Inevitable Changes

I had plans of writing about how busy amazing our weekend was last week. I was hoping to come back feeling so accomplished and motivated. As we all know, things in life don't always pan out the way we plan. No matter how many times you replay situations in your head, no matter how many weeks you practice, or how hard you train, things in life just seems to change. 

Last Saturday was E's last soccer game of the season. Five whole weeks of practices and games lead up to this last game. I was expecting to see E play his last game showing us all what he had learned and how far he had come in just five short weeks. However, when it was time to play E just wasn't into it. Maybe it was the 90 degree weather or the lack of sleep, but he spent more time in Daddy's arms than he spent out on the field. 

It was hot and many children didn't want to play, and I was okay with that. I sat and witness a father vividly upset at his son for not playing. He tried yelling, threatening and pushing his son to try and get him to play. When his son didn't budge, he took his son and stormed off the field leaving in the middle of the game.
Although E didn't play very much in his last game as I had hoped, it was a fun season! He learned so much and enjoyed his time with his teammates. He even got a cool medal that will forever remind us of his first team sport. That is more important to me than one silly game!

After E's soccer game we headed up to Green Bay to run in the Cellcom Marathon. A few weeks before the race, we got a team together to run the relay marathon. There was 5 of us who were going to divide up the 26.2 miles between us. Two days before the race, one of our teammates got sick and notified us the day before the race that he would not be able to run. 

Saturday night as we got to our hotel, we decided to redivide up the miles leaving my husband and I with 7 miles each. I was nervous about 7 miles, since the longest I have ever ran is between 6-6.5. We hadn't prepared to run 7 miles, but we both saw it as a challenge and we were pretty amped for it. 

The day of the race we dropped my husband off at the 12 mile marker where he was going to meet my sister in law (our teammate) to switch off runners. As we headed to my start point, my husband called me to tell us that the marathon had been canceled due to the high temperatures.

Immediately I felt disappointed.
We traveled all this way, stayed in a hotel, trained for a couple weeks, hydrated ourselves all week long, prepared ourselves with lots of pasta the night before, and now we weren't even going to be able to run. We headed back to the finish line at Lambeau field where we met up with my husband and sister in law. 

When we arrived at Lambeau field, the crowd was pumped, the music was blaring, and people were either cheering or celebrating. This was the first race I've been to, and it was quite amazing to be surrounded by so many people who share the same passion for running. As we passed person after person in running gear and medals around their neck, I was a bit crushed. The atmosphere was amazing and it would have been great to have been able to finish our run. 
 As much as I was disappointed with not being able to take part in the race, I understood the heat caused concern. I was truly happy for everyone who finished, 3,800 runners finished the half marathon and 10 elite runners finished the full marathon before it was canceled. Being in the atmosphere alone was motivating and inspiring. I made me want to run more races and someday complete a marathon.
 

So what do you do when you don't run? You gamble! We didn't travel all that way to just turn around and go home, instead we went to a casino, had brunch and played some slot machines. None of us struck it rich, but it was fun and I did win most my money back ;)

When I was younger I use to get really upset if things didn't workout exactly how I planned. I was far from a "rolling with the punches" type of person. When things changed it would ruin my whole day. If there is one thing I've learned with age, it's that life has inevitable change. Circumstances you didn't foresee happen. Situations you expect to go a certain way don't always go as planned. I've learned not to let it ruin my day and always look at the bigger picture and the positive outcome.