Running for Keelin

This is my sister, Keelin. She is 25 years old and lives in a group home in Columbia, Maryland, about 25-50 minutes from the various other members of our family. She lives in a group home because she is autistic.

She's not like the Rain Man, if you saw that movie. The movie, on its own merits, is good. It is a bit misleading though, because most people who are autistic aren't like the character that Dustin Hoffman played so well. Keelin certainly isn't, anyway. She cannot count matchsticks or play the piano like Mozart, or anything like that. In fact, she only learned to tie her shoes when she was fifteen (praise God!). She really doesn't talk very much, although she does understand - when she cares to - a great deal.

A couple years ago I saw a sign for a "Fourth of July Run for Autism 5k" on July 5th. Naturally, I was very disappointed. Last year, I forgot about it until too late. This year, I am already registered. The road race is sponsored by Autism Speaks, an organization dedicated to raising public awareness of autism. For myself, I am not hoping for a magical cure as much as I am hoping that our society will be able to identify and remove the causes of autism, while getting better at recognizing and incorporating those who experience it. The race is a fundraiser for Autism Speaks, and I am running in it to raise money for them because their work so closely matches my aspirations for my sister.

My sister Keelin likes to go for walks and car rides. She prefers classical music to contemporary. She likes horses (and better at a bit of a distance) and swimming. Really, I am running this race for Keelin. I am not in peak shape right now, to say the least, but I figure at least I can go out there and do it.

If anyone would like to make a donation to support my efforts for Autism Speaks and for my sister, I will be greatly obliged. To do so, click here. If you would prefer to write a check rather than make an electronic payment, click here for the form you need to print out and send in with your donation. I don't know that the organizers will tell me who's donated on my behalf, so let me thank you in advance. If anyone else wants to run it, I believe there are still entries available. Click here for their website.

20 Miles of Miscellany

Ok, so when you run 20 miles, as I just (finally) did, a LOT of things go through your mind. Something I noticed was that as the run progressed and the hours (not that many of them) ticked off, my thoughts got more and more disconnected from each other. They felt more profound, but that feeling hardly guarantees their depth, now does it? So here are a few random thoughts from my little three-hour tour around Bethesda, Kensington, and Rockville. Well, to be honest, some came from the cooling-down and runner's-high period that followed.

Grace is like grass. It is a coincidence that they sound so similar in our language, but the analogy is apt. Running on concrete wears on you, especially your joints. A lot of that wear and tear alleviates immediately, and I mean within just a couple paces, of switching onto grass when it becomes available. Life is like that. It can really wear on you. And modern life is rapidly becoming a hard, concrete paradise like the ones so many of us suburbanites and urbanites live in. Grass softens things, makes them gentle, and lovely. So does grace. It makes life doable, even desirable.

My roommate and I started the run even though it was cool, raining, and promising to get worse - colder and rainier. My reasoning was that the Marine Corps Marathon will be run rain or shine, and I didn't want to bail then, so except in case of genuine physical danger, I shouldn't bail now. Tom isn't running the MC Marathon, so I am not sure what his thinking was. Maybe he did it for the sake of camaraderie. Maybe he's crazy. Maybe a bit of both. I used to be more of a wimp, but feel like less of one after the run. In point of fact, it didn't get colder and rainier. The rain let up and the temperature stabilized at about 60*, perfect for a run. That's how life is. If you can stick through the hard points, exercising prudence and relying on Providence, it pretty much always gets better eventually. At least it has for me.

As I finished the third of four loops, each beginning and ending at my home and measuring five miles, I called into the house, "Hey, Ben, would you do me a huge favor and run to the 7-11 and grab some ice. I'm out it looks like." God bless him, he did. Tom cooked dinner for the two of us and left it in the fridge for me when he went to his (overnight) work shift. My ma has done similar things for me on these runs. All these people have been praying for me, encouraging me, supporting what I am trying to do. It's mind-boggling. During my run I reflected on that a great deal, and prayed for the grace to get better and better at being a loving son, brother, roommate, friend, coworker, classmate... for the grace to make some kind of return on the grace given me. My heart swelled while I ran, and it wasn't just a cardiovascular thing. It is no coincidence at all that the word for grace in almost all the Romance languages is closely related to the word for "thanks." Usually, "thanks" is "grace" in the plural form. "Gracias por la gracia," you might say in Spanish. Thank you God, for the grace.

