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Running + Faith

December 20, 2016

By, Sara Hall

One of the themes Ryan and I hear most in messages from other runners, and especially recently, is ‘how does your faith in Christ affect your running?”  As much as we would love to respond to each individually, our life is rather limiting and I thought a blog would be a good opportunity to address the topic. I by no means have this all figured out so please do not see me as being up on a soapbox, but I do love to share the things I have learned so we can learn from each other.

** Warning: This blog is long and there are no fun pictures, so I won’t be offended if you don’t read on! **

My faith in God began at a young age, but just as with any relationship with a person it has grown and evolved in depth.  Thus, how it has affected my approach to running has also evolved.  As a high schooler first entering the sport I had a deep desire to use my running to bring God pleasure, but I didn’t always know how to do that.  I knew part of it had to do with my heart, how I was holding running. It also had to do with who received the credit, or “glory”, for whatever success came.

But 16 years of walking this out with God, through the ups and downs of my career, has evolved my perspective on what it means to follow Christ while having running be such a large part of my life.  I have by no means arrived when it comes to this subject and likely 16 more years from now I will look back on this time with different perspectives, but this is where I am at personally in my journey so far and I hope that God will highlight to you the things that resonate with your spirit!

** Before I go any further, let’s start with the basics: God designed all of us to be his children and live in an intimate relationship with Him, but when the first humans chose to sin and it entered the world, we lost that perfect connection with Him.  So he sent his son, Jesus Christ, to live a perfect life on earth and be the perfect sacrifice for all past and future sins to make things right again between humanity and God.  He showed us how to live a perfect life, which is only possible through His spirit that he left here to help us when we choose to put our faith in Him. Trusting in Jesus means believing He is God, He lived and died and paid the price for all of our sins, and giving him your life. That’s where following Him begins, by speaking to him and listening to His voice, reading the words he speaks in the Bible and following the way he lived, and worshipping Him with your whole life. He made us all unique, with different gifts and passions, including athletics, and He delights so much in seeing us live these out, and ultimately he wants all these things to lead us back to connection with Him.  He wants to live with us forever in Heaven, starting right now on Earth, and through him is the only way to live the life that your heart longs for because He created your heart that way!

Where is your treasure?

“For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also” Matthew 6:21

I absolutely believe that God doesn’t want all of us to just sit around and sing songs to him all day, that part of our worship can be going after things, to have goals and ambitions and pursue things that he puts in our hearts at the highest level.  However, how you hold these in your heart makes all the difference in whether that goal is an idol (something you worship and bow down to), or whether refuse to worship anything but God.  Everything else will fail you at some point, but God is the only prize worth living for that will never fail you.

A good heart check for me came when my pastor Kris Valloton said “an idol is anything that you have to check at the door before following what God tells you to do”.  Following Jesus means giving him all of us, and if He tells us to lay something down for a season of life it can be hard but it is for our best.  I look back on times where I have done this well and many times where I have not.  One that stands out in my mind is my senior year of high school. I felt He was calling me to go on a missions trip to Holland the summer before my senior year, and while there I didn’t get in the preparation I really needed to do for the season and had a very rough start to that year. But I refused to take down the picture of my goals on my wall- becoming the first CA runner to win 4 state cross country titles and to win the Footlocker National Championship.  It looked very unlikely as I was losing my dual races, and lost almost every important race leading up to it, but in the end I did win these two races, the biggest races of the year.  I’m not saying that God helped me win, but I do think He used it to create a milestone in my life of putting him first above everything else.  That doesn’t mean you will have running success as a result, and my career is a great example of that as I have probably failed more than I have succeeded, but having Jesus as our greatest treasure is the only way to experience the satisfying, fulfilling, “abundant life” here on earth (John 10:10).

