Lengthen Your Stride!

As you may know I've started to try to be a runner in the last 6-7 months. I've been surprised at some of the things I've been learning from running. For example today I learned what it means to lengthen your stride. I have always heard that phrase because President Kimball used it to help members of the church try a little harder. That made sense to me, but as a runner it became even more meaningful.

Until recently I've been running outside all the time. I didn't really know how fast I was running or exactly how far. With winter upon us I found that when it was below 20 degrees I just couldn't do it. So from Thanksgiving until the beginning of January I didn't run at all. But now we have a treadmill so I can keep running during the winter. Running on a treadmill is different than running outside. There's nothing to look at except the wall or the display that shows my speed, distance, calories burned, etc. It's very boring that way. I've had to work up to my same level as before over the last couple of weeks. It's kind of harder knowing exactly how far I've gone. It seems like it takes forever to get anywhere!

The point of all this is that in my boredom I notice more about how I run--technique I guess. I've discovered that when I wanted to go faster I was taking more short steps which tired me out---fast! But when I just stretched my legs a little bit farther instead of taking more shorter steps the difference in speed didn't affect my fatigue very much at all. So by lengthening my stride just a little I could cover a lot more distance without getting too tired to endure.

So what President Kimball was saying was that we just need to stretch a little bit farther in our efforts to do what is right and we can be much better people with just a little bit more effort. President Hinckley was always telling us to try just a little bit harder each day to be a little kinder, a little bit more loving, a little bit more like the Savior. It's the same idea and that's what I want to do.