Wednesday = Speedwork

  Wednesday is my speedwork day.  I have a love/hate relationship with speedwork - doesn't every runner?  I mean, you are literally pushing your body as hard as you can, right?  You are trying to increase your aerobic threshold by pushing your body harder and further, over and over again.  It's sheer punishment so I get the hate part... this is not fun.  It leaves my legs all rubbery and my throat raw from sucking wind.
  The interesting aspect is why I love it.  I absolutely love running all out in a sprint - discovering if I can still run like I did in my soccer days.  It takes me back to those mornings in college when we knew it was a fitness day (almost always Tuesdays!), and we knew it was gonna hurt, and the anticipation of the pain was enough to give me a stomach ache all day.  And we were all in it together, and we all dreaded it, but when it was over... ahhhhh, pure bliss.  Mental and Physical bliss.  The goal was to increase our fitness base, to make us better soccer players.  Now, the goal is to increase my fitness base, to make me a better runner.  With pain comes growth.
  Same in life I suppose.  Staying comfortable gets you nowhere.  So we move through rough spots, endure hurt, persevere through the uncomfortable - and over time it all brings growth, whether Spiritual, Mental, or Relational.  It's not fun, but we learn from being stretched, and we grow stronger.  I hope my speedwork today brings future growth.  I hope I can be consistent with it, that I can push past the comfortable, that the results are so obvious that I demolish my PR in a couple of months.  And if I don't or can't, that I will be willing to persevere and try again.