Working hard, but not Striving

 I’m one of those over-achiever, more-is-better personalities.  I feel my early success in running came not because I was especially talented but because I have always been willing to outwork everyone else.  I would run to practice, do practice, and run home and do hill sprints on the way home, and this is in middle school, a time where most kids just hid in the bushes and picked blackberries during practice.  Needless to say, in my walk with Christ I have always loved to “do things for God”, things that Jesus did and that are good for us.  A lot of Christianity focuses on this, doing good works, but really it reinforces a culture where we are performing for love rather than doing them because of love.  I had to learn how to operate out of rest- that no matter if I never did anything for God the rest of my life, He would still love me the same.  And there is a fine line between working hard and striving.  Striving is where you are trying to force something, instead of working hard with God’s grace enabling you for the task.  There are many moments in my career where I tried to force things in my own effort and got run down, burned out, and the results were the opposite of what I wanted.  It can look the same externally, as obviously to be good at running you have to work hard, but it is really more of an internal state- one of peace, versus one of insecurity and anxiety.  Jesus said his “yoke is easy and burden is light” (Matthew 11:30) (a yoke is the heavy apparatus on the neck of oxen use to plow). So I remind myself sometimes when running feels like a burden, “oops sorry Jesus, I picked up the wrong yoke! Yours is easy. Here you go, you can have this burden and I’ll take the easy one!”

What bears fruit?

Matthew 7:19 “Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.”

I want my life to be like a healthy tree, with different “branches” representing different aspects and all holding good, ripe fruit. “Bearing fruit” in the Bible represents a sign of health, having impact, and being a blessing to others.  Good fruit comes naturally from a tree being healthy, it doesn’t have to force the fruit to produce, it is a byproduct of life flowing to those branches. Running is one branch of my life, and I want it to always bear fruit, to be something that impacts the world around me in a positive way. God didn’t intend for it just to be something for my own enjoyment and satisfaction.  Creating goals just to have something to chase is empty- it will be like chasing the wind, always needing something else to chase to feel a sense of significance. But when you know that what you are doing is bearing fruit, having impact, and blessing people around you you can go through hard seasons where parts of the branch get pruned off, knowing that it is all part of staying healthy and producing bigger fruit and bigger impact. Often when I am debating whether to keep something in my life, I think about the fruit it is bearing, the positive impact it is having (or lack thereof).  The minute I feel my running is no longer bearing fruit in my own life and the lives of others is the minute it’s time to focus that time and energy on something else.

How do you define success?

Determining the fruit your running is producing is in part possible by defining “what is success?”  When I first started running I pretty much only experienced winning.  My first year in high school I won the League, Section, and State Championships in cross country and won both the 1600 and 3200 in the track State Championships (for all division in all of California).  Without realizing it I had created a very narrow window of success for myself- anything outside of winning was failure. As I continued in college and professionally often coaches would communicate what that window of “success” was, whether a time or place in a certain range was or making a certain team. But over the years, God has showed me that this is not the mindset he intended me to have and though those goals can be helpful objectives, success is faithfulness.  If I take the amount of talent and desire he gives me and work hard and hold it rightly in my heart all the while and then go out and compete to the best of my ability, that is success, no matter what the results sheet says.  In our sport results are so easily quantified and compared, and one of the biggest traps we can fall into is measuring our achievements by comparing ourselves to others.  Don’t get me wrong- I want to make Olympic teams and run records and all that is very quantifiable.  But at the end of the day, whether or not I was successful is less about those results to me as whether I was faithful in the process.  I think of the repercussions, like the doping epidemic, which would be impacted if we adopted Jesus’ view of success.

Who are you running for?

 As I mentioned early on in my high school career I experienced blissfully easy success, but in doing so created some very high expectations for myself, both from myself and others. Those expectations have been something that now, nearly 20 years later, have become a norm in my life, but the inevitable pressure they come with was not always easy to handle. I was already aware of others’ expectations but that pressure felt amplified when somehow one day I stumbled upon some newly formed website message boards where I was surprised to find that I was being picked apart by anonymous people.  All of a sudden I felt afraid that if I failed, I was going to be criticized by these anonymous hordes of people that in my naïve youth seemed to matter so much to me, along with my hometown and the many others I had already been aware of.  It is a natural thing to want to be liked by others, especially as an insecure high schooler, so as I entered races in the back of my mind I was thinking of the criticism I’d receive if I didn’t win.

