If You Hate Running...

Don't aqua jog.

Aqua jogging is the single most boring cross training activity for runners. It is less dull if your entire team is doing it and people are yelling obnoxious things across the pool and committing other acts of tom foolery, but when it is Sunday afternoon and you are the only person in the entire pool and it is dead silent, that 25 yard pool gets old fast. You also look like a moron when the prospective students come for a tour of the sports center and you're working really hard to continue to slowly "jog" your way back and forth across the pool.

Because I am injured in such a way that even biking is uncomfortable, I had the joyous experience of replacing the 65-minute run today with a 65-minute aqua jog. I can't imagine a runner running up and down the same 25-yard strip for 65 minutes, but that's what I did today. How did I survive such an event?

Grace.

I endlessly repeated that verse, the one about the pleasant lines and beautiful inheritance, because it's true. The most mundane can be pleasant and the most monotonous beautiful. Lap after lap after lap, the minutes ticked by, falling in line quite beautifully indeed.

I ran the list of gifts from the day through my brain

-sleeping in
-quiet morning showers
- Sunday morning breakfast
- donut holes in my coffee
- Bible reading with breakfast dessert
- friends to join me
- hard boiled eggs and salsa on toast
- sweet sweet Maddie
- hymns before church
- hymns at church
- 200 tongues singing O For A Thousand, one of my favorites ;)
- friends running to catch the church shuttle
- hugs from the oldest and the youngest members of our body
- Natalie telling me to do purple nail polish next time (planning on it!)
- our sassy old guitarist, Dan
- Bianca's shenanigans during church
- Kelsey ratting out Bianca
- Casey's "cocktails"
- Carolyn's eager eyes
- Nathaniel's high fives
- Miss Patty's glitter
- helping a friend flip pages in the Bible
- my Sabbath
- chicken pot pie
- feeling home
- Isaac and Taylor and rapping at the lunch table
- the first 3 chapters of Hebrews (I'm memorizing that book, and Scripture is a great way to occup your brain during aqua jogging)
- lacrosse balls to massage sad achilles
- gratitude for the moving help
- homemade ice cream with oreos and sprinkles
- sweet tears at the end of the sermon, reminders of grace
- my yellow veil from senegal
- getting a workout in without pain
- the moment when our pastor says, "Can we get that map up here?" and all the college kids look around and smile
- hospitality
- faithfulness
- Sundays

And as I clock in at 1:07:24, I think maybe, just maybe, I can be thankful for solitary aqua jogging.