Why do we Run?

Last night I got a little ping on my iPad, a new issue of Runners World was at my finger tips, and let me tell you, that harmless little ping started a chain of event that shook me to the core.

I have only gotten a couple of issues and I read them with the mindset that i was not a serious runner, or even a runner at all I was just doing something healthy and setting attainable goals.  Well guess what... I have attained my goals.  I have I have five 5K races under my belt, one 5 miler, and one 10K and I am a mere week and a half away from my first 1/2 marathon.  As much as I hate to admit it, I AM a runner.  But when reading all sorts of running jargon and diets and intimidating times, I realized I'm a bad runner.  I don't follow a strictly healthy diet, I don't run for 10 miles straight without walking a bit, 30 minutes is my max time running without stopping and I have only done that about 3 times since April! This morning I made scrambled eggs with one whole egg and one only egg white, a runner would have only used whites.  But just the sight of that fatty, beautiful, golden egg yolk slipping down the drain to the garbage disposal was almost enough for me to say screw it! I'll be fat and happy!  But the truth is, running makes me happy.  Even with all of the fears of injury, coming in last, never being able to commit 100% to the diet and training I will continue because at the end of the day it just makes me feel good.  Plain and simple knowing I can run even a 5K should be enough, I can't compare myself to professional runners, I have to compare myself to me.

A year ago I resolved to be a better me, this year is my year of no regrets.  I have made poor decisions in the past, I don't know any one who hasn't.  There was an amazing christian girl who is a Cheerleader at University of Georgia on GMA this morning and she gave up a $75,000 athletic modeling contract because she wasn't will to take legal steroids.  Though they were legal, she was gonna do what was best for her body and best for her relationship with God.  I know I am what some may call a "Sunday Christian" I go to church and I worship my God in the way that is most fit for me, but running has in fact brought me closer to God.  It give me an outlet, a well needed time for prayer.  In the movie Bride Wars with Kate Hudson and Anne Hathaway, Anne's character won't let Kate's run with music, because people who do so don't have any thoughts of their own.  I won't so that far, I like a good tune in my head while I'm running otherwise, I get bored, I get to hear the thoughts in my head plenty without designating a time during my run.  But I will opt for only instrumental and use that time to think and pray over the trials I am facing in my life, and honestly its the best therapy I could ask for.  It's hard to imagine that exactly one year ago I thought I had it all.  A complete family, and boyfriend I loved, yoga twice a week, I was actually passing Statistics on my first try, I was planning a trip to Italy and other than my 79 year old grandfather having heart trouble they were willing to do a quintuple bypass and a valve replacement to fix it! On year later I have had to say goodbye to my wonderful  Grandad, Italy seems a million years ago, my boyfriend cheated, my Papa has stage IV colon cancer and I watch him get weaker and more bitter every day and I am forcing myself to try to write a thesis I don't even care about.  But on the plus side I have realized the amazing comfort to be found in the best friends I would have never know to ask for, I have learned to push myself physically in a way that I never cared to do in all of my 26 years on God's green earth, and I have accomplished more personal triumphs than I think I ever had before in the span of a  year.  I mean heck I lived in the carb capitol of the world for 2 months and actually managed to loose 20 pounds!

All this is not meant to evoke pity or to toot my own horn, I woke with the need to have a mental brain drain so that I might actually be able to focus on repairing all the red on the first draft of my survey! This past Sunday there was a scripture read that I would like to include on my post today.  No pretty pictures and now fluff on my post today, just some of the truths in my heart that I need to let go of now and then in order to keep my sanity.

1Corinthians 9:24-27

           Do you not know that in a race the runners all compete, but only one receives the prize?
           Run in such a way that you may win it.  Athletes exercise self-control in all things; they
           do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we do it to receive an imperishable one.  So I
           do not run aimlessly, nor do I box as though beating the air; but I punish my body and
           enslave it, so that after proclaiming to others, I myself should not be disqualified.


I like to think I am competing with only me.  I am on a path that I blindly follow, trusting in good faith that it will lead me where I deserve to go.