Whereas competitions used to be a fun, exciting opportunity to win, at times that felt overshadowed by the fear I’d lose and be criticized.  In the years following, God has taught me so much in this area and restored that joy of competing.  The first step was to cut off being exposed to that criticism as much as possible- not reading articles about myself or negative websites all together.  But some things you can’t just cut off, like a coach or person you don’t want to let down who places expectations on you, so avoiding things is only a small part of the remedy.  Getting to the root of this in me took experiencing God’s fully unconditional love, really understanding that he can’t love me any more or any less by how I perform, and His opinion is what matters.  At the end of the day and after the race looking to him for affirmation and feedback.

One of my favorite quotes is by my pastor Bill Johnson, “If you don’t eat from the praises of man, you won’t die by their criticisms”.  I realized that I had become addicted to others praises- I had been getting them since I first started running and had made a steady diet out of them. But if others’ praises carry weight in your life, so will others’ criticisms.  I don’t think I’ve met anyone who does this better than my husband and I am forever grateful in learning from his example in this! Also, my pastor Bill, who gives the analogy that when you receive the praise (for example after a good race), accept it graciously like a rose.  At the end of the day, when you are on your own, offer all the roses in a bouquet up to God and say, “All these belong to you, you deserve all the glory, it is only by your grace that I am even in the position to be doing this and perform well today”.  I love that image and have made a practice of it in my own career.

Self-Promotion

Giving the bouquet of roses up to God as a symbol of any glory you receive really belonging to Him is the perfect example of one of the most important aspects of living like Jesus: humility.  Pride is a funny thing because it can be so subtle, and one way I have seen it creep into my life is in the area of self-promotion.  My pastor Eric made an astute observation that Jesus never promoted himself.  His life had the greatest impact on world history by far of anyone who has ever lived, and yet he did nothing to pump himself up and garner popularity. He actually said things he knew would offend people and make him less popular.  He was confident, he knew who he was, but he was not prideful.  The need to promote oneself comes out of insecurity really.  For example, one are I feel the temptation to promote myself is social media.

“Building my brand” (I really dislike that term) is often considered part of my job description as a professional athlete, but long ago I stopped feeling comfortable putting out anything I didn’t genuinely feel inspired to share. Even still I ask myself at times as I create a post,“why am I wanting to post this? Is it really because I want the response of others?” Do I get the urge at times to brag about a workout I just crushed on social media or some other achievement, absolutely, but God convicts me that this boils down to pride.  I have thus tried to really reign in any form of self-promotion in my life, whether on social media or interviews or elsewhere.  I trust God to bring opportunities and financial provision my way without me trying to strive to make them happen by “marketing myself”.

Everyone is different in their convictions on how they use social media so I don’t judge anyone on this, but I know for myself, it crosses the line when at the heart of my motivation it is really a need for affirmation from others.  It also doesn’t mean you never share about the successes (as well as failures) as you go along your journey. It just goes back to what is your heart intention in it and who are you running/living for? I love and appreciate so much the people who have followed my running journey and cheer me on, but even if that crowd shrunk to zero I hope that I would have the same zeal to do this sport unto God alone, for His audience only.

“Am I now trying to win the approval of human beings, or of God? Or am I trying to please people? If I were still trying to please people, I would not be a servant of Christ.” Galatians 1:10

As you can tell, I could probably talk about this forever as it is one of my life’s passions, but I’ll end it there. I would absolutely love to hear from you on how your life with Christ has affected the way you pursue running!

May God bless you richly and meet you wherever you are on this journey!

Sara

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62 Comments

  • Reply Brian Smith December 20, 2016 at 5:27 pm

    Hey Sarah! Great blog! Wondering if we could have your permission to post this on the athletes in action website? We would love to get this in front of as many people as possible. Shoot me an email if it is something you are interested in. Thanks!

  • Reply Brian Smith December 20, 2016 at 5:28 pm

    *Sara (sorry I spelled your name wrong)

  • Reply Erin December 20, 2016 at 6:00 pm

    What a blessing today to read this. God has truly given you a way to shine for Him! I will definitely be sharing this with my daughters and my runners.

