4 Miles

That was the run mileage for today. We've gone to Pinkerton a lot over the last couple months and Will wanted to go to Centennial, so I acquiesced. Plus I knew he wanted to run some too, and a track is much better for 200s than a mile-long path with only the quarter miles marked. Thankfully, we did a workout that was more a Kailin workout than a Will workout: Run 7-minute miles.

He didn't tell me how many I was doing when I started, he just said go run 7 minutes. So I did. Four times around the track, 6:48! Woohoo! He even showed me the watch to prove it. That was only 8 seconds off my fastest time (which was in a race when I'm always moving faster). The rest interval was probably close to 10 minutes; my stomach started hurting (cramps, I decided) at turn 2 of lap 4, and when I finished I just wanted to lay down and sleep the pain away. I think the following rest periods were closer to 5 minutes than 10 minutes as far as I could tell (he had the watch; I never knew any times of anything unless he told me). I definitely recovered a lot faster than I had after the first mile after the other 3.

The 4 miles were at these times:

• 6:48
• 6:58
• 7:07
• 7:02

On the last one, he told me before I started the last lap that I had to finish it in 1:41. And did I ever aim hard to reach that. But alas. Still, I am not at all complaining about the times, especially considering the awful headwind down one straight. Every time I got to that part, I just kept telling myself it would be over in about 100 meters, and I also aimed to not slow down my speed too much on that stretch. I know that my lap times slowed as I went, since he said my first laps were usually between 1:30 and 1:36. If I'd have kept up even the 1:36, I should have finished each mile in 6:24. I'll get there eventually (there and to negative splits). But at least he'd told me those times, so I knew what the 1:41 should have felt like for that last lap. Total run time: 27:53.

Sometimes I think I should stop reading the blogs of some of the pro triathletes. Bree, whose blog I frequently read, wrote about her Thursday track workout. This girl is an Ironman pro, distance athlete, and fast. I don't always realize how fast these pros are until they post some of her workouts. She had 12×400, each in 90 seconds, with a 30-second or 200-m jog rest between each one. Not including rest, that's 3 miles in 18 minutes or less. Wow!

Before we left, Will did a few 200s, fast (surprise, surprise), even after a crazy hard workout just an hour beforehand.

After running a few errands, I stopped at Farkas' to say a quick hello. It was perfect timing—UJohn was just finishing baking some very tasty cobbler! Church was fabulous. We have been studying Genesis and just finished chapter 2 this week. Usually messages on marriage are hard for me to listen to because they make me realize how much I would love to be married if God ever brings someone into my life and says it's time. Today was different somehow; I just listened to God and learned about Him. There were a few things that really stuck out, and they had to do with the dad giving his daughter away at the wedding and the woman taking her husband's name.

At typical wedding ceremonies, the pastor will ask, "Who gives this woman to be married to this man"? The dad usually answers, "Her mother and I do." Dr. Easley said that when he performs ceremonies, he requests that the dad say only, "I do." With is reasoning, he painted for us a picture of Jesus standing before Adam with the woman on his arm. When God put Adam to sleep, He took part of his side and created the woman. Then He brought her to the man. We know from the rest of Scripture that Jesus was very instrumental in creation, perhaps Himself forming Adam from dust and Eve from Adam. So it's not a stretch to think that He was there, that He was the one to "brought her to the man."

He brought her to the man, to see what the man would call her. This brings me to the second thing that struck me: Why the woman takes her husband's name. Adam had previously named all the animals. God had seen that it was not good for the man to be alone, so He brought all the animals to Adam to see what he would call them. And whatever he named them, that was their name. But not one of them was like Him, so God fashioned the woman, woke Adam up, and "brought her to the man" to see what he would call her. He used a play on words (at least in Hebrew [ish and isha], and similar in English [man and woman]) to call her a name that was much like his own—in essence, he gave her his name.

Not only Adam's naming the woman isha after his name ish describes why women change their names, though. Just a sentence later, God calls the couple to leave their parents and to cleave (or be bonded) to one another. When a woman changes her name, she tells all those witnessing the ceremony and all those she knew and knows and will know that she has left her parents, she has given up her daddy's name, and she is not one with her husband. God instituted this all as a type of what we will eventually experience in eternity—The church is the bride of Christ, and as His bride we will eventually leave this earth and our attachment to it and be united with and one with Him. I can only imagine how awesome that unity will be.

The amazing thing is that both of these rituals are common in every marriage, be it "secular" or "religious." Yet seldom do we realize where these came from and Who instituted them.

That wasn't the end of the night, though I did appreciate having time to contemplate it all. There was still a few exercises to do 5 minute isos for the following:

• Lunge L (1:32), R (1:28)
• Standing ham
• Push up (this one I did from the top; for some reason my arms seemed more tired than my legs!)