The Mountains we must climb to find ourselves.

Sports accessories are a big industry nowadays, from mp3 players, Ipod’s, drinks carriers, and the more complex GPS watches there are all sorts of devices designed to make us faster, leaner and fitter. Having a GPS (sports watch) is described as an indispensable tool for runners. It does everything from monitoring your heart rate, pace and time to motivating you during your training runs with a virtual partner if you chose to have one. I have to admit that I find them useful but like the mobile phone I wonder how we would cope without them. Yesterday as usual before my run I switched on my GPS and waited for the satellite to be located, usually just a few seconds. However after a couple of minutes with the words ‘finding satellite’ I decided to get started, hoping it would kick in soon into the run, after all I was only going for a four mile run. Sadly it wasn’t to be by the time the satellite had been located I was well into the run and in fact only had 1.5 miles to go. I had managed quite well without it.

We have become so accustomed to these devices that it's difficult to cope without them. At first the thought of not been accompanied by my GPS to monitor my pace was pretty scary especially days from the marathon. I felt lost without it.  Relaxing into the run though made me realise that by checking and listening to my body I was able to manage the pace quite well without it, enjoying the run which was quite liberating. It felt like climbing a mountain in order to find out something about myself I already knew.

In different areas of our lives we can allow devices such as these to take over our lives and they can. Sometimes it’s good to rely on the bare essentials of God’s beautiful creation; you may be surprise at what you find, certainly you won't get the message 'lost satellite reception'.