God bless Texas.
I've always loved to run. No matter what fun new things I try, running is always my workout of choice. There's something so telling about the way our bodies work and struggle and grow as we try to go the distance. (Plus I usually don't suck at it, which also helps.)
I thought that maybe this trail was going to be a place where I learned lessons about how to push myself and excel, but after training on it for nearly a year and a half, it feels safe to say that it was meant for more...well, let's call them "humbling purposes."
The trail itself is beautiful. It's situated alongside a creek and winds through parks and sports fields, fern bluffs, open pastures, some small waterfalls, and under a decommissioned train bridge that (if I remember correctly) was used to haul limestone to the state capitol.
Here's a picture I took from the trail last spring. Some things are just too pretty to run past.
And speaking of the state capitol, because we are located so close to Austin, we can get some pretty fun characters out on that trail. In fact, the very first time I ran the aforementioned train section, there was a grown woman dressed as a flower child blowing bubbles on all of us passers-by. (When she blew the bubbles on my husband, I thought he was going to make us move-Ha!)
No, Austin never disappoints.
What have been disappointing, however, are my run times.
Running apps can be pretty great. They keep your distance. They tell you your pace. They track your overall performance. And all of these things are fun when you are getting better.
None of these things are fun when you're not.
As a person who has finished a run to find out that it was my 57th fastest, let me be the first to say that sometimes running apps can be completely lame. You know what makes you a crazy person? Running miles and miles on a beautiful trail and feeling immediate discouragement. I'm telling you, there were moments during these past 18 months where I have questioned if I should stop running altogether and just start blowing bubbles on people. (I didn't, of course.)
But I did start measuring my success in a different way. If tracking my speed, distance, and overall performance were getting me down, then I would have to ignore all of the things my app was shouting out at me.
Now you might be thinking "What the heck is left then, Liz?! Those are some pretty solid progress measurements!" And listen, I hear you.
If I took away the running app, I was going to have to work with the only things I had left: my randomized playlist and the stone trail markers along the way.
I had to do a complete overhaul. Instead of measuring my running in increments set by a timer, I started running a set length of the songs on my playlist. At the end of the song, I would tell myself to make it to the next stone trail marker (however much further that happened to be.) Because the length of songs vary, the distances would vary too. This was important for me, because I was no longer chasing after my past progress, but focusing on the run I was doing now. The moments my mental messages used to berate my effort, criticizing, "You're not going fast enough! You're falling behind!" were now places to give myself encouragement. "Good, you've finished your five songs. Now get yourself to the rock."
Once I would reach the rock, I would allow myself to rest at a walking pace until the end of the current song. Once the new song was cued up, I would begin running again and repeat the pattern. Again, because the distance varied and the length of the songs varied, so did the rest interval.
Sometimes the break was very long, and I would get antsy to start running again. About midway through the song, I would think to myself, "I'm done resting. I don't need this break. This is moving too slow!" I countered by telling myself that if I made it to the next rock before the start of the next song, then I could start working again. Now I have to tell you that no matter how fast I walked, I never once was able to walk a quarter mile in three minutes. But what did happen was that I was always able to go further and faster during the next round when it was time.
This was important to me, because it made me focus on the overall discipline instead of the momentary feeling.
Sometimes the break was very short, and I would panic. There would be a brief moment where my brain would say "Oh no! There's no way I'm not going to make it!" But I would start running anyway, and tell myself "Do just what you can to get as close as you can to the rock." This was important to me, because it took the focus off of my performance and put it firmly on the rock.
Friends, some of us are not moving because we're hung up on what we used to be able to do and feel guilty that we can't do it anymore.
Some of us are not moving because we're focusing on "how good" we do it instead of the reward of actually doing.
Some of us are not moving because we feel like the "right way" takes too long.
And some of us are not moving simply because we are gauging our measurements the wrong way so we don't see how far we've already come---or all the places we're still capable of going.
I don't know how far it is you have left to go. I don't know how fast you wish you were moving. But I can tell you with absolute certainty, you just need to get yourself to the rock.
(Psalm 78:35 NASB)
And they remembered that God was their rock,
And the Most High God their Redeemer.
(1 Peter 2:6 ESV)
For it stands in Scripture: “Behold, I am laying in Zion a stone, a cornerstone chosen and precious, and whoever believes in Him will not be put to shame.”
