<p>Free sharing permitted under the Creative Commons <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/">BY-NC-ND 3.0 (US)</a> license.</p>

Village SDA Church

Ron Kelly

The Pace, the Place, and the Race, Chariots of Fire

All right, folks, the pace, the place, and the race, chariots of fire.

I want to put a slide up and I want to ask you if you know what it is.

This slide represents how to be ready to run a marathon 26.2 miles in 18 weeks.

Now, I only put up through week 15, because by the time you get to week 15, you've crossed the highest mountain.

Now, what that means is you run 3 miles on Monday, Tuesday, well actually Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, you take Friday off, Sabbath off you run 7 miles on Sunday by week 2 You haven't had to go far But by week 5 you can see that 1 run on Sunday is growing That run grows slowly grows the rest and your body conditions itself and pretty soon, believe it or not, even you could run a marathon.

Nike says the goal of this plan isn't to get you across the finish line, it's to get you across the finish line, the best version of you.

That's what they're trying to get across the finish line.

Now there's something about running that captures the mind of most people.

And truth of the matter is, you don't love running unless you do a lot of running.

But once you do a lot of running, your body actually adapts and you get to the place where it is very wonderful and you enjoy it.

A lot of people never stick with it that far.

These are pictures of the Chicago Marathon.

It's gotten to where they don't even let everybody sign up that wants to sign up.

Bible says that not all the runners run, but only 1 receives the prize.

They do it for a perishable crown, but we're doing it for 1 that does not perish.

I don't know why my text is off the screen here.

And Paul says, I don't box as if I'm beating the air, but he keeps his body under control lest after preaching to others, he himself should be a castaway.

And what's the point of running the race?

Sometimes you have to walk to get there, but it's worth it.

And when you do, you feel very, very relieved.

Now, look at all the emotion in this picture.

Obviously, the center of the picture is these 2 women.

None of the men wonder, none of the men are looking like this, so I'm assuming the women are in better condition.

He can't even look up, and he's looking over like, what's your problem?

This morning, I want to talk to you about grace for the race.

There is a Real emphasis today on the kind of grace that forgives when you flub up praise the Lord for that But there's a grace that empowers you to win.

Now that grace that allows you to win is the indwelling Christ.

The interesting thing about Usain Bolt, he was, I don't know if he remains, the fastest person on the planet, but he had never run the mile.

So you don't have to be a long-distance runner but in this we are.

A couple weeks ago we had a new phenomenon on the face of planet Earth.

Eliad Kapoji, a Kenyan I believe, ran a marathon in less than 2 hours.

Now, that's like running 4 minute, 30 second mile, 1 after another for 2 hours.

Most of us could not run a mile in less than 5 seconds, 5 minutes.

But he ran 26.2 miles at a pace of about 4 minutes and 30 second a mile for 2 straight hours.

He constantly has people around him, even when he's training.

There's always a group of people around him.

And when you see the race as he ran it, he's the 1 in the white.

He did this just a few weeks ago Over 30 pace setters in this race and when he takes off there'll be a pace car It's flashing out a green laser in the back.

They're not terribly far into the race you've got 2 pace setters already dropping out because they can't keep the pace and I want you to see this 1 down here getting ready to go in as a matter of fact there's a man with his hand on his back and he's going to shove him out into the race.

So he's going to be 1 of those 36 plus racers.

Now you're looking at all those pace setters.

You cannot even see Eliud Kachogi, but he's there.

He's taking advantage of what this professional exercise physiologist says is draft.

Those 7 men, or looks like 6 or 5 in that picture, They're forming a V and you can't see him from straight on but he's actually getting a little bit of draft.

And the exercise physiologist says it might only be 1% but you multiply that over 26 miles and it really adds up.

So he's got all of these pace setters and he's running on a flat course.

This course has to be run back and forth 4.4 times.

Now 1 of the things they've learned, this is in Austria where the race was run, it was sponsored by a British chemical company.

On my slide I don't actually have the turnaround down here but you can see it's a little round turnaround here and a little round turnaround here.

They've learned that racers when they turn right lose 1 second.

As a matter of fact, here they come down to 1 of the turnarounds.

It's only always gonna be turning to the left and it's going to save them just a little bit.

Now, Here they are at the end of the race.

You can see everybody that was running as a pace setter for the last little bit was celebrating with him, even though they couldn't keep up.

And when he crosses the line at 1 hour, 59 minutes, 40.2 seconds, he's the first person on the face of the planet to have run a marathon in less than 2 hours.

But the race isn't going to count as official.

It won't count because it didn't take place in an open event.

In other words, he was the only real racer.

So it's fine to run a marathon with pacemakers, but they have to stay in the whole race.

And then the new phrase made it into my mindset.

There is potential discussion, by some at least, of technological doping.

Well, I didn't realize this, but for the swimmers in the Olympics a few years back, they were wearing swimming suits that had a technological advantage, and those swimming suits got banned.

As for Eliud, he was wearing a certain shoe that had a carbon plate in the bottom of it, and the engineers had designed it as such to wear supposedly when he came down on the shoe, the carbon plate would give him a little bump, a little push.

Back to Menu

The Pace, the Place, and the Race, Chariots of Fire

Transcript

Sponsor

Recorded

Sound Doctrine