1,600 miles - Southern Hospitality
This is continued from last week. Special thanks go to Alan Lam for sharing this with us. Be sure to visit the Miracle Marathon website at: www.miraclemarathon.org
Southern Hospitality
Day 5-8, June 9-June 12.
Florence, SC--Fayetteville, NC--Hampton, VA--Rehoboth Beach, DE--Princeton, NJ
The inspiring words from the song "I Hope You Dance" taped to one of the RV's fridge door, served as a reminder to us all not to "fear those mountains in the distance" and "never settle for the path of least resistance." With those words in our minds, the Miracle Marathon team headed to North Carolina on the fifth day of the journey. By then everyone had a few bruises and a few spilled drinks on his / herself. Those were the result of rookie mistakes living in a RV. You learn pretty quick not to move around or go to the toilet while the RV is moving. Nor leave drinks unsecured on the table. And most importantly never open the fridge when in motion unless you want everything ended up on the floor as some of us had found out!
The fifth day of the Miracle Marathon marked the day many of us wandered into uncharted territories. We had all run close to 60 miles each since we started 5 days ago. Most of us had never run more than 60 miles in a week. Let alone in 4 days! Our physical and mental strength would face the test for the first time on this day. We were all showing signs of fatigue and soreness. We didn't get up as early as days before. And we showed up with sleepy eyes. I could sense the lack of energy among us that morning and decided to do something. So I wrote a little paragraph and taped it to all 3 support vehicles. It was intended to pat the gang on the back for a job well done thus far and to encourage them to keep on going strong.
In part of it I wrote, "your physical strength will take you far. Your mental strength will take you a little further still. But your heart will carry you the whole way." As tired and sore as some of us were, we were still very willing to go the distance. On a few occasions I felt that I could put in couple more miles that day and so I offered to run some of my teammates' mileage. They would all kindly decline the offer because no one was about to give in to a little aches and pain. Instead of running for them, I would run with them to make the run more enjoyable. Another benefit was we were getting to know each other better.
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