just keep running.

let me just start off by letting you know how amazing the past few days have been. 

absolutely. exactly. perfect. 

Dad was out of town so it was just me and mom the past two days... and we did what we do best. 

Shopping. Eating. Occasional Movie. Repeating.

and the best news is... I still have a day and a few hours here!

and now Dad is home too. so I get to have daddy time tomorrow!

(and I get to wear new shoes to church tomorrow too!)

woohoo!

Today started with waking up, breakfast and revisiting what every Saturday morning the three months before tryouts were like all during high school. A 3& 1/2 hour practice at the gym. Needless to say with already being exhausted, 3 years older and naturally a little stiffer, it was not quite as easy as it was back in the day. Or maybe I'm a little wiser now and decided it would be nice to actually get out of bed in the morning. Whatever the case may be, after practice, lunch and some antiquing with mom, I decided it would be a good time for a run. I honestly have NO idea what I was thinking, and this proves that my thought of being wiser earlier is totally erased now. But anyway, I loaded up my iPod and kicks and hit the road.

So one thing Dothan has a 1-up on Birmingham in is running spots. Friday I ran the 5k trail at Westgate and today I took my normal path through our street and adjoining neighborhoods. When I was in high school I measured out a stretch of a few miles through roads near the house to run... well today I realized my high school self was obviously either way more in shape than I remember or just absolutely nuts. Halfway through the run I realized the whole path was mostly uphill, a little downhill, a tiny flat stretch then straight back uphill and so on so forth. Of course my legs were already feeling like jello after practice, and when I found myself almost 3 miles away from the house running up a hill that had no peak in sight I was pretty sure I would never make it home.

So then I initiated my 3-step "get home fast before you die on the side of burbank dr." emergency plan.

1. turn on fast-paced, loud music.

2. keep moving. 

2a. move your feet.

2b. move your arms.

2c. if necessary, and appropriate or not, play an air instrument to whatever fast-paced, loud music is playing at the time. Today, since my music was mostly the glee soundtrack or the one song i busted out the biebs, it was air-drums, but sometimes you can play an air-piano, air-guitar or you can get creative. (ps. don't mind the people in cars passing and staring... they're not working out. you are. and you do whatever you want to while you're burning those calories!)

3. listen to the little voices telling you to keep going.

Yes. I did just say that.

And Yes. I do listen to the little voices. Don't act like you don't either. And maybe it's not an actual other person's voice, or just my thoughts speaking to me. Weird. I know.

But today when I thought I was going to curl up on the curb and pray my mother would come find me on a road two neighborhoods over I started thinking to myself...why don't you stop? but then I thought... why would you stop? the only reason I am where I am is because I kept going times before. So then I started motivating myself. Yes, I motivate myself, and yes, it is usually out loud. I find myself doing this often whether I'm running, twirling, writing a paper or studying. In the end, I never quit running the whole way home and beat both my records for my mile and my 5k! My close friends know this a very important accomplishment because when I beat my mile at the end of my run I get a little motivational message from Lance Armstrong! I don't really care for him... but he is telling me good job and I just think that's really cool! (ps. this is available via the Nike+ system... totally recommend it if you like to run or are considering starting to train for a run soon. it's awesome.)

So back to the whole motivational thing. I guess it's just second nature to always want to do my best whether it is having a no-drop halftime show, win at ping-pong or board game or beat a record in running. I've been raised to be competitive so I still am and probably always will be, but there's another side to this motivation too. It's not just me and it's not how hard I train, practice or condition myself for the task. It's God. It's the power in his hand and a little push on the back to keep going. He does things we can't even imagine doing ourselves. I will talk about his next week, but two years ago I had a rare injury that should have kept me from being able to do daily basic activities like running or even walking. However before it was ever diagnosed, I made it through an entire 4 months of intense twirling and every performance without missing a beat. In fact most of the time the major pains I would feel would simply disappear when it would come time to perform. This is nothing of my doing, but everything of God's plan.

Growing up around athletics I've seen the power of medical miracles. I've seen the ability of man equipped with the skills and knowledge to repair broken bones, torn muscles and even kill cancer. But it's not just man. It's the simple yet elaborate and so far beyond our own understanding love of God to meet our every need and allow us to live lives of enjoyment through him. So from now on when I twirl I don't just do it because I'm good at it, or it's why I went to college and got scholarship for. I do it because God has allowed me to. God has given me the skills and ability. He has given me the right people at the right time to be able to continue. He has given my parents the funds to pay for lessons, buy uniforms and even pay for my college so I could continue to twirl. I could easily take all the credit for where I've come from and what I'm able to do. But it's so much easier to simply give the glory to God. 

As I continue to train for both majorette tryouts and the future races I'll be in I will never be able to explain how I keep running and practicing when I'm physically and mentally exhausted. I will never be able to understand why my injury happened or how I continued for months after I was in pain. And I don't have to know and I don't have to explain. I can simply say... It's God.