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I’m Thankful: Five Years In A Row

By Jeremy Gulley

For the fifth year in a row, my older son Israel, my wife and I ran the Gobbler Grind half marathon in Corporate Woods on Sunday. This tradition has become one of my favorites. Every year we make a list of 13 things we are thankful for and, since the half marathon is 13 miles, we dedicate one thing to each mile. For each mile, we talk about the next item and share specifics things we are thankful for in each category. We keep the list general so we can talk about it for the whole mile.

Every year we have the same reaction from our fellow racers. They say, “Oh, that’s a great idea, I wish I’d thought of that,” when they hear us talking about our list.

After the race, I have same sense of accomplishment as I do with every race. I also have a sense of thankfulness and connection with my family that makes me ready to eat turkey.

This year, our list was: 1) Asher; 2) Sports; 3) Books; 4) Open Spaces; 5) Snow; 6) Socks; 7) Good T.V. Shows; 8) Pets; 9) Teachers; 10) Music; 11) Chess; 12) Warm Beverages; 13) Food.

Our list changed on mile 11, however. We were feeling pretty good about ourselves with only 2 miles to go, until we rounded a corner and saw a crowd of racers standing around looking concerned.

As we got closer, we saw a runner in the middle of the crowd having CPR performed on him by a fellow racer. Other people were yelling to get paramedics because the man didn’t have a pulse. We didn’t stop since we thought we would only cause more confusion, but we did pray. We also adjusted our thankfulness list. We didn’t talk about food or warm beverages, only how thankful we were to be healthy and that there were people there to help the fallen runner.

From what we have been told, the man was rushed to a hospital and should recover completely.

For this, we are also thankful.

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Posted by admin on Nov 24 2010. Filed under Jeremy Gulley, Opinion. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry

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