epiphany

Well, I followed through on my word and went on a nearly-10-mile run on Saturday morning. When you average 16 minutes per mile, going 10 miles takes a serious chunk of time. When you have that amount of time, the mind tends to wander a bit. This wandering led to an epiphany of sorts for me.

the White River in the early morn

When I was younger, I used to be a "good Christian girl." I went to church every Sunday, I taught Bible School, and I was even a church employee. Going to church was just what you did, and I didn't give it a lot of thought.

I think the first seed of doubt was sown when I went on my first mission trip to New Mexico. It actually was the perfect mission trip for someone like me, because all we did was work; we didn't do any proselytizing. Anyway, most of the people on the trip, young and old alike, were more... I don't know what. Into it? They talked about God's calling for them and other feelings of His spirit. I had no idea what they were talking about. I decided that I needed to try harder to believe, that if I tried hard enough, I could be as good as they were.

So try I did-- for the next few years. I read my Bible and wrote a journal about how much I could feel the spirit and how fervently I believed. I didn't though. For a lot of atheists/agnostics, there's a defining moment or event where they stopped believing. For me, it was mostly a quiet realization that I had never believed in the first place.

I had a similar realization during my run on Saturday. I had been trying so hard to be a runner, to be part of the club, to be like my friends Ashlye and Meagan, to convince myself that running was for me, that I had ignored the fact that I didn't like running at all. And, quite honestly, running doesn't like me either. I have aftereffects from running that I've never had from other types of exercise in my life (vomiting, cold chills, deep joint pain), and for what? Just so I can say that I'm a runner and be part of the club? So I can keep doing something that I don't even like again and again?

So from this day on, I'm not running anymore. I'm no longer training for the marathon, and there will be no more 10-mile runs on Saturday mornings. I am going to be more active though. Now that it's nice outside, C and I can take Grover for walks. I can also get back into Yoga and Pilates. I have kettlebell, kickboxing, and Zumba DVDs. And hopefully in a couple months I'll be able to do some prenatal workouts :)

So if you know anyone who would want my marathon bib for November, let me know!