My Love/Hate Relationship With Track

Well, it's that time of year again...for track training.

Now, let's get one thing straight, right up front: I hate running but love being in shape. (I also love winning, but that is hardly a big enough reason to run track.)

My track career began freshman year. I was thrilled to be trying a new sport, especially one that involved the only aspect of other sports that I was any good at: running. I soon discovered, however, that running against other people that actually trained to run was a lot more stressful and painful than I had expected. While, in basketball, I could sometimes manage to outsprint other players on fast breaks and, in soccer, I could keep up enough endurance to make a decent mid-fielder, but track was different. I had to push myself to run much faster and much longer than I was used to in order to do well against other competitors in a race.

One thing I did not learn freshman year...well, actually, I did learn it, but chose to ignore it, (much to my detriment) was that, to be a good runner, you actually have to work hard. Really hard..and not just at the meets themselves but every single day of the season. Like I said, I chose to ignore that fact all through freshman year, and my final meet had me huffing and puffing (and crying, my mother likes to teasingly remind me) as I desperately scraped a 6th place ribbon in the 800m.

The pain and shame of that last race were probably the sole reason I decided to quit track. Well....at least, for the next two years, but, as people (particularly guys who are annoyed with my persistant efforts to beat them in one thing or another) like to point out, I am extremely competitive. In fact, I'm not sure it's healthy to be as competitive as I am, but anyway, as soon as my best friend Laura beat my PR (personal record) in the 800, I had to give track another try.

So, senior year had me back on the track, this time training like a madwoman to beat the new Dominion Academy 800m record. I was terrified of the thought that Laura might beat me in a race and I relentlessly trained, even traveling down to Kentucky with Laura for a week of two-a-day training sessions and personal instruction from her aunts who had both gone to state in track.

Long story short, I worked pretty hard last season and really did reap the rewards. I was stronger, faster, and healthier than ever before.....But still, every meet had me stressing about the next race and, whether or not my nerves helped me race well, they certainly made me remember why I quit track. I guess I'm just bi-polar when it comes to track. I can't seem to decide if I love it or hate it, whether the benefits outweigh the sacrifice..

But, here I am, beginning my training for the track season at Franciscan. Yes, I'm running intercollegiate track. My mother thinks I've lost my mind. Maybe I have. I know that I'm going to have to train harder than last season in order to even get personal records, let alone prove competition enough to place well, but something in me won't let the sport go. God has given me a small measure of talent but a large amount of determination. What can I do but give my best to His glory?

.....and really, this whole post was a big stalling tactic because I don't want to go outside and run in the rain.

..but it's still raining.

..so I better get out and run.

But at least maybe you all understand my track complex now.

When you're a newly licensed driver...

...make sure you really do know how to get gas at the gas station before taking the car out on empty.

...do not allow your 7 year old brother to wave his hand frantically out the window at passing police cars.

...MAKE SURE YOUR LIGHTS ARE OFF BEFORE LEAVING THE CAR!

...do not sing opera, as this will tend to make you gesture wildly, thus making you look certifiably insane and causing you to step hard on the gas when attempting to hit notes far above and beyond the range God intended you to have.

...watch out for random ladies who like to drive on the wrong side of the road for no apparent reason.

...expect to be sent on an errand of some kind at least once a day.

...do not listen to Charlotte Church if you are inclined to sing along, as this will cause you to attempt feats both your vocal chords and the car cannot handle (^ see "singing opera" above ^)

...do not expect to be graciously accepted into the left lane. It is a priviledge that you must either earn or demand...there are no polite requests involved.

...if you back out of the driveway via the grass and curb, your father may explain to you a new meaning of the term "lawn job"...and then proceed to make you feel utterly foolish for a good 15 minutes.

...if you drive the speed limit you will be passed by everyone, even truckers. Accept this now or learn to drive at least 15 above.

...when in downtown Dayton, keep in mind that questionable-looking personages have been known to meander aimlessly across the middle of the road for no apparent reason.

...drive-thru's are for experienced drivers...driving close enough to the window to reach your food is harder than it looks.

...driving in 4-6 inch heels is not advised but has been done.

...learn to become deaf to all shouting, screaming, fighting, scuffling, complaining, singing, and excessive laughing from the back seat...or otherwise expect to lose your mind.

and finally...

...pray every time you get in the car. Pray that God take mercy on your newly acquired skills, pray for the well-being of all those driving around you, and pray for no accidents...with the car............or in your pants.

