Reflections of a Ten Mile Run

November 23, 2007

by Rocky Wing

On thanksgiving long before the turkey met its unfortunate end in the stove and only shortly before the household was to wake, I bundled up, stretched, slurped down a vanilla energy gel, and stepped outside.

A mix of excitement and dread, wonderment and fear, expectations on both extremes shot out at me. This was to be my longest run since the injury. The most up until this point was seven miles. All the books will tell you to increase your long run by no more than ten percent.

It was a beautifully bleak morning, something right out of a Dostoyevsky novel. The sun, big, bright, trying with all it could to melt the thin layer of frost blanketing the landscape.

Anything over eight miles is ideal. The first couple of miles your muscles are warming up. Your mind focused not on what you are doing, but how much farther you have to go. the end perfectly mirrors the beginning. Your legs cry out to stop the madness and your entire mind is fixated on home, rest, food.

The middle miles are poetic. Your body moves almost of its own accord. Your breathing rhythmic. Your mind is free to wander where it will. This is what i have missed more than anything in my running. Three miles simply cannot bring you to this point of peace in exercise.

It is in these miles that I pray that GOD reveals Himself to me through His Word or His creation speeding past me, that problems are seen in a different light. That I wrestle with GOD and my own humanity, that choruses are written and melodies are sung for the first time. Those commitments are made. That I feel whole, at peace in body, mind, and soul. It is my quiet time.

Posted in Pastor Rocky Wing