Saturday, January 24, 2009

Discipline and Disciple I

So this 1000 miles for peace idea idea has emerged from my prayer life only recently, right around Christmas. But the seed was planted a while ago, just before Sam was born. I had this idea ( I get lots of big ideas) that I would start training for a Team in Training (TnT) Marathon when he was three months old, loose all this weight, be all healthy and fit, and as an added bonus, I would be contributing to cancer research! How exciting!

Well the rubber ultimately didn't hit the road. I discovered that you have to raise _a lot_ of money; and frankly, I'm not the powerhouse money-raising type. I don't mind asking people for money per se; it's more the endless monotony of asking over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and -you get the picture. Then, if my children were going to join me, I would have to buy plane tickets for the _whole family_ (more $$), and it was unclear whether Sam could join me in the race. And to be perfectly honest - my college athletic career was a long time ago- it would be a long (very long) time for an infant to go without nursing, and that was the dealbreaker. So I shelved the idea, and it surfaced again just before Joshua was born... Maybe I should train for a marathon...

This time though, I started thinking about how I could re-imagine the TnT process, and do my own fundraiser for cancer research. I could honor my mother-in-law who died in 2007 from a relapse of breast cancer; and my godson who is currently winning his battle with childhood leukemia, and so many people I've known and loved that have been in the throes of cancer treatment. Perhaps I could run a local marathon, perhaps I could raise money independently, and I could definitely take the children along... The idea was really cooking; until I talked about it. I told my husband. He said "why don't you try a 10K first"? "Well, running a 10K is part of training for a marathon," I responded. "I just don't want to see you set yourself up for failure," he said. "Why don't you just go to the gym?" (because I hate the gym, it's a stupid waste of money, a scam, and vapid, and [replay endless monologue of previous arguments here]) So I told my brother (brother #3), an avid runner, and marathoner, and one of my athletic mentors. He said, "a marathon? in May?... That's not very..." "Should I train longer and run the Detroit Marathon in October?" I asked. "Yeah, that's a better idea..."

You see, never actually an affirmation that this was a _good_ idea.

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