“Record the vision and make it plain, that
the one who reads it may run.”
MILE 1
The Race …
Where Less Than 1 Percent Go
A triumphant smile broke out of my heart and onto my face.
It was April 29, 2018. I was standing among almost 25,000 anxious and excited people, thinking back over the last 5 months- the last 5 years really that had led to this moment. And I realized I was smiling, a loud smile. If the other 25,000 people had not been there, if someone had seen me standing in the middle of the street with the big goofy grin spread across my face, there would surely have been concern. I couldn’t help it. I had to smile.
The journey to arrive at this moment had been long in many ways, and the most physically challenging of my 54 years. The will to accomplish what just one-half of 1 percent of people accomplish had been there, along with the dedication to train, to plan, to learn, to endure. But it was hard, very hard.
An injury had occurred when the runs grew long. I’d taken a short time for recovery and had determined to start again—too soon. The pain became intense. So much so that, for the first time in all the months of training, I was not accomplishing my goals. I discovered that “will” cannot always overcome injury. And one gray morning after I’d made one last deadline with the determination that this would be the “go, no-go” moment, I failed yet again. I called a son-in-law to pick me up on the dirt road a few miles from my home and tried to hide my defeat and my deep discouragement after yet another failed attempt. And in that moment, I almost …quit.
But then, with a few passing days, a new hope and new plan arose—and a thought that, maybe, if I just do “this idea,” it will all work out.
Three weeks from the big day, I set one last deadline. And I went. Painfully, I went.
Early miles went by and pain set in. I kept going. More miles went by; deeper pain set in. I kept going. With each passing mile, the pain increased. And I paused to consider it all. “Why?” I asked myself, but then I started again.The pain would not leave. It was just as determined as I. But for the first time in many weeks, I completed my goal. With every step during those last hours I told myself to remember this pain, which was informing me