TheRunningRev.Com

211 Days To Comrades

Between now and May 29th, 2011 all of my running will have a single focus... getting to the finish line of Comrades Marathon in under 12 hours!

I'll chronicle my journey of running through the Minnesota winter as I prespare for the 56 miles from Durban to Pietermaritzburg. Just the thought of running under African skies already has me excited, and to be running in the childhood home of my mother will be an even greater thrill.

One of my goals in running for Team World Vision is to find sponsors for 56 kids, one for each mile I run. As soon as I find out who the 56 kids are the I'll be finding sponsors for I'll let you know.

Meanwhile I'll be running a 5k tomorrow morning... gotta start somewhere!

Olympic Mararthoner's Bigger Goal

Olympic marathoner Ryan Hall has a bigger goal for his life than winning races!

Pressing On

So I said it was hot yesterday and it was, but today was worse. It was 93 degrees by the time I stepped outside for my eight miles. It was horribly hot!

When I started running no one ever promised me it would be easy, in fact every one I talked with said it would be challenging and would push me to my limits. I have found this to be true, particularly when I'm in a race or training in the heat like I was over the last couple of days.

I am a runner! I will endure, I will push on, the elements will not stand in my way, heat, cold, wind, rain or snow. Only the very worst of weather will force me indoors and onto the treadmill.

I only wish that the church would communicate truthfully the challenge of living for Christ. So often it feels like a bait and switch scheme... God has a great plan for you... BUT... the plan means dying to your self and living for Christ.

I am a Christ follower! I will push on, the world will not stand in my way, opposition, ridicule or misunderstanding. Only the very worst persecution will force me underground, but I will press on.

Physical and Spiritual Training

Last night was our track work out, its one of the highlights of my week. After the run I was thinking about how hard I'd pushed myself, at times I pushed myself close to the point of exhaustion, at times it was really difficult to keep one leg moving in front of another. Why do I do this and why do I think its fun?

I do it because I actually enjoy it, but I also do it because it's making me a stronger and faster runner. Yes, at almost 40 years of age I still have room for improvement.

There are days when I wonder about the time I spend running the streets, most weeks it amounts to four to four-and-a-half hours. But I do it for a purpose, I run so I can maintain my health, feel good about myself, and to "compete" in races of varying lengths.

Did you know that if you spent less than half the time I spend running reading the Bible each day you could read it cover to cover in a year! Imagine the difference in our relationship with God if we spent equal time in spiritual training as we do in physical training (assuming my readers of this train!). One type of training lasts a lifetime, the other eternity, which one is more important?

The God Who Slows Down To Run With Me!

Last night at our interval workout I ran the first of my sets alongside Alisa Harvey. You may be asking, "Who's Alisa Harvey?" Alisa is the world record holder of the indoor masters mile, and the US record holder for the masters 800 and mile outdoors, 800 and 1500 indoors. Alisa has attained a level of athletic performance that I will never come close to achieving.

So what happened last night? Did I speed up so I could run with the best in the world? Not exactly, Alisa graciously slowed down to allow me to run alongside her (she headed off with some faster runners about half way through our second set). But for a few minutes I was running around the track with the best in world!

There is a another story about the best in the world slowing down to be with us. It is the story of God becoming human in Jesus. It is the story of God walking alongside us, working with us at our pace, gently guiding, encouraging and pushing us to be become more like Christ. A transcendent God, one who is wholly other, would be impossible for humanity to comprehend, or develop an intimate relationship with. So God, who is transcendent, became imminent in the person of Jesus, so humanity could experience redemption, develop an intimate relationship with God and have great hope for the present and the future.

The God who stated that no one could gaze on His face and live, the God of whom Isaiah cried, "I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips... and my eyes have seen the King, the Lord Almighty" is now running alongside us as Jesus says, "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you really knew me you would know my Father as well. From now on, you do know him and have seen him." (John 14:6-7)

Will you acknowledge the presence of Jesus running alongside you today?

Win the Prize

The Olympic Games are just around the corner. In those games the athletes are going to be competing for the ultimate prize, an Olympic gold medal. A few talented athletes will realize that dream and walk away with the prize. For many others they already know that barring a miracle there is no way they will win a medal let alone the gold. So why are they there? Why run if you have little realistic chance of getting through the heats of the 100m. Why run if your you're going to be ten minutes off the pace for the marathon?

Why? They run to compete, they run to represent their country, they run to do the best they can on the day. They run because that's what they do, they run.

