I train to race. I race to move forward. Its that simple.

Life went sideways the day Kristi was diagnosed. A sideways life is out of sync. It requires WAY more effort to simply complete each day than synchronization did. After eighteen years of marriage we had our processes figured out. We moved in synchronization. Our processes and methods may not have been the most efficient and certainly not the best, but they were ingrained, they were habitual (in the best use of that word). Two parents, two mates, two lives working as one, raising four more made a lot of forward progress.

But then there was just one. One trying to survive. One trying to keep all the old processes in motion but finding out that one cannot do what two did. One trying to keep the other going. But one ending up just trying to make it to the end of each day. One trying to keep hope alive in the other four. One trying to keep hope alive in himself. And then hope died.

One found himself adrift, floating sideways. But there was a race coming for the one. Because there was a race, one got up before the dawn to run and swim and bike. When the gun went off, one found he was racing, not to survive, but to thrive. The reality of the forward movement captured the spirit of one and rekindled hope that life could be synchronized again. Each finish line was more than just the completion of a race. It signified forward momentum.

The race demands the focus of the one be kept looking forward, to live in expectation of growth and new achievement. The race instills discipline in the one to rise and train. And one has found that in the rising, in the training, in the racing, life moves forward, not sideways. Forward movement provided a rebirth of hope. And hope does not disappoint.

I race to move forward.