Becoming Virtuous

After four hours of sleep, some acute achilles tendonitis, and (mostly) running 6.2 miles (9.8 if you include all the walking before and after), we just got back from the Bolder Boulder Memorial Day 10k race.

This was my seventh Bolder Boulder, and my younger sister’s first 10k. And she beat my time by a good 3 minutes. I’ve been running off and on since about 2012, and I still couldn’t finish faster than an hour and twenty minutes. My sister only started running at the beginning of this year, and she’s already faster than me.

There probably is a factor of age in there. I’m squarely in my mid-thirties, and she’s still in her early twenties. But I think my other sister hit the nail on the head when she started to encourage me to start running consistently two or three times a week in preparation for the next race. I joked, “So you mean starting over every year isn’t working?”

But it got me thinking. My younger sister has put in the work. For the last four months she has been consistently running two or three times a week, slowly building her distance and increasing her speed. And she was rewarded today for her persistence.

Me on the other hand? I did maybe half of the training runs I was supposed to, not really getting serious about it until four weeks ago, and I ended up with a running injury (turns out it’s not wise to do too much too fast) and a finishing time slower than last year. Yep, I’d say my approach isn’t working. 😛 Honestly, with everything that was working against me, it’s only by the grace of God that I finished as well as I did.

And it has me thinking, how often do I do this in other areas of my life? Relationships with family/friends? Work? Chores? Other commitments? … My relationship with God?

How often do I procrastinate, only to be stressed and attempting frantic all-out effort at the end to try to make up for my lack of real follow through? How much further could I be in all of these areas if I instead kept showing up on a regular basis, putting in the consistent work?

I hope I’ve finally learned my lesson in the running department, and I can start showing up consistently (after I rehab this injury). 😛 And I definitely have some food for thought to mull over in how this tendency might be affecting other areas of my life as well…