Today our family got back out to the park for what I hope will be a fall routine. Alison & JT walked a bit then went to the playground; I ran. Though my body complained, my shoulders were tight, and my form was out of whack as evidenced by my upper appendages flailing across my chest…it felt good to get back out there running.
While scuttling up and down and around the pedestrian path at Glazebrook Park, I realized how often I recall one of the few pieces of running wisdom I picked up back in the day: “when going up a hill, get your knees up higher to maximize your stride.” Racers who know this actually can pass other racers while going up a hill. Even now when I run and approach an incline my mind begins repeating the mental mantra, “Get those knees up! Get those knees up!” Now, I’m not gonna be running any races anytime soon (maybe a mini-marathon before I’m 40 or away from a mountain lion while hiking), but that mentality is part of me.
So I continued to scuttle up and down and around and another dimension of this principle occurred to me. When life gets tough and everything seems to be going uphill, we have to change our stride. This doesn’t mean it gets easier necessarily—it’s still requires concerted effort. Our stride—our pace of work, the extracurriculars we choose to do, our spiritual habits, the time we spend with which people—has to adjust how our energy gets applied. Now, I’m personally not going up any hills right now…at least nothing more than the one-day climb occasionally, but this was what I thought about while trying to figure out how to run again this evening.
While scuttling up and down and around the pedestrian path at Glazebrook Park, I realized how often I recall one of the few pieces of running wisdom I picked up back in the day: “when going up a hill, get your knees up higher to maximize your stride.” Racers who know this actually can pass other racers while going up a hill. Even now when I run and approach an incline my mind begins repeating the mental mantra, “Get those knees up! Get those knees up!” Now, I’m not gonna be running any races anytime soon (maybe a mini-marathon before I’m 40 or away from a mountain lion while hiking), but that mentality is part of me.
So I continued to scuttle up and down and around and another dimension of this principle occurred to me. When life gets tough and everything seems to be going uphill, we have to change our stride. This doesn’t mean it gets easier necessarily—it’s still requires concerted effort. Our stride—our pace of work, the extracurriculars we choose to do, our spiritual habits, the time we spend with which people—has to adjust how our energy gets applied. Now, I’m personally not going up any hills right now…at least nothing more than the one-day climb occasionally, but this was what I thought about while trying to figure out how to run again this evening.
"Don’t you realize that in a race everyone runs, but only one person gets the prize? So run to win! All athletes are disciplined in their training. They do it to win a prize that will fade away, but we do it for an eternal prize. So I run with purpose in every step. I am not just shadowboxing. I discipline my body like an athlete, training it to do what it should. Otherwise, I fear that after preaching to others I myself might be disqualified." (1 Corinthians 9:24-27, NLT)
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