"I've kinda always been the SLOW FAT kid" - Ben Emmons
In my weakness He makes me strong, in my stupidity He gives
me wisdom!
2 Corinthians 12:9 But he said to me, "My grace is
sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." Therefore I
will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may
rest on me.
I was always slow…even though I have been a jock my entire
life I was the BIG aka Fat Slow kid!
I was always pretty strong, but I was never fast, but I also NEVER gave up. I wasn’t ever bad at running longer distance, I just never
really attempted to run them, and certainly wasn’t all too concerned with
getting faster. As long as my mile
time was fast enough for my PE teacher to tell me good job, I wasn’t concerned
with speed. I am pretty sure I was one of those just under 10 minute guys during the mile runs...
This February marked 5 years since I started losing weight,
and living healthy. During this time I have gone
from not being able to run ¼ mile without stopping to being able to run mile
after mile after mile. I now dream of
accomplishing running goals, and I am not afraid of dreaming big! I must give credit where credit is do and say that I can only run because God inspired and instructed me to get healthy, to regain control over my life (If you are interested in knowing more about this you can read about it in my previous posts!)
Perseverance is key to any endeavor in life. I had an amazing Father and have
a wonderful Mother who gave me a gift growing up, a gift that I thought was
anything but a gift as a kid…They told me, we don’t care if you never do
something again as LONG AS YOU FINISH WHATEVER YOU START! For sports this meant
if you start, you finish the season.
I believe this is probably the number one reason I have had some success in endurance sports.
Running a marathon to me seems like an entire sports season at times. First you invest months of training to run 26.2 miles in one day! Second, the 26.2 miles in one day can seem like a season in and of itself…if you’ve never run a marathon I will sum it up by saying this, you experience emotions, thoughts, feelings, pains, victories, challenges, barriers, & other random experiences/things that you’d never imagine, and some you’d never want to imagine…as one of my friends often says and is 100% accurate, “There is magic in the Marathon”!
During the training cycle between the Disney Marathon
January 8th and Today February 28th I have run a total of
432 miles.
Averaging just under 8.5 miles a day running…
That is a far cry from the fat kid that didn’t really look
forward to mile day in PE, and a VERY FRY cry from the fat guy that couldn’t
even run a ¼ mile without stopping 5 years ago!
During this training cycle God has helped me FINALLY let go
of one of the labels I placed on myself…the other day as I was running and
praying I realized and actually said to myself, “Ben, you are NO LONGER THE FAT
SLOW KID!”
I believe God would say, BEN YOU NEVER WERE THE FAT SLOW
KID, YOU'VE always been my kid!
Thank you God, It's GREAT that I no longer need to think of myself as or believe that I am the slow fat kid...
I know I labeled myself this, and it handicapped me for a long time, far too long!!! I always thought, looked, and exercised like I believed I was the fat kid. It did take a lot of work, dedication, and perseverance...but oh how GREAT IT FEELS TO DROP THE LABEL That held me back far to long!
What kind of labels have you put on yourself? How have they limited you? What do you need to do to get rid of these labels?