  • Reply Jess C December 20, 2016 at 6:03 pm

    Hi Sara,

    I am so encouraged by your post. Thank you for sharing the gospel and what it looks like for you personally. I’ve never looked at striving that way before, but it makes so much sense. Sometimes I just work harder and harder hoping that my striving will turn into God’s glory but it’s sadly an unending race.. and it’s amazing how when God orchestrates something it’s almost effortless and/or the hard work is full of joy instead of angst. I’m definitely praying for you and your mighty family. Thanks for being a great example and teacher.

    • Reply sara hall December 26, 2016 at 8:15 am

      Thanks Jess! May He show you how to operate from rest and complete acceptance 🙂

  • Reply Steph V December 20, 2016 at 7:31 pm

    Sara,
    You have been a incredible role model & inspiration to me through your running career and (especially) in sharing about your faith in Jesus. Thank you for your boldness & I thank God for how He’s used your life to inspire my own & many others! Continue running the race He’s set before you – He’s certainly proud to call you His beloved daughter.

    • Reply sara hall December 26, 2016 at 8:15 am

      Thank you so much! Bless you

      • Reply Chris Miramontes December 6, 2020 at 5:28 pm

        Nice blog. I totally agree that we are to do all things for His glory. For me it is not always easy. Thank You for the reminder.

        God bless you

  • Reply Brad December 20, 2016 at 9:18 pm

    Thank you for your post. As a high school xc coach who can remember watching you race in CA and footlocker I can appreciate the journey you have been on these many years with Christ. Thank you for the example you’ve been.

  • Reply Hannah December 21, 2016 at 3:21 am

    Thanks for this post, Sara!

  • Reply Nikki December 21, 2016 at 11:45 am

    Sara, thank you for so openly sharing your testimony. I started running when my oldest son was about 13. Now the youngest is 18 and deciding on which school to attend next fall. Faith and knowing that running helps me to be the best wife and mother I can be have carried me through the last 8 years of parenting teenagers. Blessings to you, Ryan and your 4 girls this Christmas season.

  • Reply Jana Seppala December 21, 2016 at 1:50 pm

    This is beautiful, Sara! I have to tell you that you are living my dream 🙂 As a girl growing up i was not allowed to race or compete at any level because it was seen by my parents as pride. My dream was to run cross country or track in school and being from Massachusetts i always dreamed of running in the Boston Marathon one day. As it turns out, i ran my first race, a full marathon at the age of 40 and qualified for Boston. I know the feeling of striving and feeling pressure to perform and i made “Boston” a bigger deal in my head than i should have. I got myself good and sick with a respiratory infection and had to defer my entrance into the next year from over training. I have since learned thru the ups and downs to listen to the Holy Spirit and to my body and to trust Him. I have ran some incredible races and i have also looked at the inside door of the outhouse for 10 minutes at the bottom of the infamous Heart Break Hill in Boston. I am so thankful for the personal relationship that i have with Jesus and for the knowledge of his unconditional love. I was so blessed by the quote that you shared from Bill Johnson about not eating from the praises of man, what a powerful truth right there. Thanks so much for sharing what God has taught you thru the years and for shining his light in a performance based and praised society. Let us continue to keep in step with the spirit and encourage others along the way, doing our best to bring glory to his name with the gifts and talents that he has given us. Merry Christmas to you and your beautiful family!

    • Reply sara hall December 26, 2016 at 8:14 am

      Thank you for sharing Jana! May God continue to bless your journey and show you how much he delights in your running!

  • Reply Devan Becker December 21, 2016 at 4:36 pm

    Hi Sara,
    As a runner with dreams/goals of making a career out of running in the future I’ve always wanted to make sure that in the end I’m running for God. This mindset has been a foggy struggle for me and what you have put out in this post really brings me some clarity. So praise God for guiding you to share your walk with Him. I hope that some day our paths will cross again so I could talk to you and Ryan a little more about this or anything, you guys are such awesome people. The first time I met you two was at a fundraiser for your organization at Slater Middle about 5ish years ago. Anyway, have a blessed day!

  • Reply Kari Lorch December 21, 2016 at 5:11 pm

    LOVE! And thank you! God has used you and Ryan greatly in my life. From seeing both of you on the track 15 years ago at CIF state w my 2 yr old son, then reading Ryan’s book, great for that same boy now 16 and going through peaks/troughs in own running- and able to relay wisdom from both of u to him, again I praise God for how he uses both of you for his glory. Prayers and blessings to your family!

