Week 2 of 16: Learning about sacrifices, part 1

sacrifice
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle English, from Anglo-French, from Latin sacrificium, from sacr-, sacer + facere to make …
Date: 13th century
1: an act of offering to a deity something precious; especially : the killing of a victim on an altar
2: something offered in sacrifice
3 a: destruction or surrender of something for the sake of something else
b: something given up or lost (the sacrifices made by parents)
4: loss (goods sold at a sacrifice)
5: sacrifice hit

Source: Merriam-Webster.com

“Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God—this is your spiritual act of worship.”
Paul, writing to the believers in Rome (Romans 12:1, NIV translation)

Been thinking about sacrifices a lot lately. Don’t know why specifically, but it’s making me take stock in a lot of stuff I do. I mean, on the door of my ‘fridge is a reminder of the verse from Paul’s letter to the Christians in Rome, of how every day – for a follower of Jesus – should be a sacrifice to God in light of his perfect mercy, grace and love.

So, running on Saturday along the trail from Sunset Beach to Huntington Beach, and again on Monday in the evening heat and humidity, I got to thinking about it even more deeply. And I was reminded of the definition out of Merriam-Webster’s dictionary, specifically giving something up, or surrendering something, for the sake of something else.

I guess training for a marathon is that: giving up something for the sake of something else. I mean, this being an Olympic year, we see gifted athletes on one of sports’ biggest stages. But I wonder how many of us, in our cheering (and, at least for me, our embarrassing unabashed nationalism, which the Olympics are supposed to transcend … yeah, count me among the guilty) really know of the sacrifices they make to get to that one moment of competition on a world stage.

Having been a runner from high school onward, it used to be that I could take a week off, then go on a run and be ready for a race. Granted, the races were relatively short – 3 miles usually. Now that I run in marathons, well, let’s just say that if you wake up one day and decide to enter a 26.2-mile race (or 42 kilometers … a marathon is ALWAYS that distance) the very next weekend, you could probably do it … but you’d probably maim yourself in the process. Seriously.

To really complete a marathon (again a marathon is ALWAYS 26.2 miles or 42 kilometers, NO LESS and NO MORE … sorry it’s a pet peeve) you have to train, which is another word for sacrifice. Depending on your fitness, it could be as little as 16 weeks (if you have a solid running background to start) or as long as at least a year (for someone starting from, say, couch potato).

And to train that long means making sacrifices along the way, such as:

• Not staying up late to watch “Nightline,” or Jay Leno or David Letterman because you need to wake up at 3:30 a.m. the next morning to beat the heat and get a 2- or 3-hour run on the books;
• Giving up Krispy Kreme for 16 weeks because you know that it just slows you down;
• Not hanging out with friends like you used to because you have evening workouts planned;
• Not eating out very much or buying a bunch of songs off iTunes because you have to save up for a new pair of running shoes two months from your marathon.

Are such sacrifices painful? They can be, if we go into it with the attitude that we’d like to really hang on to both things – the idea of having our cake and eating it, too. But it doesn’t work that way, because in life rarely can you have it both ways. You’re always faced with a choice to make, such as, do I skip a party so I can train the next morning with the reasonable expectation that I will do well on race day, or do I skip day (which almost always turns into a week) and go party and risk having a really awful race day.

Training for marathons trains me to make life decisions, from the mundane ones (hmmm, do I get brand-name or store brand?) to the major ones (do I forego getting a car this year to pay down more bills first?). It helps me to put things in the proper priority, to make the most of what God has given to me, and to find ways to use those things to help people around me.

The training calendar this week

Monday: 7 miler in the humid evening heat

Tuesday: Cross training at Cal State San Bernardino

Wednesday: Track workout. 1-mile warm-up; 2 x 1 mile at 7 minute pace, with full recovery between repeats; maybe a half mile at 3:30 to 3:20 pace, depending on the heat; 1-mile warm down ... actually did a quarter (one lap) at 90 seconds, then a mile at 6:50, the second at 7:12, and the half at 3:33 ... not a great workout, because differential between the two mile repeats was too big (the idea is to run them evenly), but I got it in and done.

Thursday: Cross training at Cal State San Bernardino

Friday: 16 miler in the a.m., try for a negative split (go out slow, come back a little faster, hopefully the last 5 miles at my planned marathon pace)

Saturday: 6 miles easy with GK

Sunday: 8 miles easy or rest (and do the run on Monday)

And why am I doing this again???

The theme the GK Heroes running (and cycling) are using this year is "LOVE the Poor." The word LOVE is actually an acronym for Lead Others ... be Voices to Empower the Poor. So it's not a "touchy-feely, wimpy" kind of love people sing about, but a tangible, deeper love that encourages people to better themselves, shows them how to do that, and in turn, to be a blessing to others.

So, while the goal is to raise $2,300 to build a home for a family in the Philippines, the long-term goal is to build communities that are self-sustaining and eventually contribute to the fabric of the nation (gawad kalinga = to build a nation).

As I train (and contribute what funds I can), I'm also asking you to consider helping (maybe sacrificing as well) with the cause.

To donate, visit my fundraising page by clicking here. It's a secure server, and the donation goes directly to GK's account.

If you're not one to give online, then please e-mail me at alanincali@verizon.net, and I'll get you details on how to donate that way.

And, again a huge thank you to those who have already given ...