The 365 Commitment

The Long Run – 114 Days Left

So today is the “long run” part of my marathon preparation. Getting up in the morning, when even my dogs are sleeping in, is always an interesting exercise. I find myself plodding around the house, seemingly inventing reasons why I need to avoid the inevitable opening of the front door that starts the run. The coaching I am receiving has been insidiously increasing my weekly running miles, and today concealed the fact that I would be running a long way. He did that by hiding my run distance in a sequence of time goals. Today was two 90 minute run periods. So I finally told myself to stop wasting time and get out the front door.

And with that I ran. I decided not to have a destination this time, I would just run as far as I could in the time allotted and see where I ended up. The journey this morning was filled with interesting twists and turns, blocked path, at least one dead end, some dangerous ground and several stretches of slow uphill climbs that both exhausted me and testing my mental resolve to keep going. As I just kept pushing myself forward, I eventually made my way to a State Park and started running through the grounds. Beautiful trees, nice little dirt paths and breath taking views. Several hot air balloons hovered above me and a slow gray mist settled upon the valley.

Then it started to rain and the temperature dropped and one of my toe’s started to hurt. My moment of paradise turned into a freezing cold mud pit with only one way but back out up the hill I came down. So I pushed on, shortened my stride, established my rhythm again, took a swig of electrolyte enhanced water, firmed up my posture and pushed forward on my way back the way I came. As my journey completed and I waited on the side of the road for my wife to pick me up after my run was finished I contemplated how my 3 hour run experience this morning resembled the journey of life that I have experienced.

I realized why then why daily commitments that stretch your ability, are valuable because buried in the small trials that you have along the way is a general life lesson. Each day when you dig deep within your soul and do it anyway, you receive another lesson. So I did today, as I ran through hills, valleys, roads, and trails I was listening carefully as nature presented me an awesome slideshow, as my thoughts settled upon only the most valuable insights I could start to see what I was supposed to understand.

So as the stresses of the week slowly melted off me, I felt a sense of relief. That is up until the point I stopped running, sat down a few moments and then tried to get back up again. Oh man, my right leg hurt something fierce.

Guy Reams (399)
365 Alumni
114 Days Left to 1st Marathon

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