Good in the hard...

Truthfully?

I was dreading the run last night.

I hadn't run since last Saturday because I got violently ill on Sunday and didn't feel 100% until yesterday, and I knew it was going to be tough getting back into the swing of things. Plus, I was moving up to Week Five, so I was losing the security of the "easy" three-minute running intervals that I had finally gotten used to and bumping up to all five-minute running intervals.

But you wanna know what?

It honestly wasn't that bad.

There were a few tough spots (mostly up hills), but I ran the whole five minutes each time, and I could feel that I was going faster than I did last week. And I remembered how good it used to feel to me to finish strong during my workouts in high school (I know it's sad that high school athletics is the only point of comparison that I have, but at least it won't be for long :)), so during the last running interval, I found myself all-out running during the last thirty seconds or so. And I actually could have kept going when Lola (is it weird that I gave my virtual Couch-to-5K trainer a stripper name?) told me that the workout was over.

via

It's probably so lame, but Francesca Batistelli's Beautiful Beautiful came on during my cool down, and I actually teared up listening to it. Because this thing that I'm doing isn't pretty. I'm a chubby, sweaty, red-faced mess every time I finish a workout, and I'm still slow as Christmas.

But even so, I can feel God making something beautiful out of me. Sure, I'm losing pounds, and I'm slowly starting to look like me again. But He's also teaching me self-control and patience and persistence. He's teaching me that I'm stronger than I think and that, even when I'm not, He's more than capable of carrying the weight. I'm learning what it means to push myself beyond what I thought I was capable.

And I'm also learning that this man is a saint.

Truly. He runs with me, night after night, staying behind me so I don't really even know that he's there. Letting me have these moments for myself, but supporting me in his quiet, perfect way. (And all the while, dealing with our crazy dog who isn't always easy to handle.)

I'm learning that there's good in the hard. And that what's hard today probably won't be quite so hard tomorrow.

But then again, I do bump up to eight-minute runs tomorrow, so maybe it will. :)