7 at 7

I have a sweet friend who began thinking about doing the half marathon around the same time as me, so we made plans last week to run together this morning. She, apparently, is an early riser, so she wanted to hit the pavement at 7AM. I fought hard for 7:30, because it's a more psychologically soothing number. (And also because I wasn't sure that God was even up and moving at 7AM.)

The plan was simple: 7 miles (from one end of the greenway and then back again) 4 minutes running, 1 walking. We could totally do this. A brilliant plan!

We met at the greenway in town, I popped my ear buds in and threw a piece of tangerine gum into my mouth. But immediately I found myself in a mental downward spiral. My ipod wasn't working, to which my mind responded, "there's no way I can do 7 miles if I don't have music." Her timer wasn't working to which I thought, "we're going to get all messed up if we don't have a timer." Poor pitiful me. We decided to run a half a mile and then walk to try and fix our technical difficulties. It took me this long to get my mind out of the dead zone and into a positive place. "You CAN do this. You WILL do this. There is NO other option."

My music magically fixed itself at the half mile mark, and Lydia remembered she had a timer on her ipod, so all was well when it was time to run again. I found my stride, and we were making great time. I was in love with the timer! What a fabulous way to run! Just make it happen for 4 minutes, and then that glorious timer would grant me a one minute walking break. This structure was easy to run with, and I found myself falling into a nice little committed relationship with the 4:1 ratio and the timer that whispered," take a breather, you've earned it." He SO gets me.

That is, until that selfish, unaffectionate little bugger demanded that we jog up BOTH of the insane hills on this route. He didn't care that it was hard. He didn't care that we were out of breath. He just laughed and demanded that we keep going, "because he said so." Traitor.

As we rounded the last curve of that final hill, though, I knew we had it beat. I could smell the accomplishment. It smelled like sweat and tangerine gum. A minute or two later, I could see my car practically waving at me in the parking lot, and I mentally added "run 7 miles" onto my list of accomplishments.

I'm not sure I can properly explain what an accomplishment this is though. I've tried to relate to you how out of shape I was and how incapable I felt to be fit. I don't want to sound like I have a big head. I don't. But seriously, in November, I couldn't run a mile without needing a break. This morning (before God got up) I ran 7 of them.

Who am I?