Stop running… start training

I found that motto in a book by Jerzy Skarżyński on marathons and ultramarathons. When you want to take this serious challenge as marathon is – 42.195 km of pure run – you can’t approach the subject as if it was just a morning jog to keep fit.

As a beginner, you need 27 weeks of training, scheduled in the “magic” rule of  3 x 30 x 130, meaning 3 times a week, 30 minutes each, with the pulse of 130.

That sounds very safe. We’ve got a lot of time, so we strat from walking, then we add a run-walk workout, in order to be able to cover the first 30 minutes of running at a stretch. But as soon as you’ve got registered to the marathon, paid the fees and received your starting number, the situation gets serious. From now on each time you miss the training – it is not only about giving up a jog. It’s a loss on your physical condition for which you’ll pay the price in the actual marathon. And you’ll have to pay for each day off. Believe me.

How happy I was when I’d got through the well-known crisis of the 30-31 km and I knew I’d be able to finish the run! How really happy I was! I was happy especially about those trainings when I’d been dripping with sweat, or when – during our pilgrimage with my Brothers in priesthood to the Holy Land on the 25th Anniversary of the Holy Orders – I’d set out for the training while they’d been just siiting to supper. How happy I was that I’d managed to ignore the “protective” inner voice telling me: “take a break today, it’s raining, it’s cold, you’ll run more tomorrow.” NO! You have to do today what’s for today. And you know what’s there to do, because you don’t run any more – you’ve started training.

And nothing will take your satisfaction away from you, because you didn’t compete with people – you’ve won your own weakness.

“I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.” (2 Timothy 4:7) How about your way to Heaven? Do you run, or have you started training?
Fr. Jay