Giving it Your Best Shot

I love going to the Hershey Track Meets, it not only brings back great memories of my own children running, smiling and giving it their best shot, but it is delightful to watch all the children out there, doing their best, big grins as they come down the track.

Jacob and his buddies, waiting, bored and ready to get on with the fun part of this day - racing!

 Now, I have the great blessing of watching my grandchildren run and give it their all~ 

Jacob, racing in the 100 m dash

Jacob, going all out in the 200 m

 Damien drove 18 hours to watch his son race and to take Sydni to her Daddy-Daughter date . . . what a good man, what a GREAT Dad!

Sydni, Damien and Mason

I learned a good lesson from my daughter Tiffany, a track star in high school and college.  After one of her races, when she came in second place, I was afraid she would be terribly dissapointed, but I watched her go up and hug and congratulate the girl who won and she was sincerely happy for her.  Talking to her about it afterward, she told me she only competes against herself, and as long as she improves her performance each time and runs a little better, a little faster, then she is happy with her performance. She always liked running with girls who were fast and the top athletes, because it helped her improve her own time. Isn't that a great lesson for life?  To push ourselves to be a little better each day, to cheer on everyone else around us at the same time and to learn from the best!  I like this quote from Barbara Sher:

"You never feel really bad when you've given something your best shot . You may be disappointed, but you don't blame yourself. But if you haven't given it your best shot, you feel terrible. Because you never really know whether you could have done better... but you do know you could have done more. Win or lose, all-out efforts leave you feeling clean and good about yourself."~Barbara Sher