Thursday, November 12, 2009
Milestone
Just another quick running-related blog post. On Tuesday, I logged my 100th run of this year. This is not an amazingly high number, but it includes only about 20 runs from January 1st to May 1st (including 10 of them in early January), so it represents pretty good consistency since then. Additionally, I only managed to run less than 120 times total each of the past 3 years, so if I maintain my current regimen, I should wind up with my highest total in recent memory. Moreover, I've already logged more miles this year than either of the past two, and my average run per day is much better than what I was doing then. So, I'm running more often, more consistently, and further than I have in a long time. Admittedly, I'm also running a little slower, and I haven't done many quality "workouts." But I'm rather pleased with the numbers.
Wednesday, November 4, 2009
My Running History
I've been exchanging emails with my brother-in-law today. He's a runner, too. Actually, we're very different kinds of runners. He's an ultra-marathoner. That means he gets more miles in one run than I do in a week. He is currently training for a 12-hour race. At that distance, you don't exactly sprint the whole way. Our emails back and forth have rotated around the fact that, in our early 40's, we're still runners, but not quite as fast as we once were (he was a sub 5-minute miler and a very good cross-country runner, and I once was a pretty good sprinter and not-horrible cross-country runner).
That led me to think of all the things I have done as a runner. It was about 27 years ago that I went out to my school's track with my dad carrying an old-fashioned stopwatch with a sweep-second hand and ran my first mile. I ran 7:26, but at the time didn't know if that was a good or a bad time. But I decided I would go out for the track team that spring, if only because there was no ball involved that I could fail to catch. They put me with the distance kids because I wasn't fast enough to be a sprinter, and I began plugging away trying to run a sub-6-minute mile. The next fall (my sophomore year), I joined the cross-country team, mainly because that's what all the track guys I looked up to did. I wasn't very good, but I got to run with some guys who were. That spring, I ran sub-6 and barely scored, but my team produced 7 state champions and an all-American, and we won the state title as a team.
My junior year I was 8th man on the cross-country team. 7 make the varsity. I was the alternate at the state meet. That spring, a combination of miles, a growth spurt, and the graduation of all those champions allowed me to contribute to the track team for the first time, and even to run the weak leg of the mile relay. I earned my first varsity letter. My senior year, I was a co-captain of the cross-country team and ran consistently in the top 7, including 5th (the last scoring spot) at state. I was the 82nd kid in the meet. In track I ran the anchor leg of the relay and set a school record in the 100 meter dash (largely due to being one of the first to run the event after the conversion to metric distances). I was a conference runner-up (twice) and ran in the lower-state championship meet. I never qualified for state in track.
In college there was never a time I considered myself to have stopped being a runner, but I didn't run consistently. I took 2nd place in the 100 two years in a row at the University of SC intramural track meet. Once a year, near my birthday, I would bench press my weight and run a mile in under 6 minutes, just to be sure I still could.
Sometime in the early 1990s I began training again. I was actually out on a run (a great hill workout) when my wife took the pregnancy test that told us we were becoming parents. The day my oldest son was born, I had to knock on my training partner's door early in the morning to get my watch, which I had left in his apartment. I had to clear splits from the previous day's run to time contractions. When I interviewed for my first teaching job, I told them I could coach track, and somehow they gave me the job. I didn't even know how to score the high jump. I just knew I liked to run.
While learning to coach, I kept running. I ran the USMC marathon in 1986. I ran a half-dozen half-marathons. I ran the Cooper River Bridge Run several times, which is one of the top ten 10k races in the USA. Once I even made the very first column of results in the tiny print of the local paper (top 600 out of about 30,000 finishers, but still over 2 miles behind the Kenyans who got the prize money). I raced dozens of local 5ks, winning a couple of small ones when the field was weak and picking up a few age-group awards. My favorite was a 6th-place award in a run called the "handicap run" which started runners in reverse order of their personal best. The lady who beat me for 5th was 80 years young and had started over 20 minutes earlier. Another 50 meters and I could have gotten her! Perhaps my favorite moment was running 5 seconds faster than my previous PR (personal record), set at the state cross-country meet in 1986, when I was 31 years old. .
The past few years I have run less and less, and slower and slower. The coaching has gone well (a couple of team state championships and about 18 individuals and relay teams, plus a re-writing of my school's record books, including re-setting the record I once held). But I've only raced twice since turning 35. Only one month of the past 11 years has gone by with zero runs (that was the month I drove 7000 miles in an RV across the USA), but I've certainly not been consistent, nor could you call what I'm doing "training." But the last 6 months have been great, and I'm flirting with running our local Thanksgiving race as my first attempt as a "masters" (age 40+) runner.
I don't know for sure what my running future holds. I'm pretty sure none of the miles will be sub-6. But I do know that it's a blessing to still be a runner.
