Get moving!

You know what's hard about winter running? I do. It's leaving the comfort of the heat thrown off from the wood stove and getting out the front door. Admittedly, despite the initial big chill, it's normally not THAT bad once you get moving. But getting moving is often the problem.

Inertia is so hard to overcome when we know things will be difficult, challenging, or just plain suck. But we must learn how to get moving and then keep moving. I am pretty sure we can call this Disciple. Perseverance. Commitment. All essential to success.

What is the "wood stove" that keeps you - or your group - from making progress?

Want some help with real-life strategies to both assess and progress?

Let's talk!

https:rebekahtrittipoe.com

Our dreams and God's sovereignty

Gary, my husband and avid hunter, and I sat watching a hunting program last week. After plotting non-stop against a monster buck for several years, that hunter's perseverance finally paid off. Moments after downing the trophy deer he exclaimed, "I'm thankful when dreams align with God's will." The hunter may have stopped the deer in its tracks, but his words had the same effect on us.

Since then, we have talked through the presuppositions of that perspective. We 100% embrace God’s sovereignty in all things big and small but we had not considered the role our dreams and goals might have on our actions.

Let’s say we have an athletic goal, i.e. running a personal best in a race. We are smart in our training, exhibit admirable diligence, eat right, and get enough sleep. We go to the start line ready for a break-out performance. Alas, it doesn’t happen. Was God mean to not let it happen? No. Was His will predicated on our actions prior to or during the race? After all, we did all that was humanly possible. Probably not. If God is absolutely sovereign—and I believe He is—God must have had our ultimate good in mind when he ordained the outcome, even though we may not understand it.

Does this mean that we become laissez-faire, taking a “whatever will be will be” attitude. Not at all. There are many Biblical principles and examples—far beyond the scope of these few paragraphs—that compel us to excellence through perseverance and endurance. But how wonderful it is when we set our minds on a good goal and God is so kind to will us to achieve it!

Sometime ago, Gary set his mind on putting a deer he named “Double Forks” both in the freezer and mounted on the wall. He used trail cameras to capture video and pictures of the big guy. He patterned the deer and learned his ways. He carefully selected a day with beneficial temps and wind direction to perch on his stand high up in a tree and patiently wait.

It truly is a beautiful thing when our dreams align with God’s will. Thank you, Lord!

Complete the mission

 Ultramarathons are not new to me. I've crossed both the start and finish lines of many of these long
races since 1994. As I have aged, however, the challenge level of making required cutoffs has grown exponentially. It's been frustrating to face the reality of not being able to perform as in yesteryear. Hence, enter the 24-hour race, a different kind of hurt.

These races that start one day and end 24 hours later have no cutoffs. If one decides to take a 3-hour nap at 2 AM, that's not a problem. There is no event-generated mileage expectations. Some enter to accomplish a personal goal without a time crunch. For example, complete a 50K or 50 mile with a generous time buffer. It's a beautiful thing.

This last weekend, I set off with me, myself, and I for Lillington, NC for the Cape Fear 24-Hour event. The course is a black-topped and lighted 0.6 mile pathway, relatively flat, encircling a couple of recreational fields. The sole aid station is well stocked, a few runners don costumes for comic relief, and various blow-up characters serve to distract on the 95th lap in the middle of the night. The race is incredibly well-
organized and volunteers oh so helpful. But these factors were not the main reasons I entered.

My previous three attempts at the 24 hr format saw me stop short of the mark, all for different reasons. With a little over an hour to go, time enough for another lap, I stopped short at the Black Mountain Monster because I could not catch the first place women and the third place women could not catch me.

The Buffalo Mountain Endurance Race in Tennessee was my next go-around in November of 2022. I stopped 50 minutes shy of the 24-hour mark with 80 miles. I felt awful and completely exhausted. Turns out I had Covid.

Then in November of 2023, I entered the Greensprings 24 Race. I pulled up after 75 miles and left about two hours on the clock. This time, it was a slightly worrisome pain in my chest that contributed to my decision.

