Last summer my buddy Tracey Outlaw introduced me to Pontiac Township High School teacher Laura Baumgardner and some of her special needs students. After spending some time with these students it was clear to me what they needed most, and what they were fighting for, was respect. 

For the past 6 years, Laura and her students have put on the Run for Respect 5K in Pontiac as a way to spread the word to end the word. ​The word they are fighting to end? Retarded. The word they long to replace it with? Respect. 

​The theme for this year's race is:  Respect is Golden. 
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In this year's official Run for Respect race video, the students implore us - let's all follow the golden rule. Let's do to others like you want them to do to you. After my good friends and I shared some Starbucks Coffee time with Laura and a few of her students in Chicago last year, I found myself sadly wondering - why on earth do these kids have to fight for respect? They're beautiful, kind, thoughtful and fun. I'm telling you, coffee breaks don't get any more enjoyable than the one I had with them.

We all know why they have to fight for respect, though, don't we. They have to fight because they are different. They talk and look and think differently. I hope that's a frustrating answer to accept. It is for me. Because the reality is, I'm different. I talk and look and think differently than every single person reading this. Yet, I can't think of one single time in my life, based on those differences alone, that I've had to fight for respect. 

Why do we get so hung up on differences? A friend of mine recently shared that we are all the same kind of different. I'd never heard that. It wowed me because wouldn't that be great. If we saw our differences as something we shared, like the love of a sports team or a favorite burger joint, instead of something we analyze to determine how we're supposed to engage with one another. 

Next weekend, several of my friends and I will be running a half marathon in Lexington, Kentucky -The Run the Bluegrass. It will be our honor to help Laura and her students spread the word to end the word. Many of us will wear the bib below on our backs as a show of support and to encourage others to do the same. Those Lexington hills are a real battle, my friends know that, but we're going to battle those hills for respect. Because we believe: respect is golden. 
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Last year on my birthday, April 27th, I ran 53 laps around a 1/4 mile track to celebrate turning 53 years old. All year I've been trying to figure out this year's birthday run. I wanted it to be more challenging. I wanted to get a little more creative with it. Then God placed this story of Laura and her kids on my heart, and I suddenly knew the answer to the birthday run challenge. 

On April 21st, the day Laura and her kids are running their 5K in Pontiac, and the day many others will run it virtually, I will run my 5K.  And - I'll add a little bit of distance to make it my longest run ever. This year instead of honoring my age I'll honor my date. The 27th. To celebrate my birthday and to do everything I can to spread the word to end the word, on April 21st I'm going to run 27 miles. 

So for my birthday this year, I'm not asking you to run 27 miles with me. Just get out there and run a 5K for respect. Shoot, you don't even have to run it - walk it. Just support Laura and her students. Let them know we hate the idea they have to fight for respect, but as long as they do have to fight for it, we're going to be right there fighting by their sides!

Register for the 5K virtual run here. 
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This marathon story started in Houston. The minute Houston race officials pulled me off the course of my second marathon and discarded me onto a bus full of did not finishers, I knew the Houston story wasn't over. My picture of the story was over. But the story wasn't over. 

Shortly after I got home from Texas, my buddy Anthony sent me a wooden medal he'd made me. On it was a replica of the logo I wore on my shirt in Houston.  He sent it to me as a reminder that I ran 18 miles in Houston. In his mind - the mind of a friend - I'd worked hard. I deserved a medal.

​So he did what a friend does. He made me one himself. 

​It wasn't long after I got Anthony's medal when my ​buddy Tracey Outlaw let me know he'd be running the Little Rock Marathon. He had a room and I was welcome to join him. And oh, he pointed out, Anthony lives near Little Rock and he'd be taking part in the weekend festivities. Additionally, he said, my friend Nicole and her family, who had also been a part of the Houston story, would be there as well. All I had to do was make the 14-hour drive to get there. 

I didn't think about it. Yes, I cringed at the thought of the drive. But I've  seen God weave too many of these strange but true stories lately to believe I was supposed to do anything but get in my car and drive to Little Rock. I had one call. Assume my role in His story. 

And so, less than 2 months after that first attempt at marathon number 2, I was headed one state east of Texas to give it another shot. I was off to Arkansas. 

A few weeks before heading to Little Rock I interviewed Sid Busch on my podcast. (Sid Busch interview). Sid has devoted the last 20 years running marathons all over America for fallen service men and women. I loved this American hero 2 minutes into my conversation with him. During the interview he told me he'd be in Little Rock - and, at the age of 72 - he was going to run his 205th and final marathon. 
So to recap the web God weaves:

• I fail in Houston.
• My buddy Anthony sends me a beautiful consolation medal he made himself.
• My buddy Tracey happens to be running Little Rock a few weeks after that - very near where Anthony lives. 
• Tracey invites me to join him.
• My friend Nicole, who was a huge part of my Houston journey, is also running Little Rock.
• And a man I didn't know when I ran Houston, but now loved, would run his final marathon in Little Rock.

I don't try to keep up with the God's stories any more. I just get in my car and drive. Then I run. 
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I've said it often, but Little Rock weekend makes it well worth repeating. More than I love running, I love the friends I get to do it with. My friend JP Caudill recently told me, "runners bond because they just understand what each other are going through." I think that's true of life in general as much as it is on the race course. When you understand each other at a level like that, you love hanging out together. 

So before the race ever started, we hung out together. 

So my friends Ashley and Nicole went for a drive. Sounds like the perfect beginning to a great story, right? Then Ashley and Nicole decided to mess with Keith. Story's getting better, isn't it? They put their Hollywood film skills to work and produce the following film classic and send it to me. They do this knowing full well I'm trying to rest and get myself mentally "relaxed" for my second attempt at my second marathon. 

