I'm Not Usually Dopey

When I registered for the Dopey Challenge, a multi-day running event at Disney that would see me run 48.6 miles over four mornings, I had only run that distance in an entire month on three occasions.  And barely.  I'm not sure why it seemed like a good idea at the time (as the popular expo t-shirt says).  I commenced with my training in the middle of summer and stuck with it faithfully all the way through to the much-anticipated taper in advance of the races.

On the second weekend of January, I completed the Dopey challenge - and had an incredible time doing it.  I literally enjoyed every mile, maybe even every 3am wake-up call.  Now that marathon weekend is eight months back in the rear-view mirror, I've been surprised at how frequently I've thought back to what happened that weekend and what it meant to me.  It's not, as another expo shirt says, all about the bling.  The medals are hanging on the wall and they're pretty cool, but they're just mass-produced medals hanging on the wall.  It's not all about the shirts either, although as the weather starts to hint at a turn toward fall, I'm appreciative of all those long-sleeve shirts in my closet.

They are kind of shiny ...

It's not even about the running, really.  I knew I could do it.  I trained properly, including a simulated Dopey three weeks out that stopped just six miles short of the real thing.  We had a plan for the races and executed the plan.  The real take-away for me from Dopey was not the finishing, but the knowing I was going to finish - and the confidence that instilled in me.

I've never been one to want to dress up in costume.  I suppose I did as a kid, but other than my killer likeness of Tony Pena in about 1986, I don't remember ever really being very into my Halloween costumes. When I was invited to a church volunteer Christmas party last year and told I'd have to be dressed as a snowman, I literally thought I was going to have a panic attack.  I might have actually - I'm not sure of the precise definition.

Rumor has it that he grew the mustache so people would stop confusing us

Well, yada yada yada, I bought myself a snowman costume and I wore it to the party.  And you know what?  It was kind of fun.  Fun enough that I found myself saying out loud, "I think I'm going to wear this for the Disney 5k".  Before I could back out, one of my running friends had also purchased a matching costume to wear in the race.  And I didn't just wear a costume for a 5k.  I wore it to walk through the resort, to ride the monorail, and to wait in the starting area for an hour while nearly continuously posing for pictures with other runners.  This isn't normally how I spend a Thursday morning.  As we crossed the finish line, we were pulled aside by Run Disney's camera crew to do a little interview, a portion of which was subsequently used in a promotional video.

My confidence that I could finish the weekend strong led me to step outside of myself and act more boldly than I otherwise would.

Over the past few years, my spiritual growth has centered around a single passage of Scripture in Hebrews Chapter 12 ... "Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a huge crowd of witnesses to the life of faith, let us strip off every weight that slows us down, especially the sin that so easily trips us up.  And let us run with endurance the race that God has set before us."  That's about as dense a verse as you'll find anywhere - I've learned different truths from it at different times.  But in putting a punctuation mark on the Dopey experience, this verse reminds me that a life lived with confidence of finishing the race is a life lived boldly.