Running Revelations

I'm training for the Hollywood Half Marathon on April 7th. By the time this race comes around, it'll have been almost 2 years since my last race. Thankfully the plantar fasciitis I developed from that race has now gone away, hopefully never to return. So, I'm up to 4 miles now and it is hard but feels good. As I'm running I like to listen to music and sometimes I just turn the music off and think. I definitely have a love/hate relationship with running. It's challenging but feels so good at the same time (especially when it's over). Anyway, I had a couple spiritual epiphanies while running this last week that I want to share. So let's get spiritual!

Revelation uno.... Ok, so I run down the ramp to the Santa Monica Pier and on my way back I obviously have to run up it. Some may think this is not a big deal. But for me, that last little hill at the end of the run kills me. So the other day as I was running it, I was about half way up when I wanted to stop and it hit me. You should never decide how far you'll go when you're running uphill. Decide before you get to the hill that you are not going to stop. You might be thinking, well, duh. But then I was thinking about how that parallels other parts of my life too. When life is hard, sometimes I want to stop, throw in the towel and give up. But it's when things are going well or when I start life's "hills" that I need to decide that I'm not going to stop and that I'll finish what I started.

Revelation dos... Yesterday it rained in the morning so I left for my run late in the afternoon once it finally cleared up. I was so excited to run in such beautiful weather! Seriously, the sun was shining and it was cool out. However, what I did not expect was the HUGE gusts of wind leftover from the morning storms. Like we're talking move me sideways wind. Anyway, I was super annoyed with the wind and ended up walking a bit because I felt like I was running into a wall. As I was walking and cursing the wind, I started to think about a scripture someone had pointed out to me on my mission. It's in Ether 6:5 and it says "And it came to pass that the Lord God caused that there should be a furious wind blow upon the face of the waters, towards the promised land; and thus they were tossed upon the waves of the sea before the wind." I think about the Jaredites in their boats hearing this crazy wind and being tossed around in their boats and if it was me I'd be thinking "I'm going to die." But the whole time this horrible wind and storm was moving them towards the promised land even though they couldn't see where they were going. Isn't that how life is sometimes? Sometimes I feel like I'm stuck in this huge storm that either God gave me or I made for myself and I don't see how it will lead me to anywhere good or happier. But then once you're out of the situation, you can finally see how that has helped lead you to a better place than you were at before.

So, there you have it. Spiritual lessons from training to run 13.1 miles. I guess the body and the spirit really are closely connected aren't they? :-)