​Now these two ladies knew I had anxieties about the hills on this course. So to send me this totally fabricated account of the race course - not one inch of this video was actually ON THE COURSE - was rather cruel and unusual. But it did make for a fun moment once marathon Sunday began. 

​There's nothing like the starting line of a marathon. Whether there's a hundred people or several thousand, the air is filled with the excitement of dreams. Dreams of crossing a finish line for the first time. Dreams of running a race faster or further than ever before. Dreams of honoring someone battling cancer or killed by a drunk driver. And there are runners dreaming of finishing something they couldn't finish just 6 weeks ago. 

There's something powerful being surrounded by "I can do this." In a world filled with doubt and negativity, a marathon starting line overflows with belief.

Belief in self.

​Belief in one another. 
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Shortly after the race began the rain began. Even though the air was cool, the rain wasn't uncomfortable for me.  I run well in the rain. Something about it suits me. 8 miles into the race the rain was still falling, yet my pace was still on target for that 6 hour marathon. I remained confident. I was going to achieve all 3 of my goals.

​At the half marathon mark I was still on pace, but I started encountering some of the hills. My friend Nicole who was well ahead of me sent this message:
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My first instinct was to chuckle. Ha - serves you right for sending me ficticious and intimidating hill videos the day before the race. Who's laughing now. Then my thoughts went to - uh oh, if Nicole is struggling, just how bad ARE those hills up ahead. Then she sends me this message: 
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​Nicole's a strong runner. Her struggles left me wondering if I was blindly and recklessly headed to meet a 6-hour marathon assasin. It would turn out I was wrong about that. I was actually headed for an army of assasins. 

I'm at mile 15 when the hill battles begin. A monsoon invades. As much as I was unphased by the light rain earlier, I'm shivering now and hating everything about my life. My shoes drown in the water washing over the road, and what I'm hating most is the part of my life that thought running this marathon was anything better than my worst idea I've ever had. 

I can't see now. Even when I force my eyes open against the pools of water streaming over them, the visibility out in front of me isn't more than a few yards. Wet, soggy feet. Blindness. I'm asking myself -over and over - why am I here. I  wonder what the bus will look like that's going to pick me up off this course. Will it be big like the one in Houston. Maybe it will just be a small school bus this time?

And then an angel appears. It's Anthony. He's not carrying a ghostly wooden medal to console me for an unfinished marathon. He's carrying a promise: "I'm here to get you to the finish line buddy." 

The finish line was still 9 miles away. Anthony had already run several miles to meet me in my storm, yet with all the confidence of a military general, he promised me we were getting home. I couldn't help but notice he didn't mention any buses. Yet, the dude was thoroughly convinced we were finishing this thing. 
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I believed him. How could I not? I knew the 6-hour marathon was tragically put out of it's misery, but I had 2 goals left. They were alive and well. Suddenly thoughts of a bus were thoughts of a locomotive pulling me home.

So home I headed. 

Those last 9 miles conspired together to produce the toughest physical challenge of my life. There's no close second. The hills were relentless. The fast early pace zapped me of everything I had. So I leaned on my buddy, and I once again leaned on God. The God who got me to the finish line of my first marathon. He had me in Little Rock for a reason. I knew that reason wasn't remotely connected to quitting.

So, I was not going to quit. 

I told myself that 1000 times over the next several miles. I will not quit. I will not quit. I had no idea how I was going to pull that off, but at this point I focused less on what I had to and more on what I was not going to do.

I will not quit.

​I literally leaned into each next step, determined, picturing the Little Rock finish line through each short and painful shuffle. 
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Back at the finish line my friends were worried about me. They were texting each other. Trying to get messages to me. Wanting me so badly to finish this race and beat that 6:58. Their panic was beautiful if unnecessary. They were looking at the race clock which showed the total elapsed time since the first runner went off so many hours earlier. What they forgot was I'd taken off WELL AFTER that first runner. So the clock they were looking at showed me cutting it close. The reality was I knew I was going to beat that second goal handily. 

I was going to be in rough shape, mind you, but I was going to beat that goal. 

Anthony left me with a couple of miles to go. He wanted to get to the finish line and see me come in. He said he wanted nothing to do with my finish line story. He wanted that to be mine. My friend Ashley appeared with about a mile to go. Her quiet and calming voice was the subtle assurance, the one final boost I needed to get to that finish line. 

It's amazing really. I've had some memorable sports feelings in my life. Yet, when the marathon finish line comes into view, there's no feeling like it from a competitive standpoint. And mind you, I was battling for a place much closer to last place than first. Much, much closer to last.

I guess we can all have our super bowl moments without actually playing in the super bowl. 

As I ran the final hundred yards or so I could see my friends come into view. My heart was full. I thought I'd be able to hold my emotions in check, but that was no longer possible. As I looked over and saw  Ashley, Nicole, Tracey, and Anthony - God poured out and into me through my beautiful friends. His love and pleasure and approval and strength. Their cheers and smiles; His heart. 

​It all poured into my broken and empty body. 

I'd like to say the Little Rock Marathon finished a story. But God has made it clear to me, race after race, that life truly is a marathon. Crossing a finish line feels final for a moment, but I already feel God stirring the pot of my next running story. I hear him saying life is a marathon, Keith. Not your marathon, but mine. 

I anxiously await the next step in His race. He's always so good and faithful to point me to it. If I have it my way it will be with the beautiful friends who shared this Little Rock chapter with me. They are beautiful illustrations in one of the most memorable chapters in my life.