Last Sunday was the Leeds Half Marathon. As you can read elsewhere on the site, MBC was keen to be involved in supporting the runners, the event and the spectators with refreshments, seats and of course, other facilities!

As someone who was a very keen runner for a while I was happy to be involved on the other side of the event by doing my turn at marshalling. However, it was only while waiting for the first runner to come through, and then watching the groups of people go by that I realized how much I would rather be in the event than watching it. Sometimes it is easy to drift away from the things that were so important to us, and perhaps only having a taste of these things – getting back close to the action, reminds us of how what we are missing out on.

To run a half marathon you have to put the work in, but from the elite athletes at the front, to the groups of friends who wanted a challenge and raise some money for charity, the sense of achievement at the end is huge. The feeling of being part of something big, and with so many other people, can only be experienced by taking part in the race and not from being a spectator. Doing my turn at wearing a marshal t-shirt and making sure the runners were going the right way was a good thing to do, but took very little effort and with no great sense of having achieved something to be proud of.

It led to me to thinking about other areas of life and faith. Can we remember what inspires us, what we are passionate about? What are things that we need to put the effort in in order to achieve?

With life and faith, perhaps until we put our trainers on and get stuck in, we cannot expect to feel that sense of energy, of doing something worthwhile and having something significant to work towards if we are watching from the sidelines.

Being a spectator may have its good moments, but the high feeling and benefits are hugely short lived in comparison with taking part in the race and crossing the finishing line.