Mudshot Eyes

I finished the Country Music Half Marathon yesterday with a personal best time of 2:04:35.  I was one of a ton of people from The Lampo Group who trained and ran, many for the first time, thanks to lots of motivation from our fearless leader, Dave Ramsey, who finished the half in 1:51.

I was running out of my mind for most of the race, but my goal of 2 hours was thwarted by a porta-potty which attacked me at mile 8.  However, I am proud to say that I finished 10 minutes before this Kenyan:

(Unfortunately, I only did 13.1 miles, while he did 26.2.)

Thank you to all of my friends and family who supported me, especially Krista, who ran across the LP Field parking lot (knocking over marathoners who had just completed their race) just to see me at the finish.

Damn, I love that woman.

I began training last week for another half-marathon (last year’s full marathon was special, but I’m going to keep it sane this year). As I laid out my training schedule, I’m trying to carve 20 minutes off of my best time. This will require a level of discipline that I’ve not achieved in my running experience.

I have experienced both extremes of discipline: the lack of it, and the overkill.

If I lack discipline in a particular area, it is usually because I have lost sight of what originally drove me to set a goal. Or worse yet, I may have never actually set my direction in one way or another, trying something out because someone else talked me into it. This usually results in having no routine, no purposeful planning, and no results.

When I am stuck at that point, my only recourse is to revisit the reasons and motives for my aspirations: Is this my dream? Or someone else’s? Do I own this goal? Should I own it? Is it worth what I’m giving?

If I am experiencing a struggle with laziness, or a lack of discipline, I ask these kinds of questions. I can only be passionate about a goal if I have taken ownership of it.

Once I take my pursuit personally, I may work so hard at it that I fall to the other extreme: turning a good ambition into a life-draining obsession.

Again, a prayerful search through the motives and desires of my heart usually will restore balance: Have I tied up my value and worth as a person somehow with this goal? Am I pouring an unbalanced amount of focus into this goal because I’m avoiding some other issues that need my direct attention?

Setting a goal to run a half-marathon is a good thing, as long as it is a part of an higher calling to care for my body as God’s temple. Doing it only because someone else wants me to, or because I can’t feel good about who I am without it, will leave me lacking the motivation and the meaning for my ambition.

In the same sense, a goal to read through the Bible in a year or practice daily prayer is a fine thing, as long as I don’t elevate that goal over its purpose: to know God. Setting goals of any kind is a good thing, if they are tied God’s purposes for my life.

In marathon training and in the journey with Christ, my pursuit must be an expression of what is inside. Otherwise I run aimlessly, disqualifying myself from the reward of the finish (1 Corinthians 9:26).

Here’s to the pursuit…

I’m running the Country Music Marathon tomorrow, so your prayers are appreciated. You could pray specifically for the following:

- That no major body parts stop functioning or fall off (heart, arms, legs, etc.).
- That I will finish before they start letting traffic back onto the roads.
- That I will finish faster than anyone over the age of 65.
- That my iPod works.
In all seriousness, I’m thankful for all the support my family and especially my wife Krista have shown me throughout the training. It’s been time-consuming and has occasionally made me difficult to live with, I’m sure.

For some insight into the joy of running… see these previous posts:

Why I Run - Part 1

Why I Run - Part 2

Why I Run - Part 3

26.2

In the Spring of 2003 I ran 13.1 miles in the Country Music Half Marathon. I vividly remember the moment when the group running the full marathon split off and kept running forward, as I continued down the quarter-mile home stretch. “Those people are nuts,” I thought to myself. “Why would anyone run 26.2 miles? That is insane!”

Then the thought occurred to me that before I started training, 13.1 miles probably seemed a little extreme, too. But I did it… twice. I have also ran in the Rock-n-Roll Half Marathon in Virginia Beach, a terrific race mostly because of the last 2 miles on the boardwalk by the beach (after 13.1 miles of running, there is nothing like falling into the ocean for a refreshing salt bath). When asked if I had ever run a full marathon, I could almost tell them “yes,” since two halves make a whole.

On April 28, 2007, I am running in the Country Music Marathon, my first attempt at achieving the insanity I thought I would never experience. My inspiration to train for this insanity came from two places.

First, the story about Sam Thompson who ran 50 marathons in 50 days in 50 states is tremendous. Sam ran to raise awareness for the hurricane-battered Gulf Coast. It’s hard to believe that Sam can still walk, but he can, and he pulled off this unbelievable feat without any significant injury.

Then I have to point out Bruce Coleman, a coworker of mine. I’m not sure how old he is, but he runs like he is 25. Hovering somewhere in his fifties, Bruce races in triathlons, marathons, and duathons more often than most people go to church. His drive to stay in shape and maintain a high level of excellence athletically has been a strong motivator for me. Bruce was the first person to actually challenge me to do the full marathon in April.

I figure that if one guy can run fifty marathons in fifty states in fifty days and another fifty-something guy can run multiple triathlons and marathons in a year, then I can run in ONE.

