Lessons from Running

Dear TEAMS, 

It’s been an intense day in our household.  M is feeling overwhelmed and frustrated about beginning his freshman year at Millersville, and is struggling with not wanting to do the work when he knows he has to do the work.  S just thumped Tom Sawyer down on the sofa, frustrated that he has to read the book in only several days and answer the study guide questions I got online.  T came up this morning and was already overwhelmed at the prospect of cleaning the 3-story residence with E this morning and doing her schoolwork in the afternoon, all while watching the precocious neighbor girl.  And I imagine that E and A will each come home from their work with their own stories of getting through their work day.

And what does that have to do with running?  Lots.

Not all of us are runners in our family, but the majority of us are.  E, M, and S have competed/are competing at the secondary level, and your father and I have competed locally.  (Well, let’s be honest: Daddy and E competed, I showed up and finished.)  I have realized recently that there are a lot of life lessons that can be learned from running, and I brought them up to S today when he just was stuck in his emotional misery.

Running is about endurance.  There is a point in every run, even for seasoned runners, that the body systems become overwhelmed with the strain.  The lungs feel like they’re stuck in Pringles cans, the legs feel heavy, and the brain starts thinking things like I don’t want to do this; it is uncomfortable, This is hard work that I didn’t know I would have to do, and This sucks.  Especially to beginning runners, they really think they cannot run any more that day.  But the truth is, if we just push through that discomfort, usually you hit a pace and rhythm that you can run much longer and make the run serve you instead of the other way around.  As with life, those who push through the hard part end up finishing well.

Running is 60% mental.  Five days a week, I start a run knowing I will have to go up the South Mount Joy Street hill towards the end.  This is a steep incline in only a 2-block distance.  The first block, the incline is gradual, but the Pringles lung syndrome comes back and since I have already clocked over 1.5 miles, my legs are tired.  Let me tell you what I used to think for the few minutes it took me to run up the hill:  I don’t HAVE to do this—it’s not like I’m a professional or anything; I’m 45—I should be taking it easier on myself; I just don’t feel like this today—I’ll do it tomorrow instead; I shouldn’t have to work so hard to be healthy; Who do I think I am, thinking that I can run up a hill that the college students barely mount?  And guess what?  I would finish the hill, somedays giving up halfway, and always feeling like crap.

I was running it one day and Father spoke to me very clearly about the mp3 running on endless loop in my head.  He reminded me that He Himself said, “You are what you think about most of the time.”  I realized that I wasn’t just saying negative things, I was actually telling myself lies.  He asked me to instead run up the hill only thinking about truths in His word and facts about the state of my life.  So, I changed the audio loop to:  I want to do this to achieve other goals in my life; I am young, I am strong, I am healthy; They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength, they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not grow faint; Pain is temporary—quitting is forever; When you’re going through hell—keep going; I can do all things because of Christ’s sacrifice 2000 years ago for me—including this hill.   

You are smart enough to know what happened with this.  The hill is no longer a mental barrier for me.  Plus, it became a frame of reference for me with other challenging things in my life, as in “Hey, if I can do the Mt. Joy hill, I can _________________ (deal with the child’s temper tantrum, plan this party, etc.)”  Someone once coined the phrase, “Life is 10% what you make it and 90% how you take it.”  Attitude really is everything, and can transform the hardest hurdle to the smallest speed bump in an instant.

Running is a discipline, and you just gotta do it.  I don’t think about brushing my teeth and washing my face, morning and night.  I just do it on automatic pilot.  But there was a certain time in my life that I had to discipline myself to remember to do it and do it well.  I fought against boredom and felt like it was a waste of my time.  But after so many thousands of times, I no longer even think about it and just do it out of habit.  And I’ve got great teeth and skin to prove it.  That’s how I have been with running.  I lace up my shoes and just spend the 40 minutes and do it.  If it’s a weekday, it’s happening—no questions asked, no second guessing.  And truly, that’s what most of life is…just understanding that what you face in a day needs to be handled healthily, whether you want to or not.

Love,