Run From Hunger

My training buddy and I after the race

My New Year's Resolution is to train and run a half marathon on Thanksgiving. My training program calls for a 5K race along the way. The perfect opportunity arose in the form of an area wide church service day. Our stake hosted a "Run From Hunger" 5K race. The admission to run and earn the highly coveted T-shirt was 10 cans of food.

I was excited. I knew I could run the distance with ease. I'm up to 5 miles on my long runs. 3.1 should be a piece of cake. I did not, however, plan on rain. I awoke to thunder and an occasional bolt of lightning. No matter, this things pass quickly. The girls, who ran the 1 mile "fun run", and I got up packed our cans and drove to the park.

We were the 10th people to sign in. The rain was not letting up. We were warriors. The girls did great. Alyssa smoked Savannah. She's pretty proud of this fact but tries not to rub it in, too hard.







The heavens opened up and the rain came pouring down. I walked to the starting line. The horn sounded and off I went. The younger kids bolted out front as fast as they could go. I caught up with them not too long after. The rain let up a bit. I enjoyed running through the trees and being so close to nature. (I train mostly on the treadmill.) The weather didn't really bother me. I think I actually liked it. I didn't get hot and the rain was refreshing. I did hesitate on the down hills for fear I would slip and fall.


I finished strong and I felt great. I did not, however, win an award for my efforts. Who knew that the 33-39 age braket was the fastest? I would have got a medal if I was 25 or 42, but not 33. Oh well, motivation for next time.


The rest of the story happened during our Young Womens activity. We delivered the cans of food to a church in our area. We were able to donate over 800 lbs. of food. The paster of the church met us and told the kids about what they do. The basement of their church is a big cellar. They get donations from lots of organizations (Kroger, Publix, Sam's ect.). Then they set up a little grocery store. People can come and do their shopping at this facility. No questions asked. It was great for the kids to see that other organizations do great things, too. Sometimes I think we get a little "high and mighty" attitude going on. But the truth is there's a lot of good in this world, coming from a lot of different places.

Some of my cute Young Women