a converted atheist?

I’m not really the religious type. At all. My only formal experience with religion was getting kicked out of Sunday school at some point during the first few years of my life. That said, yesterday’s run made me almost feel like I had found a religion… of sorts.

I’m a physicist, so I have a really hard time with the “explain nature and the universe via a big dude upstairs” thing. But, my less sardonic take the situation is more like this…

• religion is something you devote time to, in order to enrich your life
• faith inspires you and compels you to perpetuate its existence
• religion has a ‘house’ that manifests the seat of the source of your faith
• faith tests your will and devotion to your religion (see bullet #2)

And I could go on. However, it occurred to me yesterday that for all the crap I give people about faith in God and organized religion, I, too, follow a doctrine that satisfies all these criteria.

Running is my religion, and the road is my church.

It hit my by surprise and I almost had to stop on the side of the road. The parallels are uncanny. I deliberately spend a couple hours every Sunday morning at my ‘church.’ I won’t drag the analogy out too far, but I think anyone who runs a lot can sympathize with what I’m getting at.

Just a thought. (Though, a biggie in my opinion.)

So, think the inspiration for that entire diatribe was yesterday’s 14 mile-er. Another distance PR for me (by 2 miles this time!), and I actually ran a good pace. I’ve been having trouble keeping my pace to 1-2:00 slower than my normal, weekday pace. However, I FORCED myself to go (what felt like painfully) slowly for the entire 14 miles. Turns out that what feels like a turtle’s pace was actually 8 min/mile, which was great! Not only did I feel better while running (I was barely breathing hard at any point along the way), I also felt great all day. Well, tired, but great, nevertheless. So, that’s even a little faster than I would have liked (8:30 would be perfect for now), but it’s a step in the right direction.

Ok, so that was the good stuff… now one bad thing to even things out:

It snowed three inches Saturday night. ‘Nuff said. However, it’s worth mentioning that I got TWO full-on, muddy, slushy, freezing showers thanks to the DOT’s plows. That sucked.

Finally, a closing thought. I was running due West about 3/4 of the way through Sunday’s run, and as I passed a numbered street sign (all the cross-roads are numbered, in order) I thought “Sweet, only 54 blocks to go!” That’s when I knew I had fully converted to my new religion.