Fire Cracker 4 miler!

How many times have you set out to help others and found that you really learn a lesson for yourself? This was the case for me today (July 5, 2010). I set out this morning to encourage my sister-in-law and nephew in the Fire Cracker 4 mile run in Stow. As it turned out, my sister-in-law and nephew truly inspired me.

My sister-in-law has been talking about doing a 5K for many months if not even a couple of years. She truly desires to be healthy and wants to set a quality example for her son. Like many, though, taking the leap out and believing she could do it always stopped her just shy of accomplishing this goal.

People in her situation have many excuses. Things such as I do not want to look bad in front of all those people, I don't want to be the last one, I am afraid I cannot finish, and many more. I am not sure what the issue was on her part but finally the other day she just made the decision and decided to register for the race.

Part of her decision process was asking her son to run the race and be a part of this event. My nephew has struggled through his life with asthma and although he excels in many sports, running is not a passion for him. However, he agreed to run.

Knowing how tough it is for a person to step out in faith and try this task I surely wanted to be a part of the event, so I set out that morning to meet them for the race. When we got together I could sense the excitement and nervousness in my sister-in-law. On my nephew's end I could sense a bit of excitement but plenty of nervousness.

We took off down to the starting point and waited patiently for the race to begin. After a bit of socializing with some of her friends we got onto route 59 and soon the siren sounded. My nephew and a few of his friends started out in front of us and headed out a bit faster than we wanted to go.

As we started out, my sister-in-law began running and was filled with excitement and seemed to be very joyful. This I thought would fall away sometime in the next two miles once the reality of the task came into full focus. Boy was I wrong! She ran the first mile and a quarter without stopping. She did not complain nor did she seem to be losing her joy or excitement. She just kept moving forward focusing on two things.

The first thing she was focusing on was how her son was doing in the race. The mother instinct always seems to take over and even though this event was something she wanted to do, she still found herself wanting to root on her son. The second thing she was focused on was getting to the finish line.

As we started to get to the half-way point which was right around the Kohl's and Target on route 59, my sister-in-law began to get worried about her son because she had not seen him coming back yet. About a quarter mile from the turn her son came by us and was doing just fine. At that she seemed to put her concern for her son to the side and continued to focus on the task of finishing the race.

As we hit the turn around, the adrenaline that helped her through the first two miles had worn off and she was purely working on any and all fuel that was left in her tank. This is where I truly expected to her to lose the joy and excitement of the event. At this point I was truly inspired! She did not lose her joy nor her excitement. She continued to just move forward anticipating finishing the event.

We continued to walk and run past the 3 mile mark, having a great conversation and enjoying the fact that we were running down 59 in a race. About the 3 and a half mile mark I noticed my nephew ahead of us and I suggested that we catch up to him and encourage him. We did so and found out that he was struggling. He was discouraged and a bit out of kilter. As we were only about a half mile from the finish, I encouraged my sister-in-law to finish and I stuck with my nephew to help him to the end.

As she took off I started to talk with my nephew and try to distract him from the race for a bit. I could see that running was not something that he enjoys at all. This left me to ponder why he would agree to run a 4 mile race when he had not run much more than a mile in his life and, further, he never trained for this event.

I learned that the only reason he was on the course was to encourage his mother in this event. He knew this was something she wanted to do and he knew that she would be encouraged if he would be in the same event. However, he was beat - but quitting never crossed his mind! He just silently kept moving forward and was just counting the steps until he finished the race.

At that point I was completely inspired by my nephew as he was truly doing something in service to another. Where do you find this type of mentality in today's generation? I can tell you where - my nephew's house! He was not doing this race for himself but to help inspire his mother. The greater thing is that he inspired more than his mother, he inspired me, something I am sure he never thought about in the process.

As we came down the stretch my nephew and I found a spot to start running to the finish. Coming to that point we targeted my sister-in-law ; she was there and she was cheering us on as were a couple of his friends. As we got to the finish he got out in front of me and beat me to the finish line!

At a time when I will be going into the heart of my training for the Chicago Marathon, a point where the races will subside and the mundane hard work will have to take over, I have been blessed agian. My sister-in-law and nephew taught me a couple great lessons. First my sister-in-law helped me to see the joy and excitement in running. She helped me to see it is all about attitude. On the other side, my nephew helped me to see that serving others is far more important than anything I could do for myself!

Thank you both for your inspiration!