Suffering = hope

A runner will think of all sorts of things as they are in the groove. I tend to talk to myself, sometimes out loud even. Today as I stopped at the end of mile 2 to walk and re-accelerade a bit, I felt myself channeling Phoebe - “I already had a baby. Leave me alone!” Though I said I already ran 2 miles, leave me alone! Then a little later as I was getting passed and occasionally passing others (walkers, of course) I got to thinking of my gear and channeled Elle, “I totally look the part.” I was running with my Brooks (Brothers) running shoes, my fuel belt, filled with Accelerade, wearing my heart rate monitor watch and running my little fat legs off. I felt like I looked the part but I'm still not sure I actually feel the part. Am I a runner? Or at the very least a jogger?

It's 125 days to race day and I'm scared shitless. Yesterday I skipped on my run because I am completely talented at avoiding something hard. I felt crappy the rest of the day because I should have run anyway. As I was watching the thunderstorm later that afternoon before I headed out to see Tre I actually said a little prayer for more motivation. I'm losing my motivation, I'm losing my drive. And it scares me.

Luckily, thankfully, my newest Runner's World came in the mail and there's a whole section on how to train for your first marathon. There's some good motivational stuff in there.

But also today's NT lesson was very essential for my pathetic ears. Romans 5:3-5, “...but we also boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.”

Suffering produces endurance. How true when you're training for a marathon. And endurance produces character which produces hope which does not disappoint. I don't like to be disappointed. So...if I don't want to be disappointed I have to earn hope from the character which comes from the endurance I get from suffering. Therefore, I must suffer. And I can't just expect suffering to find me, I think I need to, in this case, seek out suffering. Only in the name of running (and not being disappointed). Because only from suffering will I find hope that in 125 days I will complete the TC marathon.