The link below is to a site describing Sam Thompson’s quest to run 50 marathon treks in 50 states in 50 consecutive days. My first thought was that his purpose was to cripple himself, but actually it is to raise money and awareness for the needs in the Mississippi Gulf Coast as they continue to recover and rebuild after Hurricane Katrina’s devastation. The area is still reeling, with thousands living in trailers or without decent housing. As a new hurricane season approaches, there is a great need to support the area with our prayers, funds, and skills.

Sam is currently 14 days into his feat, and will conquer his 14th marathon today in Wichita, Kansas. Visit his site here:

http://www.50in50in50.com

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Were there, below, a spot of holy ground
Where from distress a refuge might be found,
And solitude prepare the soul for heaven;
Sure, nature’s God that spot to man had given
Where falls the purple morning far and wide
In flakes of light upon the mountain side;
Where with loud voice the power of water shakes
The leafy wood, or sleeps in quiet lakes.
- From William Wordsworth, “Descriptive Sketches”

The most important reason that I continue to run is that I am overwhelmed on a regular basis by what I see when I am outdoors. When moving at a runner’s pace, creation takes precedence in my senses. I notice everything: the crisp smell of the early morning air, the hard angle of the morning sun, the dew still dripping from the leaves, and the anticipation that seems inherent in every little thing.

Most of us are accustomed to moving through God’s creation without noticing it. At 70 MPH, trees become a blur instead of a wonder. The sound of a bird’s sonata or the rythmic chirp of the crickets is impossible to hear when we are locked in the car with the windows up. Eventually, it becomes easy to forget that we are living in a world not of our own making!

So I run to get in touch with creation because it was made to help me see the Creator.

One late afternoon during an especially long run, I was chased by a huge horsefly that was convinced I was a threat. It came at me aggressively three or four times before I realized that I was going to have to run extremely fast before I would escape, swatting like a madman the entire way. I was on mile six of an eight mile run, so I had very little energy left for a sprint. However, my panic provided the necessary adrenaline for an eventual escape.

This episode with the horsefly was a reminder to me that I don’t control creation. I’m a part of a sometimes chaotic eco-system that doesn’t account for my distain for horseflies. As I run outdoors, it becomes clear again that I am part of something bigger than myself. Every sound and every sight tells me that God’s “invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made.”*

*Romans 1:20

“It hurts up to a point and then it doesn’t get any worse.” - Ann Trason

Some people dread their birthdays, but every year it happens no matter how fervently we deny the thoughts of our mortality. That fateful day comes when a person suddenly has a “4” in the first digit of their age, and there is nothing that they can do about it. So we gradually accept the pain of tired joints and the increased health problems (mostly due to our poor lifestyle choices).

Maybe it’s because I never realized that stiff knees came along with age, but I’ve always looked forward to getting older. I’m glad to be turning 35 next week. I have three decades of good and bad experience from which to draw wisdom and insight.

Unfortunately, my body doesn’t know this.

My body is drawn to the grave like a magnet, with an increasing desire to sit or lay down and be still. As time passes, I feel the growing urge to be stationary and relax my forward progression.

So I run.

On days when I can’t seem to enjoy the run, when every fiber of muscle and every joint seems to demand that I should have stayed in bed, I run to stay alive. I run to fight the grave’s power over my living days. I run for the movement of it. I want to feel the blood pumping through my veins and to know the pain of becoming stronger, even as I grow older.

On the day I die, the grave will have its say. But not yet. So I keep running skyward until I return to dust, awaiting resurrection.

I am starting a series of entries titled “Why I Run”, which will go into the joy of running, and why I continue to pound the pavement 3 times a week or more. It will be sporadic or consistent, depending on what other topics I want to cover in between.
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My love for running began in my junior year of high school. I must credit my step-father, Don, for encouraging me in it. I remember him telling me that my mile run in 5:35 made me worthy of being part of the track team at my high school, but I never went for tryouts. I enjoyed the isolation that running provided, and determined that I would keep it to myself. However, his encouragement gave me the confidence I needed to keep tying up my running shoes a few times a week searching for wind to refresh and space to think.

Running became permanently etched in my psyche the first time I ever ran for more than an hour. We lived on a fairly large property in Largo, Florida, which contained the church where my step-father was the pastor and the parsonage where we lived. I set out to run laps around the property one evening and after 60 minutes I still had no inclination to stop, so I kept on. After about 8 miles, I was overcome with a feeling of invincibility and endurance, also known as “runner’s high”. I was hooked. I had to stop because it was time for dinner, but I felt as if I could have run all night.

From the very first miles I ran, there was always renewal that took place inside. More than a release of natural chemicals, there was a recovery of the belief that I was becoming more alive every day. Our bodies decay because we are “frail creatures of dust”, but every mile I run is a proving ground where I demonstrate that Holy Spirit within me is pouring abundance of life into these bones of dust. Sometimes during a run I’m feeling the effects of poor food choices the day before or a lack of proper sleep. On those days the proving ground is more like a torture chamber, but with each step I make a decision that I would rather feel alive and sore, than dead and comfortable.