My third race 4THEM: The 2020 Cape Winelands Maxi 20km trail run
The route ran right through my training ground: Coetzenburg, Eden Forest, and Mont Marie wine farm. I knew all the trails that I was going to run on race day, and I have practiced some of the climbs specifically in preparation for the race. My training in the weeks leading up to race day went well and I knew that I was fitter than I had ever been.
It is the day before the race, as a shakeout run, I decide to go to Coetzenburg to do some easy hill repeats on a tough climb that we would need to face quite early in the race the next day. My legs were feeling strong from the week's recovery period and confidence grew within me. As I arrived at the top of the hill on my last repetition, I decided to run the technical single track that starts there, just to stretch my legs and get some rhythm going. I am flying through this rocky pathway, the whole week I had felt semi-deprived of running during my recovery period before the race and the feeling of gliding over technical terrain grabbed a hold of me. I jump from this rock onto that one, then a sharp turn, again from rock to rock I stride, my body flowing smoothly, mimicking the ups and downs of the trail. I see a small turn ahead, there is a bush on the inside of the bend, I decide to try and keep my momentum as best I can. I jump over the bush to minimize the effects of the bend in the trail and with my landing, a SNAP CLACK sound came from underneath me, I had landed on a loose rock that was hidden from my sight behind the bush and now my ankle was badly hurt.
I get home in agony. What have I just done! Why couldn’t I have just done an easy run through the streets? It is stupid to go and do Hill repeats the day before a race, what was I thinking. It is even more stupid to try and run a very rocky trail as fast as possible when I am racing the next day. Is all my training for nothing now? Will I be able to race tomorrow? Will I even be able to run soon, I do not want to lose the fitness and conditioning that I had gained through so many hours of dedicated training.
For the rest of the day, I was busy nursing my ankle. Applying the RICE principle. Rest, Ice, Compression, and Elevation. I was determined to run the race, after all, I was running to raise awareness, through Opendoors’ 4THEM initiative, of Christians who are facing much worse pain and suffering than I was at that moment.
As nights tend to go for me before big races, I slept very little. My mind was kept awake by thinking about every possible race scenario, without ever switching off. But I woke up the next day with energy. The race only started at 17:00, so ahead of me was a day in which I would do as little as possible and rest as much as possible. But it turned out to be a day where I would stress about what and when I should eat, as I was afraid that I would feel sluggish and heavy come race time.
I am quite ashamed of that day, for I am not prone to stress. By grace, I have learned, and am I still learning that I constantly need to move out of the center of things and let God be who He is. And that I need to acknowledge who He is and who He made me to be every day and let that spill over into my actions and thoughts. Because God is in me through the Holy Spirit I need not worry about money, happiness, the food I eat, the clothes I wear, the place I finish in a race, or any other worldly thing. God loves me just the same if I win or lose, for He made me not to win some running race but to bring glory to His name and shine His light here on Earth. He made me a Child of Himself and only wants me to love Him back by my own free will just as He loves me by His own free will. And that, that is the only thing I should worry about. Do I love God courageously? Does my life show that I love God and that I know how much He loves me?
1 John 4:19 – “We love because He first loved us.”
Does His love for us affect the things we do or say? Or are we so drenched in it that we are oblivious to it? Do we forget about God’s love as we forget that we are drenched in oxygen from the atmosphere, without which all life will quickly wither?
On the day of the race, I was not able to step out of the center of things. As I already said, I had stressed about what and when I should eat during the day instead of praying for the food that was available to me and being thankful for the privilege of having food, and trusting that the Lord would bless the food to my body so that I could glorify His name later that day. The race made me forget that my main aim in life should be to serve the Lord. But in my worries, I had not eaten very much, not nearly enough to sustain me for 20km in the mountains…
The starting gun went off, I had positioned myself behind an extremely fast runner who is a few years older than me. My legs felt surprisingly fresh, and my ankle did not bother me. I was flying up the hill that I had run the previous day and was right on the leader’s heels. KA BAM! I had hit the wall. With more than half of the race to go, I had no energy whatsoever within my limbs. My hopes were shattered like a Prince Rupert’s drop at the breaking of its tail. The rest of the race was a blur, with no energy I could not keep up the pace and dropped a few positions, every effort to push through was countered by a heavy blow of exhaustion. The more I pushed, the more my body rebelled.
The twentieth kilometer was the knock-out shot, I barely managed to run even though I tried my hardest. It felt impossible, but strangely it was not because of the pain. My legs were screaming and rebelling, it was as if my muscles had just stopped working. It is a feeling that I still cannot describe even though I have felt it again one time after that day. I crossed the finish line, disappointed I fell onto the grass and looked up to the beautiful blue sky.
