Attitude is everything

The alarm clock glowed 4:00 and of course I had only slept in short jaunts all night. I woke up every hour to roll over and look and the clock, groan and close my eyes again and wait sixty minutes to repeat. The anxiety of having to run seven miles played with my mind all night. Have you ever had one of those nights? You know you need the sleep but it just alludes you.

At four, I turned off the alarm, crawled out of bed and went about my daily ablutions before running. I ate a Fiber One bar. Those are so yummy. Then I hopped in my car and dropped off our water at our three mile mark.

Jenn and I started out on our run and I thought okay, seven miles, you can do this. It doesn't matter that your have never run that far in your entire life. You did four this week by yourself. What is three more miles? Oh my goodness THREE is a very large number when your attitude slips. I would love to say this was easy but that would be a huge lie. It was hard and I really wanted to just give up. Doesn't that sound familiar. I kept thinking if this is hard what will 26 miles be like? Am I totally insane for even trying to do this? Jenn kept talking about attitude and more than once she told me to dig in and run. Walking isn't an option.

I wanted to yell at her that I had nothing left to dig into, but that would have taken more energy than I had left. After five miles, we stopped for water and stretched. We were meeting two other ladies to run the final two miles with. I got a second wind and was able to run out the last two miles without complaint.

This run brought the realization that this wasn't going to be a stroll in the park. It was going to be hard and I am going to have to "dig" deep within me to find the mental attitude to keep running. This is like writing. Often writers want to give up when they meet the middle. I fall directly into the category I am in the middle of my novel and I want to chunk it and start over. You see starting the run is easier than getting through the middle and the end is wonderful because the finish line is in sight. You can relate that almost anything in life that you struggle to finish. When things get tough we don't "dig" down we walk away and say we will do it another day. That wasn't an option today.

What stops you in your journey? Is it the difficulty of the task? Boredom? Where are you "digging" down to to finish the task? I have repeated over and over the verse "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me". It has become my mantra while I struggle to run those miles. I wouldn't say that God wants me to run 26 miles, but I know that even in the journey to complete this I can turn to Him for strength.

By the way, I have to share that I have gone down two pant sizes since I started running but I have only lost three pounds. So not significant weight loss but my body is changing which is really the most important factor for me.