My second niece, to be born in a few weeks, is named Elizabeth Grace. No joke. I know, it's very thematic, so I offered part of the run for her, too.

In a few moments I am going to eat the dinner my roommate made me, and make myself a milkshake. You wouldn't believe how many miles you can get out of fantasizing about a milkshake. Grace, like the dinner, has to be not only freely given, but also freely received, whatever John Calvin might have said. Otherwise, it's not grace, but some sort of spiritual assault. God never forces the free will He gave us. Holy Mary, full of grace, was free to say, "No," to God, which is why her lifelong, grace-filled yes was so important, so revolutionary, so beautiful.

St. Joan of Arc was the illiterate medieval French peasant who, inspired by the Holy Spirit and numerous saints, took up the banner of the Dauphin and with it and his whimpering armies drove from France their English overlords. She was captured by her enemies and tried for a witch, or a heretic maybe. I can't remember, but it was clearly a show-trial to make Stalin blush, because the Brits were just bitter to be beat by a woman. She was asked by her show-judges whether she was in a state of grace, the state in which the soul is permeated and shot through by the life of God himself, and in moral and spiritual union with Him. It's a trick question though, because you can never know for sure that you haven't offended and parted ways with God, only that you have done so. That's a bit complicated and another story. For now, suffice it to say that the young woman of 19 or 20 years, being glared at and stared down by the hooligan bishops and barons of Burgundy and Britain, calmly walked out of their trap as effortlessly as Jesus Himself evaded the sneakiness of the Pharisees, and with a similar answer. She simply said, "I cannot say, but I pray God that if I am, He keep me there, and if I am not, that He bring me there swiftly." (The paraphrasing is mine. Bear in mind I just ran 20 miles.) The bishops were befuddled. But they burned her anyway.

We can never be sure, but if we have a good reason to doubt that we are in grace, we should hurry to confession, quickly. Go, get back with God. If you haven't been in a while, you've got good reason.

I didn't nearly get hit by a car this time, in fact, most of the cars were unusually (to my mind) careful to let us have the right of way crossing streets. Unusual for the DC area. Grace in action?

A few centuries after St. Joan of Arc, another young Frenchwoman, whose feast is celebrated today, Therese Martin, A.K.A. Therese of the Child Jesus of Lisieux, A.K.A. the Little Flower, wrote a great deal about grace. She is a canonized saint, and one of just 33 doctors of the Church, saints whose lives, thought, and writings have most profoundly affected the rest of us in the Church. She, without so much as a high school diploma and deceased at twenty four, is in the ranks of Augustine and Aquinas. It wasn't because she was a cutie, either. She was sharp. As she suffered in her death throes, succumbing to tuberculosis, she made a very profound comment. "I do not know how our Lord experienced the Beatific Vision [heaven] even while dying on the cross in such agony, only I know it because I myself am experiencing something of the same," she said. Her last words, buoyed up in agony by a joy and love deeper than anything human, and entirely outside herself, she coughed and gasped, "My God, how I love you," and breathed her last. As an interesting oddity, St. Therese wrote, directed, and starred in two plays about the life and death of St. Joan of Arc.

A couple weeks ago, my 8-month pregnant sister fell in the grocery store. While her baby cried for her, "Mommy, mommy!" and she struggled to get up, people came by, glancing down at her in pain and obviously in some distress, and kept walking. Ten, she counted. Ten people did as much. Flannery O'Connor, one of my favorite authors and essayists, wrote in an essay on Southern literature that grace is perhaps best defined by describing its absence.

U2, my favorite rock band of all time, has a whole song named Grace. Several of the members are Christians, and have suffered, and know what they are talking about. Google the lyrics.

To follow Jesus Christ is, as He said, to pick up our cross each day and to follow Him. Rather than to run from it, the Christian life requires that we do our best to take suffering by the horns. Grace, His Life - even to the point of His Flesh and Blood - shared with us, is what makes that possible. And it also provides a measure of joy, like today's huge rainbow, the cool night air along the concrete of Rockville Pike, a warm cooked meal.

Thank you God, Mama Mary, Mom, Megan, Claire, Tom, Ben, saints and angels in heaven who guard over me, and all the rest of you who fill my life with pleasant blessings. Thanks to all who have supported my effort to support our good archbishop and the Church's efforts to give us even more good priests.

