I Am An Athlete- 5K prep

Week	Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday	Saturday	Sunday
1	CT or Rest	3 x 400 IW	2 m run	30 min tempo	Rest	5 m run	30 min EZ
2	CT or Rest	4 x 400 IW	2 m run	30 min tempo	Rest	5 m run	35 min EZ
3	CT or Rest	4 x 400 IW	3 m run	30 min tempo	Rest	6 m run	35 min EZ
4	CT or Rest	5 x 400 IW	3 m run	35 min tempo	Rest	6 m run	40 min EZ
5	CT or Rest	5 x 400 IW	3 m run	35 min tempo	Rest	7 m run	35 min EZ
6	CT or Rest	6 x 400 IW	3 m run	40 min tempo	Rest	6 m run	40 min EZ
7	CT or Rest	6 x 400 IW	3 m run	40 min tempo	Rest	7 m run	45 min EZ
8	CT or Rest	3 m run	30 min tempo run	2 m run	Rest	Rest	5K Race!

Recently I told Bishop Gwin (BG) at The Love Corner that I was an athlete. I was trying to encourage him to keep talking about how important it is for us to eat well and care for ourselves. He observes as I do that evangelicals are just as fat and out of it physically- or even more- than the average person in our corpulent society.

Anyway when I said it, BG looked at me like I was in total self delusion and denial of reality. I explained that lately I have been repeating to myself that I am an athlete- and it really helps me.

Now reality is that I am and have always been far from a natural athlete. How I interact with water, balls of any kind, sticks or rackets you hit balls with, and placing one foot in front of the other quickly is as far from athletic as one could imagine.

But this past 20 years or so I have been slogging along running and this past summer I lost 20 pounds and ran a few 5K runs.

You see I discovered in the Bible years ago this pervasive metaphor for the Christian life. This is a run, we are in training, and I am to run is such a way as to win.

So it hit me this summer that I have thought this, studied it, taught it to others…and now it is time to live it. It is time to actually function as if the clock is ticking, the race is on, I am not a spectator, and that I will either just run or run to win.

I prefer to win.

So the above chart is what I used to get ready for those 5K runs in the CU area.

I ran well and actually won one.

I am still in the race.

I am an athlete, a runner

Lately I have been running more than usual and entering a series of races in small towns around Champaign Urbana. Each one is a 5K and the idea is that the old guy who has the lowest overall time gets an all area award.

So it has been helping me to affirm that in every sense I am an athlete. The book I follow affirms over and over that the main picture of my life is the life of an athlete. I want to write more about this later, but it is just one among a host of big realities that I have begun understanding a bit since retiring from 30 years in ministry. Why I didn’t really get it then I am not sure. But it is starting to make sense.

I like this quote from one of my favorite runners:

A lot of people run a race to see who is fastest. I run to see who has the most guts, who can punish himself into exhausting pace, and then at the end, punish himself even more.
Steve Prefontaine

Read more at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/s/steve_prefontaine.html#USl4uFE73o2seuqb.99

So any way to get ready for a 5K, here is a good routine:

Week	Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday	Saturday	Sunday
1	CT or Rest	3 x 400 IW	2 m run	30 min tempo	Rest	5 m run	30 min EZ
2	CT or Rest	4 x 400 IW	2 m run	30 min tempo	Rest	5 m run	35 min EZ
3	CT or Rest	4 x 400 IW	3 m run	30 min tempo	Rest	6 m run	35 min EZ
4	CT or Rest	5 x 400 IW	3 m run	35 min tempo	Rest	6 m run	40 min EZ
5	CT or Rest	5 x 400 IW	3 m run	35 min tempo	Rest	7 m run	35 min EZ
6	CT or Rest	6 x 400 IW	3 m run	40 min tempo	Rest	6 m run	40 min EZ
7	CT or Rest	6 x 400 IW	3 m run	40 min tempo	Rest	7 m run	45 min EZ
8	CT or Rest	3 m run	30 min tempo run	2 m run	Rest	Rest	5K Race!