Time for a Jog

"ARE WE HAVING FUN YET?!"

Today my oldest daughter and I were out for a walk when an older man slowly jogged passed us from behind. Actually, slowly doesn’t even begin to describe his rate of speed; he passed us at an unbelievably, excruciatingly, incredibly slow snail’s pace. And yet, he was indeed jogging.

As we walked casually along, he passed us about two blocks from our home. After another block he turned right at the corner only about ten steps before we turned toward our house in the opposite direction. In the time we were together I watched him shuffle-jog along, tired, breathing heavily, and moving barely faster than we were.

I’m not saying I’m all that great as a jogger, in fact, it’s a rare and special occasion that gets me moving faster than a normal walking pace. Nor am I saying that he was such a bad jogger. Actually I was quite impressed that he just kept on going, heavily trudging step after difficult step along, when obviously it was a tiring and, I assume, a frustrating experience for him every step of the way.

I know how hard it is to get out there and jog down the road and I admire anyone who has what it takes to get out there and do it. When I was young, through my middle school and Jr. High years, I did a lot of jogging. But I never loved it.

In Jr. High my best friend and jogging partner started to develop knee problems. His doctor told him that riding bikes would be a better option for him. From that moment on, jogging was history. Together Shane and I fell in love with cycling and put thousands of miles on our bikes together.

I did actually run a marathon after that, but only because I got talked into it by an extremely persuasive Aunt. And even then, I trained on my bike as much as possible. Those 26.2 miles were the last for me. Something about several hours of torture under the hot July sun helped me finally decide my jogging years were over.

Enter stage right, my wonderful wife, Nancy, who has recently decided she wants to run a 5k. Once she gets it in her mind to do something, it generally happens. This is a good thing. The other part is that she’s asked me to run it with her. She’s working along steadily toward her goal and regularly improving her personal speed and distance records. I, on the other hand, have been out on the road one time this year.

So, today, I watched this guy, easily 20 to 25 years older than me, slowly, slowly jogging along at about the same speed I walk when I’m headed somewhere by myself. But he was most definitely jogging. He was doing it, one step after another, after another, after another.

I’m not going to say, if he can do it, I can do it. Of course I can do it. It’s not about doing it. It’s more about getting it done. But, for sure a guy like this, with so much determination, so much will power, and so much discipline to keep his legs going, even when he isn’t really going anywhere, is clearly an inspiration to anyone with something difficult to do looming down the road.

How about you? What inspires you to give your best?

Clark