Running with Night and Day

OK--enough with the really heavy stuff.  Today provided another "the-most-beautful-day-of-the-year" contender.  My daughters wanted to run.  We decided to do a two mile route--they would walk if needed.  The personalities of my girls is truly night and day (the one who as actually hit puberty is "night", of course).  We took off running very slow.  I'm trying to teach them to pace.  By the half mile mark, my 7th grade daughter needed to walk.  The 6th grader and I maintained our slow pace.  The 7th grader had sprinted to catch up, but then peetered out again (girls . . . PACE yourselves). 

When it was clear the 7th grader was not going to keep up, my witty 6th grader said, "Don't tell my sister, but I think I am going to beat her pretty bad in the race."  She ran her second two miler of her life, and she did it in record time.  She was beaming with confidence.

I jogged back to check on my 7th grader who was nearly in tears.  As we together jogged the last 100 yards, I reminded her that this is one of the first times she has EVER completed two miles.  "Yeah--but it was horrible, " she responded.  She probably ran .75 miles of the two mile course.  "Based on what?" was my reply.  "Name three friends that ran/walked as far or farther than you today."  You cannot always accomplish your goals just because you have the desire.  If a 5K (or four mile in the case of the race for which they are "training") was easy, everyone would do it.  I need to keep this idea in mind about everything. If a spotless house was easy, everyone's would be spotless.  If beautiful quilting was easy, we'd all have a ton of them.  You get the point.