That led me to think of all the things I have done as a runner. It was about 27 years ago that I went out to my school's track with my dad carrying an old-fashioned stopwatch with a sweep-second hand and ran my first mile. I ran 7:26, but at the time didn't know if that was a good or a bad time. But I decided I would go out for the track team that spring, if only because there was no ball involved that I could fail to catch. They put me with the distance kids because I wasn't fast enough to be a sprinter, and I began plugging away trying to run a sub-6-minute mile. The next fall (my sophomore year), I joined the cross-country team, mainly because that's what all the track guys I looked up to did. I wasn't very good, but I got to run with some guys who were. That spring, I ran sub-6 and barely scored, but my team produced 7 state champions and an all-American, and we won the state title as a team.
My junior year I was 8th man on the cross-country team. 7 make the varsity. I was the alternate at the state meet. That spring, a combination of miles, a growth spurt, and the graduation of all those champions allowed me to contribute to the track team for the first time, and even to run the weak leg of the mile relay. I earned my first varsity letter. My senior year, I was a co-captain of the cross-country team and ran consistently in the top 7, including 5th (the last scoring spot) at state. I was the 82nd kid in the meet. In track I ran the anchor leg of the relay and set a school record in the 100 meter dash (largely due to being one of the first to run the event after the conversion to metric distances). I was a conference runner-up (twice) and ran in the lower-state championship meet. I never qualified for state in track.
In college there was never a time I considered myself to have stopped being a runner, but I didn't run consistently. I took 2nd place in the 100 two years in a row at the University of SC intramural track meet. Once a year, near my birthday, I would bench press my weight and run a mile in under 6 minutes, just to be sure I still could.
Sometime in the early 1990s I began training again. I was actually out on a run (a great hill workout) when my wife took the pregnancy test that told us we were becoming parents. The day my oldest son was born, I had to knock on my training partner's door early in the morning to get my watch, which I had left in his apartment. I had to clear splits from the previous day's run to time contractions. When I interviewed for my first teaching job, I told them I could coach track, and somehow they gave me the job. I didn't even know how to score the high jump. I just knew I liked to run.
While learning to coach, I kept running. I ran the USMC marathon in 1986. I ran a half-dozen half-marathons. I ran the Cooper River Bridge Run several times, which is one of the top ten 10k races in the USA. Once I even made the very first column of results in the tiny print of the local paper (top 600 out of about 30,000 finishers, but still over 2 miles behind the Kenyans who got the prize money). I raced dozens of local 5ks, winning a couple of small ones when the field was weak and picking up a few age-group awards. My favorite was a 6th-place award in a run called the "handicap run" which started runners in reverse order of their personal best. The lady who beat me for 5th was 80 years young and had started over 20 minutes earlier. Another 50 meters and I could have gotten her! Perhaps my favorite moment was running 5 seconds faster than my previous PR (personal record), set at the state cross-country meet in 1986, when I was 31 years old. .
The past few years I have run less and less, and slower and slower. The coaching has gone well (a couple of team state championships and about 18 individuals and relay teams, plus a re-writing of my school's record books, including re-setting the record I once held). But I've only raced twice since turning 35. Only one month of the past 11 years has gone by with zero runs (that was the month I drove 7000 miles in an RV across the USA), but I've certainly not been consistent, nor could you call what I'm doing "training." But the last 6 months have been great, and I'm flirting with running our local Thanksgiving race as my first attempt as a "masters" (age 40+) runner.
I don't know for sure what my running future holds. I'm pretty sure none of the miles will be sub-6. But I do know that it's a blessing to still be a runner.
Yesterday's Elections
The blogosphere is abuzz with Monday-morning quarterbacking of the very few elections held in this odd-numbered year. We political junkies have to have something to do, I guess. A few thoghts on the matter:
I was pleased to see Christie win in NJ and McDonnell win in Virginia. They are the ones I would have voted for. But if anybody had to lose, I hate that it was Conservative Party upstart Hoffman in the New York congessional special election. Not because of any national implications or broad ideological point, but because he was (is) a regular guy, a pretty nerdy accountant, who sought to become a citizen-legislator. He almost pulled it off, too. If I could get just one constitutional amendment passed, it would likely be term limits. Nobody, from either party, needs to be a professional politician for life.
Along those same lines, the big spin, especially from the White House, is that yesterday's big wins by Republicans were emphatically NOT a referendum on Obama or his policies, but rather a symptom of broad anti-incumbent feelings. OK, I'll buy that, to a point (although if Corzine had won, I'm sure the White House would want some credit). But here's a news flash: most of the incumbents these days ARE Democrats. It's almost always easier to be the party promising "change" than the one doing the governing. Reality is a stubborn thing.