  • Reply Sara December 22, 2016 at 2:16 am

    Best blog post I’ve ever read! I love that you seek Him first and give Him all the glory, and I aim to do as well at this as you do. May God continue to bless you and your family.

    • Reply sara hall December 26, 2016 at 8:17 am

      Thank you Sara! Blessings to you

  • Reply Jenny December 23, 2016 at 2:49 pm

    Beautifully written!!!!

  • Reply Conrad December 24, 2016 at 6:20 pm

    I met Ryan in Italy/France before he ran his 2nd leg of the Beat the Sun race and he shared with me Luke 21:19. It was so good to chat about faith and running. I love this post, you guys are an inpiration!

  • Reply Jean-Marie Chan-Kin December 26, 2016 at 2:40 pm

    Thanks for writing this blog Sara. I am a mid-packer recreational marathon runner who takes his training very seriously. What you wrote resonate with me! I always feel that God speaks to me through my time of prayer and reading scriptures. This time He spoke to me through your blog. Thank you Sara. Merry Christmas! May the Lord bless you, Ryan and your four lovely daughters with his grace, and may you continue to bear fruit for His glory,

  • Reply Laura December 27, 2016 at 4:48 pm

    Love this!! Thank you being such a bright and shining light for others!

  • Reply Gareth Berning December 29, 2016 at 3:23 pm

    Hi Sara, this is such a lovely blog and has really answered so many of the questions I have been asking myself with regards to my walk with God while at the same time training and doing my best to be a half decent runner. Thank you so much once again. Regards. Gareth

  • Reply Brian Dickey January 4, 2017 at 5:08 pm

    Thanks for sharing. Love the perspective, it gives me some stuff to think about and evaluate.

  • Reply Wes January 6, 2017 at 4:36 am

    Great post Sara. I appreciate that you and Ryan are so willing to share your faith in Christ. See you on the other side someday.

  • Reply Matt January 7, 2017 at 5:24 am

    I appreciate you taking the time to write this post. I’ll give you this adage… humble, approachable, professional. Humble with the greatness you’ve achieved (which I believe you do well). Approachable and open about your relationship with God and how he’s given you the ability to achieve greatness in the sport. And finally, being a professional about what you mean to the sport and what your legacy will be.

  • Reply Erica January 19, 2017 at 4:07 pm

    Sara, I’ve enjoyed this post so much and shared it with my daughter, Hannah, who is a HS freshman. So much of it speaks to me and I bet her. She has been running since she was 5 years old and always experienced success. I want her to love the sport regardless of her outcomes and know that we, her parents, and God will always love her whether she’s 1st or last. Social media really adds pressure to young kids these days and creates a culture of seeking approval in others and placing ones value in their comments or amount of likes. Thanks for re-centering our focus and offering how you’ve incorporated faith with running.

  • Reply Amanda January 27, 2017 at 12:22 am

    Thank you for sharing. You are a true inspiration. My daughter who is 6 watched you run the marathon in New York. She said mommy i want to be an amazing runner like you. I had explained to her that if she works hard ans determined she can do anything.

  • Reply Ned Towle February 3, 2017 at 3:10 pm

    Sara, your honesty and faith are an inspiration to me. Thank you for sharing.

  • Reply Kerrie williamson February 28, 2017 at 8:57 am

    Thank you, this spoke volumes to me
    God Bless

  • Reply nicole March 12, 2017 at 4:42 am

    This was an inspiration and encouragement to read. I love how you express yourself and your reasoning behind not being self-promotional in a world where everything seems to be about this. After running in college and then not being able to for many years, I feel God’s grace when I am able to feel the wind in my face. Thank you.

  • Reply Lucy Bilik April 3, 2017 at 2:17 am

    What an inspiration in following passion and giving God praise! Thank you for this blog post!

  • Reply Kelle__Belle__ June 25, 2017 at 1:53 am

    Thank you so much for sharing this. This article speaks to the questions that I have had about my athletic endeavors for my entire life. This is truly a blessing. Well said.

