A New Road

I used to be a runner. A marathoner. Running—in addition to being enjoyable exercise—was a metaphor for life. Now I’m a cyclist. And just as I saw deeper meaning in the act of running, so too in the transition to cycling.

Life means change.

We grow; we age. We’re healthy; we’re sick. Things work; things break. We hope; we hurt. We love; we hate. Chapters start; chapters end. We learn; we languish. Circumstances smile; circumstances stink. We’re joyful; we’re sorrowful. We’re born; we die. 

Is change the only constant?

As I wrote here, “Part of maturity is sacrifice. Part of maturity is transition. Part of maturity is change. Nothing lasts forever. Everything has a season.” Life means change. We may not want to surrender to it, but we may be forced to.

Guess what I discovered in this change?

As much as I loved running, I thoroughly enjoy cycling. I feel a bit like a kid again every time I start a ride or pedal as hard as I can to top a hill or race down the other side. It’s fun. There is joy in the new road. Of course, cycling is not life, but it shares lessons that apply to our greater life concerns.

How can we better handle change?

Have the funeral. Mourn your loss. Write the obit. Offer your eulogy. Seriously. Whether it’s a job change, relationship change, health change, ability change, or whatever. Mourn as fits your personality and situation. If it’s not coming back, then celebrate what it was and close the chapter. Go at your own pace, but engage the process. God made us to grieve. Grief serves a positive purpose.

Share the experience. Again, as it fits your personality and situation, invite family and friends and anyone else who can help or cares to listen into your change. Change is a common denominator of all people. You’ll be surprised how folks step up to contribute to your recovery if you let them in. Folks want to help, they just might be too shy to volunteer; give them an invite. We need one another. We’re always better together.

Get moving forward. I’m not a cyclist unless I get out there and cycle. What about you? You’re not truly alive unless you are out there living, right? Don't die before you take your last breath. Get moving. In your own time, pursue some new dream, new relationship, new you, new whatever. Get yourself moving forward to get yourself healthy. Life is change. Roll with it. Even down your new road.

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Ever

Ever.    

Short word. Long time.

I’m the positive sort; optimistic, even idealistic at times. I’m also realistic; not naive, but pragmatic. Call me the Pragmatic Optimist. But I’m facing something tomorrow that has me concerned. I want to be optimistic, yet I’ve got to be practical as well.

I’m a runner. Or, possibly, was a runner.

I do not know if I will ever run again. Ever.

Ever.

Small word. Great import.

After running a fast and fun Market to Market Relay with my team October 11th, I set a personal goal of pursuing a new half marathon PR. I was excited by the relay and energized by my goal. Then something was wrong.

On my next three runs—each standard, three mile jaunts—I felt a pain in my right knee unlike any I’d ever had before. I’ve run 5000 miles and four marathons over the past seven years, so I’ve experienced a little of every setback a runner might face. This was different. Following that third run it hurt so bad I fought tears of pain. And despair.

Instinctively, I knew there must be a cartilage tear. I knew it’d mean surgery. I knew it might mean I’d never run, or run the same, again.

Tomorrow I'll have arthroscopic micro fracture surgery. My doctor will cut the cartilage flap off the anterior medial condyle of my right femur then drill into my femur to cause new cartilage to grow. It’s a common procedure. It does mean eight weeks on crutches. I should recover well. I should be able to run again. I may not, however, ever run the same again.

There's that word again: Ever.

Don’t quite reading yet and misjudge my intent in writing. I’m not looking for sympathy—“Poor fella may not be able to run. Bless his heart.” I’m not complaining—“What a whiner! Deal with it.” I am desirous that you and I ponder a different perspective—“How amazing? What a blessing!”

Everything we have—our abilities, talents, possessions, friends, and family—is on loan from God.

Everything we are—our personality, character, thoughts, goals, and dreams—is through God.

The realization that everything is by God’s grace is humbling. Humility is liberating. Stewardship is empowering.

I may not ever run again. And that’s okay. I said it. Why can I say it? I have so, so, so much more to live for and be thankful for. Don’t we all?

Ever.

Consider everything. Humbled evermore.

“For who makes you different from anyone else? What do you have that you did not receive? And if you did receive it, why do you boast as though you did not?”

— 1 Corinthians 4:7

What do you have that you did not receive?

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Marathon Tough

"I NEVER want to do that again.”

I gasped to my wife upon crossing the finish line of my third marathon days after my 40th birthday. I was in pain. Everywhere. I was nauseous. Terribly. I was so weak I could have crumpled to sleep on the cold concrete beneath me. And worse, I was utterly beaten. My will had been crushed.

A marathon is tough. I've written about that before. To understand a little more of why I say that, you might go back and read this link. 

I did run one more marathon fifteen months after the above mentioned race. I may run another someday. But no time soon.

“Daddy, did you ever win a marathon?” asked my youngest when he was six. “No, Daddy isn’t fast enough to ever win. But I don’t feel like I’ve done my best, Buddy. That’s why I might run one again. The marathon beat me; I didn’t beat the marathon.”

To this point, four marathons completed, somewhere between miles 20-24 and three to three and a half hours of running I knew I was beaten. I stopped pushing. I dropped my pace. I walked when I felt I could no longer run. I settled for survival. I was humbled.

Yet, even in being beaten I knew I was strong. Not as strong as I’d like. But the humility of the beating and everything it took in the year ahead to get that far had made me tough. I was marathon tough.

