Friends, to those of you who ran any of the amazing events yesterday at our City’s beloved Memorial Marathon, congratulations!! I hope you had the most wonderful time! I hope you were safe and felt happy, energized, and appreciated. Weather conditions Sunday morning were challenging, with high humidity and strong winds, but that just makes your accomplishment so much sweeter, right? Close to twenty people I know or sort of know were among the almost twenty-five thousand runners. Wow! Watching your updates made me super happy. This is, after all, much more than any road race; this is an act of remembrance and a declaraion that love overcomes hate. That communities can heal.
I am disappointed to not have participated this year. No doubt. My enthusiasm was so high going into training, and I had been learning so much about myself (mind and body) this past year, that I really believed this April would be a big deal. I harbored pretty fantastic ideas about how things might go down, around Lake Hefner and along Classen especially. But that ankle injury changed everything. Thankfully it is pretty well healed now, just not in time to build up the stamina needed for long distance. And that’s all I want to do, really.
I was tthhiiiisss close to registering anyway, last minute, without even warning my husband. It was Friday night and I was clicking on links left and right looking for options. Maybe the half?
But then I scrolled through the hundreds of photos on my phone. Having spent the previous week with Jocelyn in Colorado, I was overcome with gratitude and in many ways still felt like I was there with her. We had such an amazing eight days together! I visited her fit and healthy enough to really enjoy exploring her version of paradise. Hiking up snowy mountains with this beautiful young woman is a pleasure I could never have predicted. It is beyond a dream come true. So… deep gratitude for health and love and life in general quickly overwhelmed that nagging race regret.
My ankle and stamina were not lacking; they were exactly where they needed to be.
I halted all plans and mind games about desperate registration and actively gave thanks for the time spent with her, for being healed and strong enough to really enjoy Colorado with her a second time and makes some irreplaceable memories.
Isn’t life amazing? How wonderful that gratitude is so consistently powerful, too.
Once again, friends, my warmest hugs and congratulations if you ran any of those events on Sunday!! It’s quite a feat. Also congratulations if you trained for something and had to bow out for any reason. I now understand how frustrating that is. Take care of yourself and look to the future with me, okay?
More importantly, let’s look at the present moment and count our abundant blessings hard. Let’s invite gratitude to fully overwhelm all our stabbing little regrets. It feels so nice.
It’s As It Should Be.
XOXOXOXO
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