Skip to main content

Reflection after Black Mountain and Umstead Marathon

A day after Umstead Marathon, I was stranded at CLT due to flight cancellations and delays. It is only going to be a short trip - which is even shorter now - to renew my work visa. Without my laptop and so much time to burn, I browsed through and caught up in my reading of Runner’s World, Backpackers, and Outdoor. Time didn’t look interesting. I didn’t see the New Yorker. Then, the Harvard Business Journal caught my eyes with bright yellow letters: Work vs Life. While I am sad that we compartmentalize work and consider the rest of our lives outside of work...life, I admit that I struggle with the same thing. We all know the looming fear of Monday after an epic weekend spent with friends, on trails, in a cabin, by the fire, up in the mountains. And when Monday eventually comes…

In the article, Harvard business students survey over 4,000 executives in regards to their work/life balance and draw conclusions from almost five years' worth of interviews. The key to such balance? Make deliberate choices. And the first choice you have to make is to define your own success.
Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ. (Philippians 3:8)
The Apostle Paul’s success is found in knowing Christ. After all, “Man's chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy him for ever.” There are many means to this end, whether at work or at play. This has me revisiting my definition of success in life, work, and play (read: running).

After not being able to run much in both January and February due to shin and calf issues, I miraculously ran two marathons on back-to-back weekends. These two marathons wouldn't be considered as a success a couple months ago when I was running better without hinderance and injuries. But for now, they are great successes because (1) I plodded through them. (2) I got to spent several hours enjoying the beautiful trails with great company, and also some much needed solitude at times. (3) I am thankful and am mindful that running is a gift. Despite how I feel about my “performance,” I couldn’t help but speculate that God considers these greater success than my other PRs when I neglected all the above.

Sometimes I think God takes away things from us for a good reason, namely for our well-being and character that matter more than our desires. My desire might be becoming faster, but that’s an elusive goal. What often follows is I overtrain, I don’t rest enough, and I end up with injuries that set me back. As frustrating as it sounds, sometimes I'm also thankful about it. It reminds me that speed doesn't last. It wakes me up from building my life around running. It rescues me from letting running be my idol. It onces again teaches me that running for me is about becoming a better person, a better employee, a better friend, not just a better/faster runner. Obviously, I, not God, inflict these injuries on myself, but I often find healing when I finally let my desires and pride go. Do I still want to gain speed? Yes! But I want to do it with the right heart and a humble spirit.

At any rate, I had a lot of fun the past two weekends. I don't know what this season holds, but I'm looking forward to every adventure that God brings me on, the people I get to share the journey with, and the lesson He wants to teach me.


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

WV Trilogy - Part 2

(If you haven't read Part 1, it's here .) (Sat) Oct 13 -  Sunrise at Spruce Knob 6 a.m. start in the dark. My legs surprised me by being happier than yesterday. My heart is in better place as well. The first 6.7 mile goes up to Spruce Knob, the highest point in West Virginia. Part of this section was on fire road and I welcomed the faster miles. Steady progress was made in the first 20 miles or so until the long, long descent into Aid Station 3. As I have decided yesterday, I'd start the race, go from aid station to aid station, and re-evaluate my condition at each. I left Aid station 2 feeling good but then the long descent once again put doubts in my mind. Running reduced to little steps on jello-legs. Compression socks helped to contain the injury and pain, but the strength to support the pounding was still lacking. Soon, my knees started to hurt as well. At aid station 3, they told me I had 2:45 to make it to the next aid station before the cut-off. At the pace I...
7 comments
more >>

New Year's resolution

Nine days into 2012 and a day before entering into a new age group is an opportune time to nail down some New Year's resolutions. 2011 was a good year, one that filled with transitions and norming --  be it moving from California to Charlotte, from being a student back to an architect, or starting fresh in a new territory to establishing roots and relationships. My new running and swimming communities had made the transition easy and welcoming, and partly because of that, much of my attention in the past year was on either sports, like running my first 50k and participating in my first swim meet. Having just graduated from seminary was probably the other half of the reason why I had been keeping a distance from structured studies / reading in 2011. With that said, my 2012 focus will be on balanced growth. While I still have a long list of goals in swimming and running, I need to make sure I allocate enough time and attention to spiritual and intellectual grow...
2 comments
more >>

Georgia Jewel Weekend

My last-minute decision to run the Georgia Jewel 35-miler last weekend turns out to be a good one. A group of friends had made plans and arrangements to go, running all distances: 35, 50, and 100! Everything was in place, I couldn't pass up the fun to run with old friends and meet new ones, and see Sully running a difficult 100! A storm was passing through on Saturday and it was torrential downpour from the start at 5 a.m.! The first 10 miles through the "rock garden" was difficult for me. It was hard to see through the heavy rain and fog in the dark with my glasses and crappy headlamp (Lesson learned: I'm investing in a better headlamp - it's worth it). Sky lightened up after the first 10 miles and we also got to run on smoother single-tracks. I was able to pick up my pace a bit and caught up with a few that passed me during the Rock Garden. Unlike the point-to-point 50-miler, the 35-miler was an out-and-back. During the return trip, some sections of the tra...
3 comments
more >>