Run

Wow. It feels good to be back at the blog. I've been keeping a list of blog ideas for the last four months. Wherever did you go? Well, May through October was immersed in marathon training. Why in the world would you feel compelled to train for and run a marathon? Funny you should ask...

I admit to a love-hate relationship with running. This is the first year that I have consistently trained and run all year. Not daily, but consistently. It has been relentless and painful and rewarding and agonizing and thrilling all at once. I had a number of expectations: improved fitness, faster pace, smaller waist, and enormous appetite. These things did happen. But I learned other, unexpected lessons through running this year.

I experienced brokenness.
I am not a honed athlete, and my chosen training programs, admittedly, wore me out. 2010 was the year of perpetual soreness. (I'm sure the concurrent P90X training contributed.) Running is not the most forgiving sport, mind you, since little imbalances and biomechanical weaknesses get magnified over the miles. My running form still has its many weaknesses, and hence, my left glute has had a rough year.

As I added mileage, I would often find myself at the halfway point of an out-and-back route, far from home, tired and alone. In a word, I 'suffered'. My pace suffered, as did my hamstrings, my low back, my drive, my ambition, my spirit. Even my iPod occasionally ran out of battery life, or my Garmin mysteriously went blank. One by one, they all betrayed me and left me with nothing. As I pounded away, I pondered the notion of torture. I wondered what it was like for our Savior to carry His cross, and endure pain and death. I was never alone. It was just me and God, on a long lonely road, miles from anywhere, with miles left to go. God honed my ears more finely to His voice in those moments. I discovered that my body oddly does not need to 'be still' to connect with Him; just my spirit, with its tough layers stripped away, and soft vulnerability displayed: an intimate brokenness.

I took a serous look at self-sacrifice and self-denial.
This relationship I have with running is both love and hate. I admittedly love greeting my hidden introvert when my feet hit the pavement. However, I also love the soft warmth of my bed on a Saturday morning, as the sun rises and my family lazily awakens. Countless Saturday mornings, however, my weekly Bluffs Bakery indulgence was instead overtaken by 6-20 miles of hard-earned progress. I recall cold, snowy January mornings in the dark, my breath the only warmth keeping my nose defrosted. (It was refreshing when the days finally lengthened enough that I could easily retrace my steps in the snow along my early-morning route.) The Monday morning alarm clock might have summoned me at 5:00 am, but often I somehow rose just minutes before and was out the door, around the track at speeds that make slumber laugh, and back in the shower before the family was even aware I was gone. I sacrificed sleep. Don't we all? The side effect of this is the 'evening fade'. I had enough time to eat supper, clean the kitchen, get the kids in bed, and I soon followed. Time didn't permit much TV watching, blogging, etc. Winding down was replaced by crashing.

I kissed bodily comfort goodbye. Pain was a near-constant companion, but one I've grown to accept and even appreciate. Funny how one has to handle pain with strategy. The body wants to stop. It begs to stop, and it is only mental tenacity that wills it to continue, despite pain, discomfort, fatigue.

I enjoyed triumph.
Finnish runner Juha Vaatainen once said, "You'll find that, the more difficulties you have along the way, the more you'll enjoy your success." In my training program, each run had a purpose: track runs were for speed and interval training, tempo runs were mid-distance at an intentionally-uncomfortable pace, and long runs were just plain long. Sometimes just accomplishing the individual goal of that one run was enough to carry me, hard session after hard session.

The track produced dry heaves, and long runs, sheer exhaustion, and sometimes abdominal pain and nausea. Tempo runs routinely produced bloody ankles due to a running-form anomaly causing my opposing heel to whip into my inner ankle bone. They all brought discomfort and blisters. Chase the run with an agonizing cold water bath to control inflammation, then repeat the cycle next week: eighteen weeks for the half-marathon training program, and another sixteen weeks for the marathon program.

But there was nothing like the triumph of crossing the finish lines, having accomplished what I once thought was unattainable. A personal record (PR). A medal. I may not be thrilled with all my finish times, but I've run five races in the last 12 months, and achieved a PR in the 5K, 10K, Half, and Marathon, then bettered my prior 10K PR!

I have been sharpened, and painfully so. But I've also been carried.
On one particular long run, a strange but friendly dog followed me for more than 8 miles, despite my persistent attempts to make him "go home" (which I yelled repeatedly). Once I realized he was at my side to stay, I accepted him as my gentle sidekick, and actually enjoyed the company. I must've needed a furry companion that day, and God sent him to saunter at my side and help carry the burden of that day.

I still haven't answered the question. Why do I run?
I think Dagny Scott says it well in the Runner's World Complete Book of Women's Running: "I ran to be free; I ran to avoid pain; I ran to feel pain; I ran out of love and hate and anger and joy." Maybe part of the lure is the challenge: a seemingly out-of-my-league accomplishment. Running has given me an escape, a connection with God and others, and ultimately, lessons that I could not learn any other way. (Well, unless a famine hits. Or a war or Armageddon forces me, like Pheidippides, to run across Nebraska to deliver some important tidbit of news to someone important.) Perhaps God is preparing me for something (reference Armageddon, above). Then again, maybe He is just meeting me, sharpening me, and carrying me.