In 2004, at the age of 44, I ran my first marathon. In 2006, I co-authored The EveryWoman’s Guide to Marathoning, an inspirational training guide to show other women how conquering something as formidable as a 26 mile race can truly change their lives. I admit, ten years later I find myself once again on the couch with a remote control in my hands. Time to change my shoes again. Because changing your shoes can magically change your life.
Join me on my quest to hit the sidewalks again in a pair of trusty running shoes. Another marathon may not be in my future, but a change of thought certainly is. Hope you enjoy this excerpt from my book.
one block
Our entire lives are tapestries woven by God, and I think none see their completion until death. How awesome is this thought. We are still growing and changing and becoming. Threads spun years earlier one day take shape and reveal an intricate design.
I know this because 24 years ago I sat in a garden-variety classroom on a university campus and listened to a literature professor introduce herself. A tall, lithe woman with gray hair carefully laid out her plan to bring the works of Shakespeare to life. She told us her name, which I have since forgotten. And she recounted a personal anecdote, which was forever blazoned into my memory. She told the story of her divorce.
Becoming more and more a commonplace word in our society, divorce still leaves vestiges on each individual that are distinct and exclusive in their scarring. I could tell this from her face. Divorce had defeated her. It had surprised her with a meanness she had never known and blanketed her with a suffocating paralysis.
So one day this professor made a decision. She decided to take up jogging. As simply as that. She woke up; she went outside; and she walked around the block. One block. Each day thereafter she forced herself to walk around this block. I don’t remember her entire process. I only remember that the day I met her she introduced herself not only as an English professor but as a marathon runner. A change of action…a change of outcome.
I believe her story was one of the threads in my tapestry. Just a beginning of a design. Nothing recognizable at 19. Just a knot and a stitch or two. But God knew what He was weaving.
Twenty-four years later I decided to run a marathon. I was no longer the impressionable young coed sitting in a Shakespeare class, but I nonetheless remembered the formula shared with me by this wise, seasoned woman. One block.
