Six years ago, I came home from work and said to my husband, “I’d like to run a marathon.” As the most athletic thing I’d ever done to that date was an energetic performance of “Godspell,” he was a bit surprised by my declaration. Ever patient and always tolerant of my hare-brained ideas, however, he jumped on the opportunity to take up a new hobby together. The next day, we laced up our shiny new running shoes and started training together. Almost exactly a year later, we crossed the finish line of our first full marathon. My husband confidently declared at the finish line that he would never again run that far in one day, but I was hooked and I’ve been running one-two marathons or half marathons every year since then.
Often when people find out I’m a runner, they say things like “I only run if something’s chasing me” or “You runners are crazy.” From the outside looking in, I’ll admit it’s a strange hobby. It’s hard, sweaty, and often painful. There is so much more to it than simply the exercise, though. That’s what occurred to me when I crossed the finish line in 2010 and couldn’t wait to run the next one. It isn’t the exercise that sold me on marathoning. Sure, it’s nice to be able to eat anything and everything that moves slower than I do during training season (I do love donuts and I may or may not admit to eating Cheetos while blogging), but for me running marathons is so much deeper than a calorie count or bragging rights.
Hebrews 12:1-7 tells us to “run the race with endurance.” One gains a whole new perspective on that passage when actually physically running for hours on end. It’s a lesson in how to hang on when the going gets tough. When your knee starts to ache at mile 3 of 26.2, you learn a great deal about how much you can actually accomplish when you’re in the thick of things.
Little did I know when I ran past the Seminary campus during that first marathon that just a few years later, I’d have a bit of a reputation there as a serial student. It was a year after crossing my first marathon finish line that I came home from work and told my husband I was seriously thinking about going to seminary. God bless my husband and his tolerance for my crazy ideas.
Now, having graduated with my MDiv and rolled straight into the ThM program, I just can’t seem to get enough of this place. While I ran the full Pittsburgh marathon in 2010, I’ve run the half marathon every year since. Because the half marathon course doesn’t pass the Seminary, I haven’t gotten a chance to run past the campus on race day since I’ve been a student here. It’s always felt like I’m missing out on something important by bypassing that part of the full marathon course.
This year, I’m delighted to be able to participate on a Seminary relay team at the Pittsburgh marathon. The PTS community and distance running are finally coming together at the same time for me and that’s a big deal. I’ve often compared seminary to running a marathon. It takes huge amounts of dedication, perseverance, and training to get to the finish line. And just like in a marathon, some people arrive at the finish line in seminary a better, healthier person, but ready to move on to something else and put academia behind them. Some people – like yours truly – just keep coming back for more. But all of us reach the finish line a different person than we were when we started out on the journey.
The Rev. Charissa Howe completed her MDiv in 2014 and has returned to Pittsburgh Seminary to earn her ThM. She serves as pastor of Liberty Presbyterian Church in McKeesport, Pa., and is a wife and mother.