Why I Run

I am a runner. I’m not a particularly fast runner and certainly not an accomplished runner. But, I do run…. pretty much every day, whether I feel like it or not, in some really extreme heat, on the far southern edge of the Sahara Desert in the Far North of Cameroon. Most days I do between 6 and 7 miles and then every couple weeks I push it out to between 8 and 10. So, if running is what makes you a runner then I think I qualify…..even if….just barely. I’ve been running since I was dared to run an ultra-marathon back when I was 18, gutsy, and also dangerously stupid. I say that because at eighteen I was not a runner nor did I want to become one. In fact, the most I would ever run back then was the 100 yards from my barracks to the mess hall to keep from being stuck at the end of the line. But one evening while sitting in a steam room enjoying building up a sweat that took very little effort the guy in the seat next to me, whose name I don’t remember, dared me to run a 45 mile race called the Chad Ogden Memorial Run in Kodiak, Alaska. I was free that day so I said, “sure, why not” and the next day signed up for the race. Not really having a good picture in my mind of how far 45 miles was and with more than enough time to get ready (a whopping two weeks), I scheduled a couple training days before the big race. On the first scheduled day I mapped out a three mile course and started running. About 15 minutes and a mile and a half down the road I decided I had trained enough and probably shouldn’t tire myself out before the big race. Once race day arrived, I showed up at the starting line ready to go, along with a few other other runners….27 of us to be exact. (Ultra-marathons were not a big thing in those days especially in Alaska) I was excited about my prospects as I began sizing up my competition but that excitement passed very quickly after pretty much all the other runners passed me within the first 45 seconds of the race. But, even with a rough start and a really slow time (11 hours and 58 minutes), I finished in 13th place. Of course, part of the reason for my placing so well was because thirteen of the runners quit and I was able to limp across the finish line in front of my nearest competitor, an 11 year old boy who was tougher than nails. By the time I got across the finish line everyone had already gone home except for one race official who quickly handed me a “finishing trophy” and said "another hour and we'd have sent out the dogs”. That was it….no band, no hand clapping, whistle blowing crowd cheering for me, not even a T shirt. But it didn’t matter because I didn’t quit and that meant more to me than any of those things. On that day and in those hard, long, and really pretty tedious and slow 11 hours and 58 minutes of running I became a runner. And I’ve been running, off and on, ever since. But why do I run? Well, whereas, I do find enjoyment in running, it still comes back to what mattered most to me when I crossed the finish line almost 35 years ago….I finished! It wasn’t pretty. No one else cared except for the race official who finally got to go home but it did matter to me because when tempted to quit….when my body was begging me to quit….when the blisters on my feet and my blood chafed inner thighs were screaming at me to quit….when I really wanted to quit….I didn’t. I kept going until my race was finished and in the finishing experienced the sheer joy of not quitting. And that’s why I run and keep on running….for the sheer joy of not quitting. Real runners don’t quit and that’s what proves they are real runners. So what does this all have to do with anything anyway? I mean, is there any spiritual significance to any of this? I think so. I think it portrays and illustrates what so many Bible verses teach regarding the need for believers to persevere until the end and thus, not quit but finish their race. In the end it is their perseverance that finally proves they were true believers for only the true believer will persevere until the end. And in the persevering, in the not giving up, in the enduring until the end they experience the sheer joy that comes when you don’t quit. (Hebrews 12:1-3)