“Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight and the sin that clings so closely, and let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us…” —Hebrews 12:1
My friend Michelle proclaimed this verse as she ran alongside me yesterday. She ran alongside me for about 11+ miles of my 26.2-mile run. I began with my close friend and classmate Christopher, who ran with me for seven miles or so. After Michelle, I found Brian, who like Michelle is a member of St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church in Burke. All told, my friends shared about 24 of the 26.2 miles with me.
I don’t know why I haven’t committed that Hebrews verse to memory. Michelle has. She is also a runner, and she shared with me some of her adventures over the years, which include the Boston Marathon (!). I do experience running as a spiritual practice, even a form of prayer, but my intuitions and feelings about this run very deep, and are usually not something I can talk freely about. It all just makes sense, as I run—my spiritual perspective, and the deeper reasons why I participate in this challenging and often solitary sport.
I will try to express some of these intuitions, though, because finishing my first marathon distance is a notable accomplishment. It will likely be a core memory for the rest of my life. It was one of five big goals I set for myself in 2020. And it happened at a time when practically everyone on earth is suffering disruption and loss due to a global pandemic. So it’s a triumph, I say with I hope a little modesty. It is a little headline of good news in my life, I know that.
I was most spiritually aware, conscious, awake at mile 22.5. Friends Christie and Paul and their families had just cheered me on. I was moving through the first part of the last 4.2 miles, and trying to figure out where I was going to finish the run: somewhere along the Mt. Vernon Trail, or at the Four Mile Run Park stopping point that Christopher and I have made our base camp for our shared runs? I wanted it to be Four Mile Run Park. So I looked up, saw the DCA airport traffic-control tower a bit too far in the distance for comfort, and kept running. Four miles to the park, I thought. That’s right. I’ve got that right.
I was wrong. It was three miles to the park. I realized this somewhere alongside the western edge of DCA. The Mt. Vernon Trail has little hills—tiny rises, really—at certain points by the airport, and I clomped up them. “Clomped”—that’s the right verb. I made it. Then I realized my mistake: when I hit the defunct drinking fountain, that’ll be 1.47 miles from the finish, and I’ll have about 2.5 to go. I needed to double back at some point. I passed the drinking fountain, kept going, got nearly to the turn to the Four Mile Run Trail, and turned back. I began my half-mile backtrack. I had to get to 24.7 miles before I could turn again and finish the run. 24.29. 24.36. 24.47. And on it went. I wasn’t going to stop. I would never stop. I wasn’t in a lot of pain, really. Just tired. At the points where I turned, there were two or three seconds when, technically, I was not running. I was suspended in the turn. But even then, in those moments of pregnant pause, I would never, ever, have stopped.
The final mile took me along the north edge of Four Mile Run, a waterway that empties into the Potomac. I was going to make it. Of course I was. At mile 26.15, my left hamstring sounded a loud alarm. I think I literally spoke to the muscle: “Just 0.05 more, bud. Just a little more.” And I made it. I finished. Nine friends from seminary were there, and a bunch of folks from church. My friend Amy made me a medal. Friends had made signs and a finisher ribbon.
I held my pace for a good long portion of the run. Eleven minutes, eleven minutes three seconds, eleven minutes seven seconds, back to eleven minutes two seconds, and on I went. I positively leapt over a large rain puddle at one point, somewhere around mile four or five. (A thunderstorm cheered me on in the first couple of miles, and my shoes made a squelching noise for a couple of miles while the sky cleared, down by the Alexandria waterfront.) By the time I was running east along the National Mall, relieved that the Memorial Bridge had not been closed, I was feeling good, feeling strong. Friends Elaine and Jim found their way to the Mall, and Jim took a picture of me that makes me look fit. That’s deeply gratifying: all this running is very much about fitness for me, about being in the best shape of my life, about living young.
The run back west along the Mall went fine, but we (Michelle was with me) learned that Memorial Bridge was closed westbound. We didn’t know what to do, so… we ran. We went north, up and around Kennedy Center, and Michelle asked somebody for directions. We then found signs that directed us across the bridge over Roosevelt Island, and we found our way back to Virginia. Then the Mt. Vernon Trail again, and finally I got back to the part of the trail I know well. All this took me through miles 17-20 with some very helpful distractions. “Now I just need to run a 10K!” I thought.
I am so deeply grateful for my health. That is the main thing I want to say about this run, and about all my running. My health is precious. It is a jewel in my hand. I know I will one day relinquish this jewel, and for all I know that day is swiftly approaching. But I love to build and protect my health. I credit my sobriety for much of this. I didn’t want to drink on May 13, 2013, so I chose not to, and I have made that same choice every day since. I love sobriety. I feel a thousand times better, and I have so many more hours in the day, and practically everything I’ve done over the last nearly seven years has been possible because of my sobriety. It is at the heart of my priestly call, and it bridges my identity as a priest with my older identity as a deacon. I think it makes me the kind of person you can talk to about things. And, it powers my will to run.
I run because I love physical health. I run because I love sobriety. I run because I love a challenge. I run because I love how strong and alive I feel when I push myself athletically. And yes, I run as an expression of faith. St. Paul used the running metaphor when he described the life of faith. And of course my friend Michelle also reminds me that it appears in the letter to the Hebrews. The spiritual dimension of running is, for me, about perseverance. We persevere for one another. We come to work together. We do hard things. Then we get up and do them again. “The fields are white,” Jesus says, alerting us to all that needs to be done. When I was moving through those last four miles, I didn’t think of the white fields and I didn’t quote Hebrews to myself, but my body was laboring in the harvest. My body was pushing through something difficult. “It’s important,” my body likes to tell me. “This is important.” And so, my body and I, we run.
Sometimes I like to name the part inside me that cheers me on, and sometimes pushes me around. I call her Monica. I love her. I love the impact of her motivation on me. I give her credit for my health and strength. Who is she? She is a part of my psyche, a dimension of my consciousness. She is not the voice of God (that way lies megalomania), but I sense that she is at least in conversation with God. She is sometimes hard on other parts of my self. She is also—and I confess this sin from time to time—sometimes hard on other people who remind her of my own problematic past. She is Monica. I couldn’t lose her without losing myself.
This run is for you, Monica. We did a hard thing. Isn’t it great?! Now please let us rest for a day or two.
