Running Lesson #1 — I hate buzzwords/phrases April 23, 2019

but sometimes they get the job done.  You know what I mean … words like relevant, authentic, outside the box, synergy.  Ugh!  I really don’t like to get caught up in the most fashionable language of the day when plain, old words will do the trick; however, in my quest to reach 1,000, I tripped (not literally, thank goodness) over one of these phrases that really helped me obtain victory.

BE INTENTIONAL

As I wrote a couple of weeks ago, when I decided to try to reach 1,000 miles in a year, I had to calculate what my running would look like week-to-week and month-to-month.  I figured out that I would need to run 20 miles per week to achieve 1,040 miles.  After the first few months, I was easily accomplishing that goal, so I bumped myself up to trying to run 100 miles per month.  I knew that would put me well over 1,000 but would also give me a little leeway in case of emergency, illness, or injury.  While this plan worked, it was the Sunday morning look at the week ahead, the daily decisions, that made things challenging.

I preferred getting more than half of my miles for the week completed by Wednesday so that I could “play around” with the rest of the schedule, but some Mondays (my long run days) were rainy.  Some Mondays I simply didn’t feel like a long run.  Some Mondays were holidays, and why couldn’t I take a holiday, too?  On these days, I would need to shift my long run to Tuesday.  But Tuesday is the day my friend, Katie, walked with me after my run.  She had to start at 6:30 a.m.  If I wanted to get my long run in on Tuesdays, I would have to start at 4:00 a.m.!   And on and on the Sunday planning went … every . single . Sunday.

BE INTENTIONAL

I did just that with my weekly/daily planning.  I knew that if I did not plan carefully, I would be struggling to make up for the lost miles at the end of the week…or even worse on Saturday or Sunday before church only to burn my rest days.  I learned a lot about planning and being purposeful in calendaring my runs.  If I had not learned this lesson, I don’t think my outcome would have been as successful.   But I also learned about planning and being purposeful spiritually.

BE INTENTIONAL

My relationship with the Lord does not just happen randomly.  Like intentionally planning my run schedule every week, I must be intentional when I plan time with God every week and every day.  I cannot put off time with Him on Monday and hope to “catch up” on Thursday.  I won’t have what it takes to finish strong and be ready for the next day or the next.

So where and when should I be intentional?

1) Intentional prayer time — King David wrote a song about his intentional time with God, saying, “In the morning, Lord, you hear my voice; in the morning I lay my requests before you and wait expectantly.”  The Bible says that Jesus went out regularly to pray.  Luke 6:12 says, “During those days He went out to the mountain to pray and spent all night in prayer to God,” and Mark 1:35 says, “Very early in the morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house and went off to a solitary place, where he prayed.”  This habit of early morning prayer drew them closer to the Father and set them on a course for daily success.

2)  Intentional fellowship (oops! church buzzword) Intentional friendship and association with those who share the same interests —  One HUGE motivation to completing my running challenge was the constant support and encouragement from family and friends.  Scott and I often ran together, and as I mentioned earlier, my friend Katie became my cool-down walking partner more often than not.  Without someone saying, “YOU CAN DO IT!”, I’m not sure the outcome would have been the same.   Hebrews 10:24 tells us that we must do the same for each other spiritually.  “And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds, not giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another—and all the more as you see the Day approaching.”

3)  Intentional Bible study — During the course of the year, while I did not subscribe to running magazines, I did read articles about how to train better, what strength training to do to improve my runs, how to avoid injuries.  Becoming more knowledgeable about running and learning to recognize how running was affecting my body and what I could do to affect my running helped in ways that I probably don’t even realize.  In the same way,  the Bible describes this kind of devotion by a man named Ezra.  Ezra 7 says, “the gracious hand of his God was on him.  For Ezra had devoted himself to the study and observance of the Law of the Lord, and to teaching its decrees and laws in Israel.”  I want to be like Ezra and like the early church who “devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer” (Acts 2:42).

Just like I did not accidentally complete 20+ miles every week in 2018, none of these activities —  prayer, fellowship, and Bible study — happen by accident.  As I look ahead each day, each week, each month, I need to BE INTENTIONAL in how I walk (or run) with the Lord.  The success of the outcome depends on it!

BE INTENTIONAL —  Come near to God and He will come near to you.   James 4:8

 

 

 

I Am Not a Natural April 2, 2019

I am not a natural runner.  In fact, years ago while I was playing tennis my freshman year of high school, I complained so much about running that my coach required me to write a 3-5 page paper on why running is good for physical conditioning for all athletic activities.  (insert eye roll)  I also remember that same year, at the end of the season, going to the tennis banquet where the seniors would “will” to the other players different tennis gifts, such as ‘the ability to hit the first serve every time’.  Do you know what they all “willed” to me?  Their leftover excuses to get out of running at the end of practice.  Seriously, I am not a natural runner.  I don’t have a runner’s body.  I don’t have a runner’s breathing.  I don’t have a runner’s grace.