I drove to North Carolina to truly understand what it meant to find the "dignity in completion" described so eloquently by philosopher and world class ultramarathoner, Sabrina Little, who incidentally was the previous American record holder at the 24-hour format running 152.03 miles. Mind-blowing, I know! In my thinking and considering how slow I have become, I set the goal of using up the entire 24 hours to cover at least 80 miles, many of which I knew would be walking.

Here's how the race went. I actually ran most of the first 10 miles, shifting to a relatively comfortable run/walk approach up
through about 25 miles. Nevertheless, with my heart rate much too high to be sustainable and my legs becoming increasingly disobedient so early on, I had to figure out how to accept the fact that I would be walking for the next 55 miles if my goal was to be realized. That began to weigh heavily on my rambling thoughts and I knew I had to figure out a way to bring them under submission.

I will spare you the details of the physical and mental challenges, especially when the lead runners would breeze by me time after time after time. It was demoralizing but I was intentional about offering encouraging words to them as they passed. I filled some of the time catching up with two old-school runners whom I have known for decades. But other than a few words here or there, the only extended conversations I had were with myself. I utilized services that the Campbell University School of Medicine offered in an effort to restore life into this old body. Twice I sat in my car for five minutes to compose myself and will away the sleepiness. Numerous times I ducked into the restroom as my body was trying to deal with fluid shifts. As temperatures fell, I morphed into a Michelin TireMan look-alike by sequentially adding six layers to fend off the cold.

Finally, the clock read 23 hours. With dawn slowly breaking, the golden hour had finally arrived. This is what I had been waiting for. This is where I would have to decide if I had the integrity and dignity to see it through to the bitter end. Did I? I have to admit, with each lap I decided to be content with just one more. Leaving 45 minutes on the clock isn't that bad. Right? How about 30 minutes? 15 minutes? It was a huge struggle to force myself to endure just a bit longer. However, when the clock read 23:56ish, too little time to complete another lap, I was pleased to finally understand what the dignity of completion felt like, despite falling 2.5 miles short of my 80 mile goal.

Was it worth it? Yes. Mission accomplished.

Lean on me

 

"Lean on me," said the little tree to the big tree.

Sorry if I just made a song start playing on repeat in your brain. That said, it's a cool song made popular by Bill Withers in 1972.

"Lean on me
when you're not strong
and I'll be your friend
I'll help you carry on
For it won;t be long
Till I'm gonna need somebody to carry on..."

We all love this notion of leaning on each other; on creating a community where it's all for one and one for all. But do we?

Sure, it takes humility to be the one who leans. The one who is feeling weak and incapable. The one who is fearful of hitting the ground with a resounding thud. The one who needs help.

But I think it may take just as much humility and a sense of courage to be the lean-to. For some reason, we think we will not be strong enough to support another's heavy burden. We won't know what to say and when to say it. We doubt our ability to empathize and understand. Plus, it takes time and effort, of which we find a scarcity in our own lives. So we don't even try. It's easier that way.

But take a lesson from that skinny little tree whose diameter pales in comparison to the big guy. Who knew that the little tree was enough to provide ample and necessary support?

Take a chance. Make like the little tree.

"Bear one another's burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ." Galatians 6:2

Barnyard Boogey

It might look like mayhem but this little challenge was not without purpose. I call it the Barnyard Boogey. Each athlete was assigned one of 4 animals. They were permitted to make only the sounds of the dog, cat, cow, or duck to which they were assigned. The task? Find all your fellow species and link arms.

While this process is highly entertaining for those who watch, it is fairly difficult for all the animal wanna-bes. So how do they accomplish the task?

Success depended of making the choice to filter out and ignore all the unnecessary noise that confuses and distracts. Instead, they had to be selective in what and who they responded to. The barkers had to be drawn to those who barked. The ducks had to be quacking the same tune. And the cats and cows had to discern a meow from a moo.

Are we not bombarded with a lot of worthless noise on a daily basis? Just like the college athletes in this little game, if we want to be effective we must learn to be extremely careful in who and what we give our attention to. Sometimes it is the outside voices that confuse. Other times it is the little voice in our own head that lies to us and talks smack.

Be leery of extraneous noise. Focus in on what edifies.

