Tonight was the first night of the Run for God program at church. There was quite a turnout, I was surprised. I think I heard someone say 32? We have about 350-ish that attend on Sunday mornings, so I think 32 is pretty good? I don't know, maybe not. What do I know?
Anyway, the program is like this--we start today, meet every Tuesday with 2 weeks off at Christmas/New Years, and finish up with a 5K at the end of January. Essentially its Couch to 5K. Except with encouragement and fellowship.
The meeting started off with an Ironman video of the father/son team that runs marathons together. If you haven't heard of them before, you can watch a quick video here. The story makes me super weepy. After that we talked about the importance of running the race of life and how running is actually a lot like faith. We aren't always the best. Sometimes we fail. Sometimes we give up. Sometimes we are super strong. Sometimes we struggle. But we can always try again.
The instructor encouraged us to run without headphones. Use this time to talk to God, focus on how it actually feels to run, clear our minds, encourage others, strike up conversations with others, etc. Some people actually spoke up in the meeting and said it was "impossible" for them to run without music and they don't exercise well with others. I looked at BC and was like--really? Why are you even here?
Anyway, after that we went to a local walk park (and I will definitely be securing a runner's gun holster now) and were supposed to do a 5 minute warm up, intervals of 60 seconds running with 90 seconds walking, and a 5 minute cool-down. Once the warm-up was over I started running. I ran for most of the time, and was really proud of myself. I am a slow runner, but I think I surprised people. I'm not skinny, I'm definitely not "fit." But it felt so good to push myself beyond what I am used to. I spent a lot of time praying for God to give me strength. Not just while I was running but in other parts of my life. I need physical endurance PLUS spiritual and emotional endurance. It was really amazing to run without any auditory assistance. I liked it.
I'm hoping this is a new start for me. I got to sport my awesome hot pink Vibram FiveFingers and I didn't go to McDonalds afterwards. I think this was a win.
3 comments:
Awesome job on the first run! This program sounds GREAT, and that video is definitely an inspiring one.
I will admit, I'm a headphone wearer when I run alone. Now, I enjoy running with friends and can certainly run without music, but I do enjoy it when I'm going the distance alone. I have some warm-up and cool down songs that remind me Who made it possible for my body to get out do what I'm doing, and that makes me so humbly grateful.
Happy Running in the coming weeks! I will be looking forward to the updates, and I'm thinking about starting something like this here... :)
Oh, and 32 people is an AWESOME number!!! You may or may not be surprised by this, but it takes a lot of guts to join a program where other people see you and know you've committed. I think a lot of new runners know in the back of their mind that if they join a group or sign-up for a program...the pressure is on because your fellow runners will know if you quit. ;) Which is probably a good thing.
(Okay, sorry to take up two comments).
Good job! And that sounds like a total win!
Post a Comment