A Promise Worth the Miles

Every run­ner and walk­er at the Bridge the Gap to Health Race car­ries a sto­ry to the start­ing line. For some, it’s the pur­suit of a per­son­al best; for oth­ers, it’s the first step in a fit­ness jour­ney, a chal­lenge shared with a friend, or the con­tin­u­a­tion of a decades-long fam­i­ly tra­di­tion. Lau­ryn found her why, and it became her inspi­ra­tion. Here is her story.

A Promise Worth the Miles

Lau­ryn wasn’t a run­ner. In fact, the idea of run­ning a half marathon once felt impos­si­ble, until she said God gave her a rea­son that made the impos­si­ble worth every step.

For months, Lau­ryn had been pray­ing for her cousin Michelle and invit­ing her to join her at The Cross­ing Church in Quin­cy. Michelle had attend­ed a Christ­mas Eve ser­vice once, but beyond that, the invi­ta­tions were usu­al­ly met with a polite no.

Then one Thurs­day morn­ing in Feb­ru­ary, Michelle respond­ed differently.

“She said, ​‘If you run the half marathon with me in May,’” Lau­ryn recalled, ​“I’ll come to church once a month for the rest of the year.’”

Lau­ryn didn’t hes­i­tate. Her answer was yes.

The race was the Bridge the Gap to Health Race, host­ed by the Quin­cy Med­ical Group Foun­da­tion.

Train­ing Through the Hard Days

She had nev­er run a race before, and now she had just twelve weeks to pre­pare. She was famil­iar with­race. She grew up walk­ing the event with her fam­i­ly. Her dad loved it, and she remem­bered it as a day when the com­mu­ni­ty came together.

Now, she said, it would become some­thing more.

She even vol­un­teered her hus­band, Bran­don, to join her. Bran­don prefers strength train­ing over dis­tance run­ning, but he didn’t hes­i­tate either. So, they trained and it was hard both phys­i­cal­ly and spiritually.

Progress felt slow. There were walk breaks, frus­tra­tion, and doubt. Some runs were cut short alto­geth­er. But week after week, Lau­ryn showed up for her­self and for Michelle.

“When I ran my first three miles, I cel­e­brat­ed,” she said. ​“I hon­est­ly didn’t think I would get there. Each mile felt like a small reminder that God strength­ens us in ways we don’t expect.”

One Sat­ur­day, she and Michelle ran sev­en and a half miles side by side. As they logged the miles, they talked about faith.

When the Plan Changes

Just weeks before race day, every­thing shifted.

While on a fam­i­ly trip over spring break, Lau­ryn felt some­thing wasn’t right dur­ing a train­ing run. She pushed through it. The next day, after walk­ing around all day, she knew some­thing was wrong.

She had frac­tured her fibu­la. Lau­ryn was placed in a boot and would not be able to run the race she had worked so hard to pre­pare for.

“I felt defeat­ed,” she admit­ted. ​“I had worked so hard. It had grown my faith in so many ways. And then it just felt like I fell on my face.”

Race day still came. Bran­don and Michelle were ready to car­ry on, and Lau­ryn was their biggest cheer­leader. She tracked them along the course, mov­ing to dif­fer­ent spots so she could encour­age them.

Bran­don had been bat­tling a calf strain and hadn’t ful­ly trained in the final weeks. Michelle had her own obsta­cles to over­come. ​”By God’s strength, togeth­er, they crossed the fin­ish line,” Lau­ryn shared

It was an emo­tion­al moment that brought her to tears. Part­ly because she wished she could have run beside them, most­ly because she was over­whelmed with pride.

“I was so proud of Bran­don and Michelle,” she said. “. This was a big accom­plish­ment. I was in awe of God who fin­ish­es what He starts.”

More Than a Fin­ish Line

After the race, Lau­ryn had one lin­ger­ing con­cern. Tech­ni­cal­ly, she hadn’t run it. Would Michelle still hon­or their deal?

She didn’t need to worry.

Michelle didn’t just come once a month. She came every week. She was even­tu­al­ly bap­tized and recent­ly bap­tized a cowork­er of her own.

Lauryn’s Why

Lauryn’s ​“why” was nev­er about the medal. It wasn’t about pace, dis­tance, or prov­ing some­thing to herself.

It was about love and faith and ​“trust­ing God with the outcome.”

This year, Michelle and Bran­don are run­ning the half marathon again. Lau­ryn is start­ing with the 5K, work­ing her way back.

Her advice to oth­ers who may be con­sid­er­ing their first race at Bridge the Gap is sim­ple: don’t give up, even if there are setbacks.

“Take it one day at a time. If you need to slow down, slow down. There were times I was sup­posed to run six miles and only made it four. That’s okay,” she said.

Some­times, the bravest step isn’t the one across the fin­ish line, it’s the one that says yes in the first place.

For those inspired to take their own first step, reg­is­tra­tion is open for the Bridge the Gap to Health Race. Vis­it brid​geth​e​gap​.org to learn more.