Also, what about the conventional wisdom that the election of Obama signaled the end of the Republican party, the death knell of the Reagan Revolution, etc.? How quickly we forget. I recall back when George W. Bush became the only president since FDR to have his party gain congressional seats in an off-year election (2002) and then beat Kerry in 2004 that we gave the same sort of premature eulogies for the Democrats, and folks like Karl Rove were trumpeting the soon-to-be permanent GOP majority. People really ought to read some history (or just take my class).
Now there will be lots of ink (pixels) spilled over what yesterday means for the future of Health Care Reform--particularly over whether supporting the 1993 version is what cost Democrats control of the House in 1994, or whether getting that one passed would have saved them. But at the end of the day, what will make the difference is not what the pundits (whether professionals or amateurs like me) think, or what's good for the country, or even what's good for the parties. It will come down to what the 535 senators and congressmen each individually think is in their own best interest when it comes to keeping their cushy, powerful, prestigious jobs in DC (and in the case of those whose jobs are safe, what will enlarge their own influence). And that stinks. Bah! Term limits! Impeach everybody! A pox on all their houses!
I was pleased to see Christie win in NJ and McDonnell win in Virginia. They are the ones I would have voted for. But if anybody had to lose, I hate that it was Conservative Party upstart Hoffman in the New York congessional special election. Not because of any national implications or broad ideological point, but because he was (is) a regular guy, a pretty nerdy accountant, who sought to become a citizen-legislator. He almost pulled it off, too. If I could get just one constitutional amendment passed, it would likely be term limits. Nobody, from either party, needs to be a professional politician for life.
Along those same lines, the big spin, especially from the White House, is that yesterday's big wins by Republicans were emphatically NOT a referendum on Obama or his policies, but rather a symptom of broad anti-incumbent feelings. OK, I'll buy that, to a point (although if Corzine had won, I'm sure the White House would want some credit). But here's a news flash: most of the incumbents these days ARE Democrats. It's almost always easier to be the party promising "change" than the one doing the governing. Reality is a stubborn thing.
Also, what about the conventional wisdom that the election of Obama signaled the end of the Republican party, the death knell of the Reagan Revolution, etc.? How quickly we forget. I recall back when George W. Bush became the only president since FDR to have his party gain congressional seats in an off-year election (2002) and then beat Kerry in 2004 that we gave the same sort of premature eulogies for the Democrats, and folks like Karl Rove were trumpeting the soon-to-be permanent GOP majority. People really ought to read some history (or just take my class).
Now there will be lots of ink (pixels) spilled over what yesterday means for the future of Health Care Reform--particularly over whether supporting the 1993 version is what cost Democrats control of the House in 1994, or whether getting that one passed would have saved them. But at the end of the day, what will make the difference is not what the pundits (whether professionals or amateurs like me) think, or what's good for the country, or even what's good for the parties. It will come down to what the 535 senators and congressmen each individually think is in their own best interest when it comes to keeping their cushy, powerful, prestigious jobs in DC (and in the case of those whose jobs are safe, what will enlarge their own influence). And that stinks. Bah! Term limits! Impeach everybody! A pox on all their houses!
Saturday, October 17, 2009
A Tale of Two Runs
How to have a bad run:
- Wake up to the alarm at 6 AM, still feeling like crap, about 40 hours into a 60-hour week.
- Skip breakfast, make it up by drinking black coffee until noon. Get good and dehydrated.
- Work through lunch.
- After a long and frustrating day, grudgingly set out for practice with team at 4 PM, in 85+ degree weather and high humidity.
- Covered in sweat in the first mile. Check the watch at mile 1, nearly 9 minutes. Realize this run is shot already. Fight the urge to give it up and limp home.
- At 1.5 miles, turn around. 3 will be a minimally-acceptable day for the log.
- Take some small satisfaction that I didn't bail out entirely or walk today.
How to have a good run:
- Wake up at 8:30, no alarm, fully rested.
- Have a good breakfast, and leisurely read the news for an hour.
- Leave the house at 10 AM, 65 degrees, no humidity.
- No sweat, no worries. Check the watch at mile 1. An effortless 8:15.
- At the end of a 3-mile loop (still at effortless 8:15's), decide to do one more on account of the weather. Tack on at the end to round out 50 minutes. Logging 6 qualifies as a "long" run these days.
- Feel great the rest of the day, including the satisfaction of the run plus the vague heavy-leg feeling that almost guarantees a great night's sleep.
Today was day #2. I wish every day could be like this!
