From the Desk

I still remember sitting in an American literature class one particular day of my sophomore year in the spring of 2012 and listening to Dr. Matthew Towles tell us about the ultramarathon he planned to run. As he lightheartedly asked for prayer from the class for the incredible feat he was training for, I could not help thinking how crazy he was to even consider running an ultramarathon, a term used for races spanning more than 26.2 miles.

To further reinforce my perception of his insanity, the ultramarathon he planned to attempt, one of four ultramarathons he completed in 2012, was the Promise Land 50k, approximately 34 miles of strenuous running in the mountains of central Virginia.

Now, only two years after Towles finished the Promise Land 50k, I am considering attempting to run the same race.

If you were to ask me five years ago, before I joined cross-country in high school, I would have never thought that I would be taking Dr. David Horton’s running class as a senior in college, let alone attempting an ultramarathon. But here I am, more than 10 pounds lighter than I was two months ago and 150 miles into my goal for the semester of running 400 miles.
You might be asking yourself, “Why would anyone want to voluntarily put themselves through that much pain and waste so much time just to run for no reason?”

Part of that answer is that I was a senior with the availability to take whatever class I wanted, but more importantly, I wanted to challenge myself. Writing a book report about running, reading a few articles and spending countless minutes running may not be an academic challenge, but like anything else in life, you get out of it what you put into it.

Although I did join a few of my high school baseball teammates in spontaneously joining the cross-country team four years ago, I would not say that I have any type of talent for running. In fact, when I began running again in January, I had not run consistently for more than two years.

Despite my complete lack of training before the class, I was amazed at how quickly my body adjusted to running. After only two or three weeks of running six days per week, I noticed a complete difference in my ability to run faster and longer, which led me to a question.

How many good things are we missing out on because they would require a few weeks of hard work to get used to? Running every day does not take talent, and neither does any other way to improve yourself. Whatever it is, try it for two weeks. You just might develop a good habit that will last a lifetime.