Pace Yourself!

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Today while training for a triathlon I did something I haven’t done since High School.

In High School I went out for track and trained to run 800 meters which is about a half a mile. I trained hard and on the day of the track meet I was ready to go.

This was a special day because my girlfriend was in the stands. Okay she didn’t know that she was my girlfriend, but I knew and that was all that counted.

Maybe winning this race would make it happen. The gun went off and I took off like a shot. After the first turn I was ahead of everybody. At a quarter mile I just ran out of gas. I tried to keep going but it was impossible.

My stomach sent a message to my brain. The sandwich I had eaten earlier in the day didn’t want to run with me anymore. Before I knew it I was kneeling on the infield grass. The sandwich came up first, followed by a pizza I had eaten a week ago, finally a jar of strained peas I had eaten when I was a baby made an appearance.

Instead of running to finish, I had run to beat all the other runners. God has not called you to beat anyone. He has called you to finish. Pace yourself

Comments

  1. HA!! Great story!!! Pacing is such a hard part for me…if i could only pace myself faster this whole thing would be over so much quicker!
    i love you are drinking the cool aid!

  2. I had a similar experience. I ran in the 400 meters race in one of my first track meets, finished and then headed up to the bleachers to sit down and recover. Started feeling a bit queezy and all of a sudden began seeing salad, potato chips, etc on the ground between my legs. For some reason the friends that were sitting around me scattered. Figure that one out. At least the coach was compassionate. I asked Coach Lassiter if I could get out of running the anchor leg of the mile relay later that afternoon because I had just hurled lunch and a few snacks up, and wasn’t feeling too well. He said, “Kidd, quit your complaining. No way you’re getting out of running it. In fact, you should run faster now that you’re lighter.”

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