Arriving at the Begining Again

 When I began running, I couldn't do a quarter mile.  It started out of frustration  but ended up staying with me for i a lifetime 

I can remember so well that first angry morning.  Though I had done lots of physical work chopping wood, building a fence, digging septic lines, and other back-breaking jobs, I wasn't physically prepared for running.  I couldn't breathe.  Of course, I was in the throes of an asthma attack at the time but later, when I wasn't, breathing was still an issue.  I remember that first time I completed a whole quarter of a mile, hallelujah, and praise God when I finally did a whole mile. That was forth three years ago.

Now, after 32 marathons, 53 triathlons, and hundreds of events of various lengths and having logged mileage equivalent to over two times around the world at the equator, I found myself struggling again to run a quarter of a mile. 

An injury digging on my septic system was compounded by an injury in a bike wreck has me not moving that much the last four months.  Though I did some minimal indoor biking, my breathing is not doing well with running or trying to run that quarter mile, Just like before. Could it be that the more things change, the more they remain the same?  

Sometimes you have to go back to the beginning to find that not much has changed.  There is you, your drive, your persistence, your expectations from it, and there is still your frustrations. And the frustrations from forty-three years ago show up in life today.  

So the decision is always the same with every setback;  Is the ending or a beginning?  Am I to " arrive at the beginning and know it again for the first time?

This time it will be different, but it will be built upon the same.  Faith, hope,  and gratitude to God that I still can.