Fitness Firsts
Tonight I ran continuously for a longer distance I ever have in my whole life.
Eight weeks ago I struggled through a mile. A week later I struggled through two. For seven weeks I hated running. I think I’m starting to warm up to it now.
I’ve been training for the Monument 10K, which happens on April 5. This is my third one, and this is the first year I’ve actually trained appropriately. This is also, not coincidentally, that I feel amazing after running 5.5 miles tonight. I mean, I hurt, and tomorrow will be horrible, but I felt really good. Who knew that if you train for something, it gets easier? Four years ago when I ran my first 10K, I barely got through it. The distance daunted me most of all, and then to boot around mile 4 my foot cramped up so bad I had to walk on the side of it nearly the rest of the race (I just realized how odd it is that the total distance is declared in kilometers, but as you run the race, the mile is the distance marker of choice).
Thanks to my friends at work, I was encouraged to join the YMCA training team. We run weekly as a group, and we have a schedule we run during the week. I haven’t hit them all, but I’ve done definitely more than the other two 10Ks I’ve done. And I believe I have run more miles this year alone than in my life before January 20th, 2008 combined. That’s kinda crazy.
So I’m surprised how beneficial training has been. I mean, I still can’t go the pace I want, but I notice the difference between now and when I started. 6.2 miles is no longer a daunting task. I’ll probably run 3 or so consistently after the race just to keep going. Maybe lose some more weight and get in shape for the half marathon in November. 
The moral of the story: if you set a goal, work for it. It’ll be hard at first, but as cliche as it sounds, it’ll pay off in the end. And go run a 10K. I gotta go ice my calves.
-j
Eye Doctor
There isn’t a verse I can think of that floors me more than this one:
Jesus answered, “Neither this man nor his parents sinned, but that the works of God should be revealed in him.”
John 9:3
When this guy was born, his parents probably were a wreck for months or more trying to figure out why he wouldn’t respond to certain things. Maybe he never looked at them and smiled, so they wondered why their child seemed ambivalent towards them. When they finally realized he was blind, they had to make decisions to change their lives in order to help him get along with his. Their entire lives were turned upside down for their son who was born without the gift of sight (those who have lost it realize what a gift it is).
As a child, this man never saw his parents. If his friends wanted to play tag, he couldn’t because it was too dangerous. When his best friend showed him the new toy his dad made, this guy couldn’t see it and marvel as well. I’m sure he didn’t live his life in anger and frustration, but I’m sure he had moments when he really wished he could see. After all, it would have made his life, as well as the lives of his friends and family, so much easier. I bet he wondered why God had made him this way.
Then as a man, he meets Jesus and finds out why he’s been frustrated his entire life. It was so at that precise moment, with barely a hint of effort (I mean, he *did* bend to the ground), Jesus could take the blindness away.
I have a hard enough time wondering why it takes God a few months or just a couple years to answer prayers, and this guy had to wait his whole life. I can’t even fathom that. 20 years for a 2 second miracle? It frustrates me to even think about it!
Lord, forgive my impatience, but *please* don’t make me learn the hard way…
-j