Hills

Can you see it? Thousands of fans screaming your name as you run out of the tunnel for the NCAA Division I Women’s Basketball National Championship, can you hear it? Time is winding down, your team is down by one. Three.....Two.....One! You shoot the ball only to hear the crowd erupt again and your teammates tackle you, falling not so gracefully to the ground, and together you celebrate your national championship win. Can you feel it?

This was my dream. When I closed my eyes and dreamt of what I wanted to be when I grew up, this was it: a College Basketball National Champion. Years were spent chasing that dream. Millions of shots, thousands of drills, hundreds of suicides (if you do not know what that is, consider yourself blessed and spared from death). But by the tenth grade, my four foot, eleven inch frame was not cooperating. Hitting my growth spurt when I should have been hitting my peak performance, I awkwardly struggled through the next two years as I sprung up to five foot, seven inches and finally developed triceps! My senior year was amazing, by far my best year, but when I started having back problems, colleges started looking in the other direction. My shot at my dream was over. 

Cross country had always been a part of my life as well, not because I liked to run, but because it helped my cardio in basketball. So when the call came through in July of 2003, asking if I wanted a full paid cross country scholarship to a Division I college, saying yes while picking myself up off the floor was pretty easy. There was only a slight hesitation when I realized this meant I would be running for the next four years, but the Division I glamour got the best of me.

My work ethic never changed, I just changed my scenery. Instead of a gym, I now had the open road. Instead of a basketball, I had some pretty spiffy running shoes. Running quickly became a passion of mine and the view from the top of the podium was my new goal. There was really only one hold up when it came to running. I hated running hills. Running five miles out of the way was by far the preferred path over a hill any day. Not having many hills to choose from in my small hometown, the ones that were available, I could literally put my hands down in front of me and crawl up the hill. Terrible! Straight up, steep hills!! Failure was immanent when it came to hills, and quite frankly, I was okay with that.

Have you ever had an argument with yourself, in your own head? (Not like those car commercials were they actually grow another head and have a conversation, that's just creepy) Let me explain. On one particular run, feeling pretty good, I approached the hill with defeat already in mind. Then, something said “get to the top!” Yeah, no! About half way up, breathing heavy, chest burning, I heard the voice again, “keep going!” NO! The funny thing was as I am having this conversation, my feet kept running. Before I knew it, I was at the top. Of course I was near death and could barely stand but when I turned and looked at what I had accomplished, it almost felt like the podium was already under my feet.

This was a major turning point in my training schedule. Even now, I actually have days on my running calendar that just say “hill workout,” which have become the highlight of my week. Why? Because there is no other option than to get better when you are running up hill. It doesn't matter if you are almost walking, as long as those feet are moving you are getting better. Your cardio is improving exponentially, your legs are getting stronger, your posture will start to improve and all you are doing is running up hill.

There are those days that the hills still want to get the best of me. When I first started having my love affair with hills, it was very easy to walk for a second or two, or even walk when I got to the top. I approached the hills with an optimistic mindset but somewhere in the middle, I mentally could not pull through. There were times when I would go through stretches of making deals with myself half way up the hill; “If you walk now, you have to do an extra two miles.” Or, “If you make it up the hill, you can take the short cut home.” Yes, sometimes the incentives worked, but I found myself disappointed when I would get home, short of my goal mileage.

If there was one thing evident here, it was I had to get stronger mentally. Therefore, I stopped making deals with myself on the hill itself. Whatever my plan was when I reached the hill, that was the plan after the hill. I had realized that I was making decisions that really impacted my training, and eventually my overall performance, during the hardest part of my run. By allowing my circumstances to dictate and change my plan of action, I was making decisions that were ill-advised and were not in the direction of my goal.

How many times in life do we allow this to happen? We have a plan of action but when our circumstances become difficult, we lessen our goal or our standards to gain access to the path of least resistance. It's easy to maintain our goals when we are on the downhill or even on level ground. We methodically go through our day, doing the same thing over and over again, content with our lives. But were we called to lives of contentment? So what do you do when you see the hill on the horizon? Do you run five miles out of the way to avoid any difficult circumstance? Or, do you smirk and say “bring it on!”

One of my favorite verses comes from 2 Corinthians:

“We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed....Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting way, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all.” 4:7-9,16-17

God wants us to the see what is at the top of the hill but we have to work to get to the top. Working our way to the top is how we grow, how God molds us into the people we were meant to be. If we change our minds half way up, we will most certainly miss the view.

I met Sam Andrews just over a year ago.  Not long after she and Tim returned from their "Major League Baseball tour" honeymoon... yup, girl likes sports.  They joined our life group and then decided to move... to Hawaii.  Sam is pursuing her Phd in something sports medicine-y, while Tim spends time in a large ship under the water.  She blogs about being a navy wife and taking pictures... miss you, friend!