Runners gonna run…

It was a cold but clear Sunday morning at Coconut Horse. 12 hours earlier, The Pax could be found doing work of a higher calling, “pushing the rock” at SPEED FOR NEED during the McAdenville 5K (GREAT job, by the way, TOOL TIME!!!), so I wasn’t expecting too many to show for the early morning hour. Thankfully, Sargento and I had talked Saturday and committed to the run. Defib had  given me a soft commit at Speed for Need, so I was hoping to be able to endure the gloom with someone in addition to Sargento, with whom I have spent hundreds of mornings of gloom.

I showed up about 7 minutes early, almost hitting a darkly clad gentleman walking down S. New Hope Road at 613 AM wearing white “Beats.”   Sargento rolled in about 5 minutes later, looking fresh and ready after the previous nights jaunt at Christmastown USA. He mentioned that he saw the gentleman as well, but didn’t come as close to hitting him. At least he was walking against traffic instead of with traffic and had white “Beats” on, would have been harder to see otherwise. Much to my chagrin, Defib left us hanging. I tried to put on a good face for Sargento. He, in usual fashion, was in a good mood, trying to tell corny jokes.

Warm up: None. When you run, the first 1/2-1 mile is the warm up; trying to do something before running  is just wasted energy that could have been used for running.

The Thang: We set out at 631 for a 5.1 mile run. Where we went, you will never know, but Sargento and I have a rule that you always try to run a road that you have never run before, so needless today, the DOG and GOD run were modified. We also tend to talk about whatever comes to our minds. This can make for interesting conversations, as “runners brain” often takes over. For those of you who cannot relate to this, I would recommend that you go run 2 miles as fast as you can and then try to have a conversation about something deeper than what time you woke up that day.  It can be challenging!

Despite this runners brain, I couple of things stood out from our conversation today:

1. Sargento has a gift of EH’ing anything and everything within earshot. At one point, I think he EH’d a light post, but I didn’t have the heart to tell him that he was yelling at an inanimate object.
2. Did you guys know that one of the most popular songs on the radio right now is a song that tries to convince people to NOT commit suicide? So many thoughts come to my mind when I hear things like this and I could probably go on hours about the root causes these situations, but I think a good deal of it boils down to this: make sure you have a proper view of who you are in relationship to God, your Creator. My former pastor used to say “cheer up, your’e a lot worse than you think.” This comment would then be followed up by a comment about how despite this, we have a God who loved us so much that he was willing to sacrifice his Son for us. If  we all saw ourselves this way, understood the sacrifice that Jesus made for us, and understood even a sliver of the love that God has for us, it would be much more difficult would feel the loneliness and isolation that is so prevalent among many people who contemplate suicide.
3.  In a society where sexual deviance and sexual abuse seem so prevalent, we MEN need to be setting proper role models for our sons and setting expectations that they will be and act different from the way that  many of our leaders and celebrities act. We MEN need to be modeling to our daughters how they should be treated so that they have appropriate expectations about how others should treat them.  Talking about it is helpful, but acting it out in our relationships with our wives and significant will have much more impact, I believe (I have found that my children are much more likely to imitate my actions much more than my words, unfortunately, given that I am a very imperfect person).
4.  If you guys don’t have a man in your life like Sargento, go find one and cultivate the relationship. After running with him for 8+ years, I definitely am the better man for it.

What a great way to spend a cold Sunday morning, running with a good friend. Wouldn’t have it any other way!

Aye!