Marathon Final

It’s hard for me to believe three weeks ago I was running a marathon. My body is pretty well recovered and I’ve moved on to yard work, gardening, short runs and bike rides. In many ways things have returned to normal.

But the marathon stays with me. In the past few days I realized the lessons and formation of these months of running were not over with the final exam of the race, and a grade of passing with a finishers medal. Like any great class, there is a lifetime of growing into these new ideas and applying the lessons.

The one that stays with me these days is the truth about pain. We humans do a lot to avoid pain. Everything from mindless over eating, to watching television, drugs, alcohol, working too much, sleeping or surrounding ourselves with noise and distraction. I understand this. Who wants to deal with pain? Who wants to go looking for it?

Endurance running, training really, for anything is all about pain. It’s all about being in pain and pushing past it. It’s finding a new threshold of what you can endure and reaching for a goal that lies beyond it. In my case, it was a finish line 6.2 miles beyond the worst pain I have ever experienced.

In the days since the marathon there have been left over loose ends, difficult situations, challenging relationships and questions of wrong and right that have nothing to do with running. Painful and messy problems and questions that just keep bubbling to the surface. The real marathon final exam.

Here is my answer. Pain is an inevitable part of life, whether we choose it, or it chooses us. It is uncomfortable and unpleasant and at times unbearable. When pain makes itself known, the easy answer is to run from it, or try to ignore it but pain always catches up, and eventually consumes us. The longer we ignore it or try to avoid it the more it takes over our actions.

I don’t want to be a person that lives with a fear of pain dictating my choices. I don’t want to live in pain either, but sometimes we just have to. I know now not only can I survive pain, I can find moments of grace in the midst of it. Perhaps when we are in the most pain, we are most aware of the smallest things that help us through it. A friend who listens, a well-timed cup of water, someone who will cheer for you by name. Pain, if we accept it as part of our journey and something we are conditioned to handle, won’t consume us. But first we need to accept it. We need to accept that it will test us; force us to be vulnerable, accept our limitations and to ask for and receive help.

My final answer to this marathon exam is pain is often far worse in our imagination and fear then it ever is in our reality. We are conditioned to handle so much. These painful, messy real life issues that have come up during this marathon don’t have a visible finish line right now. There are still difficult choices and unpleasant realities. I accept this pain is part of the process. I know now that I will endure it. I will find the moments of grace that carry me to the other side of the pain, a finish line of a life recovered and joy and celebration in growth. Pain is part of the journey. Only we can decide if it will have the final answer.