A vague desire to run have completed a 5K, however, somehow lodged itself into my mind about five years ago. I put it on my list of things to do before I die. And I ain’t getting any younger.

So this is the year, I decided. I set a goal back in January, but I was waylaid by an injury early on. I’ve been back at it, though, for eight weeks now, and I’m up to running over two miles at a time.

It was early on, though, that I learned an important key to running anything longer than a sprint—don’t run. I was trying to work my way up, so I started off by running one lap (<1/6 of a mile). I was so completely winded that I wondered if maybe this wasn’t something I should do, if I was just one of those people who wasn’t meant to run.

Then I realized—I don’t have to run this hard. I’m not trying to set a record here. I just want to finish this race. So instead of flat-out running, I started trying to jog. At the slower pace, I could suddenly run (well, jog) for longer and longer distances. Instead of getting winded and discouraged, I was challenging myself and making progress.

If you haven’t already seen the parallels to motherhood, let me point them out to you—there are no prizes for cleanest house, quietest kids in church (though maybe there ought to be on that one), most extracurriculars (for moms or kids). Pushing ourselves or our families to maximum capacity all the time just wears us down.

But we don’t have to give up. We can still run that we might obtain the prize—time to enjoy together, time to enjoy one another. If we slow down and take the time to enjoy our children and our lives in the narrow slice of now, suddenly we can go just as far or farther.

How have you slowed your pace to finish the race?