Hello Everyone,
Just got back from Vegas and I am happy to report I successfully finished my 15 marathon and my 14th state marathon!!! The Vegas crowd was incredible. There were over 27,000 runners who participated in this year's inaugural Rock n' Roll Marathon and everything lived up to my expectations. Cher started the race off with the National Anthem and away we went down the Vegas Strip. The awesome part about marathon running is there are cities in which you will run down streets which the average person will never ever have the opportunity to run. Never have they closed off the Vegas Strip until this event. The participants made it entertaining as well. Many people dressed in Elvis costumes and even one couple got married right before the run on the Vegas Strip.
The weather was a bit chilly starting out. Somewhere in the low to mid 30's. I was prepared for the weather with my "throw away" sweatshirt and sweats, so it did not prove to be a problem. When I saw one man running in a speedo with nothing else on, I all of a sudden felt much warmer. :) The bands along the run made for some great entertainment and the crowd of people cheering helped keep me motivated. Anytime you have over 20,000 runners, you are motivated just by the people running beside you. My brother Kyle and I ran about half of the race together and then his pace was too fast for me to continue running with him. About mile 22 I passed Kyle and was able to cross the finish line before he could catch me again! :) Something about beating your younger, more athletic brother that just sits well with you for the rest of the day!
I have many songs that I have loaded on my iPod. Every song that comes on I try to relate it to my life and in some way try to let it motivate me or inspire me to run harder and continue on. I have been looking for that perfect song to some up the past year, 2 years or even the past 43 years of my life. I now have come to the realization that that song isn't out there. Don't get me wrong, there is a lot of awesome songs that I can relate to and many that motivate me; but no song is "just right" for me. I say this because like each one of our lives, every single one of us have a different story, a different path we have taken. We are not born winners or losers. We are all born "Choosers!". It's the choices we make that determine how we live our life. We sometimes learn by other people, we sometimes learn by things we see or read and fortunately or unfortunately we sometimes learn by our own life experiences. Each of our lives are as unique as our own DNA or our own fingerprint. We all have our own unique special song that tells our past, current and future life story. It is up to us to make it the best song we can!!!!
I look very forward to running the Walt Disney Marathon in January. The Goofy challenge will be something that will be an athletic, endurance test for me. I will run a half marathon on Saturday followed up by a full marathon on Sunday. I will get it done!!! I am learning very quickly to respect one of the quotes that I use often; "Hard training, easy combat; easy training, hard combat." I meet many people along my marathon travels. People who do Ultra Marathons of 100 to 150 miles in one day. People who have done several complete Ironman Events. It is simply amazing what we can train the body to do. How do you want to live your life. How do you want your body to be conditioned; and also, how much time can you dedicate to training? Some how we fit in and make the sacrifices to do what is important to us. Anthony Robbins always says that we will change our behavior for two reasons. Pain or Pleasure. Which ever of these because stronger in a certain scenario, we will make the change for that reason. If something becomes so unbearable we can't stand it any longer, we will make a change to do something different. If you stick your finger close to a fire, you pull it away very quickly. This also relates to addiction unfortunately. If something is giving us so much pleasure, we sometime find ourselves not able to let go because it in our minds is giving us happiness. Sometimes we continue to do things that are not healthy choices becomes we deem them as giving us pleasure. This is where being strong, disciplined and making the right choices comes in to play. No, sometimes its not easy and we make mistakes. It's okay to fall down, we just need to know how to get back up, shake off the dust and move on in the right direction.
Get the very most out of each and every day. It is the compilation of all these days put together that will make up your wonderful life!
I pray that each and everyone of you create that wonderful special song called your LIFE! It's important to make it as good as it can sound so when we play it back at the end of our time it will make us smile and also motivate and inspire the people left behind.
Run, run as fast, far and as frequent as you can!
Come run with me,
KB
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