In training

All of a sudden, life was different. I changed the way I ate, slept, and spent my money. My own conversations sounded almost foreign to me, my interests shifted, and I completely rearranged my schedule. Everything was different in light of this one thing.

A spiritual epiphany?

No.

A new relationship?

I wish.

Training for a half marathon?

Yes.

When I decided five weeks ago that I would go into training, everything changed. I started going to bed earlier - both because I was exhausted from the running, and because I needed to get up early to get a good run in before work. I began grabbing Runner's World rather than Southern Living when I needed something to read while working out at the gym. I swore off Diet Coke and Sweet Tea - which I am convinced actually coursed through my veins at one point in life - and started drinking water as if my life depended on it. The girl who doesn't like paying more than ten dollars for a pair of kicks was suddenly at the TrakShak buying ninety dollar running shoes and five-dollar-per-pair synthetic socks to go with them. And as if all that were not bad or extreme or crazy enough, I actually started running - and I haven't stopped! Six weeks later, by the grace of God, I am still running!

The sudden change in my lifestyle was not a spiritual epiphany in and of itself, but it has certainly sparked many moments of conviction and understanding. And now, as I consider what I have been willing to sacrifice, how readily I've changed and let go of things (sleep, time, soda) that once seemed so important, I wonder: how well have I been training for the real race of life? Paul writes that we should run with perseverance the race marked out for us, and that we should run in such a way as to get the prize. One thing I've come to understand in a very tangible, sweaty, painful way is that perseverance and prize-winning don't come without the sacrifice of training. They don't come without a signficant investment of time, money, and energy - both physical and mental.

I hope that once April 29 has come and gone I will still run. I hope I will do it for the joy and clarity and health that it brings. More than that though, I hope that I will fix my eyes on Jesus, and that I will throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entagles and do what it takes - early mornings, costly gear, a better diet - to train for the Race marked out for me.