Insight from an unexpected source

I scanned my Runners' World newsletter the other day and found some insight from an unusual sight. (I also realized that it really is all right to have blog entries without pictures).

Kristin Armstrong, one of the editors at Runners' World, wrote in her October 25 blog entry, "A run is detox for the soul, it is my 'reset' button, it is my emotional chiropractor causing everything else to clack-clack-clack-clack back into proper place and perspective. Things that are tight somehow loosen up, and things that are loose somehow tighten up. I emerge better, more than sweat washes off in the shower afterwards. Time flies and stands still all at once, just like holding a baby. When I think I have no time to get out there, or that taking time to run could be the most selfish thing to do in that moment, my feet start slapping the pavement and my lungs fill with air and I remember once again, just like always, that there is nothing selfish about being clean. It's one thing that allows me to be everything I need to be for everyone else and not resent it. With so many time constraints and limits and rules and routines in the hectic pace of daily life, we need another place where we set our own pace, even if it's just for 5 miles. We need a simple and acceptable route to freedom. We need to shake it off." (Mile Markers: Sharing the Road with Kristin Armstrong, http://rodale.typepad.com/mile_markers/2006/11/the_sweet_spot.html.)

Carrying the theme further, she wrote on November 6, "The (Bible) study we are doing now is causing me to do the unpleasant task of character housecleaning. Meaning, I'm taking a good hard look at where I want to be in terms of character, integrity, authenticity and the like. And then I compare where I want to be with where I am. Hmmmmm. Last week at the track, mid-wheeze, I noticed the scoreboard at Austin High School. It says across the bottom, 'No Excuses. Do the Work.' Okay, already. I get it. Metaphor girl gets another parallel. (Or: God gives said runner a whup upside the head.) The only way to make a worthwhile, concerted effort in the area of integrity is through steady, meticulous discipline. Just like discipline is the only way to keep from going flat as a runner. The true desire to be better is consistent in body, mind and spirit. A better writer than me described this as a desire to be sinewy throughout. I love that! You know the difference between an athlete and a dieter...one pushes, one deprives. The end result may look similar (sort of, anyway) from the standpoint of vanity, but health is an entirely different matter.
"You know how you feel when you come home from a long run, not too long so that you feel funky/lazy, but just long enough? The perfect distance and conditions that leave you energized and renewed? That feeling to me is clean, inside and out. On days like that I feel like even my sweat has burned clean. I feel like whatever else I do that day is already blessed. I feel similarly clean when I am living without dissonance; when I am telling the truth, being myself without apology (unless my behavior warrants it), when I am consistent no matter the audience, when I am trying my best, when I am working hard enough to be humbled and am easy enough on myself to be content.
"Ahhh, yes, the sweet spot of living well." (Mile Markers: Sharing the Road with Kristin Armstrong, http://rodale.typepad.com/mile_markers/2006/11/the_sweet_spot.html.)

Well, Kristin, thanks for the insight and the encouragement.