Should I Stay or Should I Go

Run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith” (Hebrews 12:1b)

SHOULD I STAY OR SHOULD I GO NOW…” is more than a song by the CLASH. It is the literal question that every runner in the St. Croix – Winter Ultra ask themselves. The race is a 40-mile ultra-marathon at night, in January, in Minnesota. Runners spend their hard-earned money for this race in which they pull 30-plus pounds of supplies on a sled. In such cold, wintery conditions you can literally die if you stand still for too long.

Twenty-five percent of the runners never finish the race. And the highest dropout point of the race happens when they reach mile 24, or Checkpoint 24. The runners arrive at Checkpoint 24 between 10 pm and midnight. It is here that the runner must prove to officials that they have emergency survival skills that could be needed if they are going to run the last 16 miles of the race. In order to demonstrate these skills, the runner must stop running, set up a body-shaped tent, climb into a makeshift bed inside the tent, wait for 30 seconds, then get up and pack it all up before getting back to the race trail.

You might think that is the easy part of the race. But with a near-zero temperature, covered in sweat from pulling 30 pounds on a sled over the last 24 miles settling into a sleeping bag for 30 seconds is usually enough of a comfort, luring runners to just simply STAY in that sleeping bag and end the race. This makes Checkpoint 24 a place where the most dangerous thing a runner can do is to stop.
Source: Sarah Scoles, “Hell? Yes; Endurance athletes and the pleasure of pushing it,” Popular Science (Summer 2020), pp. 38-45

But SHOULD I STAY OR SHOULD I GO is actually a question that each of us must ask every day. Will we find the strength, the stamina, the will, and the desire to run the race marked out for each of us in this life. The Scriptures teach us that we are to GO…and “Run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith” (Hebrews 12:1b).

Don’t give up, don’t give in…This is discipleship. Following Jesus, being changed by Jesus, and committing to the mission of Jesus.