Run Your Race…

I like the idea of using the act of running as a metaphor for life. I used to run 10k’s with my dad in Jr high…

Road Race 1981 – Ran with my dad

I ran track and cross country in high school and have run various road races from 5ks up to half marathons in my adult years. Don’t go thinkin that this means I am a great runner because speed has never been a big part of the equation for me. Obviously some races/seasons have been better than others but overall I’m just a girl who likes to run because I can and because it helps me gain perspective on life.

I have had very dedicated seasons of running like when I trained for my half marathon last May and yet other times when I have set my running shoes aside for a year or more. No matter how long it has been and no matter how busy things are the run always beckons. It waits for me to come back and to acknowlege that on the road is the one place that I feel most alive, empowered, courageous and strong. When I logged all those miles after breast cancer treatment every single step I took was taking me away from sickness and back to health. Every single week that I added one more mile to my long run, I cried.

The Half … May 1, 2016

Running doesn’t come easily for me. It’s a struggle. I have spent most of my adult running life trying to get my calf muscles to relax and to then not become shin splints or stress fractures. I was thrilled when I discovered compression socks. These socks do however begin to make me tip the scale a bit from cute to dorky but I’m going with it because they make my calves not hurt. Two weeks after my 1/2 Marathon I had the second half of my mastectomy. (My cancer was hard to detect the first go around so Mr. Wonderful and I decided that it was best to remove the other one rather than risk walking this road again.) The surgery was last June and we are now in November. I had a few bumps in the road while recovering and although I have been doing a bit of running it has mostly been walk/jogs. I logged my 1st 3 miles of straight running the other day and I was thrilled and bummed at the same time. Thrilled because I ran 3 miles, bummed because it hurt way more than I thought it would.

The good thing is that now I know that I can run three which means that I am going to coerce my 11 year old son to run a turkey trot with me on Thanksgiving day. I have my final reconstruction surgery in December and then 6 weeks of recovery. Mid January I hope to be back to walk/jogging and I have set my sights on the Portland Marathon for next October. A marathon has always been a dream of mine and I figure that now is a good a time as any. It is going to be brutal but so is life and the running will help me to face all of the things that this life brings.

I was asked this week to come up with a verse in the bible that calms my fears and gives me hope, this is what I chose…

Therefore since we are surrounded by such a huge crowd of witnesses to the life of faith, let us strip off every weight that slows us down, especially the sin that so easily trips us up. And let us run with endurance the race that God has set before us. Hebrews 12:1

Knowing that there are so many people watching, how do you want to be percieved? Are you the same you in every situation or do you clean things up a bit depending on the crowd you are with. Me? I can honestly say that I am not always the virtuous person that I would like to be. I like to laugh and at times I push the envelope a bit to get the crowd to laugh with me. It’s not very mature or Godly but I do recognize it as one of the weights that slows me down as I strive to finish strong.

I don’t have all of this figured out but I know that I am going to keep running literally and figuratively so that with every single step I become more of the woman God created me to be.

Have A Great Day My Friends!