Life

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NEVER QUIT

Running has taught me a lot about life.

I was getting ready to head out for my long run Sunday and not looking forward to it.  It was 5:15 and I was getting my water and GU together to put in my mailbox for my refill on my 4 mile loop.

I looked at twitter and saw something that stuck with me the entire run.  At the time, I read it and moved on.  I thought it was insightful, but I didn’t retweet or favor it.  I wish I had.  I looked again and couldn’t find it.

So here is the gist of that tweet that I pondered during my run and that helped me go 20 miles:

You’ve gotten this far
You’ve suffered this long
Don’t quit
Finish the course

As I said, I passed over this tweet, but I still cannot let it go.  Funny how things like this stick in your head and you don’t realize the implications until you are in that situation and it pops up before your eyes!

My run on Sunday was the most difficult physical experience of my life.  I am not athletic.  I wanted to quit.  I wanted to give up.

  • At mile 10 I was thinking, “Maybe I should just tell TJ that I am going to run the marathon and then at the last minute not run it so that he will enjoy the race and I wont spoil it for him.”
  • At mile 12 I thought, “If I feel this way after 12 miles, how can I do 26 in 4 weeks.”
  • At mile 16 I thought, “I got this far, I have to do 20.”
  • At mile 18 I thought, “I don’t care if I have to crawl, I WILL MAKE 20 MILES!”
  • At mile 20, walking in the early morning heat, exhausted, literally soaked from my hat to my shoes, I wanted to cry.

I made it.  Never in my life did I think I would one day make my body travel 20 miles on foot.  It wasn’t pretty.  I walked the last two miles, but I made it.

I want to end this post the way I started it.  Running has taught me a lot about life.  Life isn’t easy.  In fact, many days (before I started running) I lived my life at mile 12…  “Maybe I should quit.”  “This is too hard.”  “How am I going to get through the day?”

Now, I live my life at mile 18, “If I have to, I will crawl though this life to finish this race!”

Lesson learned.  By the grace of God I will run this race, I will finish 26 miles, I will run or crawl, but I will finish.

Obviously that last sentence has a duel meaning to me now.

Running has taught me a lot about life.

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Running is cheaper than therapy (part II)

Yesterday was not a fun day.

Work was piling up.  My family has been sick.  It seemed all the world wanted something from me.

I love my work, but somedays are frustrating.  I thought of running after I got home, even though it was my off day.  Then my son was sick, so I took him to the doctor and didn’t get home until 4:00.  By then I was not in a good mood, even tough my lovely wife tried to cheer me up.

So I ran.  It was only 3 miles since it was my off day, but I ran an 8:09 pace which is good for me.

I wrote a post a while back about a bumper sticker that I saw that said, “Running is cheaper than therapy”.  Really, to be totally honest, running has become therapy to me.  Yes, I want to run races and to do well in them.  Yes, I want to run a marathon as my dad did in his 70’s.  But I realize that running helps me deal with life.  It helps me at work to be more efficient and productive.  It helps me at home to be less frustrated at normal circumstances.  It just helps.

Here is an article that says that running increases dopamine.

Health newstand says this about dopamine:

Dopamine is widespread in the brain as well as the rest of the nervous system. This neurotransmitter plays a critical role in the control of movement. It has a stimulating effect on the heart, the circulation, the rate of metabolism, and is able to mobilize many of the body’s energy reserves. It helps to modulate brain activity, control coordination and movement, and regulate the flow of information to different areas of the brain.  Dopamine is believed to release chemicals that allow us to feel pleasure (e.g., endorphins).

I’m not sure why I went in this direction with this post.  I guess I realize that my days are better when I run.  Is it chemical (dopamine, endorphins) or just the fact I am finally getting in shape and feel better about myself?  I don’t know.

This is what I do know…

I love running.

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Why I run

I have a couple of reasons that I run.

To begin with, I always regretted not running with my Father and siblings back in the 80s and 90s. My dad began running around age 55 and ran upward of 15 marathons before he stopped around age 74. He eventually passed away due to lung cancer. My late sister and my brothers also ran and all ran marathons with him. I was in college when he started and then ended up 800 miles away raising my family later on. Well here I am now dad, 50 years old and running my first half marathon. Here I am now KT. You always encouraged me to at least get on a treadmill once a day as you saw me gaining weight and getting sick more often. Here I am. I run because of you. I wish you both were here to see.

Secondly, I run because it is the one competition I can enter that has a level playing field. Sure there are those like TJ that are naturals. But for the most part, I know that if I run 6 times a week and slowly increase my mileage, one day I can be good, at least for my age. I am not an athlete and never was. I was the last to be picked for teams when I was a kid. Really, sports didn’t interest me much. Now at 50, I run. I’ve run almost a thousand miles in the past 10 months and am one of the 10% of runners that get through the year without getting hurt. Each run I pray for God to keep me from getting hurt. He knows I have to run and why I am running.

Running, as I said, makes a level playing field. Thus I started running 10 months ago and this month came in 22nd out of 690 in my last 5K. I didn’t come in 22nd and 3rd in my age group because I am a natural. I did so because I run 6 days a week whether it is hot, cold, raining or snowing.

I cannot make an excuse.

I just run.

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“I like pizza”

You might think running can get boring… and sometimes it does. But if you look for the little things in the journey, it can really make it interesting.

Yesterday, TJ and I were out together on our run. I went 5 miles and he continued on for 3 more. About half way through we came across a few neighborhood kids sitting near the road. I’ve seen them before on other runs, but I don’t know them. Anyway, as we ran past, this approx. 6 year old girl look up at me and simply said, “I like pizza”. I replied, “I like it too!”

How random was that?

Life can seem random and running can seem like a long boring journey, but it is the random things that happen that can make your day. I thought about that random comment the rest of the run. I am trying to notice more things and enjoy those little random things that happen. It makes a “boring” run, much more tolerable. For that matter, it can make a difficult life more tolerable. How many random things do I miss during the day? They don’t seem to mean much, but who knows what it can add to my day?

I bet that little girl had no idea that random thought she expressed to me would make me think all day and then become a post on a blog.

I’m about to go out running. I’ll try to pay a little closer attention to the journey.