C.S. Lewis blows my mind yet again

"....This process of surrender--this movement full speed astern--is what Christians call repentance. Now repentance is no fun at all. It is something much harder than merely eating humble pie. It means unlearning all the self-conceit and self-will that we have been training ourselves into for thousands of years. It means killing part of yourself, undergoing a kind of death. in fact, it needs a good man to repent. And here comes the catch. Only a bad person needs to repent: only a good person can repent perfectly. The worse you are the more you need it and the less you can do it. The only person who could do it perfectly would be a perfect person-- and he would not need it."
~C.S. Lewis 'Mere Christianity'

Ahh...I love that man.. :)

The effects of adoration on sleep deprived individuals

The Portiuncula on campus (aka my favorite place in the whole world) has 24hour adoration, which has been such a blessing. I don't know if I've ever been so at peace in any other place. This week, at my hour slot on Wednesday afternoon, however, I was having an incredibly difficult time concentrating. My mind simply could not stay focused...the result? This rather amateur attempt at poetry:

Listening leaves me satisfied;
My words just confuse me,
But, of hearing you, I am denied,
And so my thoughts bemuse me.

In this chapel, defiantly
Praying till I burst,
But, of these pray-ers silently,
I know I am the worst.

Wand'ring thoughts, uncontained:
Wild, independent things.
With them my spotless soul is stained,
Lending Evil wings

To build up walls five feet thick,
Through which I cannot find you,
And, without your healing touch I'm sick
with fears and worries anew.

Gracious Love, can you reach me yet,
Though walls and wings deny
Entrance to a crown with thorns set,
Heedless of my cry?

I'm waiting, pacing back and forth
Within my towered cell.
Yet, lost in dark, which way is North
From whence I think I fell?

Still deeper than the dark which grips
Me close in cold embrace
Are reflections in sweet, crystal tears
That softly grace your face.

You see me here, so tightly bound,
Hopelessly out of reach;
And know that I hear not a sound,
Nor understand your speech.

So save me now, why do you wait
To burst through lock and chain?
And relieve me from this sorry state:
Relinquish all my pain.

But now, a smile, yet barely that,
So sadly it appears
To me, deaf sinner, gazing at
Your visage marked with tears.

And though not a sound or echo
Do I hear in stillness blank,
Your lips form words of sorrow
I find I cannot mistake.

Beautiful Child," First you call;
Then, "How sadly you're mistaken.
If you just believed these walls could fall
Their foundations would be shaken.

For only one can let me in:
One not of evil's make,
Who has listened to the lies of sin,
Into whose heart I will not break."

"Where is he, this power has?"
I frantically replied,
And pounded on the barred glass
To reach His face behind.

Then, "Hush, Be Still," He said,
In tones so rich, and soft and deep,
"Why did you let your fears be fed
By lies so plan and cheap?"

For, all the while you knocked and cried
Yet could not hear my voice,
I waited there, not satisfied
Until you made a choice.

To let me in was yours alone
And no one else could do,
So at your window rocks I've thrown
Until you let me through."

I think I'm in love...

With Robert Frost. I got a book of his poems from the library here the other day and can't get enough of them. I'm pretty sure my appreciation of poetry has tripled just since I checked out this book. It definitely helps that the book is old, not ancient..but old enough to be dignified looking. It smells like a quality kind of book too. (am I the only one who smells books?)

Anyway, I don't have time to really go into any more about this book (not that it'd be interesting to read if I did), but I just wanted to post the first poem I saw when I opened the book the other day in the library: the poem that made me get the book in the first place.

A Late Walk
by Robert Frost

When I go up through the mowing field,
The headless aftermath,
Smooth-laid like thatch with the heavy dew,
Half closes the garden path.

And when I come to the garden ground,
The whir of sober birds
Up from the tangle of withered weeds
Is sadder than any words

A tree beside the wall stands bare,
But a leaf that lingered brown,
Disturbed, I doubt not, by my thought,
Comes softly rattling down.

I end not far from my going forth
By picking the faded blue
Of the last remaining aster flower
To carry again to you.

Blessings

Lately, I've been learning that so many things in life don't live up to your expectations of them. It's not always easy to be happy on average types of days where there isn't much going on but an overflowing laundry basket and an entire anatomy and physiology book waiting to be completed before August--The days where nothing tragic happens, but nothing especially exciting does either; when thoughts grow stale from being tossed around in your head for too long and you just can't seem to find a song to listen to that doesn't rub you the wrong way or make you depressed.