  • Reply Brian Borchardt June 26, 2017 at 10:11 pm

    26 June, 2017

    Dear Sara,

    Thank you for the specificity, i.e., on the subtle nature of pride, etc.. I think all of us need more specific discipling in a lot of areas that isn’t readily available and/or accessible out there.

    Also, I encourage you to continue to blog about things in depth. That requires a long blog. Your examples help me to understand the spiritual concepts better, give me a chance to grapple with them, and, hopefully, apply them in thought and action.

    I want to comment more fully on the substance of what you wrote, but I need to take time to reflect and think about it before I do.

    I am thankful that you have a pastor that helps you sort out some of the spiritual specifics.

    Keep up your pursuit of holiness, Sara.

    Have a good and Godly rest of your day, for what eternal value is a good day, if it is not also a Godly day?

    Sincerely,
    Your Brother In Christ,

    Brian

  • Reply Veronika W. July 3, 2017 at 4:12 pm

    Hi Sara,
    I read it all, no problem, not too long. I luv it when I receive an email saying you posted on FB or I guess it is actually instagram, (i don’t have instagram) and , especially the last two years, since you adopted the girls. I love to read about your family and how you and Ryan are doing. It is so uplifting and inspiring, everything i read. I haven’t been able to run much or race the last several years, so reading about the other runners wasn’t….I mean reading your posts is like getting my Daily Bread.!! The stuff that really matters. So I keep reading and enjoying. (I even know now when i receive an email informing that others have posted there might also might be a post from Sara too, so i look for it.) lol

    Thank you for your ministry. It really helps for someone has kinda given up on the area of my life….

  • Reply saturday sui generis – notes to self July 29, 2017 at 10:52 pm

    […] several beautiful adopted children alongside her husband, and seems to be a strong Christian. In a one of her simple and honest blog posts on her professional website, which she shares with her husband, she answers a question she says she […]

  • Reply Laura rybka August 4, 2017 at 7:33 pm

    Sara- I just wanted to thank you for your writing and example of what leading a life as a professional athlete that puts Christ first.As an aspiring Collegiate Coach- I really look up to you and Ryan for your faith and trust in good times and bad. Both of your lives and consistency is a witness that you both have the peace that surpasses all understanding.
    In a world where sports are god and winning is everything I really admire your faith and surrender to Gods plan. Your career and life are inspiring.

  • Reply Rahul Verma December 4, 2017 at 12:57 am

    That was so calming and restful writing Sara. Needed some of it. God chooses some messengers to send his messages.

  • Reply James Sundquist January 6, 2018 at 4:49 pm

    Dear Ryan and Sara Hall,

    I just read about Ryan in the Runner’s World. I have a long and strong relationship with Rodale and Prevention Magazine point clear back to the late 80s.

    I am very glad to have discovered your running website today for Christians!

    I wanted to share with you our health and fitness maintenance compliance software which was designed for walking, running, cycling, and Nordick Track ski machine. We created two pace protocols for them at 100 and 120 bpm.

    We worked with NIKE and legendary track coach Randy Huntington, with a small grant to launch the concept in which we recorded the actual sound and triplet rhythm of the Air Shoes, and used this as the template to score original music to these rhythms. No one else in the world ever did this, we were the originators. Though many companies have release original music at various paces and bpm for the runner, we start with the runner. Now why this is significant to your software, is this very triplet is effectively a cyclical rhythmic motion which occurs with each footfall which is heel-followthrough-liftoff beat…hence the triplet. The peak of the analog sound beat is rounded at peaks of each part of the best, while peak of the beat in most Rock and Pop music has a sharp or high impact analog pointed beat or backbeat, which can be very jarring. A lot commercial music is in 4/4 time vs 2/4 time signature. But runners run in 2/4 (i.e. left/right, left/right foot striking the ground or treadmill. So I created our music for runners in 2/4 time). Though they certain can run to great music in 4/4.