Hmm... wait a minute, didn't I say something about a milkshake a while ago?

The Longest Run (Yet)

A bit over a week ago, while getting ready for the weekend before last's sixteen mile run, I received an unexpected phonecall from a friend who is currently in basic training with the Maryland Army National Guard. We caught up for a bit, and being without email, he had no idea that I am training for a marathon. I told him that I was doing so, and that on the evening of the following day, I would run sixteen miles.

"Why?" he asked, in the tone of voice that conveys complete befuddlement, complete lack of reference point. It was as if I'd told him I planned on flooding my basement with tomato juice. He was being made to run five or seven miles daily, with a rucksack loaded with cumbersome equipment and in boots, I imagine. Plus, this particular friend hates running in the first place. His "why," if it meant anything, meant, "Why would someone voluntarily subject himself to THAT!" My own reason seemed so obvious to me for so long that I had ceased to think of it, and now, asked for one, was clueless. I don't like being clueless, especially about things I should know, so I just shifted the topic and asked how his weekend leave was going.

The answer haunted me. I had had an answer at one point - even several of them. But now, it seemed inarticulable, maybe even unreal. I ran the sixteen miles the next night, with my unflappably adventurous roommate, Tom, joining me for the first twelve. We laughed and goofed around afterwards, and had an overall good time. That's a reason. That's most of why I ran in high school and college, but it's not exactly a WHY.

Well, yesterday afternoon I had a brief conversation with a friend of mine from South Dakota. He is a priest and promised to offer the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass for me that evening, and I returned the favor in my meager way by promising to offer last night's run for him - my own little sacrifice. As I ran, mile after mile, I could feel the effects of pavement pounding, first on the ankles, then the knees and hips, and then the back. That's OK, I thought, because I can ice those joints afterwards, and they'll be good as new. I felt a new pain I never felt before, in my ankle. It was lower than what I think is a gradually developing case of Achilles' tendonitis, right at the heel, and sharp, although not that bad, and only momentarily popping up every mile or so. I studied the pain carefully - almost always on uphills, often just after or during a turn... hmm... maybe it was the same Achilles tendon after all.Ice has been holding it at bay so far, and perhaps still will. By mile fourteen I was fatiguing a bit. The sugar laden gel packs with gulps of water I was consuming every six miles helped, but I still needed to dig in and just keep on keepin' on. By mile sixteen, I was just keepin' on, and that's it. One foot in front of another. At about that point I came to the last long hill - it felt like thirty six mile straight up, but is probably about half a mile at a 10% grade - still no mean hill. Though I was making running-like movements, I am convinced that a well-rested great-grandma with a walker could have passed me.

Then I had my answer, sometime during my seventeen. I was running because it was hard, and painful. Lance Armstrong has said, "Pain is temporary, but quitting lasts forever." With due deference, I wish to amend his words.

Pain is temporary,
but glory is eternal.

That's a lesson from Calvary if I ever heard one. My friend was offering for me, as I ran and trudged, Jesus' Holy Sacrifice on Calvary. And as he offered that exquisite sacrificial Lamb, God's first and best fruit, I offered my own poor, best fruit for him. "That's the reason," I remembered. I want to help the Church in Washington DC to prepare men for the priesthood so that those men can help lead us to Jesus and bring Jesus to us. Something happened in me then. Seeing... no, feeling... in some small way how mile eighteen could fit into the Grand Scheme of the Universe made it so easy to overcome all the nagging reservations about how seventeen miles was enough for one night, about how tired I was, about my ankles, or that weird pain in the heel. I felt taken up and drawn into something larger than myself, although I won't exaggerate and say that I felt lifted up or bouyant. But I did every single step of eighteen miles, and averaged 30 sec/mi faster than I need to break four hours on the marathon.

The Goo Packs, those little sugary concoctions with electrolytes designed to require no real digestion, coincidentally made me think of the Holy Eucharist this morning as I ate breakfast. I don't think our Blessed Lord will be offended by the analogy. The Goo Packs gave me nourishment for a hard journey in progress, and a small taste of this finish line. In the Eucharist, our Blessed Lord feeds us on His own flesh, to sustain us on the hard journey of loving each other as He loves us, and to give us a taste of the finish line. Of course, the analogy breaks down as they all do: Goo Packs aren't necessary for a runner, but I don't see how a Christian can manage without the Eucharist; also, life is more important than marathoning, and the Eucharist is infinitely more powerful and precious than Goo, even vanilla flavored Goo. But I think you get the point.

