In my early 30’s I
got on a kick of running marathons. I trained for 5 and finished 3. Someone once wrote that “runners are the
fittest group of sick and injured people in the world.” I agree.
Why someone would put themself through the sort of agony that distance
running is…well, that is a good question.
But all the pain aside, running has its benefits. One thing that most
runners realize is that running is a lot like life. The way you approach running is almost always
the way you live life. Physical giftedness
aside, some runners run in order to run away from life. Others run simply for the joy of being out
there. Running always brings pain with
it. How a runner deals with that pain is
usually how they deal with pain in life.
Some runner’s such as myself will run with their injuries and run with
their injuries and run with their injuries until they are forced to find
another form of exercise and outlet for life’s angsts. Other’s deal healthily with the pain, and
rest and heal and run for life.
Another interesting
component of running is what runners think about, or rather how they occupy
their minds while out on these long runs that can become painful ordeals. I always distracted myself with the time and math
involved with pace. If I run at this
pace, how long will it take me to finish?
I would convert pace from kilometers to miles per hour. Often and almost always during Lent I would
try to meditate on a scripture while I ran.
I memorized the Sermon on the Mount years ago doing this. Regardless, my spiritual discipline would
always soon give way to time and math.
Sometimes, one reaches that blessed state of not thinking about much of
anything and just listening to the sound of your own footsteps.
Moving on, runners
suffer from some peculiar mental and emotional quirks and I would like to share
with you one I fell into one summer while training for the ’97 Marine Corps
Marathon. I call it the “Camel
Complex.” It’s water related. It’s where you believe that you can run for
miles and miles and miles and miles and miles on just that big gulp of water
you took before the run. The camel
complex has an unfortunate consequence in that your runs often come to a
premature loopy feeling end as your body begins to shut down for lack of
water. Runners need to drink every 20
minutes or they will begin to dehydrate.
On runs under an hour this really doesn’t matter, but on long runs
lasting a couple of hours it can kill you, literally.
In training for a
marathon you have to take one long run a week and make those runs progressively
longer until you hit marathon distance.
Well, where I lived in West Virginia there were no conveniently placed man-made
water fountains and I didn’t like to carry water. I trained on the Greenbrier River Trail,
which is a rails-to-trails project that follows along the Greenbrier River for
80 some absolutely beautiful miles.
Well, with there being no water spots and only some “questionable” river
water along the way. I began to think
that I was a camel. I would gulp down a
lot of water before the long run hoping it would last. Well, it came time for the twenty-mile long
run. The problem of attaining water did
cross my mind. I’m not reckless. I knew I would need it. But, I thought that I would be all right to
the fifteen-mile point in Buckeye. I had
been fifteen miles without water before, no problem. Well that day was a little warmer than most
and I added some hills to the course. I
gulped up a lot of water and took off on the trail. I got to the nine-mile point feeling great…great…,
but then I got into the hills and the heat and…the camel lost his hump. I started to get a little scattered in my
thinking. Lost energy bad. Began to feel like I couldn’t go on, even walking. 8 miles from home, well into dehydration…that’s
serious trouble. Eventually, the road
took a turn back towards the river and down to that living water of the
Greenbrier River praying it wasn’t too lively and I drank and drank and drank,
but it was too late for it to do me any good on that run. I puttered on for two more miles into
Buckeye, thieving from every apple tree in sight, until I arrived at the post
office and borrowed a car. It was a good thing I lived out in the country in
West Virginia where people are still human and knew me. I’d have been in some real trouble a little
closer into civilization. The really sad
part of this whole “Camel Complex” thing was that for the first nine miles of
the run that river, flowing with living water, was right there beside. I just didn’t want to drink river water.
One thing that kind
of amazes me about the human body in physical exertion whether its working
outside or exercising is that when we feel thirsty it is too late for the water
that we gulp, gulp, gulp, to do us any good.
It takes a while for water to be absorbed. For water to do us good we must drink it frequently
in small quantities so that it can be absorbed into our system and continually
do us some good.
The amazing thing to
me is that our bodies won’t tell us we need water until it is too late. We are often not aware of our need for water
until it is too late. I bet you that
almost all of us here right now do not have nearly the water in our systems that
the body needs to maintain health. I bet
you nearly every one of us sitting here right now is near being dehydrated and
unaware of it. In fact, we’ve grown
accustomed to the feel of a water-depleted body and that’s what we call normal.
I think there is
something here that will help us understand our walk in Christ. The Christian life for it is a marathon event
not a sprint and like athletes we need water.
We have a thirst for God that is always in us, a thirst which too often
we are not aware of until we find ourselves in the midst of a dire personal
crisis and we realize that we lack the depth of personal resources to endure
it. We are thirsty people. We thirst for God. If we know this we do well to go and drink of
the living water of praying often and meditating and pondering on the
Scripture’s, or of just sitting back and enjoying with gratitude God’s presence
with us and all the good gifts that God has placed in our lives; our families,
our church, our friends, our jobs, our lack of want. Drinking this water as often as we can will
change us, make us into people who reflect the image of Jesus Christ - kind,
compassionate, forgiving, and generous people.
It will make us people through whom the gracious ministry of Jesus
Christ in us by the presence of the Holy Spirit radiates out to others. It really will. We’ll find that daily drinking of the living
water of Christ's presence in prayer will give us the assurance of faith and
hope that no matter what, we’ll be all right.
Well, I could go on here but I think
I have made the case that we are God-thirsty people and it’s the type of thirst
that can only be quenched by living daily with and for Christ Jesus. The really ironic thing about that long run
that really pokes me in the side to wake me up is: the river was right there
beside me the entire first nine miles of that run, right there beside me, and I
would not drink of it for fear, for pride, for laziness and I wouldn’t walk
down the bank to take a drink until it was too late. The river with its life giving water was
there. God is here. He’s always right
beside us, every step of the way, offering the living water of his presence to
each of us all we have to do is put aside our fears, our worries, our busyness,
and drink. Amen.
