“Remember who you are.” So Mufasa, the Lion King, admonished Simba, heir to his throne.

Packing up my belongings, deciding what to keep and what to toss, I found the boxes containing the shirts I’d kept from the footraces I was in, mostly in the 80s and 90s. The first one was the MetroChallenge 10K, October of 1982. More than fifty others followed, most memorably the 1984 San Francisco Marathon.

Tomorrow is the Sedona Marathon, whose ancillary events include a 5K. I’d intended to enter the 5K but the onus of “heading up moving out” (see previous post) makes the 5K out of the question. As it is I’ll be leaving a day later than I’d originally planned.

But there is a 5K in my future, and then a 10K, and then a half marathon, after which I’ll decide whether or not a full marathon is beyond my sexagenarian reach. That’s part of remembering who I am. There’s nothing like the finish line of a footrace to make me feel capable–and I don’t get to the finish line without being on the Right Track.

Another part of remembering who we are, that gets less talked about, is remembering our mistakes and failings. I’ve got a bagload of failings and a boatload of mistakes. The cooldown after a workout will be a good time to reflect on those. “Go, and sin no more,” possibly the greatest advice to be found in the Bible, is also the hardest advice to follow–but let’s try, Friends!