Marathoning

The Bible says that a believer without a church home is like an organ without a body, a child without a family…
Or, I might add, a marathon without a running partner…

Last year, I rand the Rock and Roll Marathon in San Diego…this year, Portland. I ran the last one with my buddy Toph, this one with my buddy Stooky. I call him the The Stook. It sounds more like a mafia name, which is a plus. Don't mess with The Stook.

I haven't been training as well for this one. I ran a 22 miler last Friday, and my knees almost went into full revolt. Ice and Ibuprophen, both are gifts from Jesus, both helped tremendously on Friday night, both begin with the letter i, as in the sentence, "I need some help with the pain in my knees." Needless to say, I'm sweating this one. I was well trained for the last one, I knew my pace, I knew what splits I needed to maintain to hit my goal, I was ready. But even in last year's race, my knees started to hurt. My IT bands tightened up. And honestly, around mile 16, I was just plain tired. If I was running alone, I would have just bagged it, it was that bad. But you see, I was running with my buddy Toph.

And because we were running together, I WAS encouraged by him. He’d say things like, “Let’s just run the next four miles together. We’ll just do a little four mile jog. No worries. Anyone can run four miles.” We’d ask each other “how you doing?” but honestly, the biggest support I think we both gave and received was just the support of being in the race together.

And this faith is a race, and we’re running in such a way as to get the prize. But I guess what I'm trying to say is just this... that faith is one race is one you can’t run alone.