I know it will be hard to believe, but when I was eleven years old, I was the skinniest kid at Shady Oaks Elementary School in Hurst, Texas, and possibly the least athletic kid in town.
I never understood how I could excel at games like hide-and-seek, red rover, and dodgeball with neighborhood kids. When put in any organized athletic endeavor, I became a beached jellyfish.
I always dreaded when physical education tests happened every spring, when we were forced to do a specific number of sit-ups, jumping jacks, deep knee squats, and sprints of more than ten yards. I would panic, shiver like a horse shedding flies, and break out into flop sweats. It was the most miserably heartbreaking time of my life. Until fifth grade.
Patty Duke was nineteen years old when she starred in a movie called Billie. It’s the story of a tomboy who loves sports. When the high school track coach sees her run, he asks her to join the school team. Her inclusion on the formerly all-male team causes a stir, especially with her father. He is typically supportive of Billie, but now he worries her shocking behavior will cost him his bid for mayor. Nervously, he starts setting Billie up with dates, unaware that she has a crush on her classmate Mike.
The reason Billie is so good at running is because she hears the beat. Patty Duke nods her head to the beat of the song she hears in her mind, and when the race starts, she runs to the rhythm of the song. As the competition progresses, she mentally speeds the beat of the song up and, therefore, runs faster, winning every single race, becoming the sweetheart hero of her school.
Well, I thought that was the best idea ever.
I couldn’t wait for the running of the fifth graders a few days later. I was going to conquer the race with sheer dogged determination.
I specifically and deliberately chose “Eve of Destruction” by Barry McGuire as my driving beat.
I practiced for days. When the event day finally arrived, I felt confidence and dedicated focus as every male in the fifth grade lined up on the touchdown line at the end zone of our elementary football field.
I was channeling the beat. I’d never been more prepared for anything in my life. The whistle blew, and I felt sure turbo-thruster fire was shooting out the bottoms of my dress shoes, and possibly my ears, as I launched off the starting line. I ran like the wind as I heard the beat pounding in my head.
At just the right moment, I jerked the needle from 33 1/3 rpms up to 78. I completely skipped 45. I forced my skinny legs to move beyond what I thought was possible for me. With the chilly spring wind whipping past my face, I knew that if I had been wearing a nun’s hat, I would have taken off like Sally Field.
The end zone was in sight, and I revved up the beat just a bit more to make the percussive explosion of speed as impressive as I possibly could.
Then it was over. I finished the race approximately fifty yards behind everyone else.
Truth be told, it was at this point I began to wonder why the beat thing wasn’t working. Somehow, no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t get my legs to speed up as fast as “Eve of Destruction” was playing in my head.
Every other kid waited by Mrs. Smith, my teacher. She was obviously, even though I didn’t want to believe it at the time, doing her best not to laugh outright as I caught up to the rest of the class already walking in the doors back to class. I never wanted to step foot on those yard lines ever again. Ironically, I passed through that accursed field every day. The back of our property butted up against the school playground.
For the rest of my life, I have resented Patty Duke. If I’d possessed a clearer understanding of the law at the time, I might have tried to sue her for intentional infliction of emotional distress.
It wasn’t until I was in my twenties that I began to understand the mystery of running the race. I wanted to be in better shape. I joined a gym and got a trainer. I chose not to use my car as much, so I rode my bicycle to wait tables. I taught aerobics at the most exclusive studio in Nashville. I ran five miles six days a week, rain, sun, snow, or ice. I was at 3 percent body fat. As I ran, girls would drive by with their windows rolled down and whistle. It was awesome.
At the time, there weren’t a lot of competitive outlets for athletic endeavors, other than the occasional 5K or 10K for charity. I calibrated my mind so I was exercising for the benefits of building strength and energy and having some discipline in my life. I realized that mastering one area would bleed into every other area of my life.
Many Bible verses mention running. I love Hebrews 12:1 (MSG): “We’d better get on with it. Strip down, start running—and never quit!” In other words, I’m running a race that has been specifically designed for me. All of us are. And guess what? There is a prize at the end of this race.