At the end of a day like this, I usually end up at the piano. Somehow, I can always manage to find a way to vent through music, and sometimes maybe even discover some new melody or set of verses that I couldn't find before. If I'm not in a completely uncooperative mood, I can usually allow myself to get caught up in the music and by 2am or so, my slow, monotonous day is forgotten and I'm not nearly as gloomy.

There are the days when even the piano doesn't help to remove the little cloud though, and then I pray. It's funny, how that's a last resort, isn't it? But I guess God probably gets a lot of last resort prayers, because they seem to be not uncommon things..in my life anyway.

Fortunately, today wasn't one of those days, and tonight I got to go to adoration, something I used to find long and rather unenjoyable until Steubenville retreats completely changed my idea of it. Thanks to them, I now am able to view it as what it truly is--complete closeness to God, the chance to be in His presence, uninterrupted and unfettered-- and enjoy every minute of it. Tonight, I prayed for a while, but I seem to have a problem listening to God when I pray...I do most of the talking, so I decided to read the Bible, thinking maybe the things God wanted to say would be put more clearly in front of my face there.

While I did not find the clear-cut message I was hoping for--something along the lines of, "You will build houses for starving orphans in the Congo and marry a tribal warrior you will fall in love with there." (ok, that's not exactly what I wanted to hear, but some straightforwardness would have been nice), I did find a chapter in Sirach that I really liked. It's labeled 'Joy and Miseries of Life' and had a lot of nice, proverbial-sounding advice on the important things in life. My favorite verse was 27...

"The fear of God is a paradise of blessings; it's canopy, all that is glorious" (Sirach 40:27)

When I first read it, I admired the wording for it's musicality--paradise and canopy are so visually descriptive...It wasn't until later that I began thinking more deeply about it's meaning, and how it applies to my life. The concept of blessings coming in fear is somewhat foreign to me. Probably, this isn't even what the verse meant; When it refers to 'fear of God' it most likely means respect and appreciation for Him as our Creator and Redeemer. But still, the usage of the word 'fear' sparked a something in my brain and reminded me of a song I've been hearing on the radio recently. It's called 'Blessings' and is by an artist I didn't know of until lately, named Laura Story.

'Cause what if your Blessings come through raindrops?
What if your healing comes through tears?
What if a thousand sleepless nights
Are what it takes to know you're near

What if trials in this life
Are your mercies in disguise?'

In the chorus, she too suggests the idea of blessings through pain, of knowing the love of God only most fully through the completeness of life: the unhappy moments along with the joy.

Unfortunately, I don't have anything especially profound of my own to add to this, but it did strike me after reading this verse and listening to this song a few times tonight, that maybe even the little trials, the agonizingly slow days, the lack of clarity in my life----maybe all of it has a purpose. Maybe all of these things...are Blessings.

Extreme Weather

After one of the coldest and snowy-est winters I've ever known, and the wettest spring (seriously, was there a track meet not affected by rain in some way?), we're apparently on to one of the hottest summers. Unfortunately, in Ohio, due to the lovely humidity, this means that it's hot nearly 24/7, not just during the day: Perfect swimming weather for people who have regular access to a pool :-l, and for everyone else? Well...let's just say it's going to be a long summer.

....and for me?

....It's going to be a long summer.

Camp Death (arrival)

Well, I seem to have lost my mind and allowed my friend Laura (basketball best friend, and the person who harrassed me into doing track again) to convince me to spend my entire Spring Break in Louisville, Kentucky, intensely training for the upcoming track season.

We'll be spending the week at Laura's Aunt Pam's house, learning from her wealth of track/physical training experience (she went to state for sprints!).

So far, we're settled comfortably into the basement, my new laptop (yay!) is set up and working, and Laura is snoring on a nearby air mattress. I got the chaise lounge. :)

That's about all for now, because we're apparently getting up at 6:30 for our first workout. yippee........

And this is why we call it..

Camp Death

I've never been much of a gardener...