Next weekend I get a rest - my long-distance run will only be 14 miles. Then will come the longest run of the training regimen: twenty miles. And thanks, by the way, to those of you who are helping me to help the Church to help the People of God get to the Kingdom. Let me know how I can help you do the same.

What I Learned By Not Running Sixteen Miles

Sunday evening I was scheduled to go back to the C & O Canal Trail and run sixteen (16!) miles. I started a wee bit earlier than I had the week before, hoping to avoid the deep darkness and the Terror of the Woods. I got to the Canal and stretched, and off I went. The problem was that the date being a week later, and so close to the autumnal equinox, we are losing a half hour or so of daylight each week at this point, and so very quickly it began to get dusky again. On top of that, some Spanish rice and chicken, which I had scarfed down a couple hours earlier hoping to digest quickly for some last minute energy, was causing some, um... mild unpleasantness. Now, don't get me wrong - my symptoms were limited to some moderate distension, a bit of gas (sorry), and some very mild cramps. Nothing that can't be run through, but the sort of symptoms that tend to demoralize.

As I ran, it got darker and darker. My halfway point was also the starting point (I was doing two laps on a there-and-back course) and as I approached it, I realized that it was 8:15 p.m. and just plain dark, and I was only halfway done. Now a debate began to rage in my head: to bail out and call the run a make-up for one of the 7-8 mile tempo runs I'd skipped while trying to adjust to my new academic career, or push through and finish the sixteen miles? The distension and other symptoms were subsiding, but could always return. The darkness would certainly get darker, and then the trail (safe from bandits, I think) would become a bit dangerous because of physical obstacles. "WUSS!" something inside of me shouted. "Isn't it be better to dig in, push on, and develop my fortitude - moral, emotional, physical perseverance?" something else asked plaintively. Prudence? What would prudence say? The debate raged and raged, absorbing my thoughts and began to steal away my enjoyment of the run, and even my peace.

Now, prudence, far from being prudery, is the virtue by which one knows the most important good, and the best way to achieve it, and by corollary, how to prioritize other lesser goods beneath it. It is the most practical natural virtue, so I said a quick prayer for some, tried to clear my mind, and thought. The purpose of this run is to get into better shape to prepare me for my marathon. If I injure myself in a pothole, that won't happen. More importantly, this marathon isn't the most important thing: I still had some Syriac homework to do, and class in the morning; if I ran for another hour, and was consequently whacked physically, those things would be shot - and they are more important than the marathon or the workout. While my stomach didn't feel lousy, it didn't feel great, either. Tomorrow I could run without the Spanish rice and chicken. Feeling like a wuss isn't pleasant, but it isn't as important as these considerations: (1) school/work, (2) safety, (3) marathon performance. In fact, if I was doing this just to feel good about myself, then damaging my career and injuring my body would be counterproductive, and one of those was certain to happen, and the other one increasingly likely. OK... so at the eight-mile mark I stopped running, walked back to my car, drove home, ate my dinner of leftovers, and did my Syriac homework.

Last night, with the day planned out better, I drove back to the C & O Canal Trail and did the sixteen mile run. All of it. I stopped for a minute or so a couple times in order to stretch out better, and overall enjoyed the run. My average pace was about 8:27 min/mile if memory serves. My roommate ran the first 12 with me, and then met me at my finish mark, water bottle in hand. I've never been so flush with gratitude in my whole life. We went home and had dinner, a pit stop at McDonald's for milkshakes and 7-11 for a big bag of ice were our only distractions. After eating dinner and icing my leg joints for 45 minutes or so, I went to bed. Today, my legs are tired, but limber, and I feel fine.

So what I learned about being a Christian by not running the sixteen miles the first time around was this: when we are in the throws of a struggle, our decision-making process can become very convoluted. Virtue and vice become jumbled, and the right path gets lost from sight as surely as when I was running in the dark. Our emotions rise up in a great rebellious assault, and our minds get clouded as we begin to rationalize. Telling rationalizations from true and good reasons becomes nightmarishly difficult. I think I made the right call to give up my run the first night, but it was hard to make the call. Likewise, when fighting temptations to sin, it can be very difficult to figure out the right thing to do. It is best in life, as it would have been in my run, to make a sound decision before getting into the thick of things, and then to just hold the course against all comers - trusting that our first decision, made in the calm, clear daylight, will turn out to have been the right one.

