Runner's High - On the Other Side of Uphill

This morning while I was running, God used my run to show me something powerful that I really needed to see. For those of you who know me well, you know that I love to run. I may not be able to run very far or even very fast. Some days I struggle just to get on the road at all and yet there is something about my feet hitting that pavement at a run that has always made me feel a sense of freedom that I have never quite felt doing anything else. 

The weather here has been so humid this summer and running in 97% humidity has really put a kink in my plan to train for my first half marathon. It’s been difficult for me just to catch my breath and my entire body feels like it has hit its limit after just a few miles. Its the proverbial brick wall and there is no ploughing through it. So even though my training plan had me running 5 miles several times this week already, I have not been able to run past the 3 mile mark before I am completely wiped out and call it quits. The remaining 2 miles are done at a jog/walk pace.

This morning I set my intention to run the full 5 miles without stopping. I knew it would be a stretch, but I was determined. As I began my run, I quickly realized that I was finding myself in the same position that I had been in earlier in the week with my previous runs. I was exhausted just from breathing in the thick, sluggish air around me. I wondered how on earth I was going to be able to complete my mileage and run for almost a full hour. Yet in that moment I decided that I was going to buckle up, press in, and use the time I had to pray continuously for something that was heavy on my heart. Most of the initial stretch of my runs are downhill or flat, which is always a bit daunting. I know that once I get about halfway through my run, I am going to have to contend with running uphill. Not a little hill, but one of those beauties that feels like it goes on and on without end. Not fun when you already feel like quitting.

Once I reached that hill this morning, I realized I have been avoiding this hill in front of me for days. I would run right up to it but then stop and walk up it instead. It intimidated me to already feel so tired and worn out and then to think about approaching a good-sized hill at a run.  On previous days, instead of running the hill, I backed down and took the path of least resistance by walking up it instead.

Today, however, I decided to push through and not walk the hill but to run it. In doing so, I noticed something interesting. It wasn’t until I had reached the very top that I began to notice that my pace actually quickened. Instead of having less energy from running uphill continuously for minutes, I suddenly had more. I recognized that where I was previously wiped out and ready to stop, I had gained another burst of energy that would help me go the distance.

It was in that moment that I had a revelation that shifted me. I realized that I tend to avoid hills. If the hill in my life looks too high to run, I walk it instead. There is something in me that is afraid that if I try to run, I won’t make it. Somewhere along the line I have convinced myself that I am not good enough, strong enough, or tough enough to be able to make it up that difficult hill at more than a snail’s pace. I can get by. I just can’t thrive.

I understood something important today. I didn’t feel that burst of energy, or runner’s high as some might call it, before the push uphill. I wouldn’t have experienced it had I just walked leisurely up that hill, doing the one thing that I knew would yield “safe” results. No, I found that runner’s high in the moment when I pushed through something challenging and difficult. When I said: this hill is here to challenge me. It is here to push me. If I allow it to do so. There is something greater on the other side of this difficulty. There is sustainability and peace. I finished those 5 miles today and I am convinced they would not have happened if I had not pushed myself to face something I initially felt that I couldn’t do.

I recognize that the run this morning was a metaphor not only for how I currently live my life, but how I should strive to live my life. Some of my greatest blessings have come after running uphill when I believed that the walk was all that I had in me.

Today, I invite you to think about the hills in your life. Are you running from them? Are you too afraid of failure to push beyond the limits that your own mind has set up for you? If so, I want to tell you that I’m right there with you. But if you’ll just run up that hill, you’ll see something beautiful at the top. Cheering for you, my dear loved ones. I’ll meet you at the top.