No Shortcuts

I have no idea what I was thinking.....one week removed from my Ironman and on vacation with friends at our church camp in NH, I agreed to run a 5K race at 6:30 AM the morning after staying out late at a Jackson Browne concert where I enjoyed far too much pizza and just the right amount of beer. At 6:15, I awoke and began to rationalize not showing up - running on empty :), a mere six hours of sleep, and now a bit less than 15 minutes til race time. But my word is my word and I'm big on commitment because I tend to find that only good things result from doing what you say you're gonna do. On the flip side, one little commitment rationalized away tends to ripple into multiple commitments rationalized away and before you know it you've developed a habit which becomes your character and it's an awful deep hole from which to dig yourself out. So I showed - we received course instructions, we prayed together, and we were off. I went our pretty quickly only to be passed some 100 yards in by one of the young camp staff members, whom I stayed close to and returned the favor at mile one. I approached the turnaround at 1.55 miles with a pretty good lead, only to find that one of the competitors had cut the course short and turned prematurely; So instead of leading I was now in 2nd place. Needless to say I wasn't happy, because I had worked pretty hard to build the lead and now found myself having to run harder to make up a gap created by someone who had taken a shortcut. Instead of allowing the negativity of the situation to suck the energy from me, I used what had happened to fuel me - I focused on closing the gap and proving to Mr. Shortcut that it never pays to compromise and any "success" you may realize doing so is short-lived. With less than a half mile to go, I blew past him and made sure he knew he had no chance staying with me to the finish. I crossed the finish line a good 30 seconds ahead of him and just smiled as our paths crossed during my cool-down. As I slowly jogged to take my heart rate back down, I thought through the morning - on the importance of keeping your word, the satisfaction of a commitment fulfilled, and the recognition that in life as in racing, there are no shortcuts to success. The easier route is just that - easy, but in the end it's not very fullfilling and selected too often it becomes habit from which a leagcy and a reputation is built. Going the distance is harder for sure, but there's immense satisfaction in staying the course, keeping the faith, seeing it through, and cementing a legacy and a reputation for having done the right thing regardless of whether or not those around you are following suit. Oh, and by the way, there's always Somebody watching.....BELIEVE.