Even though you run your race with purpose and dedication, you need to remember that you have a responsibility to stand as part of a great cloud of witnesses. You must be conscious of the ones running the course with you, and when you sense they are strengthening their stride, let them hear your applause.
If you have extra baggage slowing you down, be careful you don’t trip over it. Be vigilant, and watch to make sure it doesn’t impede your rhythm. Even if it’s equipment you think you need, give it a close inspection. More than likely, you’ll find you can dump it if it causes you to lose focus on the goal.
By the way, don’t worry so much about the prize. That’s already yours. But focus on it. Keep it in sight. Keep Jesus in sight. Be brave, and keep running. Endure through the sizzling heat of an asphalt life. Keep running when every step seems to climb a bit steeper than the last. Go for broke when the path is straight and flat.
Breathe. Take time from running to stroll in the cool evening breezes, and listen for the sounds of the Lord walking through the spring flowers. Psalm 119:32 (MSG) says, “I’ll run the course you lay out for me if you’ll just show me how.” As we run the race out of obedience, the Lord will expand our compassion. He will make room in our hearts for the wounded, bruised, and lonely outcasts who have forgotten and lost their direction.
Keep training. Read the playbook. Even in the middle of the race, we are still training.
We love to watch sporting events, hoping we will see records broken that edge against the limit of human potential. Mike Powell is a great example. He holds the world record in the long jump. At the Olympics, the long jump was once a marquee event. But not any longer. Why is the long jump no longer the spectator draw it used to be? What happened? Mike Powell happened.
At the 1991 World Championships in Tokyo, Powell was ready to show the previous world champion, Bob Beamon, how to jump.
Powell was such a no-name at the time that when he got up to jump, he looked up and saw Beamon leaving. Powell took it as a slap in the face. According to Powell, his “whole life story, even today, is being the underdog.” Even now, after seeing the video hundreds of times, he says, “Every single time I see it, I go right back to the moment. I smell the air in the stadium.”
His biggest competitor during the event was Carl Lewis, who held the Olympic record. In long-jump qualifying, Lewis leaped more than a foot farther than anybody else.
Powell jumped before Lewis in the thirteen-man order. His first jump out of six was horrible, just twenty-six feet. He was so amped up he was hyperventilating. Lewis went four jumps later and jumped farther than Powell’s personal best.
Powell moved into second place on his second jump, but Lewis responded with the longest jump of his career on his third. Powell, so error-prone he used to be called Mike Foul by his coach, was over the board on his fourth, meaning he stepped across the board where the jump was to begin.
Lewis watched from behind. His next two jumps posted the greatest back-to-back long jumps in history. He sat on the grass to watch Powell’s fifth jump.
Powell puffed his cheeks, waved his arms like a pro wrestler, and propelled off the board with room to spare. He panted as his body arched in the air. He gave in to gravity and dug into the dirt with a thud that caused screams from a crowd of some sixty thousand.
Powell immediately rose from the pit, raising his arms, pointing his fingers, and roaring with focused intensity. He clapped as he awaited the distance reading. Lewis, who’d sat during Powell’s jump, stood up.
Then Powell saw the results: 8.95 meters—a new world record.
“Everything I did during my whole life until that point was encapsulated in that jump,” he said in an NBC SportsWorld article. “Everything in my life that I had not achieved. Every girl that turned me down for a date. Every time I didn’t learn something. That was my moment to show the world. You’re going to need a crowbar to get this smile off my face.”
Mike Powell jumped 29 feet, 4 1/4 inches.
That’s just shy of three stories, people. He has held the world record for twenty-six years, and it’s almost universally accepted that this record will never be broken.
Run the race. Focus on the process. Be deliberate and scheduled with training. Don’t give up. Run with purpose. Don’t run alone. Applaud others who hear the beat. Focus on the goal, but don’t worry about the prize.
It’s already yours.
