The silent roar of the crowd

Forgive me now for my scattered brain with this post.....it just wrote itself, which maybe an insight to my attention span lately;)

I think I have mentioned Hood to Coast a couple times this year. But did I forget to mention I am the "team captain" again this year too? And did I just say Hood to Coast is the last weekend of THIS month? Oh my where has the time gone? I have done little to no exercise since the big bike ride. Call it busy, lazy, or just plan tired but I have not been exercising consistently. So Mr. Big Dog and I started earlier last week. I think we both ended up running 3 times this past week, which is great but it might be a little pail of water on the fire.

You know a little too late to save ourselves. My anxiety stated to fester thoughts which I hope are not true.....thoughts like us running Hood to Coast horribly and it really being a struggle every step. And as "team captain" that would really be embarrassing:( But you know that ill preparedness you can bring onto yourself by severe procrastination? Yep that's how I am/was feeling. Like I have a huge test that I was supposed to start studying for in March, but I just cracked the book in August.

Mr. Big Dog on the other hand has that natural gift of just getting off the sofa and running 7 miles. Which I think is probably just a man thing....which is just disgusting;)

Anyways, back to the roar of the crowd.....I was thinking about how you can "feel" emotions.

With my job I feel emotions all the time. I feel when people are worried for their loved one before they say a word. And I also feel when they are just happy to see their loved one.

It's hard to explain but the non verbal is so underrated. I had an amazing professor in college who taught this so well in preparing us for nursing.

She came into the classroom one day silent. She rummaged through some things on her desk and just sat silent. She had a tension she was oozing from her pores. Everyone felt it. And within minutes the entire class was silent and scared as to why she was fuming. You know, what did we do wrong?

Then she smiled and you could feel the tension just melt away.

From that class I learned how much you can read a person by just feeling them. And how contagious emotions are. How you can help ease tension by just not letting yourself feed into it. When you stay calm and really try to relax other people will too. Its really an awesome thing to be able to do to help someone or to really support someone in a tense situation. But I must say it takes conscious effort at times and it's hard to not let the anxiety become contagious:)

But back to Hood to Coast......When I went to pick up the packet at the convention center the excitement was palpable. You could feel the people in the room full of excitement and overjoyed to be able to participate in this event. It's a lottery so if you get a team it's already a lucky feeling. It will be the 30th anniversary and there are even going to be fireworks at the beach. It will be my 3rd time participating and Mr. Big Dog's first.

I was overwhelmed by my own excitement and emotions, and then I could feel everyone else emotion too in the huge convention center. I even got even more emotional as they played a clip from the Hood to Coast movie. I started crying. I started crying because even though I am not in the shape I would like for this adventure, I am grateful to have the option to run this race. I have gratitude to God to let me have the strength to run at all. I thanked God right then and there for my body, soul and mind. And I could feel the crowd getting emotional too, I saw teary-eyed people around me. And I thought, we are all so lucky to have this opportunity some others may never get.

WE GET TO RUN HOOD TO COAST, 200 miles from Mt. Hood to the beach. Something I thought would be a one time thing, 3 years ago. Something that was on my bucket list has become my annual list.....and just like that all my anxiety washed away. My mind framed changed from how I am going to to this? to How do I get the privilege to do this?

Have a great day:)