Sometimes it's okay to be 10 miles short

Last Fall, on the way to preparing for the half marathon that I would set my under 2 hour personal record within, I signed up for this year's Publix Half Marathon at an Adventure Run event.  They were offering a really good rate and I was feeling good at the time, so why not?

Fast forward to November... I had just finished my best half marathon (time-wise) with a fun group of people and was looking ahead to competing in a couple of races as 2014 began.  Then, in San Francisco the day before Dreamforce, I re-injure my right Achilles tendon on a run on the Embarcaderro. Oh yeah, awesome (Not!).  I have had these injuries flare up before and I figured I would be out for a month or so and back to it, but this injury just kept nagging me (and it turns out I probably got it because of some issues with my footwear that day).  

I begrudgingly deferred my enrollment in the Houston Half Marathon in January, and planned to make my comeback today at the Publix Half Marathon.  But still, the injury wouldn't go away quickly.  Late February was rolling around and I still wasn't confident in my ankle.  However, thanks a lot to Dr. Cho at 1st Choice Healthcare, I finally was cleared to run and made some strides to get myself back up to running a 5K distance, albeit I'm having to adjust my mechanics somewhat while the ankle continues to heal up.  But I can run :-), which makes me happy.

Meanwhile, I had been pontificating run/walking today's race with people (who are runners too) that I serve with at church.  Coincidentally, these conversations also coincided with Andy Stanley's latest "What is the wise thing to do?" series, and I knew that in light of my future hopes and dreams (to run 13.1's without injury and one day run a full) that the wise thing to do was to defer this race or at best case swallow my pride and downgrade to the 5K (for a 13.1 runner, this was a pretty big ego hit).  As the day approached, I really didn't want to miss out on race day, and I didn't want to reinjure myself, so I went to the expo yesterday and asked to be downgraded to the 5K.  Ego... deflated.  

Once again, when I went down to the race this morning and watched the marathoners and half marathoners walk to the start line in their corrals, I had a serious case of FOMO.  I felt like I was missing out and was actually feeling a little sorry for myself.  But I was here and I wanted to race, so I endured.  I knew that I wanted to be in those corrals next year... heck, this Fall... so I was going to stay the course.  

So when I started the race 10 miles short of where I wanted to be, all of those feelings went away for a while.  I was running in "a" race, albeit not "the" race and I felt a sense of exhilaration from being out there again.  Then, my GPS sounded out my first mile and my pace was 8:10.  That got my juices going, and the second mile at 16:19... injury free... and I am by no means not competitive.  I saw a sub-25 minute time ahead of me and I was ready to give it everything I got (and I was exhausted when I finished too!).   

And I finished at 24:43.  I've only done one 5K faster than that... ever... 10 years ago.  I thought I would never break 25 minutes on a 5K ever again, and today I did it.  

Not only that, but the person that finished right along with me was Georgia's Lt. Governor Casey Cagle, who was out there to run and speak about being active and fighting childhood obesity.  I got to shake his hand.  I wouldn't have been able to do that had I gone "according to plan."  

Today got me thinking that sometimes the sideline turns that God takes us on because of injury, life circumstances, or whatever are many times His plan for giving us something better than what we would get had everything gone smoothly and according to our plan.  Had I moaned about not getting to run 13.1 and just decided to skip out today, I probably wouldn't be writing this blog or have shaken the Lt. Governor's hand and definitely wouldn't have another sub 25 minute race time to talk about.  In letting my ego take a backseat and deciding that being "10 miles short" is okay, and letting God work with my today, I got to experience something cooler than I would have experienced if I took on any of the unwise options I was noodling.  

I hope that if you're reading this, and you are or feel sidelined in some arena of your life, that you take encouragement in knowing that God has something amazing planned with your hurt (Romans 8:28 is absolutely true!) and if you let go of moping about losing your ideal and letting God lead you in your season of trial, there is pure gold to be found... which may be better than the silver you just had to part with.