Don't let the pictures fool you...

... they have nothing to do with the text. This is not the first time I've posted about one topic and "illustrated" that post with unrelated pictures, so you all should be used to this. Sometimes I have a story to tell, but no pictures to accompany that story. As I hate to post without pictures, this is my solution.
Before I get into my topic, I want to caption the pictures by letting you know that they are of a new pillow featuring a new block design inspired by this photo.
OK. Here goes.

 As many of you know, I'm an avid runner. Well, yesterday, I ran what I would to date describe as the most amazing race of my running life. For the past few months I've been training for the Decker Challenge. This particular half marathon is considered one of the hardest around and that's primarily because of the hills that surround Decker Lake. I'm not going to lie to you, there have been a few times, especially in the last couple weeks, when I thought about skipping the event. I worried about whether or not I could deal with the hills and the infamous bad weather that has historically accompanied this race.

And, a couple weeks ago, it seemed that I had a ready-made excuse. I had gone to a "boot camp" style workout and woke up the following morning with a very sore left foot. I didn't run for a week after that. In fact, I didn't run again until the Tuesday before the race when for silly reasons I ended up running twice in the same day, both times about 5 miles. I then ran another 3 miles that Friday and made peace with the concept that what would be, would be.

I woke up yesterday morning and headed out to Decker Lake in my shorts and t-shirt, ready to brave the 40 degree temperature and light rain and, almost from the very start, knew this was going to be an amazing run. I don't know if it was my determination to be patient in the straightaways and not let my pace get out of control or my willingness to be present in the moment and just listen to the sound of all those feet hitting the pavement, but, what I thought would be drudgery turned into a string a magical moments. By mile 4, I knew I was on pace to set a new personal record and as each mile marker went by, I seemed to be running faster and stronger and feeling like I could conquer anything.
Those of you familiar with the course out at Decker Lake know that mile 10 features a long, steep hill which is made longer and steeper because it is so late in the race. I got to the hill at mile 10, ran up, and knew that I was about to finish the best race of my life.
I realize that my story is just about a run and that, in the scheme of things, it's not exactly monumental, but I do think there might be a bigger point here. Maybe that point is about not pre-judging a situation and bringing your whole self to an experience? Maybe it's also about how lucky we are to have a given experience and that we never really know whether the next thing we do may be truly magical?
Whatever the "point", whether I know it or not, I hope I bring these ideals along with me to the next race, the next project, the next moment.