I am right now 6 weeks away from running my first marathon. As the training runs get longer and longer (16 miles just yesterday) I have been getting a lot of questions about why anyone would want to put there body through such a challenge. So here is my reflection on why I am training to do what seems impossible.
It all started this past New Years. I wanted to make a New Year's resolution that was spiritual because my relationship with God is really all that matters. I was praying about themes in my spiritual journey and the one thing that kept coming up were the words of Saint Paul, "I have finished the race, I have kept the faith" (2 Tim 4:7). I often feel like my journey with God is one of perseverance. He is often asking me to just keep going even when I don't understand or trust. He asks me to keep my eye on the finish line and never stop moving towards it. I decided I wanted a New Year's resolution that would help me meditate on that idea. Knowing that we are body and soul I wanted both to be involved. So I decided that my New Year's resolution would be to run a half marathon. I chose to train for the OC half marathon and make every run a prayer. Every time on a run when I was tempted to stop I would think about my finish line and keep going. I would often think of Our Lord who kept moving all the way to the cross. At times I would repeat these words of Saint Paul over and over again while I ran.
On May 1st I completed the OC half marathon. I was excited to have accomplished my goal BUT if you know me you know that I don't allow myself to do anything half way. I push myself to the limit and demand the best of myself, especially when it comes to the spiritual life. For me being good is never enough, I want to be a saint! Naturally for me anything with the word half in front of it is not enough. So when my good friends Olivia and Chelsea asked if I wanted to train and run a full marathon with them I knew I had to do it!
Training for a full marathon is like nothing I could have ever prepared myself for. Training for the half marathon was actually not all that bad and I believe most anyone is good health can do it. Training for a full marathon though requires a lot of mental commitment. I mentioned that I want to be a Saint right? My training runs for the marathon have given me the opportunity to meditate on what that really means. The Saints endured incredible obstacles and embraced a lot of pain to become truly sanctified. So many times during my training I have thought I wasn't strong enough and was tempted to change my registration to run another half marathon in October instead of the full marathon. I have endured serious knee pain, the loss two toenail (so far), and felt the strain on my body in general. I have had to say no to many other fun activities because I had a strict schedule of runs that I had to follow. When I am tempted to quit though I think of the Saints and how much they must have been tempted to quit and accept just being good instead of extreme lovers of the Lord. I haven't given up yet and with every run I feel myself getting stronger and closer to my goal.
On October 16th I will run 26.2 (don't ever forget the .2) miles and with every step I will ask the Lord through my body to strengthen and sanctify my spirit so that one day along with Saint Paul I will be able to say "I have finished the race, I have kept the faith."
Disclaimer: I will agree that extreme sports like distance running can be dangerous for the body. I just believe that the pay off is greater than the risk.
