Home Spirituality Life on Purpose Running: lessons from a 5K race

Running: lessons from a 5K race

(Photo: Denise Civiletti)

I did it! I completed the 5K run sponsored by the Jamesport Fire Department!

Notice that I said “finished” — not ran. I kept moving the entire time, but towards the end, I walked a few hundred feet before I started back to finish the race running.

As I mentioned in a column back in June, I started running this spring, adding it to my daily rosary walk. Since I turned 50, I’m not sure that I know who I am anymore, but I like it! Running became an exhilarating outlet for stress, until I got shin splints and could barely walk, let alone run. I worked it out through stretching and consulted with a DPT to find out when I could start running again.

An assessment of my reflexes, gait and balance, confirmed my concerns that my right side is slightly more affected, most likely because of MS. I realized that staying active was more important now than ever before, so I began gait and balance training with physical therapy. Gradually, I got back to doing a walk/run while praying the rosary.

Through the last few months, I’ve been reflecting on what it means to keep running the race and how this little addition to my morning routine has a lot of analogies to life.

 Training is hard work and so is life.

At first, I found it exhilarating to get up in the morning and run. I would get my shoes and outfit all ready the night before and wake up with excitement to run. That lasted about a month, until it hurt. But through the pain, I learned what limitations my body had and what I needed to do to keep running. My body was all over the place when I ran, and my form was kind of aimless. I literally had to —  and am still in fact, learning how to — control my body to follow what my mind and heart needed to do.

The Apostle Paul said it this way in Corinthians 9:24-27:

“Every athlete exercises self-control in all things. They do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we do it for an imperishable prize. So I do not run aimlessly; I do not box as one beating the air. But I discipline my body and keep it under control, lest after preaching to others I myself should be disqualified.”

Life is like that, isn’t it? If we allow our minds to simply wander aimlessly and accept every thought as being the truth, most of us would not be able to get out of bed. Negative thoughts and emotions, selfish actions and a lack of concern for others could run our lives in the wrong direction. Disciplining our thoughts, emotions and actions in a way that serves God and others is hard work. In the end it’s worth it.

• Press on with your eyes on the goal.

Here’s where the rubber really meets the road for me. I have these physical goals ahead of me: maintaining a healthy weight, reducing stress, and increasing flexibility and balance to combat the affects of MS. Early on I realized that I was losing feeling in the sensations of my right foot and that was affecting my balance. Running helps me to feel my feet. Those are awesome goals. But I had to own it and keep my eyes looking forward. Praying while running helps me to keep my focus and looking forward reminds me where I need to go.

Last Sunday, at the beginning of the race, I had these crazy thoughts of whether I was running too slow or too fast. “Was I going to make it or worse, was I going to come in last?” (135 out of 170, not bad for a first run). I made a decision to follow Paul’s advice and “forget what lies behind, straining forward to what lies ahead..pressing on to the goal of life in Christ.” (Phillipians 3:14-15) It didn’t matter if I was running ahead of someone else, as long as I ran ahead. I took control of my body and my mind, focused my eyes forward, and held onto those beads, prayed my rosary as I ran.

•  In life and in running, know your “why” and your purpose.

In my estimation, there is nothing quite like motherhood to clarify your why and define your purpose. When I became a mother, I accepted that I had a unique purpose to love and serve a unique person so that they in turn could live a purpose filled life. I think that’s where the empty nest thing comes in, only my nest will never quite be empty. My youngest will live with us and there will always be a parade of health care professionals. I have to keep going for my kids, most especially for my daughter, Johanna. That’s the life lesson.

At the run, that life lesson became much clearer. My daughter most likely won’t ever run a 5K alone. I might start training to push on my next run, but for now she’s on the sidelines, watching me work hard for real goals that matter. She was there watching me at the beginning and waiting for me at the end. She’s my why and she helps me define my purpose. I’ll keep running the race for Johanna.

•  We do not run the race alone.
We are surrounded by what Paul calls, “a great cloud of witnesses”; people living and dead who God placed in our lives to encourage us to go on.

Hebrews 12:1-29 Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith.

The days before the 5K were tough for many people. I learned with the rest of the North Fork about the untimely death of a beautiful young lady and at the same time I learned that a close friend of mine was diagnosed with cancer. When the running got harder, I thought of these two very special mothers, one who lost her daughter in tragic accident and one who is facing tough road ahead. Each one of them are entering a marathon now, in different ways they must both find ways to cope and survive. Although they weren’t there in person, I carried them in my heart and prayed for them on every bead of my rosary. When I felt like giving up, I remembered to pray for them that they would have the strength and endurance to run the race.

The last mile was the hardest. Even with these thoughts and prayers, I felt alone. But then the Lord sent me an angel, a voice beside me to encourage me. She said, “Eileen Benthal, you got this. You can finish the race.”

I finished the race and learned a few things about running and more about life.

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Eileen Benthal
Eileen is a writer, speaker and wellness coach with a bachelor’s degree in theology from Franciscan University. She and her husband Steve live in Jamesport and have four young adult children. Email Eileen