Wow, it’s been a long time since I posted here.   My other blog has siphoned off some of my creative energy, but there is at least one other significant reason. 

When I started blogging a few years back, it was with the intention of writing about my experiences in endurance sports and outdoor activities, but my fitness efforts have been off the rails for months.  In January I had surgery on my foot to remove a cyst that had been causing a lot of pain.  I was on crutches for weeks, and then prohibited from running for weeks more.  By the time my recuperation ended I had gotten out of some good habits. 

A couple of days before my surgery I ran a 4.8 mile loop near my house, my standard run.  Nothing special about the run.  I ran it in 39:09, which works out to about an 8 minute mile.  That was about a minute slower than my normal run, but I wasn’t trying to push it.  I just wanted a benchmark to work toward once I came off the surgery.  Four months later, I haven’t come near it.

Though my foot is still a little stiff and may never feel quite the same, I can’t blame my run times on the injury.  Truth is, getting knocked off my feet just completed a trend I’d been on for months.  I grew less and less interested in fitness until I finally had an excuse to quit altogether.  But then my waistline grew, small tasks started to require effort, and lethargy migrated from my legs into my brain.  Finally, my bathroom scale registered a number I swore I’d never see again and I re-committed to getting fit.

It’s been surprisingly difficult to re-establish good habits.  5:00 a.m., once normal, now seems ridiculously early.  And if I don’t get up at 5:00, my run probably isn’t going to happen.  Once I do get up and on the road, my legs lack the spring they had a few months back.  I labor up the big hill, and use the downhill side as an opportunity to rest instead of accelerate.   A voice whispers in my ear – “you’re too old to get faster.”  The voice, because it comes from my irrationally pessimistic mind, then extrapolates to the rest of my life – “the best part is over, there’s just getting old now.”  “There’s nothing new to look forward to.”  “You reached your professional apex two years ago.”   I hate that voice.

That last 39 minute run was surely God orchestrated.  I’ve been thinking a lot of these sort of unhealthy thoughts since I turned 40 a few months ago, and my mind often wanders back to 39.    Try as I might in run after run since that surgery, my stopwatch registers 40 or higher every time.  Try as I might, I’ll never see 39 again.  I may ultimately get my run time back below 40,  in fact I’m planning on it.  But I will never turn back the calendar.  I need to deal with that.

A few days ago I went on another sort of run.  I drove the family to a park near our house that runs along the Chattahoochee River.  My wife and three of the kids brought their bikes, and I pushed our four-year-old in a jogging stroller.  I used my stopwatch to measure how long I ran, but I had no idea how far we went so I couldn’t really measure the pace.  As I struggled to keep up, I watched my growing kids and beautiful wife pedaling ahead of me, marveling at God’s abundant blessings in my life.   For once, I was chasing worthy things.

As I pushed Grace Anne’s stroller into the parking lot, I looked at my watch and smiled – it was a 40 minute run (I’m not making any of this up).  I suppose you reach a point in life where your pace is less important than the fact that you keep moving in the right direction.  I don’t need to speed up as much as I need to re-orient.  I need to order my life so that I am pursuing worthy and enduring things.

Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance.  Hebrews 12:1

Postcript:  I ran the route this morning in 38:54.  It felt good.

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