What Is Your First Place?

Oct 5

October 2, 2021 Corner Canyon Half Marathon

I had a pretty amazing day last Saturday. I ran my first Trail Half Marathon. I feel like the whole experience is so packed with lessons to share, but today I want to land on just one.

What is your first place? Where does that lie?

The pic above is Miss Draper {obviously crowned for her beauty and overall wonderfulness as a human..living in Draper} and me {Holding the 1st place F 55-64 age bracket for the Corner Canyon Half Marathon}

Here is the very honest, can not be contested truth. I am no gifted runner. Nope. I don’t think any of it comes naturally for me. Serious. I mean I could go into wide feet, knock knee tendencies, no depth perception, short legs…I mean it’s painful to read, right? I will spare you the longer list, but just know that I have never been on a podium for running {until last Saturday}. And how did this 1st place happen, you may be wondering? Some may ask…how many people ran the race? Some may even suggest I was the only runner in my age bracket. And all of these thoughts and questions came to my mind, trust me…until I landed on the true reason I was on the podium: I just kept on running. That’s it!

I started running regularly {maybe religiously TBH} in 2003 and I have never stopped. I found my passion and just kept at it. Right after crossing the finish line on Saturday, I heard the announcer say, “We have one more first place winner…” My thought….hmmm? really? Me? As I was called up my response {to Miss Draper} …she probably didn’t even hear or comprehend my comment…was, “If you just keep on running, you will start winning.”

And that is my first point. If you love it, keep at it and you too will win first place. It may not be a ribbon around your neck or a plaque for the wall but if it is your passion and you are persistent, you will find your first place.

Second point, when my boys were young someone somewhere decided that every member of every team deserved a trophy. There were so many reasons that I didn’t agree with this thinking back then. If I am truly being honest {I have never figured out another way to live} probably my biggest problem with the “we are all winners” philosophy is built around the conundrum of where oh! where do we put all of those silly trophies? A little more serious was the concern of the message being conveyed: there is no difference in capability, effort or outcomes between individuals or teams; that just did not resonate with my real-life experience and I honestly worried about the message that was being broadcasted to a whole generation of tiny growing athletes.

Fast forward to my race. It occurred to me that every one of us is running {living} in our very own category. There is NO ONE that has had your exact experiences, challenges, privileges, community or lack thereof. We all have been gifted a unique opportunity to show up for life {our event/race} in our own way. I believe that every participant has something individual for them. The first task is discovering what that might be and the next challenging opportunity is to figure out how you can show up {in your way} to bless and help others.

So, in a way, we are all winners. We are not all the best at baseball, soccer, football or even trail running but we are all first place at our something.