The 1/2 Marathon of Life

I used to run long distance races, until 2 years ago I’ve obtained a hamstring injury that has now brought me to a hobbling limp.

How did I injury myself?  I don’t know anymore.  Once you get past 40, you no longer have interesting stories about your injuries.  You just wake up one morning and you need 9 months of physical therapy because you had an active dream.

I completed-in my lifetime- one marathon and six half marathons.   I preferred half marathons because training for a marathon kept me away longer from my family on my spare time.

Still, 21k was a chore.

Looking back, I can’t help but compare the marathons to half marathons.

One year, the ½ marathon was bigger and more crowded than in years past. Even amidst the air quality being poor due to the BC fires, people came out in droves to run their 21k through Edmonton. When the staring pistol sounded, hundreds of us took to the streets through downtown and along the river’s valley, charging on the “newer, flatter, faster” course of this year’s race.

I did not turn off my I-Pod the entire race. This isn’t anything dramatic, since no one else did either. Most runners shot past me or I them (although the former seemed to happen more so), with a dogged determination to run and run faster than ever before. With the half marathon, people seemed not to be worried about completing the race: they wanted to cross the finish line faster than they had ever before.

This led to a lot of injuries. As I mentioned, air quality was poor and there was a story of a woman who, upon reaching the finish line, bumped into the fellow who won the full marathon. She then collapsed because she couldn’t reach her inhaler in time. As an asthmatic, her drive to outdo her former time caused her to bypass taking care of her body and her basic need for air. Sadly, this wasn’t the only case of someone doubling over or passing out due to fatigue.

This didn’t take place last year during my marathon. There were injuries too. But they were different, due to people wearing out instead of outdoing themselves.

Another different was that I didn’t listen to my I-Pod the whole time. I spoke with other runners. Met people from across Canada. Asked how the people around me were doing, feeling, and so forth. Got asked back the same question.

I’m not sure why the change, but this kind of dialogue didn’t take place during this year’s run. Perhaps it was because it was a shorter run, so the focus was crossing speedily instead of at all? Perhaps I just got with a group of chatty runners during my marathon? Perhaps we all believed this year’s advertising “newer, flatter, faster” and took it as a dare to go faster?

I don’t know other than my focus last year was just surviving and doing whatever it took to make it. This year, unless something horrible happened, I knew I could take the race, so I left my I-Pod on and let Bob Dylan or Wilco talk to me.

Comparing both of these experiences, my confusion is not why they were different. They just were. My confusion, I guess, lies in the fact that I enjoyed both equally and differently.   I loved the speed of this year and I loved surviving last year. Both different, but they involved the same goal: a finish line.

I’m reminded of King Solomon’s words in the book Ecclesiastes. “There is an occasion for everything, and a time for every activity under heaven: a time to give birth, a time to die; a time to plant and a time to uproot…” (Ecc. 3:1-2).   A time to survive a marathon, a time to race a half marathon? Certainly.

At times, our lives may feel like a survival feat of a marathon. We wonder if we can make it through the day, ending it with some of our character and joy still in tact. We call people, seeing if they’re making it and people call us with similar inquiries. And when our days or problems or tasks end, we’re elated as we cross the finish line.

Other days may contain the speed and energy of a half marathon, with a dogged determination to perform well and better than before. A race, a zip from place to place. And when we cross the finish line, it is not so much that we’ve completed the task it’s how well we’ve done it.

Everything has a season. The key is to read what season you are in and embrace it as a gift. As well, know what the finish line is and keep the goal in mind. Sometimes our lives are all about survival and other times its about doing things well.

Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 9:24-27, “Do you not know that the runners in a stadium all race, but only one gets the prize? Run in such a way that you may win. Now everyone who competes exercises self-control in everything. However, they do it for a perishable crown, but we for an imperishable one. Therefore I do not run like one who runs aimlessly or box like one who beats the air. Instead, I discipline my body and bring it under strict control, so that after preaching to others, I myself will not be disqualified.”

Know what season your are in, what kind of race you run. And then know what the goal or finish line might be. For Paul and for us, it is to know God and make Him known: anything short of that is a distraction, a possible disqualification.

May we run in our lives to reach that goal, the one that won’t fade away 1,000 years from now.