One Step at a Time

If someone told me a year ago that I would complete a half marathon, I would have called them crazy. I still have a hard time believing I finished a half marathon. We are capable of a lot more than we even can think of or imagine. We have to stop limiting ourselves.

A spiritual mentor of mine told me long ago “When you stop growing you die”. What she meant was that we have to continue to challenge ourselves in different areas of our lives so that we keep stretching ourselves. Annually she would set three types of goals, spiritual, mental and physical. She learned to rollerblade last summer, so I thought that I may as well try her method. Last November I set my three goals, spiritual, mental and physical. My physical goal was to complete a half marathon. I had not done any significant distance before so I really started training from scratch. I literally started on my treadmill by running a few steps and walking and gradually I would increasing my running intervals over my walking intervals, but that was mainly indoors on my treadmill. I still had not really run outdoors. Running outdoors was a lot more effort and time consuming so this was a challenge for me. It was a long 16 weeks of training, but run day finally came, May 16th 2004. Boy was I afraid! At the starting line I really felt like a runner and part of a running community, it was great. I had many cheerleaders and supporters with me. But that feeling quickly faded. About 6K into the run I didn’t think I could finish, even though I ran the same route two weeks before. My trainer/partner yelled at me (in an encouraging way) and reminded me of how far we had come. She also told me to put fear under one foot and failure under the other and stomp them out “one step at a time”. Then with the finish line in sight, my toes on both feet cramped up in little balls and would not move. It was excruciating! I could not walk much less run. It took a while to loosen them up, but I was determined to finish, I came too far to stop now. The lady in the stretcher with 2 men carrying her passed me but I was still determined so I sprinted to the finish line on the balls of my feet because if my toes touched the ground they would curl up again. But I did it! 3 hours after I started, but I finished.

Thank you God for helping to accomplish was looked like the impossible.

I have not warmed up to the title of runner, but I know I am definitely an “overcomer”.

Loy Pinnock-Brown