Saturday, June 02, 2007

Life is a fartlek

Yep, running stuff. As Jack Lewis reminded me via a post from his wife's blog, Linda's Thoughts.

Several years ago when my husband went to John Brown University in Arkansas, he was friends with a guy named Jonathan Beverly who was an avid runner. Jonathan is now editor-in-chief of Running Times. Jonathan once told Danny that you know you're really a runner when you can use the word "fartlek" in a mixed crowd and not be embarrassed.

According to Dictionary.com this is its definition,

"a training technique, used esp. among runners, consisting of bursts of intense effort loosely alternating with less strenuous activity."

Dictionary.com. Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1). Random House, Inc. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/fartlek (accessed: June 01, 2007).

This morning as we talked through my struggles, Danny popped out a quotable quote, Life is a fartlek. He is so right as in applying this to my life. As a Christian, God puts things in my life to keep me growing. At the age of 40, I can look back and see periods of time when it was really stressful and then other periods of when life was so calm I was bored and uninspired to do anything. God does this to my me to help me grow but not continuously overwhelm me that there's too much to handle. At times in life where there is great stress I truly know God would not push beyond the stress level I could handle. But He would push me to my limit so I would run to Him for help and strength which would also cause my faith to grow.

Fartlek comes from Swedish, it translates into "sudden burst." Like English, Swedish is a Germanic language, so the root word, for you know, must be the same as the one for fartlek.

Technorati tags:

No comments: