As of last week, I reached my goal of 1,000 miles run for 2011 .  It was an overwhelmingly  large figure on January 1^st, but one whose passing required an amazing number of ups and downs over this past year, each one as big or as low as the one prior…

• I broke the twenty mile mark in July.
• I suffered a nasty ankle injury running seven miles five days later.
• I signed up for the Hartford Marathon, and bowed out two weeks later due to injury.
• I experienced the Wall for the first time the first time I broke 18miles…and it was ten times worse than anything I ever imagined.
• I have lost two toenails.
• I have run through three pair of shoes, two running watches, and three ear buds.
• I have impaled myself on steel belted radial shreds…twice.
• I have run with a full out fear of Skunks, Copperheads, and muggers.
• I put on a race for the UMC Imagine No Malaria Initiative in June.
• I ran five other 5Ks since then.
• I have run in the Appalachian Mountains, The Mountains of NH, and the Smokey Mountains.
• I used my runs to listen to Audio books that my daughter is reading.
• I tried minimalist running for seven days, switched back on day 8
• I ran two a days, one a days, and none a days.
• I decided to be quiet about my runs…as they were for me alone.
• I broke the 7:00min mile.
• I have taken 36 days off…out of the close to 278 of the year…
• I have prayed 252 times before the start of my run…and many more throughout.
• I suffered the most evil of shin splints all year accompanied by calf pain unlike any other (which prevents the crossing of my legs)
• I have started to refer to Ibuprofen as Vitamin I
• I spent 166 hours running… (That’s a full week, 24-7)
• I have lost weight…put it back on….lost it again…and again…
• I brought my half marathon time down to 2:15, my 5K to 27:13, 10K to 56:30…and in the end… I’m still slower than 2010
• I have developed the PERFECT Play list of 160BPM songs.
• I discovered that gnu gels make my newly restored teeth hurt…but gummy bears do not.
• I had knee sleeves on my right knee, then my left, then my right, and now my left.
• I have made P90X routines my easy days.
• I saw my wife and girls participate in their first 5K.
• I realized that eating while running looks really weird.

Yet, as I smile at the attainment of this year long goal (which at one point seemed so out of reach) and this abbreviated list of ups and downs, I am thinking that perhaps it’s time for a new challenge. 

I look at that 1000 miles and I think that maybe I want to try the next item on the list.    Maybe it’s time to find a new and bigger challenge.   Maybe it’s time for something completely off the radar.  I want a big “to-do” item.  As I consider the next hurdle on the list, I find myself considering Brazilian Jiu Jitsu or Boxing.  Then again,…maybe it’s something exponentially more simple but much harder to reach.  Maybe it’s Crossfit, Extreme P90X or simply reducing my body fat to under 10% (would really like that six pack).   

Whatever the next fitness goal is…I have realized that it has been running that has reminded me I am no longer the smoker…  I am no longer soft…  And I am no longer stuck on the couch.   I am better than that.   As Psalm 139:14 reminds me,…I give thanks….because I am fearfully and wonderfully made…and his works are awesome…

 (By the way…1,000 miles is the distance from Keene NH to Savannah, GA, to Chicago, or to Knoxville, TN and is AWESOME!).