When I look back on that time, I think that my mind, although I am really passionate about running, dreaded races. When I started running, I had the tendency and ability to run through pain even to the point of physical collapse/passing out (I see it as a good thing, to be able to persevere through hardship till you have nothing left in you but God). During races, I reminded myself of those who I am running for, and their steadfastness through persecution gave me strength through the power of the Holy Spirit. But over time my mind started to become fearful of that moment when running gets almost unbearably painful with some miles still to go before you cross that chequered flag. Without me knowing it, I was building walls inside my head. Walls that would prevent me from running my heart out, from running passionately. Walls that would remind me of the pain that I had caused myself during previous races and walls that do what walls do – they separate. I was being separated from the Why. I was being separated from the persecuted church. I was being separated from my passion for running and my passion for God and His people because my mind started to fear pain. I forgot that although passion is your willingness to suffer for something or someone that you love, there is a true joy to be found in passion if the passion was placed in you by God. No matter the pain that you have to endure.
There is a lot that I believe God taught me with this experience. We so often stress over things that, if we are honest to ourselves, do not matter much if compared to the things concerning the Kingdom of Heaven. And how seldom do we stress or wonder about whether we are maybe being deceived by the devil and his worldly works or our own proud hearts? How often do we worry about our brokenness in sin, or whether we are vigilant, waiting with our lamp and extra oil for the arrival of our Messiah? How much time in a day do we consciously live knowing that God is at our side seeing our every thought and every action? How much do we really want to change our sinful nature and show thankfulness towards Jesus for paying our ransom?
We so often stare at a picket fence in front of us and make of it the great wall of China. We look into the future and stress in the present over possible hardship we may need to endure. We lose our trust in God's ability and will to help us, and we forget about that with which God has provided us, the Holy Spirit who abides in us, if we are willing to receive Him, and Who helps us to live by the fruit of the Spirit. We stress about worldly things because we compare and judge. We think of ourselves as inadequate in the eyes of the world, even our own eyes. If we can just do this or achieve that, then… But there is no then. There is only a God who loves you because you are made perfectly who you are meant to be, priceless in His eyes. Whether you are first or second or third or fiftieth according to judges of the world, you are first in God’s eyes. So why do we stress then, why do we worry so much? Is God’s love and care not sufficient for us? Of course it is!
2 Corinthians 12:9 – But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore, I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me.
We so often form our own plans and dreams. Or we sit, worried, waiting for God to speak to us about what path we should take in life and do not plan or dream at all. In both cases, more often than not, we so easily mistake our own thoughts for God’s voice.
We stress about whether we are following the correct path that God has planned for us. But trust me, having your thoughts occupied with anything else but concentration on the rough and rocky trail that you are running will surely result in a twisted ankle. We can and must only focus on running as good as possible in this moment while keeping our eyes on the trail which lies directly in front of us. And, when you come to a place where a decision has to be made of whether you should keep on going straight or maybe turn onto another trail, I believe that we can only trust that God will direct us. But, I believe that it most of the time does not happen by our own thoughts. We can not know which path to take by our own thinking as we do not know where the trails will lead as we are constantly treading on an unexplored piece of the earth. Do you know your future? Can you even be sure of the next second of your life? NO! We can only run with the fruit of the Spirit as our shoes (Love, Joy, Peace, Patience, Kindness, Goodness, Faithfulness, Gentleness & Self-control.) and trust in the unfailing love of God and His involvement in our lives. God's Word is the arrows along the trail which keeps us going on our right path. And prayer, our conversation with God, goes hand in hand with the reading of His Word, for a conversation is two-sided.
Luckily for us, Jesus Christ had walked the trail first, making a way for all who are willing to follow. And with His ascension gave us the presence of the Holy Spirit, so that whoever shall trust and believe in the crucifixion and the resurrection of the Lamb and everlasting life may have a map, a Guide, to help them make decisions about their actions along their way on this narrow and rocky trail.
As a wobbly stone, hidden from my sight, set a great realization in motion, it is often the things we are most scared of that, when they happen, are used by God to teach us valuable lessons. It is when we feel like I did in that twentieth kilometer that we truly cry out to God. It is when we cannot run by ourselves that we realize our frailty and need for a God. It is in our brokenness in sin that we realize that we need a Messiah, that we need Jesus.
May we sing His praise all day and all night and trust in His omnipotence. May our souls be like athletes, who train for a goal, who eat and drink and sleep and devote every second they are given to the pursuit thereof. May our souls be guided by the Word of God and the Holy Spirit within, so that we may reach our Goal – to glorify God and enjoy Him forever.
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