Marathon Man

Well, the big show down in Dallas is over and I guess this picture sums up how Cowboy fans feel about dem' Cowgirls.

I was over-joyed on Sunday night as I watched my beloved New Orleans Saints thoroughly whoop up on "America's Team." Just a note to all you football fans out there, this isn't your daddy's New Orleans Saints team. All week long I kept hearing about how we haven't played anyone yet, how the Saints franchise has never won more than one playoff game, and how bad our defense plays. Ssshhhhhh!!!!

I guess the most surprising thing to me and maybe to all Saints fans is how resilient this team is. After the big play by Julius Jones, the Saints march back down the field and tie it up. Then they unleashed a barage of offense that Dallas has never seen before by scoring 21 unanswered points. It was beautiful. The didn't even let up until the end of the 3rd quarter when Payton feeling sorry for his old boss decided to run the ball every down until the end of the game. I remember saying earlier in the season that the Saints will only get better and we are definitely seeing some really good Saints football.

Speaking of which. The old addage "It's a marathon not a sprint" should be applied here within context. I distinctly remember fans getting worried in a skid against the Ravens, Bengals, and Steelers that we were headed down the wrong path. Suddenly, the Saints have stopped turning the ball over, and have been dominating teams ever since.

This past Sunday I achieved something I thought I would never do in my life. I ran my first ever marathon in Dallas (White Rock). It was a great day. My running shorts were adorned with a gold fleur de leis and the word "Saints." I ran a great race until I hit the wall at about mile 21 which made it extremely difficult to finish the race, but I never quit and finished running at 4 hours. My last 5 miles were excruciating as ever step I took was in pain with cramps in my legs. It took me about 50 minutes to run the last 5 miles. The point I'm trying to make here is that we all experience some adversity in our daily lives, it's how we respond to that which makes us who we are. At the end of the race, I looked over at my wife with a brief look of disappointment because I missed my qualifying time for another race.

She spoke without hesitation, "You set out to finish this race and that's what you did. Be proud of what you've accomplished today because it doesn't matter how fast you ran as long as you finished what you set out to do." Never truer words have been spoken. At first I thought, is she talking about me or the Saints? What does it matter? We are the same. You and me, we are the New Orleans Saints. We are going to finish this marathon.