Why "Pollyanna" Runner?

 If you've never read "Pollyanna" by Eleanor H. Potter, or seen one of the several movie adaptations of her work, then you might not know about "The Glad Game." In brief, this was a coping mechanism young Pollyanna Whittier learned from her father, a preacher from "out west", based on the many, many Bible verses based around cheerfulness and thankfulness. A few that immediately come to mind are, of course, 

  • I Thessalonians 5:16-18: "Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you."
  • Philippians 4:10: "Rejoice in the Lord Always; again I will say, rejoice!"
  • Revelation 12:12a: "Therefore, Rejoice, O Heavens and you who dwell in them!"
And many others! Pollyanna's father taught her to always figure out what there was to be glad about in whatever situation they found themselves. Most famously, as Pollyanna would tell her new friends in Aunt Polly's town where she moved after her father's death, they even found a way to be glad in receiving a pair of crutches in the care package sent by the folks back home, when what they really needed were children's clothes (and a doll, as Pollyanna so desperately wished for): "We could be glad that we don't need them!"

As a runner, I want to maintain that upbeat attitude, looking for the silver lining, whether it's in my training, my racing, or in set-backs that occur to "throw off" my progress. I want to be honest about setbacks and difficulties, but I want to do like Pollyanna taught the whole town to do: Be glad in every circumstance. I want to honestly embrace the struggle, and enjoy the process behind why I run and why I push myself to be better week by week and month by month. I want to find that silver-lining, that gladness and joy that looks beyond my limitations to the big-picture of how far I've come, and where I hope to go. 

That's what a Pollyanna Runner should be. And I hope I will match the Gladness that exudes through Eleanor Potter's character, influencing her little social circle for the better as she simply with a child-like faith, sought to always be thankful, and rejoice in every situation.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Race Report: Mental Health Ultra - Half Marathon, November 2024

Last year, November 2023, I ran the Mental Health Ultramarathon 10K. That was "just" one lap through the rolling hills of the Brown's Mill Battlefield trail system in Newnan GA. That was also the furthest I had ever run up to that point. This year, November 2024, I ran it again.  The Mental Health UltraMarathon is definitely a "grassroots" style race. As we were milling about near the starting line, I heard one of the volunteers at the packet-pickup table say, "This is the Brody and Friends race!" Brody, the race director, was a local guy who had worked for a local run shop (one of the race's sponsors), and indeed had lots of friends show up to have some fun running in the woods on a chilly autumn day. Even all the other sponsors were local, from the Coweta County Recreation Dept, to Pathways, a counseling service that was based out of Newnan (and the main recipient of funds raised by the race).  The atmosphere at the start line was distinctly rela...
Read more

Cubihatcha Training Run

I was really hoping this would be a successful 50K. I felt like I needed to prove to Pravin (my husband) and myself that I was progressing in my running. I decided to try to tackle the Cubihatcha Challenge, four, eight-mile loops around the reservoir at the Cubihatcha Outdoor Center in Locust Grove, GA.  This was a race run pre-pandemic by Revolution Running, and I was able to find the historic leaderboard on the Ultrarunner Magazine Website. I even complied the entire 3 year history of finish times, and did the computing to find the mean, which gave me a time goal for this challenge. Well, the short version is this run got demoted to a "Training Run" rather than a successful "Challenge", but it was still a 24 mile training run with useful feedback for my training moving forward. More specifically, it gives me an idea of where I need to go before I reach the Mental Health Ultra 50K coming up in November. So, the Cubihatcha training run. I started late, at about 8:31...
Read more