the Y to pick up our race packets.

It was kind of like Christmas, digging in to see what kinds of goodies we had.

Water bottle. Snacks. A long-sleeve, running T-shirt. And most importantly, our numbers. I’ll be the one wearing “4”. Phil is “5.”

We have a plan for the morning. Where to drop the runners off. Where to park the car. Where the kids can see us run past. What the kids will do in the meantime till we reach the end.

We’re ready to go.

 Here we are, post-rapture.

Kidding, of course.

All that’s left to do is drink some more water, sleep, wake up, dress and head out the door.

Tomorrow, then?

See you on the other side.

Going the extra mile

Week 7, Day 2. Another 2.5 miles today. Different route. No stroller (grandparents, yay!). An unbelieveable, for us, time. 27:38 — 6 minutes faster than our first 2.5 miles and nearly the same time as our first 2 miles. No wonder I thought I was dying. OK, so maybe it wasn’t that bad, but it certainly didn’t come easy. As I was running, I thought about Jesus’ words about going the extra mile. A friend told me the first mile is the hardest, and I find that true sometimes, but these last couple of runs, I’ve found the second mile more difficult. Like, after the first mile, I feel like I’ve already accomplished enough but, wait, I still have another mile to go. Maybe that’s why Jesus said if someone wants you to go one mile, go another mile after that. I fairly often take the easy way when it comes to helping people or serving, so these 2.5 mile runs are challenging me in other areas of life to keep going until the work is finished, not just until I feel like I’ve done enough or until I get tired. I had to talk my feet into continuing to run today. Sometimes I have to talk my soul into caring or my hands into helping.

In other news, we’re officially signed up for the Annual Give Thanks for Lebanon 5K on Nov. 20. Eek! They have our money. No turning back now.

On Thursday we return to the route we ran a week earlier for 2.25 miles, so we’ll see if the time is accurate. Even though it’s not really about the time, it’s fun to see progression.