Getting across the line

Pastor Eric J. Kregel

Crossing the finish line, the surge of fire left my legs and my body, leaving me hollow. I looked over my shoulder at the 20 kilometres behind me, trodden by my shoes through the mud and water and dirt that made up Tumbler Ridge, B.C. Twenty kilometres to my back, spent by my tracks. On Aug. 11, I did my first half-marathon in Tumbler Ridge - a run that involved the first five kilometres climbing atop the 2,500-foot high Roman Mountain and the rest running a series of ups and downs, making me long for the flat terrain of Alberta. It all began a year and a half ago when Trent and Patty Kenyon visited us for some coffee. Trent, upon seeing my beater tennis shoes, asked if I ran. I told him I had just started, now pulling in about 20 minutes a run (this was light years from when I first began with seven minutes). “Oh, you’re soon due for a marathon,” he said. “That’s in your future.” It’s amazing how much our world tries to drown us in bleakness and yet, with a simple statement of encouragement, we can turn on a dime. That night, I turned and took up running seriously. After finishing a 10-kilometre jaunt in the fireman’s run, I started to run every day. Sometimes I’d run with Trent, most of the days with my dog, Tasia, waddling besides me. In the snow, in the rain. . .I ran. I’d like to say I lost tons of weight, becoming a lean arrow across the trails of Jaycee Park, but weight loss is achieved by 40 per cent exercise and 60 per cent diet and, well, if my health earned me marks in school, I’d be getting a D-. Trent and Patty Kenyon, along with Steve Lauchlin, picked the Tumbler Ridge run from the secret cabal known as “the Running Room” because it was a half-marathon and the location sounded pretty. We trained once for hills, but mostly focused on increasing my run to 20 kilometres. The week before the Tumbler Ridge run, Trent had run an equivalent of a marathon in Grand Cache, so he was in shape and I, well, was just there to cross the finish line. As I stood by the starting line, I sized up the competition. Men and women stood, stretched in their Lycra and Spandex, their bodies shaped like knives. I looked down at my D-physique; my body more in the shape of a spoon. What had I gotten myself into? Before an answer came, the sound alarmed and the race rushed into a furious start. The clot of humanity tumbled down the trail and into a patch of trees, opening up into a creek. For the next 20 minutes, we climbed uphill alongside a creek until we got up to the first summit. At this point, no one ran. We walked up the sheer climb like a series of stairs in an old house. After the second summit, the last trek took us to the top of Roman Mountain. An hour past, five kilometres was under everyone’s belt and we started running down the hill. About 12 kilometres into the run, my body slowed down. The downhill beat up my knees and back, the uphill took all of my wind, and nothing level rested before me. The group I ran with up the mountain were behind me, conking out one by one while the friends I came with were far ahead of me. Another hill stood in front of me and I tried to take it. I felt dizzy, sore. I guess I looked like I was struggling because a voice called out behind me, “Don’t run this one. Here. We’ll walk it together.” That’s what I needed: someone to walk with me. He was a chatty South African doctor who entered with his teenaged daughter, way ahead of him. We visited for about 10 minutes and, upon the end of the incline, I took off running again. Rested and restored, I left him, wondering what would have been my fate if I hadn’t heard those words to stop and rest. As the final kilometres rushed past me, I felt hungry and empty. Pushing and pushing, I committed to my goal of crossing in a running stride. The emptiness is something people warned me about. In fact, my wife, watching at the finish line, saw several people run across and then collapse, unable to move because the emptiness took over. With the end in sight, I charged across the line being met by Trent, Patty, Steve, and my wife. Over three hours. I did it! Many of you reading this tale were and are drawing the usual spiritual comparisons to running and a faith in Jesus Christ. Like running, you have to have a goal that is closeness with Christ. And the race, whether it is an actual one or the spiritual one we have with Christ, is not measured by how you start but if you make it to the finish line. Aside from that metaphor, the heroes in my tale - Trent, Patty, Steve, my wife, the South African doctor - all shared something in common: they, at the right moment, gave me a word of encouragement. Words are powerful and can help us all make positive changes within a moment of encouragement. How can you give an encouragement to someone who will help them press on to their goals? For my goal, it was to finish the 20 kilometres and the encouragements came at the right moment; what are the other goals around you that your words can aid in? And for my next goal, I need to diet...