Wednesday, June 20, 2012

The Courage to Keep Going

Are you kidding me? I gained weight. I feel slow and out of shape. And worse, I feel alone.

Gaining 15 lbs is no joke; but it's a piece of cake, quite literally. I put it on easily over a period of 2 months. I ran again recently and it felt like carrying two Dell 15-inch laptops in a backpack. I could feel the extra weight pounding along with me.

I also dropped 15% in my age graded running score. Age graded score lets you compare your race times to the standard for your race age and gender. A 15% drop is like getting a grade from a B to a C+. Timewise, my 5k slowed down by 7 minutes.

It's bad enough to realize these figures about me; let alone missing my wife. I continue to contend with my grief over her passing. It's been 15 months; though it's getting better, the intensity still fluctuates. The hardest part is dealing with the aloneness.

I've always shared my running life with my wife. Even when she got too sick to run with me, I kept going because she was still around to appreciate my running highs as well as my lows. Now that she's gone, to the extent that it was true for me, I feel I have no one to share my running experience with any longer.

In a sense, I am grieving over my wife's loss and my decline in running.

But somehow I know that I can overcome my trials. Writing this post after 4 weeks of absence is a first step; and running for a few miles the past few days has been a promising start. I want to thank those of you who have emailed me or posted their support here and on Facebook. Your words of encouragement have been profoundly helpful.

Through all this events, however, my praying has continued. I still receive your prayer intentions and keep them in my heart. I prayed harder for myself, too, especially for an increase in faith and the courage to keep going.

3 comments:

  1. Praying for you and glad you are back. Please keep me and my family in your prayers.

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  2. Have kept you in thoughts and prayer. Wishing you strength and new found determination in your running and in your journey.

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  3. Asking God to provide the comfort that He can only give you as well as a thriving community of fellow saints to run, share and experience daily life with.

    ReplyDelete