skipping

don't you wish skipping miles was as easy as skipping songs?

yesterday i was out running. i had my little ipod, and we were going along. i was tired. it was an end of the day kind of run, and i was feeling it. a song came up on my ipod, and i didn't want to listen to it, so i just skipped ahead.

and then i thought, "boy, it would sure be nice to skip to the next mile"

wouldn't it be easy to go for a 10 mile run if you could skip the crappy miles? that one uphill battle with the headwind and rain. i could go without that. i could be happy to just hit the easy, gradual downhills. or mile 9 of a 10 mile run. i love the last mile of a run. it seems you get so much out of a run when you know you are almost done.

now, if in my runs, i could skip that long hard uphill 3 miles, how would my legs ever get strong? or my lungs? how could i learn to endure a long run, without enduring a brutal headwind and stinging snowflakes? how would i train to run up mountains, if i didn't first do those horrible runs? those miles that are, at least, uncomfortable, and at most, brutal?

it's totally like life. all those things that are hard, really do make us stronger. even if it just a mental strength that comes from enduring the storms, or telling ourselves "one more mile". i think so many of my peers are used to being able to "skip ahead" that we have lost the whole point of the marathon. to use the old church phrase, "to endure to the end". enduring doesn't mean you are always going to get the easy downhill.