I ran a 10km run down Yonge Street in Toronto this morning. Both my teenage sons joined me. It is a regular annual event that we run every spring and it always challenges me. I love it because it is a family event that we share amidst the madness of running around pursuing our own schedules. I love to share the event with my boys and their different friends who choose to join us each year.
A friend and her boys run it with us and it was interesting to see that over the years she and I help each other along. She was not strong this year and I found it interesting that I missed her strength moving me forward, but found my own strength to finish with a respectable time. It was an interesting analogy to real life as some years she is leading and encouraging and other years I am. Just depends on who is at a point of strength at that time. I waited for her to cross the finish line. My time did not matter. We are a team. It is what women do.
I looked around at all the people...I think there were 14,000 runners. All shapes and sizes and ages. All running for their own reasons. There was a man lying on the road at the 7km mark and they were doing CPR on him and I teared up at the thought of his family waiting at the finish line. I was struck by the fragility of being human. It made me look at all the runners with a new appreciation. It made me appreciate the strength of my own physical self. Life is fragile. I want to wake up every day and feel my power and my peace.
I want to enjoy this physical shell that is so intricately connected to the spirit that resides in it. How great it feels to push beyond my limits! How it feeds my body and mind to do that. It makes you accept your human-ness with all it's flaws and limitations and appreciate the strengths that have been dealt to you. Thank you Sporting Life!
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