so after my FREAKIN AWESOME 13.08 miles, i was just gonna do a short easy run with angie the next day. now, i pretty much stayed in bed after my run, because of yucky tummy problems. so the next day, when i was supposed to do the easy run, i was still a little tired, but my stomach felt much better. my legs were a little sore, but they had been a lot worse before. so, no big deal, i thought.
i met up with angie, and she was feeling about like me. i wasn’t dreading the run, but i sure wasn’t feelin it either. when we started running, my legs started screaming at me…”WTF are you doing?? STOP!” my feet hurt, my knees hurt, my hips hurt. i felt all choppy. i was having trouble breathing. it was horrible. and to top it all off, i started feeling a shin splint on my right leg. and i am ashamed to say that we even stopped and walked a little of it. *hanging my head in shame* angie said it was completely normal for me to feel like that after running like i did the day before. but that still didn’t make me feel much better about the situation. in my mind, i couldn’t understand how i could run 13 miles, with no problems, feeling great, and then the next day, i could barely get 4. it was ridiculous. by the time it was over, my right shin was hurting so bad, and i felt like a big fat loser. so, i’ve let my shin rest for a few days. my plan for the week is to just take it easy, get in a few short runs. hopefully, by the time sunday rolls around, my legs will be feeling better, and my confidence will be feeling a little better too.
Distance: 5 miles!! |Time: 65 minutes | Speed 4.6 mph | Pace: 13:01 min/mile
I ate another clementine before I took the picture, and only ate about a third of the banana. It was both overripe and underripe and not at all delicious. I also had some Chobani and Annie’s Bernie-O’s, which are basically moderately healthier Spaghetti-O’s. I don’t eat them often, but sometimes I crave them! 
Lately, my new shoes have been leaving me with sore calves/shins after I run. SIGH. I cannot find the perfect pair of shoes. Even though I don’t have a blistersquatch, I have some blistering around the bed of my right big toe, as well as a small-ish blister on my left arch. And calf pain/shin pain. So far, my legs just feel a little weird—like they’re getting a hug or something! 
I think I should have forgone the cheese.
When I wear knee braces by thigh bulges over the top and it makes me look like the elephant man under my workout pants. 
(oh sorry, that was my right hamstring yelling for dear life…)
A single point of a solitary 20 year-old sermon stays with me to this day. Mike was a missionary serving in New Guinea, observing from a background in communication and cultural anthropology, that the message that is the most predictable has the least impact and the message that is the least predictable has the greatest. His application was of course, to the church. I think of all the Christian films that I have seen where, the end of the flick brings a resolution to all conflict, an answer to all questions, a re-righting of the world and the suggestion that all would live happily ever after. Makes me sigh in satisfaction to think of the possibility. Recalling my former life as a youth pastor I saw that it did something to my kids as well. They simply tuned it out. They knew that story-book endings rarely happen. The all too predictable message had a negligible impact on them. I think that is also why people sit “Mr. Bean-like” through many services today, drifting in and out of consciousness. We have preached a predictable God to people long enough that they don’t need to bother listening anymore. The compartmentalization of our faith has had the same soul-numbing impact on others. We have allowed ourselves to become people who do church rather than people who are church. Our outlooks, opinions and responses are as appetizing as a TV dinner. People can push our buttons to our frustration and to their delight. Jesus was never predictable. He talked to people that he wasn’t supposed to talk to. He was invited to parties that the religious crowd never got invited to and the party was always better for His Presence. He answered accusation with deep, piercing, soul-searching questions. God has never been predictable. He never will be. He is not into repeat performances. He is a God of endless possibility. He never changes but He is infinitely creative. No two people alike. No two identical snowflakes. He is Sovereign, the Lord of every circumstance, good or bad. I find people every day, desperately interested in and hungry for God. If you push God, you’ll find that as well. If you peddle religion, forget it. Often the reaction that people have to your life will tell you what you are selling. You have stopped living the adventure . . . maybe you never started. Coming to Christ may have been simply a “Get Out Of Hell Free” card or a ticket on the good old glory train where we sing spiritual “Auld Lang Syne” songs all the way to heaven. Maybe that’s good for you, but it’s drier than last year’s bird’s nest to people who are looking for something different from “same old same old”. In my “straining forward” (Ph. 3:13) I hear voices all the time telling me to settle for what is, for what I have accomplished, for stories of how God has moved twenty years ago . . . I unequivocally reject this. Truth is . . . as long as God is, you never know what might happen . . . but it will never happen for people who limit God’s present and future involvement in their lives by their past experience.
