Life is like a marathon?

So, on Sunday, I ran my first (and probably only!) marathon. I ran it with my dad and we did the 26.2 mile journey in about 5:12:46, which meant I accomplished both of my goals:

1) To finish!
2) To finish in less than 5:30

I've been thinking and trying to figure out if life is like a marathon, and I think in some ways it is.

Like I said, I ran the marathon with my dad, which was a critical part of successfully completing mission marathon. :) After about mile 20 (my longest training run), I stopped talking altogether and had to concentrate fully on continuing to take one step after the next. They say that the last 6.2 miles of a marathon is the second half, which was hard for me to understand until I was actually there myself. But, I think the first marathon/life lesson is that it's important to have a partner. Whether that person is a spouse, sibling, friend, or parent, we all need at least one other person to rely on. If I hadn't been running with my dad, I think I still would've finished the race, but my time would have been significantly slower and I might not have met all of my goals. So, in life, it's important to rely on those around us for encouragement to help us meet our goals, especially in those seasons in life where the world bites at our heels and it's all we can do to keep pressing forward, knowing that there is a sweet victory in it all.

Marathon/life lesson #2: Environment matters. I need cold weather to perform best when running. 59 degrees and 90% humidity at the start of the race doesn't exactly equal performance best weather for me. Could I have run the marathon faster if it had been colder? Probably, but in the end, I don't know. Either way, I had to make a choice of finishing the race or not when I knew I wasn't running in conditions that were ideal. Just like in life, a lot of times we would like to blame our circumstances...but the bottom line is that we have a choice of how we're going to live irregardless of our circumstances.

Marathon/life lesson #3: The mob mentality. This may sound crazy but I almost burst in to tears around mile 9-10 when the marathon went through Main Street at the Magic Kingdom. It was a magical moment. Haha, but seriously. Here I am, still at the easy part of the run, running towards Cinderella's castle with hundreds of people yelling and ringing cowbells and I felt like, with just that, I had already accomplished my goal. Yes, I was a long way from the end of the 26.2 mile journey, but I had support outside of the unit of partnership of my dad and I. I think that's also important - knowing that you have people in your life, outside of that one closest person, who will be there to cheer you on even if you have to limp down Main Street, which thankfully I didn't have to do this time, but you never know what the future of life may hold.

Marathon/life lesson #4: Don't underestimate the distance. Like I mentioned, I really wasn't prepared for those last 6.2 miles, and I'm not sure if any first time marathoner really is. We can't underestimate life's distance either. The Bible tells us that our days are short and numbered. If I live to be 90, I have approximately 24,105 days left on this earth. But who's to say I have that many or even one? Whether it's 105 days or 24,105 days it's not much in light of eternity, and that's why we can't underestimate (or overestimate) the distance of life. We must make every day count just like I had to make every step count.

I'm sure there are more life lessons that I could pull from my journey. I know food and hydration played an important role too. As did seeing Randall and my mom on the side of the road with cheering signs at mile 18 and at the finish line! I might come back and try to pull a few more lessons out, but either way, pictures will be posted soon! And my one suggestion would be, if you plan to run a marathon, find a friend and run in the Mouse's house - the course was great!