On Friday, March 21, 2003 the UPS man delivered a package from Amazon.com with two copies of “The Non-Runners Marathon Trainer”. That date was the second day of spring, the first entry in my running journal, and the first time I prayed “Lord, please bless us in this desire. Let us successfully train, successfully complete our goal.” (Goals - something I’m neither good at setting...nor keeping.) “Let us see it through to a smashing and joyous and jubilant cross over the finish line!”
jv16 power licenceThis time last year I was miserable in my job, desperately missing my friends, my family and my ruts back in Texas, and heartsick over my flabby, ever-expanding body. There's a Garfield comic pasted in my running journal that perfectly describes my mindset at the time; Garfield, flat on his back, said "I'm tired of just lying here...Carry me someplace else."
Not so long ago I’d weighed a mere 135 lbs. Then Charlie and I got back together so I ate more regularly. I became a grandmother. And out of sheer vanity I quit smoking - I didn’t want anyone to actually SEE me with a cigarette in my mouth and I certainly didn’t want to look like some of the women at work that weren’t much older than me but looked decades older. So over the next 5-6 years the flab returned... with a vengeance.
At that point Kathy Davis and I knew each other casually, mostly through a mutual friend. One Saturday night I joined her for a special event during Shelby Trusley’s Emmaus walk. I love to ask people questions and hear about their lives. It was during one of those get-to-know-you sessions that Kathy’s mouth opened and I knew it was a message from God. “Someday I’d like to run a half marathon.” Now, don’t ask me how it went from a half marathon (13 miles) to a full marathon (26.2 miles) but I instantaneously knew this was an answer to prayer.
We tried to recruit other women on this incredibly lofty goal. Typical responses were “You’re kidding, right?” or “I could never do that” or “Why would anyone want to run 26 miles???" Jean Carpenter was the only taker, and even she thought we were on Crack.
For three months we ran 3 miles 4 times a week, doing it together as often as we could. Jean and Kathy are blessed with athletic ability and experience. I, alas, have been a wimp and a wannabe since childhood. On our first ‘run’ I got winded after 1/4 mile. I couldn’t breathe, I felt like I was running with two lead pipes for legs, and I was very, very disappointed that working towards a goal God Himself had given me was SO HARD. This was to be the reigning theme throughout my training.
At the early (4:30am!) women's study this morning, Kathy, Jean and I talked about our marathon experience using the 12 spiritual disciplines in Richard Foster's book "Scriptural Classics". We each focused on the 4 disciplines that applied the strongest to our marathon experience (whether we thought so or it was under the ‘encouragement’ of the other two). My disciplines were Meditation, Study, Simplicity and Service.
Meditation was the discipline we kicked off this study with in mid-January. Thankfully our marathon training book gave us things to meditate on each week.
“For everything I do starts and ends with Him. Thank you, God!” - this was part of the introduction to our training book.
“Begin slowly and progress at a moderate rate”
“Follow the training program. Don’t let self-doubt get in the way.”
“Just focus on what you have to do TODAY.”