I was asked once what the cure for laziness is.

Hard work.

No really, hear me out. The complete opposite of laziness is working your butt off. So want to overcome your idleness? Pray and work hard.

A friend put up a little status update on Facebook a while back. She was biting off a big one… the Air Force half marathon. I instantly remembered my triathlon training days.

Matt and I have made it a point to place health as a priority in our household. Almost everyone takes vitamins, we try to eat balanced meals, proper portions (which goes an awful long way), be careful how much soda we drink (we don’t usually keep it in the house or buy it at restaurants). But health goes beyond just eating and drinking. We try to provide the opportunity for enough sleep (sometimes it works better than other times), knowing that a lot of our impulse eating choices has to do with a weakened self-control filter, a byproduct of minimal sleep. But then there also comes the active lifestyle piece.

We decided to try to get some 5k’s on the calendar yearly. Realistically with past pregnancies and little kids in the household doing a jogging stroller friendly event is a must. We don’t mind walking during the more “full with child” times of pregnancy, but maintaining activity and exercise in our lifestyle is important in being ready to go and do all that the Lord has for us.

Then I saw my friend’s update. I reminded Matt of my bucket-list desire. We talked it over and within 48 hours we purchased our registration spots.

That’s right… we signed up for the airforce half marathon. 13.1 miles of pain.

My goal: Survival. And no walking. It doesn’t matter how slow I jog… there will be no walking.

Matt’s goal: keeping my slow pace.

I think he’s going to have to work harder than me since his stride is almost twice of mine.

But our training looks different from most. See, when I trained for the triathlon I was not married, and certainly no kids. I stepped back from social groups a bit and found myself running and biking (canoeing wasn’t available. I did that for the first time on race day) in almost all of my spare time. I found a plan online that took me from the couch to a triathlon in 2 months, and did it for 4 months.

Today, well look to the sidebar, friends… *ahem* there’s a bit more riding on my shoulders.

So training for us looks like running at 6am. Or at 9 or 10p when the kids are sleeping. Sometimes it’s cramming in a cardio workout (thank you p90x pain) with a baby on your hip. Or taking turns stretching with a baby teething on our legs.

See, we don’t believe our family should take the back seat. Oh they certainly have to make some sacrifices sometimes because Mommy and Daddy are some seriously smelly people after running on a Sunday afternoon. But we really don’t think our fitness should be at the expense of our children. So we try hard to meet the training needs while also guarding our time with the kiddos and each other.

It’s been going decently… you know, as decently as being dragged from the tailpipe of a car… over shards of glass. But we’re rolling with it. In all honesty I think I have recently made a breakthrough. The utter and complete pain after mile 1 has subdued to a, ironically, comfortable pain that I barely notice any more… well until the next hill comes. I honestly hit a point in my running yesterday that I thought I could go on for so much further than the run’s end. And I hit a lung maturity where I actually stopped breathing out of my mouth (don’t judge) and breathed out of my nose with my fly trap shut for a whole block. I don’t expect that to ever happen again, but it was nice.

We’ll hit the halfway mark this Sunday before Matt leaves for another week of youth ministry. Then I’ll have to run alone. Or, sniff, use the treadmill of death.

I’ve been told by a few people since starting this endeavor that they could not find the motivation to push themselves into exercise. I totally agree. That’s why we were speedy to pay our registration. Cause now we’re stuck. We are running come race day, ready or not. That motivates me to get out there in the heat (sometimes) and the rain (sometimes) and the bugs (all the time). I used to joke that it’s a pride thing now… how ugly am I going to look when I cross the finish line. But it’s really a Spirit verses flesh thing. Christ. Will. Overcome. I believe I can do all things through Christ. Now it’s time to strap my belief into my running shoes.

I am no runner, people. My left knee does not like me. I look like I’ve been hit by a car at running intervals and I feel like it for most of the first and last mile. And my face doesn’t stop looking like a tomato for hours after my run. But I am confident that hard work for Christ and calling on Him in my time of need (during every run) has brought my flesh into greater control than I could ever do from the couch.

In Christ Alone… 13.1.