Last weekend was the annual running of the Houston Marathon. It’s easy to be all smiles before a race.
Even the morning of the race…
But at some point you have to run a race. And smiles usually fade, though from looking through old race-day course photos I’ve learned my grimace face looks a lot like my smiling face. Good and bad, that is.
This was a particularly difficult race. We started under Yellow Flag conditions, because of excessive humidity and somewhat high heat. Midway through the race (for me), it started pouring. The race mercifully stopped, replaced by baking sunshine (really?!?!) and waves of humidity. The race organizers changed the official conditions to Red Flag – one step away from cancelling the race while in progress.
I slogged on through, along with everyone else. And sometimes that’s the way races (and life) go. It’s not ideal, but it’s where you are in the moment. You can give up and step out, or you can press on and see how it goes.
