Often times people look at a goal that seems so far out of reach and give up too early. It's important to remember that a little bit over time adds up to a great deal. I remember someone that wanted to loose 128 pounds in eight months. He broke it down to just half a pound per day and he accomplished his goal without a problem. Find a way to make something big, manageable and there is no telling what you can do.
Recently, I decided to run in the Chicago Marathon. I was in pretty good shape, but I had a couple hurdles.
• I had never run in an organized race before.
• I had never run more than 5 miles at a time, in my life.
• I didn't have any sort of plan to train for, yet accomplish, this feat.
However, with most dreams and goals, you have to set the goal first and then come up with the plan. Many people from my church were running and decided that if we could run as a group, on the weekend when we did our longer runs, it would be easier and maybe even fun.
We were running with Team World-Vision, raising money with about 1000 others that would show up at the starting line and since they had done this in the past, they had a training program in place, that would take all of us through the summer and prepare us for race day. During the week most of us ran on our own, but on the weekend, a group of about 40-60 runners would show up at a nearby bike path and we would do our long runs together. Several others from our church gathered along the lake shore in Chicago and at other paths depending on where they lived
When I started, I could barely run 3 miles without having to take a walk break at some time, but over a four month period, we all worked our way up to a 14, 16, 18 and a 20 mile run. Everyone got stronger, though there were a couple injuries and it was actually fun running for two and three hours on Saturday mornings in the rain, the cold or the heat, whatever came our way. The relationships that were formed and the stories shared along the trails were what brought most people back every weekend.
Most of us ran three times during the week as well and it was those small steps along the way that prepared us for the longest journey we were about to go on. If any of us would have thought about running a marathon a week beforehand and just gone out and tried to see if we could do it, there would have been a great many defeats, but since we trained and prepared our bodies and minds for that day, almost all of the 1200 people on our team crossed the finish line.
If I never put the goal out there, I would never have known the feeling of crossing that finish line and being part of something that big. The runners from my church raised over $180,000.00 to date, and the entire team raised over a million dollars to fight poverty, starvation and disease in Africa. Each of us did a small part to accomplish something greater than we could ever do alone. How? We set the goal, created a plan and worked together for something beyond ourselves.
I was injured going into the race and wasn't sure that I'd be able to complete it. I'll never forget the race or the people involved in helping me cross that finish line. Some of them I knew and some I'll never get to thank because they were just random spectators cheering me and 40,000 others along the way. I've set goals to run in several more races and will do my best to create more awareness that making a difference in global poverty is possible.
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