Think Pink

Daughter Christine (front row, second and third from left) and I got up early this morning to undertake the 5K Susan G. Komen Foundation "Race for the Cure" here in Sacramento. It was fun to enter something like this as a mom-and-daughter set. We joined up with the SCOE Scholars team of the Sacramento County Office of Education. There were thousands of us wearing the same and white shirt, running and walking side-by-side with breast cancer survivors clad in pink hats, headbands, shirts and shorts. Music playing, school spirit teams cheering, spectators hollering ... quite the loud and lovely scene. Christine's race time: about 32 minutes. Mine: 40 minutes and 29 seconds. Good for me. Great for her!

Today I had a chance to think more clearly about running. My running, specifically, and why it is that I frequently feel the force to simply stop and take a rest. Questions I began asking myself this morning each time I felt the urge to rest: are you in significant pain? are you have difficulty breathing? My answers were nearly always the same: no. There was really no reason—other than feeling discomfort—to halt. This "ah-ha" moment may sound silly, but it was an important breakthrough for me. Real life is full of discomfort and pain. Why have I felt it so necessary to avoid them? No harm is coming to me by stretching myself and my goals a bit. If someone like me does nothing but around in an attempt to circumvent unpleasant conditions, not much is ever going to happen.

It is a delight to build on small successes, like beating your personal race time. Or finally getting just right a complicated recipe that's never turned out well before. Or (in my case) finally finishing the wonderful T.H. White classic, The Once And Future King, which I bring out every summer and never manage to get past the 14th chapter.

What challenges you this summer?

What sparks your imagination?

Why not find out?
P.S. Happy Mother's Day to all the moms.