Re: 7 Days Till Race Time

Aye, 7 days it is, but soft!, just as it was 7 years for Jacob to win his bride Rachel, and having worked his requisite 7, he was not awarded the sharp-eyed beauty but rather deceived into working an additional 7, so too may this long awaited trek and final 7 days be a mere mirage on the horizon of our hopes, eternally receding from our grasp, yet eternally approaching in our deluded minds. Shall we ever run this great Race of our Age?

While I have no idea what prompted that preposterous sentence, I do know that, like Charlotte, I have become downright fidgety with anticipation.

Charlotte has recorded the important points in her apt FAQs. Yet, a couple Tailored-To-The-Nate amendments are in order:

1. I am not obsessively aiming for a finish time, but I'd do a jig if I crossed the finish line between 3:40 and 4:00 (hours). If 3:40 is my end time, that means an 8:23 min/mile average. Rather nice, if you ask me. And a bit optimistic.

3. Nate the Great is never crazy. He will run more marathons. Someday, perhaps, he will journey to Greece and run barefoot from Marathon to Athens, pretending he is Pheidippides, and convincing himself that he must report urgent news to someone. He does not, however, plan to expire at the run's end, though he cannot be certain. Perhaps Hermes will strike him dead in jealous rage.

4. While the span of my limbs is minorly formidable, it creates a certain tendency toward a rickety gait. Just imagine Abraham Lincoln out for a jog. Charlotte, on the other hand, couldn't look finer as she glides through the miles. Supple thews, exquisite posture, and a consistent, measured, nearly failsafe pace strategy. She is your model runner.

And finally, though running be mere sport, it still is a God-glorifying activity. As such, and because of the tricky nature of the later miles, an excellent verse comes to mind:

They that wait upon the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint. [Isaiah 40:31]