Head to your favorite blog. Scroll down to
the third post in the list. Take the third sentence in the post, and work it
into a new post of your own.
“In the
flickering fire light at the mile 82 aid station, I noticed another runner,
sitting on a stump, hands holding up her head, elbows on knees, anguished eyes
providing a steady flow of tears streaming down her cold flushed cheeks.”
(meetjohngray.com-Why I Run: Part Two)
I am reading
this quote from my brother’s blog right after finishing a 35 minute run (no,
not a run, a jog) with my trotting dog out in front (I don’t jog fast enough
for him to be jogging alongside me), and all I can think is: what an
accomplishment for that runner…82 MILES. Not to be a negative nelly, but I will
never be able to say I ran 8 miles all at one time, much less 82. The funny thing is that I’ve been an off
again on again runner (I mean, jogger) since high school. I enjoy running, and before I left Kwajalein,
I was running 8-10 miles a week (2-3 miles every other day and the monthly 2
mile fun runs (and sometimes more such as a 5K) on the weekends. In between running days, I was doing some
fairly strenuous yoga 2-3 times a week, but the most I’ve ever jogged at one
time was a 10K, and I was pretty proud of myself for finishing that.
Needless to
say, I’ve never had the desire to run 26, 50, or especially 100 miles like my
brother and some of my friends have done.
I admire them greatly for it, but I just don’t think it’s in the cards
for me. Part of the reason for this is
because I started having knee problems about a year before leaving Kwaj. I
would wake up in the middle of the night from an aching knee pain, and it was
very difficult to straighten my leg. The pain would come and go, one month it
was stiff, the other it was not at all.
And exercise seemed to help.
Then, we moved to WA. At first, I was running some on the treadmill and
still doing my yoga regularly because it was too wet and cold to run
outside. I started running outside again
in the summer, and I was doing a 4-½ mile route, which was full of rolling
hills (something I was not used to coming from a flat coral atoll). I was
feeling really good and like I could start doing even more running than I ever
had before. Then…
Fall came,
and we got a dog. I wanted to run with him, and early on, during leash training
I jogged a bit and got “pulled” a lot while walking up and down the hills in
our small neighborhood. Unfortunately, this is when my knees started hurting
again, and this time it was more than ever before. I went for a check-up about a month later and
mentioned it to the doctor, although at that time, my knees were not hurting at
all. She said it was probably arthritis, and when it got really bad, come back
and she would refer me to a really good physical therapist. Hmmmm….well, it got pretty bad for a couple
of weeks after that, swelling up daily and making it a bit painful to even
walk. And yoga, forget that. I couldn’t bend into the positions I always
enjoyed being flexible enough to master before because of the swelling. I was
miserable about it. So, I did some research, bought some videos, and physical
therapy books on knee rehabilitation and started back building up the muscles
in my knees slowly after the swelling finally went down.
Now, I am
back to jogging 3 times a week, albeit only about 20-35 minutes at a time with
stops to pick up the dog’s little presents and keep him in line (he is no
longer on a leash, but an e-collar instead), and I can do almost all my old
yoga poses with only a little feeling of pressure in my knees. I don’t know how long it will last, but I
will keep going with it and pressing myself to move forward in my journey
(which includes dealing with the aches and pains of aging…) as long and as much
as I can.
Although I
will never truly know what that runner my brother saw anguished at the 82 mile
mark felt like, I can imagine it was NOT “Wow, look at what I have accomplished
already,” but instead was probably more like a combination of frustration,
actual PAIN (who wouldn’t be in pain after running 82 miles and knowing you
still have 18 more miles to go), pure exhaustion, and emotional distress over
all she’d been through to prepare for this and now to possibly feel like she
couldn’t go on, but she powered through it.
If you read the rest of his post, my brother says they did see her at the
end and with a smile on her face too!!
So, my take
a away from all this is one of my favorite kid movie quotes, “Just keep
swimming!” We all have to go through a
little pain to get to where we want to go, and the journey is just that, a
journey, which entails set backs and successes, tears and smiles and sometimes
tears through smiles along the way.
P.S. As I finished the post,
this verse came to mind in the sense of
our runner “being lifted out of the miry clay and set back on her way.”
Then, I remembered U2’s song, 40 based on this same verse. Music and the word of God have always been
like a sword and shield during my life’s journey, helping me guide me in the
battles ahead and covering me with a sense of protection as I read or listen to
the words, so I thought it would be apt to share both the verse and the lyrics
to the U2 song to conclude tonight’s post. Thank you, as always, for allowing
me to share my life with you in this way and for caring enough to come along
with me.
“I
waited patiently for the LORD; And He inclined to me and heard my cry. He
brought me up out of the pit of destruction, out of the miry clay, And He set
my feet upon a rock making my footsteps firm. He put a new song in my mouth, a
song of praise to our God; Many will see and fear And will trust in the LORD…”
Psalm 40:1-3
"40"
I waited patiently for the Lord
He inclined and heard my cry
He brought me up out of the pit
Out of the miry clay
I will sing, sing a new song
I will sing, sing a new song
How long to sing this song
How long to sing this song
How long...how long...how long...
How long...to sing this song
He set my feet upon a rock
And made my footsteps firm
Many will see
Many will see and fear
I will sing, sing a new song
I will sing, sing a new song
I will sing, sing a new song
I will sing, sing a new song
How long to sing this song
How long to sing this song
How long...how long...how long...
How
long...to sing this song
No comments:
Post a Comment