Last run

Yesterday I ran my last major practice run before the race.  I ran 8 miles around the neighborhood with it's many hills.  I was pleased at my ability to run up hills that not long ago would have required a walking pace.  I feel as ready for this challenge as I am capable of being.  But, I was reminded of the weaknesses I now must accept.  Smoke from burning brush and wood stoves has the ability of reducing my efforts to a feeble ghostly image of past glory.  I realize that while I am able to achieve acts of physical marvel, at least for one my age, I am teetering on a total crash of potential by the most seemingly insignificant encounter with chemicals whose identity I don't even know any more.  My sole sensitivity to formaldehyde has spread to others such as glutaraldehyde,  nitrates and nitrites, MSG and others not yet identified.  It is a bit disconcerting to realize that all these months of preparation could be made totally non relevant by a chance encounter with the whiff of a perfume, the incorrect choice of an entree in a restaurant or the chance encounter with the smoke from a neighbors fireplace.  But is this not unlike life itself.  How much of my life is dependent upon chance encounters and opportunities often missed.  I think of life as a source of lessons presented to aid me in my growth to the potential imagined by my Creator at my conception.  I wonder how many opportunities have been missed, how many lessons passed by unrecognized?  But, like the training for this race, I feel the obligation to seek these lessons whenever and however they may be presented.  And, like the smoke from the unseen pile of burning brush,  my efforts are always hinged so delicately on the factor of chance.  Will I be of right mind when the opportunity arrises?  Will I recognize the lesson at hand?  The beauty of it all is that my Creator sees all of this in me and presents these opportunities over and over knowing that eventually I will be at that right place and there at that right time.  I am thankful that my Creator has such patience with me.