You should do your duty in all things. You can never do more, you should never wish to do less.
-Robert E. Lee

I don’t care what your personal feeling on Robert E. Lee are, but I thought this was an appropriate quote for leading off on my post.

I’m not a runner.  I’m out of shape at the moment.  I have never been that athletic. But, I was asked to participate in the annual Turkey Trot here in Savannah this year by a friend.

I did it.  Yesterday had crappy weather.  It was cold and raining.  I didn’t train for this.  But, I refused to give up.

So what if I was the very last person to cross the Finish line.  The most important part was that I DID cross the finish line.  Other people quit because of the weather. I saw them. I wanted to quit due to the rain, but I wouldn’t allow myself to.  My overall time was 1:22:30.

I am thankfully my friend, Alice, encouraged me.  The pace car cop didn’t leave me. The ladies cheering me on at Mile 3 were helpful.  However, it did hurt when I was yards from the finish line and I heard the emcee announce the end of the race.  That was very disheartening for me. It made me cry.  It made me feel like my effort was not worth celebration.  Winners have the cheerleaders and celebrations, but the person at the end didn’t. The park was a ghost town. The after party was finished. Nearly everyone was gone.  I was also overwhelmed in pain and pride that I didn’t quit, which contributed to the crying. I didn’t want a medal, but it would have been nice to have have some cheering.

I remember the last time I volunteered to help out at the Tybee Run.  It was the 2012 race. I gave out water cups at a certain point in the race. I did what the Mile 3 Ladies did for me. I stayed until the pace vehicle at the end of the race passed me at the end of the last race.  I felt the person at the end needed encouragement just as much as the person that won.  Probably more so than the winner. It’s easy to win at times; it’s hard to win at times, but it’s even harder not to quit. Thankfully, I do have a lot of people that are proud of what I did.