Feel free to contact me if I can serve your group with fun, interactive activities to reinforce taught principles.

Don't be scared to try

 Don't be scared to try.

I am a rural-kind of girl. There has always been a ton of farm equipment on our property but until yesterday, I had not climbed aboard to wrangle the beast into obedience.

But since necessity is the mother of invention, yesterday was the day to add a new skill. I needed mulch moved from the mulch pile to my flower beds. My husband was kind enough to teach me to operate the tractor, offering very valuable pointers about using all the controls. With his guidance and the bush hog following behind, it was mission accomplished.

Though intimidating at first, I think I have the basics down. I am looking forward to becoming more capable and skilled in the future.

Go ahead. Try something new.

Grow where you are planted

Grow where you are planted.

Sometimes we find ourselves in a very unfortunate situation. Take the tree in the picture. Broken. Dead and decaying. Falling apart, Becoming a whopping big pile of mulch. But then something miraculous happens.

Growth in all the unexpected places. Turns out, the difficult circumstance actually created the perfect, nutrition-rich environment for new development. Look closely. Perhaps that little sliver of green with its few first leaves is spurred on by the hope shown in the two young trees rising up from the stump. "If they could do it, maybe I can too."

It's never hopeless. Reach deep. Grow where you are planted.

When good results disappoint

"If you don't find something you can fix, I will be greatly disappointed," I stated matter-of-factly to my cardiologist. And I was serious. Dead serious. I was laying in my hospital bed waiting to be wheeled into the cath lab to get a clear picture of what was happening--or not happening--inside those skinny little coronary arteries. If he did not find something to stent, like he did five years ago, my symptoms would have no chance of being validated.

I will spare you all the details, but my running has really taken a dive over the last few months. The group of women I run with can be chatting it up having a great time, only to unintentionally pull away and leave me eating their dust. I try to keep up but it's like my engine is throttled back by a governor, heart rate zooming upwards to no avail. I simply can't go. I feel my chest tighten and throat close. I have to walk. I hate being the anchor. Lately, I make excuses to why I can not join them on those long Saturday runs to avoid holding them back and embarrassing myself.

So I run alone. That way, I can control the pace. But alas, I have no get up and go. That same tightness comes and goes, resolved by walking but with sub-zero energy. I makes me wonder if my genetically-produced coronary artery disease is misbehaving again. Surely, I don't want to keel over up in the mountains but my symptoms beg the question if I should even be there. Friends encourage me to call my cardiologist. Perhaps I should. But what if nothing is wrong? I am more terrified of that than an occluded vessel.

Then again, I've been under a lot of stress with a work situation. And, I am 67 and not at the pinnacle of fitness. Maybe this is all par for the course. I certainly do not want to be a hypochondriac worry-wart. Just suck it up, I tell myself. You're fine. Nothing is going to happen. It's all in your head.

That said, I did make that office visit last week and had my third cardiac cath this morning. I cannot begin to tell you how much I wanted there to be a blockage because that kind of problem can be addressed without much difficulty. But no, with the sedation being quite light, I was able to see the dye coursing through the arteries. The stent in the LAD was wide open and though there were a handful of areas with 20-30% blockages, those pose no real problems.

My problem, therefore, becomes how I deal with this good news that I perceive as bad news. Should I assume all my symptoms are figments of the imagination? Am I not tough enough? Am I a wus? Am I relegated to "has-been" status with no good running days ahead? I cannot begin to tell you how much I detest this situation!

So what to do? Perhaps this is an opportunity to force myself into gratefulness knowing that the likelihood of a catastrophic cardiac event is slim. I can look forward to the end of May when I walk out of my office for the final time, leaving the frustration and stress behind. Having more control of my time, I can start over again, building back a consistent and strong aerobic base. Maybe I can teach myself to ignore my symptoms based on the reality of what those cine films revealed. And perhaps the added pharmaceutical approach to address a potential microvasculature issue will be effective.

So here I am at my keyboard figuring out my next move. I think I will contemplate life a little longer, be sad for a few more moments that there are no easy answers, and then go for a run.