On the Fourth of July is the Peachtree Road Race. It’s a 10k run through Atlanta, Georgia. There are 60,000 runners allowed to register. One person I know ran last year’s road race with a friend who had a bad knee. Evan said, “I’ve kept pace twice now with people I know held be back, but it was still fun to run.” This year he says he wants to run alone, which really means he’ll set his own pace.
It seems to me that there are several ways a person can be held back in a race. Evan paced himself alongside a person incapable of a faster run simply to keep an injured runner company, to be supportive of him. Neither of them will receive a medal at the end of the road race. They’ll finish, though. Even will run enduring the slower pace of his injured friend, and cross the finish line with the personal satisfaction of completing the run and doing so alongside his friend.
A few years ago, Evan ran another race up in Tennessee. It was a grueling obstacle course that required great endurance. He ran with another friend who, while in good physical condition, was much slower. They ran the race together, alternating walking and running, helping each other over the hurdles and obstacles. Fifty feet before the finish line, the last obstacle required that they crawl through mud covered with two feet of muddy water. As they emerged from that mud bath,
Jonah’s Song 