Training Week Number Two - Life is Symbolic!

LIFE IS ALWAYS SYMBOLIC! Sometimes we don't see what's been there all along.

It was nearly one year ago. We had gathered to work in the yard. You know, family home evening, every one taking time out from their busy lives to spend a night sprucing up my mother's yard. We do it every spring. It's a ritual.
It was early in the evening when I walked around the side of the old red brick home. I looked up and there it was, a giant heart embedded and grown right there in the trunk of the old tree. How had I missed it growing there, I had never seen it before. I've grown up with this tree, walked past it a million times. A heart that size doesn't grow in a tree over night. (More symbolism.) It had to have been there for years, yet, it seemed to have appeared out of nowhere.
As I look back on this time in my life, it was filled with inner struggle, a time in my life when spiritual growth was necessary, a time in my life when I needed to stretch myself in every direction. God provides us with what we need to experience in order to become.  While I don't talk about the whole of the experience, in depth with anyone, I refer back to it daily and draw from it' s power. Nothing in my life has ever driven me closer to the spiritual, and nothing in my life has ever filled me with more gratitude. This heart you see in this tree was no accident. It was put there just for me.
What does all of this have to do with the second week of training? I learned the most amazing thing the other day. I was talking with a great dedicated runner, the owner of Striders.  He's a good friend of another running friend of mine. He said something to me that brought on a gentle afflatus. I love the power of spiritual awareness as it lights inside of me when I least expect it. It's funny how when he said it, a whole bunch of dots immediately connected in my brain.
"You break the body down," he said. "You break it down hard, then you give it a rest and let it build itself back up, then you repeat the process all over again. It's the repetitious pattern, each time the body is stressed and broken, it rebounds, it adapts, and becomes stronger. Muscles actually grow during rest, not during training. If you don't give muscle adequate time to recover, you'll actually interfere with the muscle building process."
As I travel through life I see symbolic similarities in everything. I finished talking with Jon (Mr. Strider) and as I walked away I thought about how life breaks us down with certain experiences. Then if we're lucky, God gives us a rest. It is in the resting we hopefully gain wisdom, then the process starts all over again; breaking down, resting, rebounding, adapting, and growing stronger.
Monday I ran with Deserey. Oh, to be young again (if wishes were fishes)! It took everything I had to keep up with her. I was proud of myself however, because I did in fact barely keep up with her. The last 50 yards she sprinted on home. There was no sprint left in me after trying to keep her pace. My legs burned, my right foot with it's old injury felt numb and tender, my hamstrings felt tight and brittle with little shards of pain shooting through them. I was well spent; every ounce of me. I thought about the breaking down, I felt it after that run. I feel it in life as well.
That night when I crawled into bed it felt good. I just laid there, with my head on my pillow taking full notice of the resting period and the sanctity of it. I envisioned all my muscles growing, the physical, the mental, and most importantly, the spiritual.
Booker T. Washington said, "I have learned that success is to be measured not so much by the position that one has reached in life as by the obstacles which he has overcome while trying to succeed."
It is true . . . success is just past failure.
Week number two is nearing the end. I love the challenge! I'm starting to love the breaking down, the resting, the rebuilding, the strengthening. I am learning more than just how to run!!!

Today . . .STRETCH and STRENGTHEN!