Triumph over adversity and celebrate Good Life Moments!

This post brought to you by Allstate. All opinions are 100% mine.

It was a just a couple years ago when my sister came to me and asked me if I wanted to run in a 5K Challenge with her.  It consisted of a 5K, an obstacle course and a scavenger hunt.  Why she came to me is a mystery.  Truly.  At the time, running from the house to the mailbox was an exercise in futility.  I would take the car instead.

But a challenge is something I don’t generally turn down.  So, she and I teamed up and spend the entire summer training.  We started out running a few yards at a time, and worked our way gradually to the point where a 5K was possible.  It took time, it took effort, and it was extremely difficult trying to make our normally lethargic selves run in the Georgia heat.  But, we were finally ready for the race!

And the race went well.  Even with the weather totally not cooperating.  We ran most of the race in pouring rain.  With the 5K finish line behind us, we felt like the hard part was over. Little did we know..

Up ahead was the obstacle course leering at us. And along side that obstacle course was the family. And in my nephew’s hand was the movie camera- rolling away so that every nuance and angle of us trying to get our butts over and under the obstacles ahead would be captured for eternity for the entertainment of all our friends, relatives and future grandchildren.

Wonderful. The camera puts on twenty pounds, folks!

Just saying.

We got to the first obstacle and I was looking at a series of four feet tall wooden hurdles. Our job was to climb over them. Ha! Did you hear me? FOUR FEET TALL. For reference, I’m a little over five feet in my bare feet. I stared at it, trying to pull from my depleted energy reserves and trying to figure out how I was gonna get my fat butt over that hurdle.

My ever helpful sister suggested that I put my foot in her hands and she would boost me up to the top where I can then climb over. Sounds good on paper, doesn’t it?

I put my foot in her hands…It was at that moment that somewhere in the back of her mind she remembered all the times when she was a child that I threw her teddy bear out the door and told her it ran away. The many times I made her pay me to allow her to clean my guinea pig’s cage. The time I woke her up from a sound sleep at 9:00 PM and told her it was time to get up for school…and didn’t tell her any different until after she had brushed her teeth and eaten a bowl of cereal. And there was the matter of her doing a bunch of weight training lately…

I flew up over that four foot hurdle, clearing it by at least a foot and landed squarely on my butt on the ground on the other side.

The crowd ooohed, but I managed to get up quickly enough, the wind knocked out of me a bit. My sister was yelling, “Are you okay?” Luckily I have tons of padding on my butt, so it appeared that the only damage was the loss of every one of my nails on my left hand and my race bib had abandoned me.

But we are a couple of tough chicks. My sister handed me my torn bib and I stuffed it in my bra. How’s that for decorum? My future grandkids will be proud.

I could hear my nephew on the side shouting encouragement and as we ran to the next obstacle I see that my whole family, including my mom are running along side us cheering us on, hair dripping, soaked to the skin. How could we possibly fail this with all that support? We dove under the final obstacle- a low net where we crawl on our bellies through the mud soaked grass and then were able to finish the rest of the course including the scavenger hunt in the pouring rain.

And why did I tell you this story? Allstate is an insurance company with a voice of optimism and celebration of life.  The Allstate Good Life message is that there are risks everywhere, but never let them hold you back from making your life good.

Take yourself to new levels and live your life striving to be the best you can be.  And remember that adversity is just another reason to push toward a better life.  Allstate is an insurance company that works everyday to help build more good in the lives of their customers.

Do you have a good life story to share?  How did you overcome fear or adversity to make your life good?