running and conquering.

I have always loved to run. In middle school and high school I would go out and run late at night in my neighborhood. It was a little retreat or escape for me from whatever was going on in my life at the time. I ran a lot in college as well and then went through seasons of running and not running, mostly the latter, in seminary. Since moving back to the southeast I made up my mind that that was one thing I wanted back in my life on a more consistent basis. I had missed it and I had become lazy.
I have often wondered why some people hate to run and others love it. I hear a lot from people who like to run that it is the main way they release stress. I know for me that is true. I have always known this, but I really realized why tonight. I was running at Stone Mountain, which a brutally hilly 5 mile loop. There are 2 terrible steady inclines at the end and as I was going up one I was thinking about how hard it was, but how I could not stop...I had to push through, I couldn't let it conquer me, which made me run even faster.
When I run it is as if I am conquering things in my life that I don't like. The faster I run and the harder I push, the further I get away from things that I don't like or things that are stressful or things that feel defeating. It feels like, in some strange way, that I am conquering them.....like I am beating them out of my body. This is why it feels so good to run at the end of a stressful or difficult day. Now, I know that most of those things above are not true in reality, but a lot life is about perspective and how you view realities. Running helps my perspective. When I can't control certain circumstances...I can control this. It also reminds me that I can handle much more than I sometimes think....I can push myself much further than I sometimes want to. There will be many opportunities in the near future to test these things out more fully in the middle of all of this training I am about to start. If only I could push myself in real life like I do while running.