The Gift of Time

Today is my first day of rest after running for 50 consecutive days -- 2 days before Lent, 40-day Lenten Run, 7 days Holy Week, and 1 day yesterday. I covered 312 miles. That’s a 10k every day for the last 50 days.

A few friends tell me that it’s good that I still have the time to run. But don’t we all get the same amount of time in a day? Nobody gets more than or less than 24 hours in a day, is there?

To tell you the truth, running for 50 days straight wasn’t easy. There were days I didn’t feel like running, like after a long day at work, during a busy weekend, that week when I was fighting a cold, or that time right after running a marathon. But I did.

I made use of the gift of time that was fit for me. I ran late at night after a long day; I ran first thing early morning on a busy weekend; I ran while waiting for my son’s away games to start.

On days that I wasn’t feeling well, I still ran. I told myself I would give
the gift of my time to others. As I ran, I thought about the people who
were sick, who are burdened by personal problems. I also
remembered the people who requested for prayers for their special

intentions. As I ran through pain, I prayed to God to help them and I also gave thanks on their behalf.  Praying for others, I somehow made it through running hurt or sick. It was my gift of time - to honor my commitment to run and pray for others.

50 days of running seem like a huge chunk of time. But actually it’s not. The total amount of time I actually ran is 2 days and 3 hours. It’s about 4% of my time.

I thank God for being able to run the last 50 days. I thank God for the gift of time. I can’t ask for anymore. 

What's Your Time?

It's not uncommon among runners to ask about their finish time in a race.  First time runners, sophomore runners, veteran runners - they all ask that question unabashedly.  However, there are some runners who don't ask and those who don't answer truthfully. The business of asking and answering this question is really a matter of your comfort level.  I think that it's better not to ask especially to somebody you don't know too well; but when asked and you don't want to answer directly, you can say something like, "My time was better than last year's." My favorite one is to simply say, "I really had a great time!"

Time is very important to runners.  First, they need to make time during their busy day for running.  Then when running, they are keeping time all the time.  After running, they record their time.  Long after the run, they remember the time.  But time is also important to non-runners.  They go about life dictated by time, especially in urban parts of the world.  This time is human time or "chronos".  It is the other meaning of time in Greek which means chronological time.  It's time that measures a duration of an event.  There is however, another meaning of time.  In Greek, it is called "kairos".  It is that undetermined period of time when something special happens. It differs from "chronos" which is quantitativee time.  "Kairos" refers to the qualitative form of time.  In the Bible, it is God's time.