I recently had the "pleasure" of running my 3rd 5K. A good friend of mine was also running the race, and at the beginning, I decided I was going to try and keep her pace since we have similar times. I soon realized her pace was a bit faster than mine, so I then decided I would make sure to keep her in my sights. This worked out great for a while and I kept pushing along, making good time (for me, at least). We then got to a weird turn and suddenly I didn't see her anymore. My pusher had disappeared, and it made me feel a little lost and like I wasn't going to be able to finish.

In high school, a few of my football teammates shared a pre-game ritual. Before each game they would sit down in the locker room. The first guy would wrap his left wrist with a roll of tape and hand it to the second guy. The second guy would wrap both of his wrists (left first) then hand back the roll. The first guy would then finish his wrap on his right wrist, and hand back the roll again. He would then get up, move to the other side of his taping partner and toss the roll to a third guy. This guy would then put the roll in his locker until the following week . . .to do it all again. These guys swore by this ritual. Did it work? We went undefeated in the regular season, so the ritual must have worked, right? But in the playoffs, we went down in flames. What good  was it then?

I have a handful of life principles. One that I see played out over and over again is just how much competition reveals a person’s heart. In the heat of competition, true colors are shown. It is hard to hide your heart when you are sweating and giving it your all. Everything seems to come out, and sports have a way of exposing the truth. That can be really good or really bad, depending on what is in your heart.