    I also invite you to listen to my Running in the Spirit running music I composed and performed on the acoustic guitar synchronized to the actual triplet biomechanics of cycling (one triplet for each footfall). To my astonishment and delight, I discovered that God, in a sense, wrote his trinity into the human footfall. I was further inspired to share this with your Christian Runners site in honor of the Scripture of John and Peter running to the empty tomb (John 20:4), so that will now be the aka new title: “Running to the Empty Tomb” we, as Christians can celebrate year round, but particularly to celebrate Resurrection Day! Just like good exercise hardware is LOW IMPACT exercise hardware, our music is LOW IMPACT software (both physically as well as what you hear psychologically). This song is the first thing you hear when you visit my website below. In invokes that same triplet we used to develop our personalized pace health and fitness maintenance compliance software.

    Here is an excerpt of our personalized pace walking, running, and cycling tapes, from the one hour duration on our website (with a partial list of reviews and clients such NASA and Sony Music Entertainment in Japan):
    https://www.eaglemasterworksproductions.com/exercise-music.html

    Here is my most recent composition entitled “Running in the Spirit” which I composed and performed on guitar. The music tempo is set at a mean (average) of 154 bpm footfall frequency matching the current New York Marathon world record holder mean stride rate of 1.54 Hz (1.51–1.60 Hz range), and believe it or not this is the stride frequency range of most runners, who have shorter stride-lengths. You will hear this runner song immediately, as soon as you visit my website:
    https://www.eaglemasterworksproductions.com/

    Our tapes have been extensively used and tested in cardiac rehabilitation, sports medicine, Sci Ex Laboratories (our tapes were tested for reduced water gravity water tanks for rehabilitation of runners, physical therapy, for prescription pace exercise compliance software), in a published study by Dr. Bruce Becker, Physiatrist, M.D.

    One more thing. We also created a recording of a tree through a season and a journey down the Rogue River. Purpose is bring the outdoors indoors for exercise environment. This is what interested NASA in our tapes for astronauts for isolation therapy to replicate environments on earth in Space. But there is one more value to the journey down the river tape. When listening with headphones (which is what almost everyone that exercises in fitness centers does) to our river recording you hear and feel your self actually moving while you run down a path by a river. You will also hear and feel the rapids approach and retreat. This is how the illusion of movement and running in nature is created on a treadmill. But these two protocols are also useful for cool down atmosphere, stress management and PTSD. God combines rest (sabbath or selah) and work in most of his creation of trees and rivers, and the ocean waves.

    In conclusion, our personalized pace music were medically tested, favorably reviewed, bio-acoustically and bio-mechanically designed, non-jarring and low-impact. We are sort of the “mypillow.com” of exercise music, whose founder is also a Christian. Mypillow designed the people to conform to the person’s biomechanics of sleeping. We scored the original music to the physiological and psychometrics and biomechanics of the runner. In other words, we started with the runner.

    That is the summary of our health maintenance compliance software.

    Thank you for your time and consideration!

    Would love to hear from you! I invite you to share this with your Christian Runner’s readers!

    Kindest regards in Christ,

    James Sundquist
    Director
    Eaglemasterworksproductions.com

  • Reply Sheri Branum May 7, 2018 at 12:15 am

    Wow. Timely. Just started following you. You’ve encouraged Me with your posts about recovering from injuries. Praying for you to keep using your gift as a platform to share the Ultimate Gift.

  • Reply Lisa Preuett June 12, 2018 at 11:25 pm

    Sarah,
    Thanks for sharing your journey with us! Very inspiring and encouraging. I’m one of those people who hated running as a child, but learned to embrace it later in life at age 43!
    I thought I was just going to get physical benefits from running when I started. But it was SO much more than that! God started opening my eyes to the powerful parallels between RUNNING and our journey with HIM. Every time I went for a run He would show me something new. My runs became timed to listen to Him, pray and just soak up the beauty of his creation.
    After running for 5 years, God finally led me to put all those parallels into a devotional book. Embracing TheRace:40 Devotions for the Runner’s Soul
    I love encouraging others in their running, but I Thrive on encouraging others in their FAITH!!
    God bless you as you continue to run the race He has set before you. (Hebrews 12:1-2)

  • Reply Ryan Thompson September 1, 2018 at 9:44 pm

    Hi Sara,
    Thank you for the boldness to openly share your faith like this! As a fellow Christian and runner (I run XX for Biola University, a D2 Christian school in LA) I loved reading this as I struggle with a lot of the same things you talked about (i.e. pride and running for God and not my own selfish desires). I have been a fan or both you and your husband for years and this only makes me love you guys more. I look forward to sharing this with my teammates.

