Running right along

As odd as this sounds, I am becoming a person who runs.  I don't mean that I dash about to and fro.  No I mean a runner, as in one of those persons who simply puts on running shoes and runs.  

Now, I can wholly rationalize this.  I did not start out to be a runner. I am by nature and body habitus much more suited to walking.  I love to walk so much that I am planning a walking pilgrimage next summer that will entail lots, and lots of walking.  The fly in the ointment for next summer is elevation.  Some of the walking will be at altitudes -- different walking  altogether.  I asked a friend of mine, who is a serious runner, one of those extreme marathon dudes, what would be the best way to train to walk at higher altitudes?  His response, train for a 5k.  It will give you the stamina that you need.  While I could see the logic in that, I wasn't quite sure how to go about it. 

Turns out, they have an app for that.  Actually they have MANY apps for that.  I started with an app that I already had to monitor my walking, and it turns out it had an option for training for a 5k.  However, one glance revealed that the app was WAY more optimistic about my ability than I ever may have been.  And I didn't want to make a false start.  I found this other delightful app, that started the running so slowly and slow insidiously, that at first it wasn't really like I was running.  And the time frame was good, I was to run about three times a week.  By the end of the first week, three days in, I was looking for excuses -- to run more!  I knew running was moving towards addiction when on a rainy morning, I donned my foul weather gear and RAN.  

Now by no stretch of anyones imagination, including my own, am I a future marathoner.  My pace times are only a little faster than I actually routinely walk.  But now I am physically able to use the other more exuberant app (because I finished the first one), which is building better stamina and increasing my pace.  One of the additional benefits I have received is the support offered to me by people I don't even know.  A couple of older fellahs, and by older I mean just a bit older than me, cheer me on as I run past their condos.  One of them told me he was so proud of me.  A much younger man, who was completing his run, told me that he felt my pain. Right, 100 pounds and 30 years you will feel my pain, but I appreciate the sentiment.  

All this is to say, you can do things that you can't possibly imagine that you will do.  Clearly, running doesn't sound all that much of a challenge, but you literally have to get off your butt, put on your shoes, and get out there.  Just like real life.  And, interestingly, it has become its own source of holiness.  My constant prayer while running is please don't let me fall, just like real life.  And for a few brief moments, while pounding the pavement in a new way, it is simply me and God, lumbering along. 

This is a thin place.