The Jesuits recommend a frequent spiritual exercise called the Examen, in which we look over a block of time past and block of time to come, in the calm recollection of a prayerful heart, resolve to do better, and practically speaking how we will do so, anticipating obstacles, and making prudent decisions before all hell breaks loose in our psyche. C. S. Lewis identifies this phenomenon of good-decision-stuck-to-even-when-it-becomes-hard-later as the basic, natural, human sort of faith, faithfulness, fidelity. It's what married couples and religious do when they make their vows - only, those choices are so monumental that merely human faith is insufficient, and for fulfillment of those choices grace from God is needed.

That's the lesson: make good decisions before decision-making gets difficult; then when the hard times come and all hell assaults our resolve, we need only pray for the grace of fidelity to our good decision.

And yeah, sixteen miles IS the longest run I've ever, ever done in my entire life. Not too shabby, if I say so myself. Marine Corps Marathon, here I come!

Last Night in the Woods

So last night my (re-)scheduled long-steady-distance run was down to 10 miles, as a sort of recovery period. I had intended to go on Sunday night, as scheduled, but then did homework and stayed late at a party instead. Anyhow, I decided to run on the C & O Canal Trail. It's really beautiful, and also a very easy run on packed gravel at a very slight incline, laden with beautiful scenery. I aimed to get there about 7 p.m., and calculated that if I got running pretty quickly, I'd finish before the park closed at dark. Since the distance was shorter and the path easier, I decided to run it a little faster and budgeted 80 minutes for the run. I putzed around though, and got there a few minutes late. While I was stretching, a friend of mine walked up out of the blue (well, actually off of the Canal Trail) and so we had to catch up a bit. Long story short, it was almost 7:30 when I started my run. That meant it would be darker when I finished, and on top of that, since the park closes at dark, I would officially be an outlaw. It sounded enticing, so off I went, first running north 2.5 miles, then back to the start where I picked up a pack of calorie gel I had planted for myself, and then south 2.5 miles, and then back to the beginning again.

It tasted tolerable, and didn't seem to give me any stomach problems (my main concern), but at a mere 100 calories (about enough for 1 mile) I couldn't imagine how it could keep me from "hitting the wall." Maybe eating a pack every few miles on a longer run, but for just ten miles. Well, the experiment was to test the effects it would have on my stomach, acid reflux, cramping, etc. Happily it seems to have had none.

Now, running at night in a closed park was a new experience for me. The gravel path is white, which was literally the difference between running on the path and running off a cliff into the Potomac or into the Canal. For the first quarter of my run, it was dusk. The middle half, it was progressively more twighlight. During the darker part of this stage, as I moved into the second half of the run, I passed a utility road turnoff from the trail, at the end of which there was some vehicle with its lights on. The vehicle itself was too buried in the dark and woods to be visible, but the headlights were very clear. Seeing them through the trees as I ran by created the illusion that it was moving slowly, almost in circles. Then it occured to me, "Might I not be the only person in this park illegally?" The thought was, as you can imagine, a bit unnerving.

The last quarter, even though I was running northwest toward where the sun had been, at 8:30 p.m. in September, it was just plain dark. Signs standing on double posts looked like sturdy men at the path's side until I was very close. Dark spots in my field of vision looked like strangers in the shadows up ahead. A number of times I became suddenly unsure of my footing and slowed down to reorient myself. I took my headphones out of my ears so I could "run aware." The soothing sounds of folk music or my favorite quirky bands gave way to the rhythmic sounds of my feet scraping the gravel, and to the woodland noises I've grown up with, but that now sounded menacing and eerie for the first time since my childhood. Prayers for protection floated into my heart. Even the white gravel path melted into the river and the woods only four or five yards ahead of my feet. I found myself running faster and faster, developing self-defense plans. As I passed by the utility road again, I saw the headlights still down at the bottom of the hill, through the trees that were themselves now blotted out by night. "What are they DOING down there?" Faster and faster, until suddenly a new thought entered into my mind. "I went to confession yesterday. What am I worried about?"

