Dream ON!

Isn't she lovely! This will be long winded, but I wanted to record my thoughts about my marathon yesterday. Here are the things I learned about life by running a marathon:

1) Consecrate thy performance unto the Lord - (2 Nephi 32:9 is an awesome scripture about this) He helped me get through. I've really tried this week to make this a matter of prayer and a spiritual experience and I think it was. I wanted to learn from it and help make me a better person. Hopefully it happened! I also had a big pain in my stomach at mile 5 and finally remembered to pray. It was much less noticeable after that!
2) Enjoy the ride - I was so nervous and asked Phil to give me a blessing. Very sweetly and shortly he blessed me that I would be able to enjoy it without reservation. When I would stop to remember this, I would remember to look up. There was some BEAUTIFUL scenery and it was awesome!!! I could have missed some great views if I kept looking at my feet the whole time!! In life we have to look up and around us or we miss out on a lot of great, beautiful things while looking at the monotony of day-to-day.
3) Laugh at yourself - It's been so cold here all spring. So I wore my usual sweat pants to run in. When the sun was up before the race even began I knew I was in trouble. It was so hot!!! So I pulled up the pant legs around my knees and looked like a big doofus. But I didn't care. I was hoping for a little cooler run and to bring comic relief to the other runners! My favorite sign: Any idiot can run, it takes a special kind of idiot to run a marathon! (that's me!)
4) The Power of Music - Last marathon I gave out about mile 18, so I told myself I could listen to my music at mile 18. It came at perfect time and totally helped me out!! A particular song "Life is a highway" was awesome as I was running down the highway looking up at the beautiful, rocky mountains with pinetrees growing out from them and a big waterfall etc. It was actually quite emotional!
5) Family is really all that matters - So my legs waited until mile 23 to give out on me. I had done 9 minute miles the whole time up until then, the last three became 12 minute miles (barely moving along) so I came down that last stretch just searching for my crew. There were a lot of people lining the streets but none of them made any difference!! I finally caught sight of Phil and the boys and it was so wonderful!!! I grabbed Jacob and he ran the rest of the way with me. That meant a lot to me!! I'm so blessed to have such a supportive husband! He is so great to let me reach for my dreams!!!

Now there are other ways to learn these lessons, so I'm not saying to go out and run 26.2 miles, but it worked for me!