Climbing Hills

I have a couple of fairly hilly routes near my house. There is one that I run fairly regularly (1-2 times/week) that is 3.44 miles and it usually takes me about 28:30 to run it. I'm not sure why, but yesterday was a serious struggle. It may be because I have put on a couple of pounds through careless eating. It may also be because it is now warmer in the mornings.

At any rate, a lot of thoughts go through my head as I fight to climb the hills. I try to make it an act of worship and think about some inspiring praise & worship songs as I climb. But, to be honest, sometimes I think of Rocky training montages. What red-blooded American man isn't inspired to see Rocky doing all kinds of feats of strength as he prepares for the big match?

When I think of running and hills, I tend to think of this:



In particular, the part where he has the log on his shoulders and he is going through two feet of snow. That's how I feel sometimes.

What really struck me yesterday was how much this reminds me of Christ. I think of Him carrying the beam on His back as He climbed Calvary. He couldn't make it because of the beating that He suffered, so someone was called in to help.

John 19:16-17 ESV
(16) So he delivered him over to them to be crucified. So they took Jesus,
(17) and he went out, bearing his own cross, to the place called the place of a skull, which in Aramaic is called Golgotha.

Matthew 27:32 ESV
(32) As they went out, they found a man of Cyrene, Simon by name. They compelled this man to carry his cross.

This is a little different than Rocky, isn't it? Rocky always guts it out and succeeds in his training. However, there are usually some stumbles along the way too, right?

One thing is certainly the same. Both are victors at the end. Maybe it's stretching things a bit to call Rocky a messianic figure, but there are certainly parallels.

Anyhow, thinking of Christ climbing that hill for my sake certainly helped me to suck it up and make it up the little hill I had to climb. Thinking about this makes me want to go back to California and take another crack at the fire trails. At the very least, I'm going to get a chance to tackle the beach next week.