The time I was glorious (or the time I barfed in a stranger’s front yard)

Back in my 20s, I decided to take up distance running.

I don’t know why. I ran cross country in junior high school and hated every minute of it. I didn’t try to run more than a mile again until college, when Army ROTC required me to run three miles.

I think that three-mile run is the reason I dropped out of Army ROTC.

Nevertheless, I decided to take up running again a few years later. I really don’t remember why. But, as I did with most things back then, I went all out. I bought the best shoes. I signed up for a bunch of 5k and 10k races. I even got the cross country coach at Rochester College to be my personal trainer.

Yes, I went all out on every part of running except one: Actually running.

The coach gave me a training program that I followed…sometimes.

I did run more than I ever had in my life, but I also hated it as much as I ever hated running in my life. Some days I ran and some days I found reasons to not run (like walking the one-mile round trip to Subway and back).

Finally, the day of my first 5k race came. The coach and I drove up to Flint, Michigan, early one Saturday morning. I had the jitters and very low expectations for myself (knowing that only did half the practice runs).

The race was a blur, but I felt like I was moving at a good pace. In fact, I felt pretty good for awhile. I got the sense that I was running farther and faster than ever before. Maybe I didn’t need all that practice after all! Maybe this was all there was to it!

Then I discovered that all those feelings were happening before I even finished the first mile. As I passed the one-mile mark, the old familiar pain started in my chest and lungs. My legs started to feel like someone was beating them with rolling pins. Dismay came over me as I faced the reality that I was in this condition after only one mile.

My coach was there, watching. People were running all around me. I couldn’t give up and embarrass myself in front of all of them. I pressed on.

The relief I felt when I passed the two-mile mark and knew that I had only one mile to go! I pushed the pace, not so much to get a better time but just to be done with feeling the way I felt. All I wanted was to stop running!

My failure to train really started to affect me in the first half of the third mile. My whole body felt wobbly. I was no longer running; I was shuffling. Stumbling, really. Lots of runners were passing me now. Some of them were offering me encouragement as they saw me fading fast.

As I reached half a mile to go, I felt like I did when I breathed a bunch of exhaust from my dad’s car when I was a little kid.

I stumbled into someone’s front yard and barfed. And barfed. And barfed.

When I had nothing left to barf up, I started stumbling toward the finish line again. To my surprise, I felt lighter. I ran the last quarter mile at a sprint and passed several people on my way into the finish chute. My coach was cheering and pumping his fists to see me come in that way.

To him and all those other people at the chute, I looked glorious.

The thing about glory is that it looks like heaven to those on the outside, but it feels like hell to the person going through it.

Glory doesn’t feel good; it feels awful.

What I found in that finish chute that day was important to my growth and maturation. Up until then, I always thought that if I was doing it right, I would feel good. I thought that glory meant not feeling boredom, disappointment, embarrassment, pain, or struggle.

But it turns out that glory feels like barfing in a stranger’s front yard.

So don’t despair if you feel like hell as you try and fail to do your best. As long as you keep stumbling forward, you can be sure that what feels like failure to you looks like glory to the rest of us.

Grace and peace.