But off and on throughout my adult life, I have tried to give running a go. (Off and on being the key words in that statement.)  It seems like a pretty simple way to exercise, doesn’t require a lot of equipment, and could help with physical, as well as emotional/mental, well-being.  About 13 years ago, when Scott began working toward becoming a chaplain in the military, I really tried to run with him as an encouragement to getting ready for the Army Physical Fitness Test.  Before he left for CHBOLC (CHaplain Basic Officer Leadership Course), we ran a 5K together…the longest distance I had ever run!  I was SO proud of myself, finishing with a pace less than a 12-minute mile!  In the years since then, I have had a love/hate relationship with running.  I love the exercise, but I hate the run.  I never felt like I was progressing, in distance or in speed, but I have kept at it, not necessarily with success but at least with some amount of perseverance…until 2017 that is…when something strange happened.

Back up a year to 2016 … While we were in Korea, a friend of mine asked if I would run a ½ marathon with her in the fall of 2016 (we never did), so I started “training” to be able to do this long distance run.  I had a plan developed by SmartCoach (no longer functioning without a paid subscription) and began following the plan regularly.  I had a running buddy/encourager and felt like I was on my way to breaking through the infamous “runner’s wall.”  Not so.  The first 3 months of training were geared toward getting me ready for a 10K in June (which I had actually completed successfully in Alaska in 2013) and I felt pretty good about my progress; however, when race day arrived, I felt as if I had never run before.  I could hardly breathe; I felt like I was running through molasses, and embarrassingly, I ended up walking the last 2 miles of the 6.2-mile race.  I was devastated to say the least.  I am not a quitter, and I really try not to fail.  But fail I did … at least in that attempt to run the 10K.

After that disastrous day and after finding out that the friend who originally invited me to try for the ½ marathon wasn’t planning to do it after all, I basically quit running and finished our last 6 months in Korea walking…granted, I was walking everywhere, but I was only walking.  When we arrived at Fort Hood in late December, Scott was still doing his regular runs, and while we were staying in the hotel on post, he noticed a running track just across the street and asked me to join him.  Here we go again (SMH)!  I did go out for a run with him, completed the 2-mile loop and was huffing and puffing my way back to the hotel room while he ran 2 more 2-mile loops (show off!).  A few weeks later, we moved into our new Fort Hood home, and two days later, Scott left to go to Alabama for a 3-month school.  While he was gone, I thought I would go back to the beginning.  I would start running again to try to help him out.  My plan was to find some 2 and 3-mile routes that he could run regularly when he returned in April, getting to know our neighborhood in the meantime.  At first, I ran Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays.  I was mapping out 2-mile runs and then one day in February, decided to see “how far is the chapel from here?”.   Turns out it is 1.5 miles to a good turn-around spot.  A week after that, I wanted to know how far it was to that track near the hotel…it’s a little over 2 miles from my house…so a 4-mile out and back.  A week after that, I decided to run to that track and then instead of turning around and coming home, I turned right and made my way home a different way.  When I got home and checked the route, I had run 7 miles!  Unbelievable!  I was tired, but I wasn’t dying.  I wasn’t even exhausted.  I was, however, SO PROUD of myself!  It was the best feeling!  I wasn’t really trying to go 7 miles.  I wasn’t even using an GPS/app to track the miles.  I only figured out how far I had gone when I got home and mapped it out on the computer.  The next week, I ran 8 miles on Monday…and the next week, I ran 9.  I had broken through the wall!  Throughout 2017, I ended up running four ½ marathons…one on the first Monday of each month, May, June, July, and August!  Words cannot even describe the feeling I have thinking about this transformation.  I truly believe the only thing that could explain it is God!  He did something with my body and my brain that made everything finally kick into place.

At the end of 2017, I decided to actually set a goal for 2018.  With a load of determination, I set my goal at 1,000 miles.  Remember the title of this thing?  I am not a natural runner.  1,000 miles?  I had worked for years to be able to run at all, and after just one year of any sort of successful attempt at running, I was going to shoot for 1,000 miles?  Really?  Yes, really.  I set out a plan of how many miles I would have to complete each week and decided where I would be able to give myself grace (I counted the 100 miles of hiking in Israel…not technically running, but 100 miles hiking in the wilderness of Israel? Grace…).

With this plan and these goals in mind, on January 2, 2018, I set out on my journey to 1,000 miles.  On October 14, I completed the journey!  

By December 31, 2018, I had logged 1,248 miles!  Unbelievable to a non-running girl like me!  But throughout the year, as I clocked mile after mile, it wasn’t the success of reaching those goals that kept me going.  It was all the lessons I was learning along the way, lessons about running and lessons about life.

So over the next few weeks, I am planning to share with you these lessons.  My prayer is that they will encourage and inspire you as you run (or walk) your own journey.