"I will have mercy, and not sacrifice: for I am not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance." -Matthew 9:13

If I learned anything from AP Poetry last year, it was to recognize a metaphor when I saw one. Although we spent hours memorizing the definitions of countless literary devices, that particular one was pounded into our poor Advanced Placement heads until every other sentence we made turned into a comparison of some sort (most of which were not nearly profound enough to count as metaphors...but I attribute that to the poor eating and sleeping habits of DA students). Since then I may not have improved my eating or sleeping habits, but I do occasionally still attempt to make a metaphor. Whether they have become more profound is highly questionable, but that doesn't detract from the fun of trying to be creative. :)

Lately, I've been messing with the idea of finding a metaphor for the soul. It seems as though such an abstract concept should have some way of materializing in our limited brains, and, according to every poetry class I attended, the way to do that is by comparing it to a more tangible concept. Well, I've finally found one that I like: A garden. Imagine every soul as it's own private garden, beautifully unique to that person. Just like fingerprints and the way we see rainbows, no two gardens would be completely alike, and of course, just as God has so perfectly planned out our lives, each would be laid out in a specific way. And I'm going to go even further (ooh, Mrs. Mac would be proud..an extended metaphor!). While the various types of plants themselves reflect the personality of the person, the state of the plants reflects the state of the person's soul. With the added weight of each sin, the leaves and flowers droop more and more, eventually wilting altogether. When overcome with sin, our gardens become veritable wastelands--the remnants of our beautiful plants now turned to brittle twigs, mere skeletons of their former glory. But it doesn't end there, otherwise nobody would have much of a garden left at all. This is where repentance and forgiveness enter in.

For thou, Lord, art good, and ready to forgive; and plenteous in mercy unto all them that call upon thee.-Psalm 86:5

How wonderful that we are not left alone to destroy these gardens, but God provides a gardener-- a sort of clean up crew-- in the form of Confession, to clear away the dead parts of our soul and coax it into growth again. 2 Corinthians 5:17 says,

"Therefore, if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new."

Become new. That phrase means that we are given the grace to renew our souls each time we confess our sins and beg for forgiveness. It means that God has promised to not only forgive our sins--not only to clear away the wilted flowers-- but also to make us new. The most powerful part of the Passion movie for me (aka, the scene/line that made me cry the most) was when Jesus falls (I forget which time) and His mother goes running towards him. He slowly lifts his head, and in the midst of all his pain and exhaustion says, "Behold, I make all things new." Woah. That part really hit me hard..made me realize exactly what His Passion was all about. Of course, I always knew what it was about, but that one line, spoken quietly to Mary in the middle of a jeering mob of soldiers really drove it home.

So, back to the garden, because I'm not quite ready to let this metaphor thing go yet. ;) If you really want to extend it (and I really do, because I'd like to see how far I can take this), think about what happens to the dead remains of our garden. Well, I've never been much of a gardener, but having killed many potted plants in my life, I do know where dead flowers go: the compost (At least in our family they do, because we are just that cool that we have a compost.). And in the compost, they decay and become very nutrient-filled fertilizer, which we then spread on our garden to feed the plants and help them grow. Even in our little metaphorical garden the dead flowers have a purpose. God often uses these sins of ours that seemingly destroy to bring about new life. Like when people say we'll learn from our mistakes. Obviously we don't want to make the mistakes to start with, but once it's been done, we, at the very least, learn the negative consequences, often we even benefit from the bad experiences because they help us with choices later on. And this is all because God keeps His promise of renewing our soul in Confession.

Not that I like confession any more than I like gardening. Pulling up ugly memories of unkind words, jealous feelings, and all the sins I've committed since the last time: namely, dead plants, is a dirty, smelly business (metaphorically speaking, that is..unless I forgot to put on deodorant that day ;). But when it's over and they're swept neatly away into the compost, I can feel the new seeds planted and they promise to bring on a garden even more beautiful than before. And, taking everything into account, it seems as though, while we may have been cast out of the Garden of Eden, we have never really become too far removed from that garden. We carry a little piece of it inside us, and when we finally manage to get our own little plots in order, we'll be allowed back in to the real Garden.

There, I believe I've exhausted my ramblings on gardens, both heavenly and earthly, metaphorically and physically. :) Coincidentally, I also have a song to add that really just fits with the theme of the post. It's a kind of dorky video...the lyrics sort of spasmodically jump in and out of the screen at parts, but the song itself is beautiful. It's by Christian artist, Matt Maher.

Oh, and look, someone else was on the same track with the whole garden theme. :D

"Truly charity has no limit; for the love of God has been poured into our hearts
by His Spirit dwelling in each one of us, calling us to a life of devotion and inviting us to bloom in the garden where He has planted and directing us to radiate the beauty and spread the fragrance of His Providence."- St. Francis de Sales (1567-1622)