My Heaven

Each Saturday morning the alarm is set for 5:30 am.  Each Saturday morning I slip into consciousness with the knowledge that it is colder outside than in my warm bed.  Each Saturday morning I let uncertainty easy over my mind.  Each Saturday morning, that I am healthy, I get up anyway and put one foot on the floor, then the other and make a decision to run.

It is always an effort to make my mind do what my body doesn’t really want to do, at least at that moment.  I have to make my mind think, not of the run ahead of me, but the accomplishment and amazement I feel AFTER my run.  It is a mental game I play.

Once I park my car and walk into wherever the Borgess Running group is meeting I lose the doubt I had been carrying.  Once I open the door to facility we are meeting in I gain a little confidence.  Once I mingle with all of these beautiful runners I lose all “me”.  Once I begin running as a group I gain all “we”. 

This particular Saturday I was filled with even more doubt than usual due to my having not run any distance in weeks.  As I spoke to my coaches about how to gain the ability to run real mileage again I was reassured that running only what I could handle today was just fine.  “We are still gaining our base” they told me, “there is plenty of time” I was assured.  This particular Saturday we were to be running either 10, 11, or 12 miles.  The temperature was a balmy 7 degrees and it was lightly snowing. 

We suited up and left the building.  I had in my mind that I could do 6 miles; that means at the 3 mile mark I turn around.  I had it set that I would turn around regardless of how I felt because I didn’t want to over stress my body on my first run back but I wanted to make sure I was getting my legs and lungs back into the swing of what they had been missing.

By mile 2 I was in it.  By mile 3 I was in heaven.  I didn’t notice the cold or the slush.  I only felt my lungs, inhale step step exhale step step inhale step step exhale step step; the rhythm was peaceful and beautiful.  At that very time I believed in heaven, I believed that if heaven was individualized that my heaven would be filled with marathon runners in constant training and we would always feel this at one with ourselves. 

I ran 11.62 miles in 1:51:24, that equates to a 9:35 min mile.