Immediately, even unintentionally, my pace relaxed again. The earphones found their way back into my ears, and were singing one of my favorite songs. Within a few more minutes I came back to my starting point, ten miles done. I stretched for a few minutes and ate a bagel and drank the liter of water I'd left for myself in the car. A milkshake pit-stop at McDonald's kicked things up another notch on the pleasantness scale. After getting home I made myself dinner - chicken on Spanish rice, and while eating I studied for my Syriac class.

Last night, I learned to write the Holy Names of Jesus and Mary in Ancient Syriac, one of the first scripts to write those names in the Christian era. That made me immensely happy. After studying, a warm shower and my rosary made things even better. I conked out and, as you will imagine, slept very, very well.

12 Miles Down

Last night, from 8 p.m. until 9:42 p.m. I ran 12 miles around the DC area - up the George Washington Parkway, across the Key Bridge into Georgetown and back, down the GW Parkway again, across the George Mason bridge, around Jefferson Memorial, up to the Mall, down the Mall almost all the way (as far as the Native American Museum), and then back across the GM Bridge to where I'd parked at the Lady Bird Memorial park. My average pace was 8:33 min/mile - well on track to meet my goal of a sub-4 hour marathon. My roommate Tom ran with me and we had a nice time. Pretty views, cool air, light traffic. I'm just a little sore today, and imagine he is too, because he hasn't run more than a few miles in a number of years. I give him props for gettin' out there.

I am hoping that, in the intensification of time and experience that physical exertion brings, I will provide God, or God will provide me, a setting in which my heart can be more readily purified, my will strengthened, and my joy deepened.

I was nearly hit by a Chevy Suburban while straddling the Jersey barrier in the middle of the George Washington Parkway, intended to keep pedestrians from crossing it. That near-death experience - just inches of space - made me happy that I'd gone to confession recently. Next time, I'll look for another place to cross, like my roommate did.

Eleven Miles

Last night, from about 11:45 p.m. til about 1:15 a.m. I ran up Rockville Pike for 5.5 miles, and then turned around and ran back. At mile 7.14 my Nike+ attachment crapped out and crashed my iPod with it. So the times aren't exact, and I had to finish the run in silence, except for the sound of my own voice cursing Nike under my breath.

Eleven miles.

The anger reinvigorated my pace, and I am sure the last four miles were faster than the first. But I also noticed that I kinda like running in the quiet - combined with the unseasonably cool, damp air, and the darkness of night, and the trafficless streets, it was really, really nice, actually. The damp air felt like grace. That helped me calm down about my Nike+ attachment. The realization that this run was my longest since my undergraduate Cross Country days also helped me cool down emotionally. In three weeks or so I'll be up to 14 miles, which will be my longest run.

Ever.

I'm pretty psyched about the whole thing.

The Ankle, Unbroken

Yesterday, I ran the same workout as last Wednesday, only this time, I didn't pray that Jesus would break my ankle. Instead, I just focused on finishing strong. There's some progress there, I think.

Break My Ankle

Ok, so yesterday I had my own little minor victory. All the circumstances were perfect for me to call it off. Once I got going, I had (kinda) legit reasons for bailing out. But I didn't. I ran my first speed workout in a long, long time - since college, I think.

I got to Gaithersburg High School late from the stress of work to discover that the track there was being resurfaced and is closed for the time being. Great. The clock was ticking before my next commitment. I stood by the fence around the perimeter of the track, calculating my options. Just hop the fence and run on what appeared to be raw asphault? Hmm... Then it came to me: Bohrer Park, right next to the high school - there's a pond there. After living in the Gaithersburg area for most of my life, I had noticed just a few weeks earlier that the pond has a walking path around it. Don't developers usually plan those things to be about 1/4 or 1/2 mile around, or maybe a mile - so people can use them for walking set distances, and so on? Like Gunner's Lake pond, by my sister's house - my pedometer says that it's almost exactly one mile around. I wonder...

Trotting over to the pond at Bohrer Park, I jogged around the perimeter path. The little gadget I run with marked the path at .26 miles - good enough for government work! But now time was really not on my side. "Maybe tomorrow I can run," I began to think. And then, "No. No good. It's now or never, Haber. Let's get on this thing!" Stretch good. The asphault walking path was hot to lay on while I stretched, but not too bad. I loosened up, checked my time sheet, and ran my first speed workout in about 10 years. It killed, and felt great all at once. I ran

1/2 mile warmup

3 x (1/4 mile hard + 1/4 recovery + 1/2 mile hard + 1/4 recovery).

