Sunday, October 2, 2011

quarter mile repeats x16

Commitment= running your scheduled 4 mile run on the quarter mile stretch of road in front of your house. That’s a lot of repeats, lets just say. You may call it insane; I call it commitment. It certainly wasn’t my ideal running route that’s for sure, but when your child care gets tricky, you do what you’ve got to do to get it done. And then you thank your training schedule for not assigning that day an 11 mile run!

018

While the neighbors wondered about my mental health as I ran back and forth, back and forth, back and forth; I got thinking about excuses versus obstacles. Over the years I have run through some crazy stuff….fevers/flu, rain and lightening storms, hurricanes, killer heat waves, pushing a baby (or two, or three) in joggers for 18 miles, etc. and while some of these things were probably not deemed “a good idea” by most everyone else, I got through them. barely. But the point is this: we can let something be an excuse or we can see it as an obstacle that only needs to be overcome. The choice is ours and the difference is a matter of our commitment, or lack there of. While I certainly don’t recommend running 10 miles with a 101 fever (I may or may not have done so this past week); there are times when we must change our plans and yet the difference is we “reschedule” not “cancel” the run.

I frequently have people ask me about how I manage all this. And the truth is, I probably don’t always manage it all very well. But I know one thing for sure…..I manage life better when I’m consistently running! I don’t always have to be training for a race, but I need to run. It is the place that God restores my confidence. It is the place where the mental fog lifts. And it is often the one and only thing I can count on to get me out of a funk! I know that for me the magic of running is found in my commitment to running.

021

As I finished the 4 miles yesterday and turned back to look at the road one more time, I felt better about some words that have stung….that maybe I have a “commitment-phobia”.

I smirked and thought….um no, I believe I’m good with my ability to commit to something, if that quarter mile block has anything to say about it.

If I have anything I have a “wrong one-phobia”. just sayin’.

*wink*

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