I can’t remember the last race my mother was at. Granted, we go through the same song and dance every time. Mom, not that I don’t want you to come, but you don’t have to come. She gets it. But she wants to be there. Just as I have found (and continue to create) my own niche in the running and triathlon world, she has found her niche in the spectator world. And even when she complains, she loves it.

But for the last few races I’ve participated in, mom has not been able to come. See, her chemotherapy treatments for her lung cancer come every three weeks. Catch her on the wrong week and, well, it’s just not very good. Combine that with a frigid Buffalo winter, and she just wasn’t going to be able to be outside, waiting some 30-odd minutes for me to lug my butt across a finish line.

Until this past weekend.

Spring was in the air. The temperature was on the way to mild. It was the weekend before her next treatment, which meant she had the most energy she would have in her chemo cycle. And I was running the 40th Annual Chilly Challenge 5K at Canisius High School.

The Catholic high school had a special runner’s Mass early on Sunday, and I went, because you don’t pass up an opportunity to have someone pray for you on a race day. Afterwards, I saw a text from mom. She and dad were on their way.

This was going to be a good day.

Fast fact: I wrote a book about taking ownership of your own athletic story. That YOU get to define what it means to be an athlete. Or an artist. Or a musician. Or pretty much anything you damn please. But here’s the thing: It’s a lesson I continue to learn. I used to think that made me inferior somehow. Shouldn’t I already get this by now?

But the learning never stops. And each time I master one lesson, I find another nuance, something deeper that comes up that I need to investigate. We never actually become who we are. We are continually becoming. And with that, I took off on this particular 5K with joy and freedom.

Oh, and I took off way to fast. Some things, you just never learn.

I’ve read great stories by runners and adventurers and athletes and artists who found their motivation, their inspiration, to do something big and bold and off-the-charts because of life events. There was a death. Or an illness. Or a breakup. Or a profound dissatisfaction with the American dream. All of those are valid. And big dreams are great.

But it’s not the only way to dream.

What I’ve learned from my mother, aside from the fact that I come from a line of hella strong women, is that little things mean a lot. There is bigness in the every day. There is greatness in what most would call the mundane. Because the bump in the road to you could be Mt. Everest for someone else. And if I don’t appreciate and celebrate what I already have, if I don’t marvel at what I can already do, how could I ever be fulfilled by doing something big and bold?

My 5K time was nothing to write home about. It never is. But it was my fastest 5K of the year. I credit that to consistency in training. To warmer weather. To a return to the weight room. But mostly to embracing the joy of the moment. To laughing at myself. To loving what it is I can do in this moment.