16 Apr Why swim accross when you can run around?
As many of you may know, I have been training for the past several months for the Indianapolis Half Marathon. The training has brought pure remorse while running in ten degree weather to the wonderful feeling of accomplishment after a satisfying long run. When my good friend John Ditmer and I signed up to run the half marathon at an 8:00 mile pace, I thought we were crazy because at the time that was my 5K pace! The task of not only getting our mile times down but also building the endurance to maintain that pace for thirteen miles was a daunting task. With two full weeks of training, I must say that I feel great about the progress we have made. 8:00 miles is much more duable that before. However, I think I will need to rely on extra adrenaline from the massive crowd of 32,000 runners to keep our goal pace.
The training has also helped me make some connections with the analogy that Paul uses in Scripture about running the race. On our many runs together John and I have been able to chat about how just like training to run this half marathon, we need to be training our minds and hearts to stay on the path of righteousness. Paul says that when we run, we beat our bodies into submission—am I that intentional about my time reading God’s word? Am I really training my mind during that time? Or just reading? Another sweet connection we made is just as we needed to run together (especially on the long runs) in order to actually hold eachother acountable to sticking with the training schedule.
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