#173 Tire-d Teammates

The other day a memory from my days as a college runner popped into my head, and I thought it I'd share it with you. During my junior year my teammates and I went out for a nine-mile run. (If that distance sounds extreme to you, don't fret. It was pretty normal for us.) It was a beautiful sunny day, and we settled into a comfortable pace that wouldn't make the run take forever but would still allow us to chat. About two miles in, we were a little off the beaten path when we came upon a bunch of abandoned car tires lying in the grass. Suddenly one of us had an idea: what if we picked up one of those tires? Now after spending hours and hours running together, we had developed a sort of mob mentality, and we had gradually become more and more willing to do pretty much anything to keep our runs from getting too boring or routine. So somebody picked up a tire, and the rest of us—whether verbally or not—just sort of agreed to haul it the rest of the way. We carried it and rolled it and passed it back and forth across fields and through neighborhoods and along paths. We took turns; whenever somebody got tired or just sick of the thing, we'd hand it over. By the time we got back to campus and deposited the tire in our locker room, the stupid thing had become a symbol of our unity. (Side note: Later that week I had a conflict with practice that forced me to run by myself earlier in the day. I left my teammates a joke on our whiteboard about deciding against picking up another hunk of rubber because I didn't want to be "two-tired." [Hey, I never said it was a good joke.])

During this time of COVID-19, let this story be a reminder. Together we can do some pretty dumb things. But difficult things also become easier when we commit to doing them together.

Grace and peace,
BMH