Its been a strange year for running. I had been starting to put in more miles per week in the spring of 2010 getting interested in Ultras because of a good friend of mine and a book he lent me to read called 'Born to Run'. Its a good read, though I disagree on certain points, that is to be expected. It nicely fit into my own plan for life as I wanted to be a missionary and specifically a Bible Translator. The people group in the book were as well as I could tell unreached people and had a thing for running very long distances. So I started to train for longer distances though I was still far behind my friend Jake. As I left for Canada to start my studying to become a Bible Translator I was running more in terms of mileage per week than I ever had in my life. Thats not saying too much because I've always been a low mileage high quality kind of guy, but nevertheless was putting in 15-20 mile runs in my Vibram FiveFingers. At the end of the summer my running plans changed as the sign at the entrance of Trinity Western University (hereafter referred to as TWU) declared a new cross country and track team at TWU. So I e-mailed the athletic director seeing if I could help out, assuming I had no eligibility since I'd run out of eligibility for both the NCAA and the NAIA in the U.S. However I had two years left in the CIS. So I joined the team which dropped my mileage as I was no longer training for the same reasons. Throughout the course of this year I've had medical issues, though not terrible ones, due to paranoid doctors and a worried coach I missed the last half of the cross country season. Getting back into training in the winter after I got cleared with no apparent problems I trained hard enough to fairly easily get up K2 with Jake in under 13 minutes the day after I did 35 hill repeats on a hill called Big Mama in my hometown of Vacaville. But I may have trained too hard because shortly after that I ran my first indoor meet and pulled a tendon in my foot which put me out until the very last meet of the season at Regionals where I was so horribly out of shape because I couldn't train properly. So the last month and a half of the spring semester I studied hard, sort of, and forgot about running for a bit only running 3 days out of every 2 weeks or so. So now I'm pretty out of shape, but since the semester ended I came home to my parents' house in Vacaville and have very little to do other than think a lot, watch Burn Notice a lot, and run every day. This past week was the first full week of running I've put in for months and everytime I start back up I'm angry with myself for not staying in shape. I put in about 36 miles this week and am getting stronger fast, but since I have all summer to get in shape and ready for cross country I'll take it slow not wanting to make the same mistake I made this past winter. I'll increase the mileage slowly and keep wary track of all my aches and pains to ensure maximum growth while preventing injury. I just want to have a great base for later this summer and fall when I will build some speed for cross country and later track. Only God fully knows the plans he has for my running and for what purpose he gave me this gift. I know I will only get to see little by little that plan, but its exciting each step I take towards the fulfillment of His plan.
Running Toward God,
Jason
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