Happy Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, everyone! Fortunately, today is a student holiday, and as I lay in bed this morning, I was thinking about Dr. King’s messages about service.
I hold a charity spot in the London Marathon 2005, granted to me by the Shaw Trust. This is an organization that trains people with disabilities, assisting them in developing skills useful for getting a job and leading more meaningful and self-reliant lives. I love the idea behind this charity. After declining motivation, I decided to start my MLK, Jr Day by getting out of bed and training for this race.
I don’t know if it was the holiday, the reason for the holiday, or if it was just being back in Charleston (familiar running territory), but I had a terrific run. A four mile run became a little longer than five miles, each mile run at a brisker pace than the previous one. I think I could have continued for at least another hour! However, I realized the second part of my day-of-service would consist of finishing a research paper based on work my mentor and I have done on the childhood retina disease, X-linked juvenile retinoschisis. In order to leave adequate time for this, the run was stopped after five miles.