1/4 mile cooldown

I am happy to report that I came in below my interval time for each of the hard stretches, though honestly I set them a bit high on the paperwork. Really, though, I worked the intervals hard enough that a thought, or rather a prayer, spontaneously came to my mind that hasn't in all these ten years. Without even intending to do so, I suddenly prayed in my mind,

"Lord Jesus, please break my ankle so I can end this stupid workout! What was I thinking?!"

If memory serves, that prayer was toward the end of the second set. Toward the end of the last set, my prayer shifted, "Holy Spirit, fill my lungs and fly my legs!"

Happily, the Lover of my soul knows what's best and gives me that rather than my felt desires. My ankle is intact, you will be happy to know. For me, it was gratifying just to feel me push myself that hard. Today my legs are tired, and a nice easy 3 mile run will be a welcome change. Again, running provides me with a felt, experienced metaphor for Christian living. We might want to bail out sometimes, but it's much better to pray for help instead.

Lifting for the Lord

I once heard of a woman with purple hair, who frequented a gym, and wore a tee-shirt that read, "Lifting for the Lord." When I heard the anecdote, some 10 or 15 years ago, I thought it was funny. Not so much anymore.

Over the last year or two I have been running again, going to the gym for the first time really - both irregularly, but with gradually increasing frequency. It's hard at first, but it feels good eventually, and I like it. Not only does it feel good, but it IS good to be in good physical condition because our body is part of who we are. I am not a soul riding around in a dingy old carcass. I am a human person - a hybrid of body and spirit. All of me is important to God, and I owe it to myself and to God to take care of all of me, to be the best me that I can be. This point isn't an excuse for selfishness - genuine priorities and duties are not to be neglected. Doing so makes it easier for me in very practical ways to be more available to others, to sacrifice for others. Being more able naturally makes me more willing. And of course, our will is at the heart of who we are as persons.

So the purple-haired woman that lifted for the Lord was onto something. And it strikes me that weightlifting is, like running, a good metaphor for the Christian life. While I was at the gym the other day, lifting a truly impressive load (don't laugh - 25 lbs in each hand is JUST the beginning!), a thought popped into my head that nearly killed me. Literally. I thought, "Say, being a Christian is like lifting weights. You don't grow unless you keep increasing the load, keep it difficult. And if you don't keep at it, you start slipping back from your previous results." Then I laughed because it struck me to be a fairly unlikely thought to have while struggling under the weights. It was while laughing aloud that I nearly dropped those massive weights on my chest. That was the part that might have killed me. Well, maybe not. Probably a lot of what we think will kill us won't actually, if we are just willing to suffer through it.

After lifting by myself for a long time, and staying at the same weight levels until the other day, it occurs to me that I'll grow better if I read a good book, and a good guide or at least workout partner. Those are two more ways that lifting is like living for the Lord. If you're serious, you'll want a Good Book and a good guide, or at least a couple workout partners.

Running with the Spirit

More and more I am finding that the spiritual life is a lot like running. I'm not the first to have thought of the metaphor - it thoroughly saturates St. Paul's epistles.

During my prayer, say a holy hour before the Blessed Sacrament, I frequently experience a pattern that starts with a sort of getting started, or warm-up period. After that sets in a peace, a sort of groove. At some point, but a run and a time in prayer often become very difficult. My back starts to hurt, either from the running or the kneeling; there is distraction and I just lose my balance, so to so speak. The temptation to stop, either running or praying, becomes very fierce. My whole world contracts to the ache in my knees, or to the old women kneeling behind me and mumbling her prayers too loud. Everything else becomes a loud blur. I cry out in my heart for help. Sometimes I quit. Sometimes I just push through and finish up as quickly as possible. But sometimes, the peace returns - more intense yet more serene. Questions are answered; stress is relieved; a joy wells up, or at least thaws and loosens a cold hardness just underneath my skin - the shell that shields, protects, and closes off my heart. I relax and am washed in peace. God is so merciful.

After Lent, I think I will explore running as a metaphor for the spiritual life, both from my own experiences and in St. Paul's writings. That will be interesting. It might be better to wait until after Eastertide, when the Ordinary wear-and-tear of life sets in again.