My childhood was filled with sports. Due to being small and with limited athletic ability, I wasn’t particularly good at them, but I still enjoyed them. We always ran around, but I never considered running a sport. In college, I took an aerobics class and used running to log my aerobics time, but I certainly wasn’t hooked. As I have written before, Dr. Sams is who really got me into running by prescribing it as therapy for some problems I was having.
So, in my late 20s, my real running career started. That first run was painful and short, maybe a quarter-mile. But, I added distance quickly, and it wasn’t long before I was running to Mt. Carmel church and back, about 4 miles. I was starting to believe I had found my calling, a sport where it was beneficial to have no muscle mass and one that required very little athletic ability.
So, in the late 1980s, I entered my first 5K. I wasn’t hooked right away, but it didn’t take long. I was rarely getting in the top 3 in my age group, but I occasionally won an award, which kept me motivated. I got a little faster each year, and by the mid-1990s, I was frequently in the top 3 in my age group. I also got into running the Run & See Georgia Grand Prix. I won’t bore you with the details of it, but it meant running many races all over the state. Eddie Wise and I did some of them together as he was also into racing by then.
In a race in Douglas, I finished second overall, and I got it in my head that I might be able to win one. I knew Psalm 37:4 said, “Take delight in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart.” I prayed for it, and I worked for it. Years go by, and it just didn’t happen. I got burned out on the racing. I would do races here and there for a while but eventually gave it up completely.
I got back into racing in 2013 when my son Mark and I ran a race at Mt. Carmel Elementary, just down the road. We started doing races together almost every weekend. By this time, I was in my early 50s and, even at my best, a few minutes slower than I was in my prime. However, there were many more races by then and I was doing better overall than I was way back then. I won many Master’s (40 and older) awards and finished second overall a few times. I’m beginning to believe that elusive win might still be possible.
So, Mark and I are running in these series, which have gotten ridiculous over the years, with some crazy events. One event in Cordele featured three 5Ks that started an hour apart. All of the series runners were doing all three. So, this is the kind of event where grabbing a win entered my mind. But when I get there on race day, I see my friend Buddy, and I know my chances are gone.
But, we do the first race, and I do OK. Some young guy won. In the second race, an older gentleman (around my age) goes to the front for the first 2 miles, but Buddy runs him down and wins the second race. I was third, so I had a front-row seat to watch it. We start into the third race, and we’re all hot and tired. Nobody wants to lead. At the end of the first mile, I’m in the lead. I decide that if I can’t win it, maybe I can still be leading at the end of the second mile, so I pick up the pace. At the end of mile two, I’m still leading. I figure Buddy is setting me up like he did the other guy, but I’m not looking back. Another half mile, and I’m expecting Buddy to come around me at any time. But he never did. I crossed the finish line first! It took 313 races, but I finally got that win.
After crossing the finish line, I continued through the chute and just kept walking. If you had seen my face, which no one did, you would have seen the tears. All those years of hard work and it finally happened. It was part joy and part relief, but that wasn’t all of it. In that moment, I realized God did indeed give me the “desire of my heart.” There was a twinge of sadness that I had ever doubted. Even though I had given up at one point in my life, God wasn’t through.
After I composed myself, I turned around and started walking back to the finish line. The second-place runner still hadn’t made it in. When he did make it in, I had been done for over two minutes. My friend Buddy finished several minutes later – he was just jogging that last one for fun.
There would be other wins. Some wins were because I was the best runner there on that day, and a few where I probably wasn’t the best runner but just ran smarter. I could give you some inspirational quotes on hard work and perseverance. But, none of those things determined that first win. That one was a gift, a gift with a lesson.