We Carry On

5 am Sunday wake-up call.
A fall tradition – the Twin Cities 10 mile run and marathon.
Yesterday, the 10-mile event for me.
I’ve done the Twin Cities Marathon three times over the past several years.
25 minutes after waking up and getting ready to start the race, the organizers canceled the event due to hot and humid weather conditions.
While let down, I was more disappointed for those who trained for the full marathon because I know the commitment and hours of training that it takes.
Months of preparation and race day anticipation thwarted.
Social media debates on whether it was the right decision or not.
The noise and armchair quarterbacks still continuing and I am sure the criticism and analysis will carry on for weeks.
Life throws disappointments, delays and detours in our path.
What we do in the aftermath determines whether we move through disappointments or amplify them by complaining and murmuring about them.
We are called to overcome, survive, and thrive beyond our circumstances.
Things that are much bigger than an event cancelation.
On the way to lunch with friends, we drove the empty course yesterday to find marathoners running the course and neighbors along the way offering water and cheering them on empty streets.
Despite the cancellation and not getting an “official” time or as the social media “analysts” said “not counting,” runners got out to run their run to achieve their goal without the accolades. Others will find other marathons to run this month to finish what they started months ago.
Grit, resilience, resolve.
To carry on.

So for all of those who carry on and for those who make tough decisions, remember, it’s not the critic who counts. Stay in the arena and keep getting up every day and running the race.

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.” – Theodore Roosevelt