    God bless

    • Reply Ryan Thompson September 1, 2018 at 9:44 pm

      xc*

  • Reply Curtis Morley May 12, 2019 at 4:29 pm

    Sara,
    Thank you for sharing your testimony of the Savior. I felt your Love for Him through your words. You and Ryan are beacons of light in an ever darkening world. Thank you for standing for Christ and following him in humility. You are truly following Christ’s admonition in Matthew 5:16 when He said, “Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven.”
    https://www.lds.org/study/scriptures/nt/matt/5?id=p16&lang=eng#p16

    Thank you for the roses example??. That is the perfect way to accept praise – accept it knowing where all of our blessings come from.

  • Reply Cathleen May 15, 2019 at 4:30 am

    This is great! Thanks for sharing your experience and message. May you continue to enjoy the journey.

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  • Reply Scott Gray June 26, 2019 at 11:24 am

    Sara, the post is old but the truth never ages. Thank you for sharing. I’m a recreational runner, starting later in life but was grabbed by your definition of success. “If I take the amount of talent and desire he gives me and work hard and hold it rightly in my heart all the while and then go out and compete to the best of my ability, that is success, no matter what the results sheet says. “. We can apply that to every area of life. We need to thank God for the talents he has given us and use them to Praise Him. Thank you Sara. May God continue to bless you and your family.

  • Reply Nancy jurgens July 3, 2019 at 6:14 pm

    I love your beautiful heart and agree with all you said. I love reading this now as I was getting anxious over a 4 mile run tomorrow. Silly but it was not the right heart before the Lord. Your husband has been coaching me for two weeks now. I love your heart for the Lord. I also want to offer Him my life and my talents and desires. I am a homeschooling mother of 4

  • Reply Ken Roberts August 19, 2019 at 4:36 pm

    Sara, Just came across this after listening to Ryan’s interview on Entreleadership Podcast with Alex Judd of Dave Ramsey Organization. Both of you are so encouraging. This piece is well articulated and gracious in spirit. Just like Christ.
    I know you have challenges yourself or in your family and career. Thanks for keeping Jesus at the Center and sharing that Good News with others.

    FLOURISH!

  • Reply Joe Johnson September 30, 2019 at 4:51 pm

    Thank you for posting this. My difficulty was faith and belief is the problem of suffering. I’ve always wondered why a loving God will allow all the things that happen in this world. Wars, famine, earthquakes. Is that truly what a loving God would allow? I would appreciate your thoughts on this as I’ve always struggled with this.

  • Reply Gary Entsminger October 13, 2019 at 1:59 pm

    Thank you for your love for Christ and your willingness to share your faith. As an older runner, I’m encouraged to see how your ministry is affecting others. Blessings, Gary

  • Reply Dakota April 22, 2020 at 7:19 pm

    Debo decir que, aunque disfrute mucho leyendo lo que tenia que decir, no pude evitar perder interes despues de un tiempo.

    Es tal y como si tuvieses una comprension fantástica sobre el tema, mas olvidaste incluir a tus lectores.

    Quizás deberias meditar en esto desde mucho mas de un angulo.
    O bien tal vez no deberias generalizar tan considerablemente.

    Es mejor si piensas en lo que otros pueden decir en lugar de tener una reaccion visceral
    sobre el tema. Piense en ajustar su proceso de creencias y en darle a otras personas que lo lean el beneficio
    de la duda.

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  • Reply Ras October 4, 2020 at 8:58 am

    Congratulations Sarah for coming second in the 2020 London Marathon.
    Keep the faith and let the whole world get to know more about Jesus Christ.

  • Reply Hector Carrera October 4, 2020 at 1:46 pm

    Que profundas palabras Sara…. felicidades por todos los éxitos que consigues, que según veo van más allá de las carreras, que continúen un fuerte abrazo desde Venezuela

  • Reply Michael Warui October 5, 2020 at 6:53 am

    Congratulations Sara! Knowing that you are a believer gives me joy in your well-deserved victory yesterday over a fellow Kenyan in the London marathon. Keep on running for Jesus!! ???

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