For the Ones Who Keep Going

This weekend I ran twenty-two miles.

That’s a lot. That’s actually crazy. It’s the farthest I’ll run until the Chicago Marathon on October 8, which I’m running with the ALS Association in memory of my father, Karen’s sister, George’s uncle, and so many others who’ve suffered from that terrible disease.

Training for the marathon has been a lot of work. I’d never run farther than thirteen miles before this summer, and the second thirteen miles is a lot harder than the first thirteen.

I don’t enjoy running. I love the being-outside part, the seeing-the-Lake part, and the long-term-benefits-to-my-mental-and-physical-health part, but the running itself? It never really feels good. It’s just hard, sometimes miserably so. The best part is the hot shower at the end.

This weekend, when I finished the twenty-two miles (in 90 degree weather!), a friend told me how proud of me they were. That it’s no small thing to take on one’s first marathon, particularly at 45, and that they are really proud of me.

Hearing that meant a lot.

It also made me think about who I’m proud of for doing hard stuff.

I have a friend who is really struggling with life right now. Lots of things have gone wrong in the past few years, and he’s dealing with deep discouragement and depression. He’s struggling to get life to work for him and fighting to remember the reasons he has to stay alive. His kids, his mother, his girl, the friends who love him. They help, but it’s still so hard every single day.

And I’m so proud of him for every single day he stays alive and keeps going. Because when I run, yes, it’s hard, but I know where it ends, and you can get through most anything if you know when it will end.

But my friend doesn’t know where it ends – when it gets better, and he keeps going anyway. He keeps fighting for every day.

I learned a long time ago that I don’t live well without hope. But I also learned that hope can be so painful. When hope doesn’t come to fruition, it can break your heart and drain the life right out. That kind of pain is hard to live through, and unrelieved pain deadens us. I’ve known seasons of numbness, and I hate them. I’d rather hurt than have that kind of safety. You can’t be open to joy and life and love unless you’re also open to pain and loss.

That’s part of why I run – to help me believe that I can keep going. That I can endure the unthinkable. And that when the pain of disappointed hope is breaking my heart, I can send it down my legs and through my feet into block after block of pavement. And I can lift up my head to feel the sun, and know the relief of being done when I reach the finish line.

A marathon, 26.2 miles, is no small thing, but it takes so much more to keep going when you don’t know how far there is to go. And I am so proud of the ones who just keep going.