A little Inspiration for Nike

Chris White will be running the Nike Marathon this weekend. He has been a Team In Training mentor for our Team Woodlands group. A mentor is a fundraising coach of sorts. Chris is the best mentor I have ever seen and he has acted also as a coach to many the last 22 weeks. He wrote this note that will be given out Saturday night at the pasta party to our group along with many other notes of encouragement.

From Chris
It was quite apropos that our final training run last Saturday took place at Tamarac Park. None of you gathering for that last group run (or those running Ten for Texas) were the same person as the one that showed up at the park for the first training session in May. It was gratifying to me to see you all running off together down North Millbend as a team. You have all been transformed.

The transformation is evident in both your performance and your attitudes. The transformation in your athletic performance is quite visible; it can be measured with an odometer and a stopwatch (or in Delia’s case, GPS.) You can finally appreciate the words, “We’re only running ten miles today.”

The change in attitude, or should I say confidence, is not as tangible – you may not see it when you look in the mirror, but it’s there. It’s visible to others – Bill and Linda and I can see it in you. There is something about reaching for a goal that is bigger than your self, something that requires God and others to achieve it, that changes our perspectives. It teaches us a lot about ourselves and others. It becomes less about the goal and more about who we become in achieving the goal.

For some of you the fund-raising came easy. For some of you the training came easy. For most of you, either one or the other or both were a challenge. They required you to step outside your comfort zone and persevere and grow. Most of you had to overcome obstacles or the fear of failure somewhere along the way. Yet you stuck with it and overcame. You have already achieved something special that most people will never venture to try (and the race is yet to come!)

Whatever reason caused you to join Team-in-Training, I hope you have discovered and felt and enjoyed and taken pride in the experience to a greater degree than you could have ever imagined. And I also hope you understand that the race itself is both an exclamation mark at the end of one chapter in your life and the beginning of the next.

Best of luck in the race! The hard part is already behind you.