Welcome! I am so glad you are interested in what is going on here. The Perseverance Project is another blog I started after Waiting For Morning when I decided to train for and run a half marathon as part of my healing journey. After I finished my first half marathon, I decided to do another. After I reached that goal, I took on P90X and now I am training for my most crazy perseverance project yet, a Toughmudder on May 28th. Something tells me it won't end there!
This blog is very close to my heart. Although it seems to be about exercise and competing, it actually isn't.
My inspiration for creating it has very little to do with racing and everything to do with healing and living.
The pain of losing my daughters in 2008 was so intense I honestly did not know how I would ever put one foot in front of the other to move through my grief to find healing. I felt stuck. In an attempt to un-stick myself I employed all kinds of tactics, including a decision to run a half marathon. I figured at worst it couldn't hurt and at best it might even help. I had nothing to lose. So in Nov of 2008 I completed my very first half marathon after only ten weeks of training, four months after my daughters' deaths.
I can't lie and say it was the magic cure for my pain because it wasn't, but it did do something amazing that I was not expecting...it felt good. The race was hard, I was tired, my entire body hurt when it was over, yet this feeling came over me when I crossed the finish line that changed me. It reminded me of what it felt like to be alive.
And I got the bug...not the bug to run, but the bug to live again. It changed the course of my grief.
Since my first half marathon I'm still persevering. My projects change, but my purpose is still the same. And I want to share it all with you!
I want to encourage you to take a risk, set a lofty goal, build character through perseverance, and experience the joy of living once again. I want you to run too, whatever form that takes for you.
God calls us all to persevere. We each have our own path and we need support, encouragement and faith to persevere in our own race. My hope is that this blog will inspire people to not only run a half marathon somewhere or sign up for a Toughmudder (or any other races I post on here in the future), but to get back to living again.
God is calling us to run the race marked out for us. Maybe an actual race can remind you of what that feels like?
What is your perseverance project?
Come on, join me! What do you have to lose?
Tough Mudder Thoughts
11 months ago
