I Just Felt Like Running (Said In My Best Forrest Gump Voice)

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As I mentioned earlier, I have resumed running again. I have my new red shoes and an app which tracks my distance and speed and maps the routes I run (or route, since I’ve only one one route a grand total of two times).

So far, I’ve run 2.02 and 2.3 miles respectively at a clip or roughly 10 1/2 minutes per mile. The sad part is that the second time I walked part of the route and it didn’t significantly decrease my run-time. In other words, I’m either an extremely slow runner or a very fast walker.

But I’m out there doing it. I may not be running marathons yet, but I’m running. I don’t have any lofty goals other than a possible 5k in my future (hopefully when it’s a bit warmer out than it was this morning).

Whatever your dream or goal is, you’ll never see it happen if you don’t start somewhere. If you want to get in shape, you don’t start out by eating only broccoli and celery and running triathlons the first week. You start by maybe running a mile or two and cutting back desserts.

You maybe taking baby steps, but at least you’re taking steps. And if “baby steps” made you think of Bill Murray in What about Bob, you’re not alone. I was thinking it, too. Great minds think alike, right?

There doesn’t have to be a magnificent end-game. You can just decide to go walking or jogging a few times a week and see what happens. You can rescue your bike from mothballs and take it out for a spin.

It feels good to stop talking about exercise and finally start exercising. Odds are, in the long run, your life won’t be all that impacted by that show about tracking grizzly bears on the Animal Planet that you missed.

So take it from this slow white guy. You’ll never get to where you want to be if you don’t start somewhere.

 

The Most Un-Epic Blog You Will Ever Read

I am sitting here with my lap top and my lap cat snoozing contentedly away (the lap cat is sleeping, not the lap top). All is well.

I didn’t wake up today with the super spiritual powers of ultimate patience, unending mercy, and unconditional love. Honestly, I didn’t feel like getting up at all so I set the alarm clock on my phone back 30 minutes before I finally rolled out of bed.

I still get angry too easily and I still am not very good at taking those thoughts captive. Sometimes, I have a terrible attitude and even blame God every now and then that my life isn’t what I think it should be.

But I can see that I’m a little more patient, a little more kind, a little more understanding, a little more ready to forgive and not plot revenge in my head.

I am a little more trusting in God’s plans for me and a little more willing to wait patiently and silently. I’m a little more at peace with unanswered questions and unfulfilled longings and desires.

The life of faith for me is the baby step by baby step version (did anyone else just think of Bill Murray in What About Bob? ‘Cause I sure did).

Somedays it’s 4 steps forward, 3 steps back. Some days, it’s 2 steps forward, 3 steps back. Overall, I am moving forward, ever so slowly, but ever so surely.

Sometimes you get the Charleton Heston as Moses parting the Red Sea moments, but more often than not, you get the quiet moments when you’re waiting for the still, small voice.

For me, my life of faith is less like an action movie filled with CGI and exposions and sometimes scantily-clad women and more like a quirky independent comedy-drama with complex yet endearing characters, a scenic backdrop, and a quiet ending with an epiphany or two in it. Maybe with subtities, maybe not.

By the way, the lap cat is purring, so that probably means she approves this message. And so do I.