I hate running. Who wants to spend hours a day pointlessly running around? It takes forever and the whole time, all you have to think about is how you have so much more torture to endure before you’re done.
My marathon journey began in Romania. There are two girls on my team (Lauren and Jenny) who decided to go for a run one day. Because I have FOMO – fear of missing out – I decided to go with them. It was hot and after about ten minutes I found myself somewhere between feeling like I was going to throw up or pass out and having a nervous breakdown because I had no idea when they were going to stop. Shortly after this, Jenny came up with the bright idea that we should run a marathon in Ireland. When these words came out of her mouth I immediately said, “There is no way in heck I’m doing that.”
So Jenny proceeds to look up marathons in Ireland and finds one called the Mooathon. They were both so excited and even though it was at the end of the month, it looked like our schedule would allow us to do it. They were going to start training and running every day and I did not want to AT ALL. I like working out and I like doing short sprints but long distance running is just no fun. But I was again attacked by FOMO and decided I would try. I would run and if I felt like I couldn’t do it I would stop.
I wasn’t thinking though and I should have known that I would get too competitive with myself to ever stop. I was committed. If they were running, I was running. We started off running about 20 or 30 minutes every day and then we would have a long run once a week. One week they said they were going to run for about an hour or so. We ended up running about an hour and a half to make it to 10 miles. TEN MILES!! We finished and for the next week I felt like I needed a hip replacement.
We ran and ran and ran. We made it to Ireland and kept running. It’s pretty cold in Ireland and our morning runs were hard to wake up for. I don’t know if you knew this, but it rains in Ireland… like every day. Even so, at some point, I started to like the challenge. I started to really become grateful for the time I got to spend with Lauren, Jenny and Dan and the other people that ran with us. I became grateful for the challenge of finishing, of working towards a goal.
Eventually, we wanted to test our endurance and see how close we were to being ready for the Mooathon so we decided to run 17 miles along the coast of Ireland. I didn’t know if I was going to be able to do it or not but I was going to try. Before we left, we told people on our squad what we were doing and asked them to pray for us. So we set out on our run with high hopes, some Snickers bars and a camel back. As I was running, I literally felt a blanket of prayer being placed over my body. I can’t explain it but my body felt brand new. I looked over at Jenny and told her what I was feeling and she said she was just feeling the same thing. I knew our squad was at home praying for us.
(after the 17 mile run)
I can’t even begin to describe the beauty surrounding us throughout this run. We ran along the rocky coastline of Ireland. I was overcome by the beauty of the greener than green grass, the rocky cliffs and the outstretching ocean; even the cows we passed were straight out of a postcard.
During the run, we were lifting each other up in prayer and I was amazed by how God was responding. He took care of us. Around mile 12 or 13, I was feeling pretty tired and weak so I prayed and I felt God saying, “My daughter, look around. See what I have created for you. I am taking care of you and all you need to do is rest in me and breathe in what I have made.” I never would have made it through this run without God. He restored my strength in every aspect. It was as if Jesus was running right beside me, quietly pushing me to run with Him. I loved running that day.
(A view of just part of the coastline we ran along)
I know this is long but keep reading.
We began to feel confident that we could do the marathon; that we would at least be able to finish. We began planning when we would leave, how we would get there and all the logistics of what the Mooathon would look like. We found out we wouldn’t be able to take a bus and that we would have to get Hutch (who I will talk about in a future blog) and maybe another guy from the church here to drive us there. We would have to spend about $100 US on the marathon and who knows how much on transportation. I started to look at what my reasons were for wanting to run a marathon in the first place and I felt selfish. There was nothing being gained other than the fact that I would be able to tell everyone that I ran a marathon once.
So after talking about it, we and others from our squad who were going to do the half marathon, decided to do the marathon here in Coleraine along the coastline. There are still quite a few people who are not fully funded and need help reaching the $11,000 deadline by the end of this month. The Mooathon has turned into the World Race Fund Run and will be used to help our entire squad meet the next deadline and eventually become fully funded.
I have about $2,200 left to be fully funded but I have reached the deadline for this month. One girl on our squad who has been put on my heart that needs to reach the deadline is Susan Debolt. She has worked so hard to reach the goals and has been running with us in the mornings a lot too. She needs $1,300 to reach the deadline so I ask that if you’re reading this and you are considering donating because of the marathon, send your donations to her. Go to susandebolt.theworldrace.org and click the “support me” button.
God is good and has drawn me close to him through something I used to despise.
He is with me always… He is there at 7:30 a.m. when it’s raining and not an ounce of my body wants to get out of bed and He is there when I’m on the coast of Ireland overwhelmed by the beauty of His creation.
He always provides… whether that be endurance for a run or funds to keep sharing His love to the nations.
God is so unbelievably good.
