Saturday, July 5, 2008

This is Life

Happy 4th of July Everyone! This is exciting to have a real blog page; I have to say I never saw myself being the kind of person who would be blogging on a regular basis, if at all. I hope people will follow along and stay involved with ERACE and myself as we launch my journey and what we hope will be an organization involving thousands in positive change.

Let me first catch you up on my triathlon last weekend. I will first say that nothing humbles me quite as deeply as when I get passed by a 50-year-old man late in an endurance race. Last week, I mentioned how I was looking forward to the added challenge of 100-degree temperatures and lower oxygen levels due to greatly increased elevations. That added challenge turned out to be a lot more than I could handle, and I missed my goal finish time by well over an hour. The bottom line is that I finished, and while that does offer only a small condolence, it is the most important thing. As I was in the heart of a sun-drenched, severe leg-cramp-ridden half marathon that represented the final leg of the event, I was constantly considering how this race was a microcosm of my life as a whole. In complete honesty, and without an ounce of bitterness, I can say that I have never really been great at anything. With that said, I do feel like I have excelled in many areas of my life, but not due to amazing natural talents. Obviously I have been given, and am thankful for, many gifts and natural abilities. As I have grown, I have found things that I enjoy and/or see as important (basketball, school, relationships, and most recently endurance events and social justice), and put everything I have into those things. This has allowed me to get the absolute most out of each and every one of those things, and consequently allowed me to give the most I possibly could of myself to each of them.

Enough of me and my pedestal, let's get you caught up on recent ERACE activities. Ty and I did a lot of work on the website, and we feel pretty good about how it looks and feels now. Having this blogspot page will be really nice so that I can easily write down my thoughts and upload photos and videos of my experiences along the way. Things are almost squared away in New York and Central America, and I will post the information about the organizations I will be working with in each spot once I get all the pieces put together. Other than that, we are just waiting to finalize everything with the 501c3 application and send it to the IRS. I personally am getting much more comfortable talking to anybody about our organization and my journey, and as a result am getting continued positive feedback. I will give information about a few upcoming fundraising events once they are finalized, as well. We have a lot in the oven right now, so to speak, and I just can't wait to take it all out, piece by piece, and share it with everyone.

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