I run.

I have a medals to prove that I run. They're not Olympic gold medals, they're not even winners medals. They are competitors finish medals! I've run marathons and I've finished and probably no one except me could care less. The feeling of crossing that finish line after 26.2 miles is one of the greatest feeling in the world.

The apostle Paul reminds us, "that in a race all the runners run, but only one gets the prize." He then urges us to "run in such a way as to get the prize." Do you have to finish first to get the prize? No, you don't, you only have to compete and finish well to win the prize in the race of life.

I run the race of life to represent the kingdom of God, I do the best I can on any given day. I will run and I will finish well. How about you?

Go for your goal in spite of the obstacles

I ran out of the parking lot at church with a plan to run five miles. It would be my usual five when I run from church, down the path through Virginia Run, the first two miles taking me to the stream that I would cross on the stepping stones, half a mile further and then turn around and head back to the church. I've run this path so many times I could do it with my eyes closed.

Unfortunately as I reached the stream I realized that the rain from the night before had caused it to rise and the stepping stones now acted as rapids with torrent of water pouring over the top of them. It was impassable. I was faced with the decision of pushing on toward my goal of five miles of calling it quits with a four mile run. It didn't take much thought before I decided to run my five, so I headed off down a path I had only ever run once before.

About a quarter mile down the path I ran into (not literally) another runner I knew. We ran together for a few miles and talked about the meaning and purpose of life. It was a meeting orchestrated by the Holy Spirit and it provided a great opportunity for this individual to share some of his concerns about life and ask some of the tough questions he had about God and "why bad things happen to good people."

Had I not pushed on to accomplish the goal I had set out with I would have missed this great opportunity. There are times in life when we decide that an obstacle in our path means we should stop and go home. If we have a clear goal, a clear vision, then we must see obstacles not as the end of the road but rather as a call to move in a different direction but to keep moving until we accomplish that goal. If we give up we will miss out on some wonderful opportunities that God sends our way.

The Right Time Is Now: "Carpe Diem"

It was perhaps the first day that really felt like summer, it was hot, it was humid, the dew point was high and it was hard to run! But run I did, just four miles, it took longer to stop sweating than it did to run the miles.

As I was running today I was reminded once again that you can't sit around waiting for ideal conditions to run, if you want to be a runner you have to run in spite of the conditions. Yes, there may be days when you don't run because the conditions are actually hazardous but those times are few and far between.

Hot, cold, rain, sleet, snow, wind we run on because we are runners and that's what we do.

As a pastor I here people all the time tell me they are waiting for the right time to share their faith, the right time to get involved in a particular ministry, the right time for this or the right time for that. The right time may never come, the time we have is the present.

If we wait for the ideal conditions in life to start something new we may never get started and we can be sure that we will miss out on much of the great adventure we know as life. Don't miss your opportunity to seize the moment, carpe deim!

My wife, 25:40, Marine Corps Marathon

The Marine Corps Marathon is still months away but the race is now full. Unless, that is, you decide you want to run with one of the charity partners. That is exactly what my wife, Jenny, has decided to do. Yesterday she signed up to run with team 25:40, an organization dedicated to the AIDS orphans of South Africa and taking its name from Matthew 25:40 which reads, "whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me." (TNIV).

I couldn't be more excited for her, it's been 13 years since her last race over 26.2 miles and it's about time she had a chance to run this distance again. I'm also delighted that she's running, not just for herself but to make a difference in this world of ours.

If you would like to sponsor her you can go to her site and click on the "sponsor Jennifer now" button.

Running for sheer joy, not results

Most of the time I run with my Garmin strapped to my wrist, recording all the vital information for my training. Every once in a while though I like to leave all that behind and just run for the sake of running and that's exactly what I did today.

About eight miles (no Garmin to give me an exact distance) and I've no idea how long it took! It was a damp evening as the ice from the freezing rain had just melted, the air was thick with moisture and it just felt great to be out running.

It seems that we spend so much of our life constantly measuring and evaluating, putting metrics in place to see how we are doing. There's nothing wrong with that but sometimes we need to set these things aside and just enjoy living, pursue activities for sheer joy and not results, of course joy may be the best result we can ever have. Jesus even said that he came to make our joy complete (John 15:11) of course we don't receive the joy of Christ through running but rather through learning to trust and abide in Him, but all the same I really think the world could do with less measurements and greater joy.