A Sore Heart

What do heels and hills have in common? Both can be steep? No seriously they are both in the name of the half marathon I will be participating in May in Texas. Yes it is geared for women, but men are welcome to join, and no I do not have to run in heels (I don’t think anyone does thankfully). So I am training for this my first long run, besides the Terry Fox run one year where I turned too soon and skipped one kilometre, there by beating Darrel Heuther and Sam Asante, but not really since I did 9 instead of 10 km, oh well. Anyway this race whose route I will follow very closely, should be a good one 20 km or 13 miles of brutal, muscle wrenching exertion and endurance, okay it is not an ironman, but let me tell you it’s no walk in the park (it might be a run in the park, but you get the point), and my feet, legs, and back are here to testify of such. I am getting out of shape, that’s the problem. I walked miles in Africa, but my cardio was not pushed too much. In high school I could run a mile and half in 9 and a half minutes but that was when I was racing Danny McCreery and Tyler Ferguson (who always won, I did beat Danny once though I think). And now my time is not there, but the difference is distance too, I am doing a long race, so pacing myself is important, if I put in the time of those Mr. Schafer muscle crunching mile and a halfers I might not make it the whole 13 miles. So that’s okay, what is hurting is my heart, at times. Last week I missed running on Friday and ran a little on Saturday night, so basically the last time I ran was almost a week ago when I picked it up today, and yesterday I flew all day back from Andrews, so was on me bottom for a while! So there’s my excuses, and thus I walked a lot of the 5 mile quota today. It reminded though of how easy I get out of the pattern, out of stamina. I jogged 7 miles last week with minor difficulty and couldn’t do 2 today without stopping, just one week lapse and so many steps back in progress. How about my spiritual life? Doesn’t take a day or two to relapse! Keep my spiritual life strong, how important it is! By God’s grace, He’ll keep me on track, in step, and growing everyday.