"Thou shalt not..."

For my money, the "Thou shalt not..." commandments get a lot of bad press. The prevailing wisdom seems to be that people don't like to be told what they may not do. Never mind that it's God doing the talking.

I'm not buying it. From our earliest years, there are times that limits need to be set by those who are wiser/stronger/more vigilant than we. Sometimes those limits prevent us from doing harm. Sometimes they keep us out of trouble. Sometimes they enable us to do good.

The "thou shalt not" this week is "Thou shalt not overtrain." The temptation is ever-present. "After all" whispers the Voice "you might not have trained enough. You only have a few more days. You might not be ready."

It is, as astute readers and runners already know, the Disease voice, the voice of Doubt, the Tempter seeking an opening to undermine the wisdom of generations of runners and this individual runner's confidence in his training program. The Voice is a liar. The truth is that you can't undo six months of training in three weeks; that "rest" is what re-builds fatigued muscles; and that "sleep" is the most important thing that can happen ("rest" being second) during the days before running 26.2 miles.

So relying on those runners who have gone before, I ran only a 5k this morning. In a merciful 28 minutes, my run was done and at a 9 minute per mile pace: fastest of the season! Yes, "Thou shalt not overtrain."

On a different note, I'm putting together my prayer list for race day, which includes my District Superintendent recovering from cancer and young Bryan Platt, also recovering from cancer. My friend's church in Texas is on the list as they face a major building campaign with a sick pastor; as are my mom and dad; The Council of Churches of Greater Bridgeport (CCGB); several other friends facing crises and several other friends experiencing joys. Let me know if you'd like a prayer intention while I'm running.

The race is the Steamtown Marathon in Scranton, Pennsylvania on October 9th. As regular readers know, I'm raising money for CCGB, at this point tallying $21,515.70. I'm now worth $821.21 per mile! Keep those cards and letters coming in! I pay all my own expenses for the trip--meals, lodging, gas, tolls, racing fee, everything--so your gift goes directly to CCGB services. Please make gifts payable to "CCGB", memoed "Marathon" at 1100 Boston Avenue, Building 5A, Bridgeport, CT 06610; or go to http://www.ccgb.org/ and click on "How to Donate" to use your credit card. Your gift will "turn faith into action...to help people at risk meet their urgent needs." And no one will say "no" to that!