To run a marathon, 26.2 miles, you need to have run for at least a year and be able to run 20 miles a week before starting a specific training plan. From that base as a first timer or novice, you ramp up your mileage over four months from 20 to 40+ miles per week. One of those “big weeks” toward the end of your build up might look like this: rest Sunday; 5 miles easy Monday; 8 miles easy Tuesday; 5 miles tempo (quicker pace) Wednesday; rest Thursday; 5 miles at race pace Friday; 20 mile long run on Saturday.

That discipline of running with a purpose five days a week develops your marathon toughness. Every day you wake up to train you’ve got the questions, “Am I going to be a wimp today?” You’ve got to put in the work. You’ve got to meet the pace. Daily. For weeks.

Daily disciplines prepare you for bigger tests.

Every day you add to your total mileage. Every week you run more than before. Every weekend you extend your long run. And every time, it hurts to push a little father than before. You test yourself every run. 

Life is like a marathon: Daily disciplines prepare you for bigger tests. Your good eating habits accumulate for health for a lifetime. Your regular exercise regimen builds your stamina for the longest days. Your daily Bible reading caches wisdom for the toughest days. Your daily prayer time develops a relationship for the times you need it most.  Your regular journaling helps you know yourself best when life is at its worst. Your closest friendships support you on the most difficult days. Just like in life: It’s not in the race that you become marathon tough; it’s in the training.

A marathon doesn’t make you tough; a marathon reveals the toughness you have.

Be marathon tough. Daily disciplines make the difference.

How You Run the Race

Had my fifth kidney stone recently. Painful may be too merciful a description. I've written about the nasty little boogers previously.

This one hung on longer than any predecessors. Five days. It was either delusions from pain or delusions from pain meds. At least I had an excuse for my delusions. Those five days.

It took five days for that stone to move one inch. I'm no longer using, "Slower than molasses in January." My now ultimate slowness quip is, "Slower than a kidney stone in a preacher."

With the dawning of day five, however, I was just tired of it. Nasty little booger wouldn't move an inch. So I made a decision that morning. No matter the pain. No matter the drag of the pain meds. I was going to choose to have a good attitude that day. I was going to be an overcomer even as I was feeling beaten. I was going to be focused even though I was wrung out tired.

Not being able to run while on the ropes with a stone, my thoughts turned to running. Running marathons. Brutal self-torture as my wife sees it. And then a thought came to this mid-pack marathoner, kidney stone sufferer, everyday philosopher's mind: It's not where you finish; it's how you run the race.

What about you, Dear Reader?

What are you dealing with right now that you wish was just flat done over? 

What are your greatest challenges? To your strength? Your perseverance? Your grace? Your faith?

An illness. A person. Your past. Your future. You name it.

And then you choose. Choose to run the race differently.

You still may finish mid-pack or back. Your finish may even come before the finish line.

It's not where you finish. It's how you run the race.

My five day stone got the message. Within hours of that decision. It passed. The pain was gone. And this stone prone preacher boy had learned a lesson.

It's how you run the race.

I have not yet reached my goal, and I am not perfect. But Christ has taken hold of me. So I keep on running and struggling to take hold of the prize. My friends, I don't feel I have already arrived. But I forget what is behind, and I struggle for what is ahead. I run toward the goal, so I can win the prize of being called to heaven. This is the prize God offers because of what Christ Jesus has done. Philippians 3:12-14, CEV

And all God's people - with all our struggles - said, "Amen."

Run on, Dear Reader.

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Uphill Downhill

We live up the hill.  One of the highest spots in Lincoln.  In hillier than you'd think Eastern Nebraska

That's caused me to think: For every hill you go down there is one to go up.

Recently my Dadometer indicated the oldest needed some time alone & it was the perfect evening for a bike ride.

Tearing out ahead of me he shouted, "I'm gonna beat you, Daddy." Here & there around the neighborhood streets we went.  Then we left the pavement behind.  Downhill into the tree farm on dirt paths we plunged.  My boy was loving it.  "Wooo-oo-oo-ooo," he exalted in bumpy path vibrato.

Turning uphill I led reminding him we could enjoy the view from the top.  Yet halfway up I heard it.  Words indistinguishable.  Tone clear.  Complaining about the hill.  My boy stopped.

Back downhill we went.  His smile returned.  We pedaled toward another adventurous off-road spot.  His tone changed exuberant.  He hollered, "This is fun!"  Reaching the creek bottom, we rested a bit in the cool.

Then uphill we went.  And, again, his tone changed.  I began to instruct: it is harder going uphill; we shift gears; keep pedaling; accept slower forward progress; but we keep going; we get there.

When we reached to top of Captain Underpants Hill - yes, thats the name my kids have given a statue on a hill nearby our home - we stopped again.  This time we needed a little lesson.  Son & Father both had something to learn.

"Buddy you were having so much fun a few minutes ago.  What changed?"

"The hill.  I don't like the hill."

"I know it's hard to go up hills, but you made it up.  You're here."

"Yeah."

"You gotta go uphill before you can go downhill, Buddy.  Life is like that."

In a split second I'm thinking to myself, "Remember this the next time you are struggling with something, Mister Daddy Man.  If you are gonna enjoy the downhill, you gotta work the uphill."

Life doesn't come equipped with ski lifts.  Elevators or escalators either.  Life does take plenty of work.