Happy, Happy, Happy
Running 5 miles is hard.
Running 10 is harder.
13.1 ~ thats a challenge.
Running 26.2 miles? Well, now thats just crazy.
But that is exactly what I did yesterday with my girlfriend Ellen. We ran 26.2 miles in the Twin Cities Marathon. We finished! And now we are both currently paying the price. I do not think our bodies were designed to run that far, yet we still did it.
Rewind to seven months ago, we somehow got it in our heads that running a marathon could be kinda fun. It would force us to train, stay active, eat healthier, and really see something through from start to finish. We knew it would be a big commitment, but that was part of the challenge. So, we signed up for the marathon and began planning out our training schedule.
Well, this summer we spent 10 weeks in South Carolina. We worked 40 hours a week at Walmart and Chick-Fil-A (I got free Chick-Fil-A Every. Single. Day.) We also had daily talks and events to attend, as this was a leadership training program put on my Campus Outreach. Why am I telling you this? Well it meant that in order to train for the marathon, on weekdays, we had to get up at 5 a.m (sometimes earlier…) to fit in our runs for the day. Whew. That was challenging.
So, Ellen and I spent 10 weeks training in the heat of South Carolina, suffering from heat stroke (at least we thought so) and also sleep deprivation.
Well we made it through that. We worked our way from running 2 miles… to5… 7.. 8. I can remember the first time we had to run 11 miles… It felt like such a long time. Then we ran 12… 13 (our first half marathon!)… soon we ran a 15 mile, then a 16… the last long run we did we made it up to 20 miles. I’m pretty sure 20 miles is like halfway to the moon.
Come race day, we were prepared. We spent four months training. We were dedicated (like 75% of the time) and had prepared in just about every way possible. We were as ready as we could be, the only thing left to do was just run the stupid marathon. (Often times during our training the question got posed, “why are we even running this stupid marathon?” … It never got answered)
It was a balmy 35 degrees on race day. We showed up over an hour early and had the pleasure of just sitting there and shivering as we waited for the marathon to start. Soon enough the time passed, we were herded into our coral, and we were off! Running. and running… and running.
The first 10 miles flew by. People were cheering us on the entire way. Slightly overly creepy guys making direct eye contact with me and saying, “You look good! Damn good. Keep it up!” Dude was getting a little personal.
At about mile 6 I took off my throw away purple pullover that I had purchased at Savers (Curtesy of The Tannery, “You bring it, We’ll brown it” Who would have ever given that shirt to Savers? Its a classic).
I wore my signature shirt from Phil Robertson, that had in big yellow letters, “Happy, Happy, Happy”
Want to know something about marathoners? When they are running, not a lot of them are happy. So people loved my shirt!
There were hundreds of instances throughout the day where I would run by a group of people and there would be shouts of, “Happy!” (Very similar to the way the crowd cheered on Happy Gilmore)
There were those who preferred to just read my shirt and say, “Happy! happy! happy!!”
Or the spaz o’s who just said, “happy, happy, happy, happy, happy, happy…”
Some burst into song… “Cuz i’m happppyy, happppy, happpy happyeee….”
Others would yell out, “Way to go happy!!”
Some people were very inquisitive and asked, “Hey! Are you happy?”
Finally, there were those who are fans of Duck Dynasty and would yell out things like, “Thats a fact Jack!”
But my personal favorite, was when I would pass a group (usually a bunch of men) who would start chanting, “Happy!… happy!… happy!”
Whats funny is I didn’t expect my shirt to get this much attention. I just like the shirt! I had absolutely no idea people would love it so much. But they did! Why?
Well, I soon discovered why. Ellen and I were getting to about mile 12 and we were both having second thoughts about this whole marathon thing… How in the heck were we gonna make it 14.2 more miles? We were crazy. The smiles were fading from our faces… we weren’t happy.
But then! We saw some familiar faces; friends and family who had come out to see us and cheer us on and we regained the pep in our step.
The first 13.1 was pretty hard. The second, way harder.
Yet! People were still yelling out all those different phrases about being happy. So in my mind I challenged myself. To smile, make eye contact, and some sort of gesture to acknowledge every person who helped encourage me. I did this successfully for the rest of the race. But the longer I did it, the more people began to see the difference.
Once we made it past 20 miles, the same people started seeing me twice. They started asking things like, “Still happy?” “Still smiling, happy?”
I responded every time with “Yep!” or “Still happy!” or just a hoot and holler. (To which Ellen would often shield her face and pretend that she didn’t have any sort of affiliation with me)
As the miles went on, people began making observations too. They would yell out, “Hey happy!” and I would give them my biggest smile and the point of a finger or the raising of my arm. I embraced the persona of being happy… even as my legs felt like they were gonna fall off and I was so freaking tired. And often times as I ran by I would hear people say, “Wow, he really is happy, thats so cool!”
I was happy.
Ellen and I made it to mile 25. We had only 1.2 miles left. Ellen was pretty sure her knee was gonna give out, her stomach was gonna explode, and who knows what else. I was getting prepared to have to carry her across the finish line. My knees were sore and my feet were getting angry with me and starting to throb.. But we just kept plodding along. Step after step.
The finish line came into view and we picked up the pace. We were passing people, staring down that finish line, adrenaline was kicking in…
We get like 15 steps from the finish and Ellen turns to me and says, “I’m gonna hurl” and my only thought was, “Can you at least wait until we finish??”
She didn’t hurl. We made it. We survived. 26.2 miles. So far as Ellen and I are concerned, its a once in a lifetime experience.
There are many inspirational quotes on running the race…hard work and determination.. if you aren’t training, someone else is… pain is weakness leaving the body… yadayadayada… Running is hard. I don’t even like it. But I wanted the challenge. I wanted to see if I could do it.
I think we should all push ourselves to see how far we can go. To our limits.
But, why did people love my shirt? Why do we love to see happy people? Or at least think that they are happy?
Isn’t it because that is what we all truly desire? To be happy? We want contentment and fulfillment and that sense of satisfaction that what you have done in this life is enough. We love happy people, because we think they have found the secret. We want what they have.
This blog post isn’t a sermon, its simply about a 19 year old kid who ran a marathon. But to take this a step further… I have found my happiness and his name is Jesus. And he is more fulfilling than any accomplishment that I will ever achieve in my life. I can run 100 miles, bike 1000, fly to the moon and back… and my ultimate satisfaction will always be in Jesus. His love is better than life. All of our stories are intricately woven into the grand story of life. And a life apart from Christ is a life without true happiness.
Final thought. “Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness”
Why didn’t our nation’s founders say, “The purchase of happiness,” or “the knowledge of happiness,” or even “Happiness”
It is because we are all chasing after it. We all want to be happy. Always. Forever. We don’t like sadness. We want to be happy.
Jesus doesn’t promise a life apart from suffering, hard times, or trials. But what he does give us is a soul satisfied in him. Somewhere to rest. To be at peace. A place to find a Joy unending. A Love never failing. And Grace unceasing. A Happiness that isn’t defined by this world’s standards, but that is built on a foundation of love. The foundation of Christ.
To bring this full circle. Back to the marathon. Just in reflection I did find one quote that I will leave you with. And it is this:
