Last Trail Run On The Mainland

This week was a little strange. It had everything from that the other pre-race leaving weeks had, you know.. lots of work, organizing, last minute errons, phone calls with friends / family, and of course some training too. It also was the week Kyle took a young man named Billy Myers on a hunt out in New Mexico. This wasn't just any hunt though, it was Billy's "HUNT OF A LIFETIME" and that was with some of the money that was raised by Camo Cares, a charity event that Kyle & his partner at Wired Outdoors, organized to help these kids with life threatening illnesses. Billy has leukemia and he and his family are battling to keep him healthy and beat this nasty disease.

Any time I'm tempted to think "it's all about me" I am promptly hit with the reality that it most certainly is not, not even close. Here this young man is, facing such scary things at such a young age (17 yrs old) and he just keeps on fighting and living his dreams. I'm so thankful that Wired Outdoors, Kyle's company, decided to start bringing awareness and raising money to help these kids. Make a Wish doesn't cover these sort of things, so until an organization like Hunt of a Lifetime came along to pair kids up with hunters like Kyle and Jason, there was no outlet for these kids to make this happen. Most of their families are so overwhelmed with medical bills they couldn't dream of taking their child on a hunt, nor do they have the time, means or sometimes the knowledge to travel and know who to talk to about it.

I had talked to Kyle the night before and he was a little disappointed after their first day of hunting. Billy was feeling pretty weak with all of his medications and they hadn't seen any Elk to even get close to Billy taking a shot. He asked me to pray, and pray hard, that tomorrow would be the day for Billy.

So the next morning I woke up, and I decided rather than it being "all about Kona" or what I would probably normally think about a week out from a big race.. that I would do something else.

I ran.. I ran through the forests and the leaves. Up the trails I knew well just before the light of day.

I felt an strange calm come over me about the day.. Billy and the hunt... Kona.. all of it. I lifted up my thoughts and really just trusted the silence of the forest. As weird as that sounds!! I don't know.. I was just in my own little world and it was a place where the hustle and bustle of all this other stuff that clouds our vision doesn't exist - not who's wearing what, who's sponsoring who, time, heart rates, the race... none of it was there. It was me BEFORE of all of this..

Just me...

the road (or the trail I should say)...

And it was good.

I had a very strong feeling that today was going to be Billy's day. Shouldn't we all get that once in awhile.. a day where it's "our day"! Where the world lifts us up and sends us positive vibes? What if we really did have a day where all our friends and families were thinking about us and wishing us well and praying for strong positive outcomes. Oh.. wait :) I do. It's next week... So I realized, today was Billy's day and just as the sun broke through the cloudy morning sky, I thought of all of us who were rooting for him and how we came together. That my friends is why life is so good. We DO have the power to change things to make things different and we have to believe their are reasons to stop, listen and have in our hearts something good and positive toward others. It's one very small thing we can do, it doesn't cost a thing and it really does work.

Billy got his elk that day.. and I got a whole lot more than I ever thought I could out of that one little trail run.

It was a good day.

Way to go Billy.. we are all so proud of you and so happy to get to be a part of your day. You're amazing and you're going to kick this cancer in the pants :) I know it.