Generosity

Recently, I've been struck by the generosity of some of the people I know. I'm not talking about financial generosity, although that has certainly featured in the past; rather I'm talking about people who have a general spirit of generosity in all they do. People who give generously as part of their nature, whether its in showing compassion, love, encouragement, concern, practical help, or whether its simply giving their time or going out of their way to help. Instead of giving grudgingly, they willingly give their time and energy to others.

This has certainly been true of the running "community" as well. I'm certainly no great runner, but people I've met have been incredibly generous in their help, support, advice and particularly encouragement. Whether its people just giving me a "thumbs up" when passing, shouting encouragement, spending time listening to me rambling on (and appearing to look interested!), or simple comments on Facebook. Much of this has been done with a genuine interest in me and in encouraging me to develop my running, even though I'm never going to reach even decent club standard, or any standard for that matter. It's a real lesson to me, as I generally have to fight with my own grudging spirit when giving my own time and efforts to others. How to be generous and not mean: for me, a challenge.

And, as I've always said, another challenge will be the Birmingham Half, although I feel better prepared for this than I thought I would have been a month ago. I've just run 12.7 miles in approximately 2 hours and 5 minutes. I think this is the quickest I've run at this sort of distance. I was trying to push myself and the first 6 miles was fine... but I found the second half a real slog, and very hard going. However, I'm confident of finishing at least and hoping for something around 2 hours 15 minutes. We'll see.