Personal Motivation
Many times when I get up in the morning I don’t want to run. The fact is that most times I’d like best to shut off my alarm, roll over, and go back to sleep. That brings me to a skipped over point in my first post, which is “Where do I find the motivation?” I used to, and in part still do, see runners as a “type A” personality. Someone who not only finds the motivation to run but who also finds the motivation in all the other areas of life. Overachieving moms, leaders with a great track record, athletes who in adulthood are still good enough to be paid for it- the list of “accomplished individuals who run” doesn’t stop here, but they all give off that mystifying sense of drive and achievement. Looking at the image of runners portrayed in a multitude of media outlets it’s easy to believe that those people aren’t like your regular Joe Blow. They’ve got something special, as if it’d be more painful for them to not run than it is for them to run.
My first impulse to start running was to do something to counteract my sedentary job. Sitting all day really hoses down the metabolism, so I wanted a way to help bring my metabolism back up a bit and stabilize it. But really it was more than that. Looking around at my coworkers and the millions of aging office workers I had, and have, a fear of aging into a completely sedentary lifestyle. I don’t want to be a severely overweight office worker who’s okay with letting their surroundings at work swallow them. Scariest of all is the “can’t do” attitude that most come to internalize. In the same way, I can look at them as they cast their un-moving, un-able nature onto their age I can also see people who have aged and are still in shape. Those people in the latter group clearly made different choices. One thing that’s agreed upon by all groups is that it gets harder as you age. If I have any chance of falling to the healthier end of the spectrum as I age I have to start now and follow the example of those fighters.
During the early stages of my running, while I was still trying to break past the 3/4 mile mark I encountered my brother-in-law, who’d committed that year to run 400 miles. If choosing my future was my mainstay in motivation, this encounter was a catalyst. He had set his goal and was getting close to achieving it. All after not having been a runner to start. If he could do 400 miles in a year surely I could do 100. Some quick math allowed me to see that I could commit to two miles a week. That seemed obtainable to me. If I was going to run two miles a week and keep track of it, I didn’t want to start the new year running incomplete miles. That goal gave me the motivation to use my December to lengthen my run distance to a mile, which started a snowball effect. I knew I wanted to exercise at least three times a week, so for those of you who are math wizards, you might have already computed that as 3 miles a week, not two. Additionally, I learned to push myself as I went during that time frame which means I started doing 1.10 and 1.25 miles as I went and started doubling up on Saturdays. All of that has lead to me logging in 25 miles for the month of January. Once again, those of you who are paying attention might realize that is quite a few more miles than 100 per year.
Today, as I lug around my bowl full of jelly stomach, my times aren’t as fast, and my distances aren’t as long as “real runners.” (Especially true with the rising popularity of ultramarathoning.) It’d be easy for me to feel like an imposter looking at the totem pole of achievements for runners. I confess that it’s something for me to be on guard about, but mostly I don’t feel that way. I’ve come quite far for myself and so I already feel like I’ve won. From no running to running multiple miles at a time. Is my most recent distance PR (personal record) of 2.4 trail miles a baby step compared to a seasoned runner’s regimen? Yes, I can’t deny the facts on that. But I am running, and I am putting in the work it takes just like they are. We all run by the grace of God. It’s not about being better than others, but better than ourselves. Therefore running and Christianity have this in common: The brotherhoods of both running and of Christianity are not formed by those who can do it better, but are formed by those who put in the work required for the task at hand. We may all finish at different times, but by the grace of God we all cross the same finish line.
