When I run at home or in the neighborhood in the mornings, I come home and do my stretching on the floor of the Football Watching Room, and usually wind up staring at this above the fireplace:

                                       

That cross is made of barbed wire wrapped in 18 guage, and if you're like me and you're busy thinking about how little fun your run was, and how uncomfortable it is to do a bit of stretching afterwards, staring up at a barbed-wire cross will really put things back into a more reasonable framework.

Some of us folks who run can be a bit self-righteous at times - for instance, Silas might complain about having to go outside and dig a hole in the caliche to plant a cactus for his mother, and I'll say "Gee, I ran fifteen miles this morning - and here you are, complaining about having to swing a pick for a few minutes".

But that whole martyrdom thing can fall by the wayside pretty quickly when you look up at a barbed-wire cross, and think about what He did - and He didn't do it for Himself; He did it for us.

Of course, having the dead cow at the base of the fireplace helps, too - no matter how dehydrated I may have been during my run, it didn't get THAT bad :)