Seeing God's Beauty on the Road

I have been fairly absent from running for about the past 2 months. To give you a little detail, I was sick and all of a sudden I got hit with this NASTY pain in my foot during a 6 mile barefoot recovery run. If you know me, I am not one to go to the doctor. I don't like them. Don't get me wrong, I think that being a doctor is an incredibly honorable position and they help millions of people every day. They helped me recover from having a stroke at 17, but health care costs are way over-inflated and they always end up prescribing us stuff that our bodies end up becoming immune to and we end up getting sicker. I know, in this regard I may be a hippie but if I am sick I usually try to eat a little better or drink OJ and stuff with lots of vitamin c to build my immune system back up. I have dealt with sinus infections for years and come out of them just fine.

Anyway, I self diagnosed myself with a sore foot (trust me that's the medical term :D) and decided that I needed to take some time off. I have been running pretty much straight for 5 years. I have taken some breaks over the years such as post recovery from marathons or if I am too sick or hurt to run, but nothing as extended as this. Obviously this year my mileage and times have been vastly improved so it was probably time. I didn't want to get too flabby while resting so took on some biking, light lifting, examining the stair stepper and elliptical and just trying stuff that I haven't for a while. The entire time though I was grumpy and just wanting to get out and run with all of my friends. It really sucked.

After being out of commission for exactly a month I decided my foot felt better and it was time to get out and boy was that first run painful. I probably went out to fast and for too long, but no matter how painful it was it felt great. So, I have slowly been getting back into it and this Monday I went out for my longest run since I hurt myself and probably one of my greatest runs ever.

I decided I wanted to run from our house to a neighboring town and back. I have run this course a hundred times. It's just about 11 miles. Since I was going really early (5 AM) and is on back country roads I decided that in the interest of safety I wasn't going to take my iPod. Because I have run this route so many times it does get a little boring and I was nervous about being out and losing motivation to keep going. As I am doing my normal pre-run routine I realize that I forgot my Garmin at work. NOOOOOO. How am I ever going to do this with no technology?!?!?!?!? I loaded up my Camelbak with water, threw on my Brooks ASR 6's and headed out the door not knowing what to expect.

I'll be honest, the first few miles were very mentally taxing. Whole lots of nothing going on. Every once in a while a car would go past, but that was about it until I got into the neighboring town. Once I got into town the clouds started to break up. This was good and bad. Bad because it was now getting colder but good because the view was incredible.

Now, I'm 30 years old and have seen the stars, but for some reason that morning the stars far more beautiful than anything I have ever seen before. There were no street lights and I don't know if it was the time of the day or what, but WOW. It really got me thinking. There are people in this world that deny the existence of God and it made me want to have them there at that moment. How can you deny the existence of someone who created this beautiful thing that we live on. It is not possible that this world could have been some cosmic accident when you are thrown into a view like this. Each star was so bright and looked like each one was very carefully placed in it's particular spot. It was absolutely astounding. I found myself stopped a few times just staring.

I realize that I have seen the sky probably 10,000 times (calculate it out, I was probably 3 when I first realized the sky) but there was something about this morning. This run. It made me realize how beautiful this world really is. The world is filled with so much ugliness, but that morning where I was standing was the most beautiful spot in the world. Maybe it was the fact that I was low on calories. Maybe it was the fact that I was mentally shutting down. But that view is what got my spirits back up and helped me to finish that run. I was having a pretty stressful couple of days leading up to this, but the rest of my day I found myself thinking back to that sky. God made me get out that morning. God made me leave my Garmin at work. God didn't want me to take my iPod. God wanted me to get out and see His true beauty on the run.

Next time you are outside either in the early morning or in the middle of the day, take some time to look at the sky and just realize that it was all created for your enjoyment

Stay Strong, Run Long,
Tha Messenjah