I'm a Runner - Chapter Seven

That's Nuts!

A little over a week ago Laurie ran her first full marathon in twenty years. It was another chapter in our running saga in which I gained some new insights into the crazy world of running and other passions.

Running is different things to different people, but my running has centered around the big race. It's been the annual event that has helped keep me motivated. Along that path I have run three 5K races and am now training for a half. So with that in mind you would think that a full marathon would be the pinnacle of running accomplishment. But the reactions to someone running a full marathon run the gamet from admiration to a shake of the head and the sentiment, "That's nuts!" More on that later. First the race.

Louisville, Kentucky 2007 Marathon

The week leading up to the race we were having the last week of summer weather in Indiana and the worry was that the high the day of the race was to be 83 degrees. All that worrying must have worked, because the temperature the morning of the race was 56 degrees and four hours later it was around 70. So that worked out.

There were 362 runners in this race, which made for a much more manageable race to watch. It was a down and back affair, which meant you could drive ahead and watch your runner go by at several spots along the way.

At mile nine Laurie was looking strong. At mile 15 she was starting to hurt and at mile 20 she said she wasn't going to make her four hour goal. With this size race you can actually have a brief conversation with runners as they go by. One big guy in his fifties, who passed by just before Laurie at mile twenty, groaned as he went by and asked me, "Why do I do this to myself?" Later, when he was turning to run the last leg I said to him, "This is why you do it!" Easy for me to say!

One thing struck me as I observed this group of people running 26.2 miles on a crisp October morning. Here's an event where very athletic people are accomplishing an amazing thing to me. Running for four hours straight. Some less, some more. But the common response I got from them when I cheered as they went by was a humble, "Thanks for coming out."

Many runners had family members cheering them on. Others came alone. True to form, however, running showed itself to be a lonely sport. On the final

leg of the race, as runners headed up the walkway toward the finish line, many spectators had their backs to the action as they talked to other runners who had already finished. Just an interesting thing to see people accomplish a pretty amazing feat and be largely ignored by the folks who came out to see it. Once Laurie finished I did the same thing, of course.

The fascinating aspect to this was the responses I got from people I told about the race in the week that followed.

Some said "That's great!" But I was interested in the ones who shook their heads and said "That's nuts." It reminded me of coming back from the mission field and sharing all that had happened with some good friends I had gone to college with. When I finished they shook their heads and said, "Better you than me. I could never do that!"

I guess the lesson learned in all of that is that God has put a passion in everyone that expresses itself in unique ways. The important thing is to follow that passion. In athletics maybe it's running or maybe bowling. In missions maybe it's going on a work team, serving on the missions committee, or praying around the world for missionaries. Whatever it is, if it's worth doing, it's worth doing well and even...alone.