The Ministry of the Penguin

John Bingham is to running what John Piper is to theology. They are both into the joy and pleasure of it all.

Bingham turned to running in his early forties. He was a self-confessed couch potato. Inactive and overweight, Bingham found his physical salvation (and satisfaction) in running.

He has written columns for running magazines for years, authored a few best-sellers and has inspired thousands of very ordinary people to get off their sofas and onto the streets.

Bingham is known to the running community as ‘the Penguin’ due to his stature and running technique. While he does not claim to be a born-again believer, Bingham writes insightfully, transparently and wisely on life and character issues as they relate to fitness and running.

The Penguin’s motto is ‘The miracle is not that I finished, but that I had the courage to start’.

Frankly, I have found the Penguin’s writings to be a real source of inspiration and refreshment.

Let me give you a sampling of inspiring ‘penguin thoughts’ from one of Bingham’s books, No Need for Speed: A beginner’s guide to the joy of running.

On having to tackle his weight problems Bingham wrote:-

When it finally occurred to me that I had no choice but to be more active, I didn’t embrace the idea with much enthusiasm. I was grumpy. I put on the shoes and shorts of a runner, but I did so like a man going to his execution. I knew I had to pay the price to get healthy and fit, but I was hoping to get a discount…..

I was going to be the one who found a way to be both decadent and fit. I was going to be the one who could overeat and overtrain. I wanted to be the person who discovered the secret of how to change without changing, how to grow without growing, and how to become a whole new me without losing the old me.

Concerning personal honesty he confesses:-

As a 43-year-old smoker with 36 excess kilos and a long history of overeating, I didn’t want to face my own reality. I’d become very good at ignoring my body and even better at ignoring my own soul….

You have to get real and stay real. You have to start by being honest with yourself, then continue to look honestly at where you are, where your going and where you want to be. It isn’t always easy and it isn’t always fun, but the more honest you are with yourself the more likely you will succeed.

On turning fear into courage:-

But in spite of my determination not to change, I did. The process of becoming a runner began with my first running step.

The more you run, the more you are a runner. It sounds simple and it is. There’s nothing more to becoming a runner than running. It isn’t how fast or how far you run. It isn’t even how long you’ve been running. It’s only that you run that makes you a runner.

It becomes more and more difficult not to be an athlete- not by design, but by default. You begin to look forward to the feelings of effort that you once avoided. Instead of shunning the fatigue of honest effort, you go out of your way to find opportunities to exert yourself.

About what it means for him to run, the Penguin poignantly reveals:-

My running shoes have become giant erasers on my feet. Every foot strike rubs away some memory of a previous indiscretion with food or smoke or drink. Every successful mile releases me from the grip of the demons of failure. Every starting line is another chance to prove that my past will not determine my future.

Behold, You desire truth in the inward parts, And in the hidden part You will make me to know wisdom. Psalm 51:6

For godly sorrow produces repentance leading to salvation, not to be regretted; but the sorrow of the world produces death. For observe this very thing, that you sorrowed in a godly manner: What diligence it produced in you, what clearing of yourselves, what indignation, what fear, what vehement desire, what zeal, what vindication!… 2 Corinthians 7:10-11

By Robert Apps

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