The continued prayer is, “Lord keep me focused. Keep my mind stayed on You. Help me to bring You praise. I know You believe in me. Please help me in my unbelief. Amen.”
Today, I needed to run. I needed to run long. I needed to feel everything and nothing at the same time. I missed the drive, the freedom and the joy that comes with running until it’s just you and God and the movement of your body. So I decided to run home from work. Home is in the next town over. It sounds pretty impressive when I say it like that, but these little bedroom communities are all about 7 miles wide.
Mile 1 was rough. The first mile is almost always rough for me. I’m sure there are some elite runners whose conditioning is so great that they never need to warm up but I am *not* like that. I always need about .75 miles for muscles recognition to kick in. Also, mile 1 was very hilly and I had to fight to get over it. Then I walked down the other side because I haven’t mastered the art of running downhill without hurting myself and I couldn’t afford to injure myself right at the beginning.
As I am working on mile 2, I turned a corner and I started running down a highway. This is obviously the scariest part of the run. I have about 3 miles of highway before I reach the city limit and I am racing against the sun set. I was all decked out in my reflective gear and I had a flashlight and pepper spray in hand, but I really didn’t want to run this highway in the dark!
At about mile 4, I get a call from Chris telling me that he has run out of gas on the freeway and needs leave the car and walk home to get the other car and will I please call the BGC and the daycare lady to let them know that he is going to be late.
At this point, I am realizing just how self-centered I am when I am running. I was thoroughly annoyed by this. Not because I didn’t care about my stranded husband, but because I felt like I was in a far worse situation than him! I realize he hadn’t chosen his plight and I had brought my situation on myself , but, I was out there, at dusk, in the rape zone, trying to keep my eye on traffic and any fugitives in the bushes who might attack and now I have to be further distracted by a phone call he could have made! Other than that, there was very little I could do to for him in that situation. So I had to fight my way home and stress about whether or not Chris made it home and to the childcare providers before the kids realized something must be wrong.
It’s black as pitch by that point and more than a little frightening. I’ve decided that if any cars pull over, I would start screaming before I waited for any explanation because there is just no reason for any cars to be pulling over on this creepy highway.
When I’m rounding out mile 4, a truck pulls over and starts right for me. I raised my pepper spray and opened my mouth to start screaming my head off. Then the driver blew right passed me and pulled into one of the ranch homes. Sure, I scared him more than he scared me and he probably thought I was crazy, but who cares?! I have too much to live for to worry about looking stupid or making a fool of myself!
At Mile 5, I reach the city limit. It’s still really dark, but at least I’m running on sidewalks now.
At Mile 6, I passed the Target and the city lights are bright enough that I don’t have to use my flashlight any more. I’m feeling pretty good. Aside from the few inclines that I came across, I haven’t walked much at all.
At mile 7, I am feeling great! I passed the Golden Spoon and I wasn’t even tempted to stop in.
Mile 8 is great. My music is singing me home and I am so high on life, the police lights in my neighborhood don’t even phase me. I stop for a millisecond to make sure I don’t recognize any of the cars in what seemed like a pretty serious pile up, and keep on moving. I am desperate to finish this run in 1:45.
I made it home! The kids are eating pizza and the dog is licking the salt off my calves. I still needed to go get the car off the freeway with Chris so my day is far from over but at least I made it home safely (Thank you, Jesus!) and I don’t have to cook. Win Win!
What a great run!!! Can’t wait for Daylight Savings to spring forward so we can get more light in the day. Even though I would never allow my kids to do it, I will definitely do this run again.
Note: I had Chia Seeds and water before I started this run and I didn’t have to hydrate the entire time. Usually after a short 3 mile sprint, I am desperate for water when I get home but I ran this full route and didn’t even realize I hadn’t had any water until almost an hour after I made it home. I highly recommend Pinole and Chia Seeds for running fuel!
Wow, Sabrina... awesome run. Congrats!
ReplyDelete