Run your own race

My short review on goodreads

I promised to write more about this book when I wrote about opening horizons.

And this book did it in different ways.

I hate running, actually I hate all sorts of physical exhaustion. I can't understand how anybody would torture themselves to run a marathon. I can't understand how this could be fun or even addictive.

Mark is mixing in a perfect way the physical experience and the thoughts, feelings and mental experience during a run.

If I wasn't too lazy and undisciplined after reading this book I'd like to start training for long runs - but I know this won't happen.

I'm no runner but I got into the mind of a runner by reading this story. I mentally ran a marathon - entirely without physical exhaustion.

But there's more to this book than just running.
Jan was abandoned by her china-mama when she was 7 days old and adopted by Americans 10 months later.

What does it feel like being adopted? And not just adopted, but adopted from ethnical different parents, growing up in a world where everybody can see immediately that your parents have adopted you?
By reading her thoughts I get an idea of those feelings.

And Jan is a social worker in Detroit at a shelter for children in need. Of course she relates with the girls she meets there and we learn about their stories of abondonment and survival.

Jan is running her own race - on the racing track and in life.

Life as a race

Yes, this book shows that our life is like a race, like a marathon.

That reminds me of the apostle Paul who compared our life as christians with a race  in
2. Tim.,4:7-8

7 I have fought the good fight. I have finished the race. I have kept the faith.

8 Now there is a crown waiting for me. It is given to those who are right with God. The Lord, who judges fairly, will give it to me on the day he returns. He will not give it only to me. He will also give it to all those who are longing for him to return.

or 1.Corinthians 9:24-26 

24 In a race all the runners run. but only one gets the prize. You know that, don't you? So run in a way that will get you the prize.

25 All who take part in the games train hard. They do it to get a crown that will not last. But we do it to get a crown that will last forever.

26 So I do not run like someone who doesn't run toward the finish line. I do not fight like a boxer who hits nothing but air.


The finish line makes the difference. What will be your prize?