I did something this past weekend I never even dreamed was a possibility … I ran the Marine Corps Marathon.

If you, like me, have never run a marathon before, I have to tell you that it is an absolute spectacle. There are wild scenes like the guy who juggled the entire 26.2 miles. There are also heart rendering scenes like the Ukrainian soldier running with a prosthetic leg.

Then there was the scene I stumbled upon in mile 12, the “Blue Mile.” It is a one mile section of the course dedicated to honor fallen service members. There are posters along the entire one mile stretch showing those who have paid the ultimate sacrifice.

About halfway through I saw a lady having her picture taken next to one of the posters. The poster showed a young Marine First Lieutenant who died in Afghanistan. The lady took her phone back from the guy who took the picture, pulled out a Kleen-Ex and wiped her tears and then started running again.

My heart ached for that lady for a long time (still does). She clearly knew the young lady in the poster. I don’t know if she knew that poster would be on the course or if she just happened upon it. Either way, I can’t imagine the emotions that had to have had on her.

I’ll be honest, I wasn’t prepared for some of the things you happen to see while running a race like that. I would have joined her in crying out on the course … if only I had enough liquids in me at that point to produce tears.

Of course, I wasn’t prepared physically for the race either.

Through work, life and travel … I didn’t have nearly enough time to train for the marathon. In fact, the longest run I had done prior to the race was a 12-mile run done the week before. I was more than ready to bail on the race all together but I couldn’t defer it until next year and so my wife and I plunged ahead. We didn’t tell anyone we were running it because A) we weren’t sure if we were actually going to run it and B) we weren’t sure if we could finish it if we did. I did not put myself in a position to succeed.

But once I was out on the course, I became determined. I wasn’t going to give up and just let it beat me. I may not have trained properly, but I was going to keep going and finish that damn race come Hell or high water. And I did.

My time is completely irrelevant. The race wasn’t against the clock (except for the fact that you have to be running fast enough to beat certain time checks or they close the course and force you to stop in order to open up city streets to traffic again). No, for me, the race was just against the finish line.

Obviously, you may be wondering what this has to do with the Texas Longhorn football team. Well if I know anything, it’s that sports is full of life lessons that can be applied to all of us. The reverse of that is true too. Life lessons can be applied to sports as well.

There are two lessons I took away from the marathon that made me think of the Texas Longhorns. One concerns Maalik Murphy and the other concerns the Texas coaches.

CLICK HERE TO READ ABOUT THE WORK MAALIK MURPHY AND THE TEXAS COACHES NEED TO DO TO ACHIEVE THE TEAM GOALS DURING THE FINAL MONTH OF THE SEASON.