Friday, October 16, 2009
Christendom
This week, I got two tastes of a worship style very different from my norm. This past weekend, I attended an Episcopal church whose rector is one of my dearest friends. We're talking vestments, kneelers, and the full-on liturgy, including an infant baptism that day. (For those who don't know, my church is as "low service" as they come, and our most distinctive mark is an insistence on adult baptism by immersion.) Then later this week, my oldest son was inducted into the student vestry (the serious Christian students' group) at our (Episcopal) school. This ceremony involved the laying on of hands by the Bishop of the Diocese of South Carolina. (Again, my fellowship has no hierchical structure, and autonomous congregations are governed by a plurality of elders.)
What is interesting to me is that a fight is going on for the very soul of the Episcopal Church (the American branch of the worldwide Anglican communion), and the Diocese of SC, their Bishop, and my friend are at the forefront of it. The newspapers will tell you that the dispute is about the consecration of an openly gay man as a Bishop a few years ago. That is not true. The real issue is whether or not the (national) Episcopal Church does or does not believe in the historical creed of Orthodox Christianity, including not just issues of sexuality, but also the inerrancy of scripture and the belief that Jesus is the only path to eternal life. As my priest buddy says, "the gays don't bother me nearly as much as the Unitarian Universalists" (although, just for clarity's sake, he is also rock-solid in his stand on Biblical sexuality, too.) The Bishop and my friend, as well as our current school chaplains, and most of the serious SC Episcopalians I know, are the heroes in this fight, bravely standing up to their national church, a hostile media, and a permissive culture that sees them as every bit the Bible-thumping fundamentalist as I am.
Of course, there are major theological differences between us. If I thought what the Anglicans were doing was the closest thing to the will of God for His church, I would be one. But at the same time, I can tell the good guys from the bad guys. I believe in one Lord, one faith, and one baptism. So do my Episcopal friends, and we define that faith and that baptism very differently. But I'm adding them to my prayer list on the basis of the "one Lord." Perhaps, in the fullness of time, God has even allowed the current schisms within Christendom for the purpose of pushing His divided disciples into common cause. Either way, I know what side I'm on.
What is interesting to me is that a fight is going on for the very soul of the Episcopal Church (the American branch of the worldwide Anglican communion), and the Diocese of SC, their Bishop, and my friend are at the forefront of it. The newspapers will tell you that the dispute is about the consecration of an openly gay man as a Bishop a few years ago. That is not true. The real issue is whether or not the (national) Episcopal Church does or does not believe in the historical creed of Orthodox Christianity, including not just issues of sexuality, but also the inerrancy of scripture and the belief that Jesus is the only path to eternal life. As my priest buddy says, "the gays don't bother me nearly as much as the Unitarian Universalists" (although, just for clarity's sake, he is also rock-solid in his stand on Biblical sexuality, too.) The Bishop and my friend, as well as our current school chaplains, and most of the serious SC Episcopalians I know, are the heroes in this fight, bravely standing up to their national church, a hostile media, and a permissive culture that sees them as every bit the Bible-thumping fundamentalist as I am.
Of course, there are major theological differences between us. If I thought what the Anglicans were doing was the closest thing to the will of God for His church, I would be one. But at the same time, I can tell the good guys from the bad guys. I believe in one Lord, one faith, and one baptism. So do my Episcopal friends, and we define that faith and that baptism very differently. But I'm adding them to my prayer list on the basis of the "one Lord." Perhaps, in the fullness of time, God has even allowed the current schisms within Christendom for the purpose of pushing His divided disciples into common cause. Either way, I know what side I'm on.
Tired.
I've been a little worn down lately--not just physically, but spiritually, as well. Vince Lombardi once said that "fatigue makes cowards of us all." When you marry that with the idea (I think by CS Lewis, but I attribute almost any idea I like to Lewis) that courage is the chief virtue, for without it you cannot achieve any of the others, you get a potent combination--fatigue makes us (make that "me") less virtuous. In the past little while I have suffered a diminution not just of my physical strength, but my mental focus, my self-discipline, my resistance to temptation, and my patience. Yesterday, I sought help--I had a dear Christian friend (our school's chaplain) pray with and for me. Last night, I fell into bed before 8 PM, and woke up this morning at least partially rejuvenated (or at least, optimistic about the possibility of rejuvenation). Additionally, we have a long weekend at work. Some would say that the improvement in my condition is a natural result of 10 hours of sleep and a fortunate calendar coincidence. I prefer to see James 5:16 in action (the fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much).
Just as an aside--I sometimes wonder what it feels like to not be a Christian. Sometimes we allow ourselves to think (wrongly, I believe) that our only two options are an abundant life in Christ (John 10:10 is one of my pet verses), or an empty, meaningless life. How many sermons have we heard where some poor soul was rescued by God from the brink of addiction or suicide? But many people I know live quite pleasant lives without faith, or with faith in something different than orthodox Christianity. How would my struggles of this week have been different without the fellowship and prayers of my friend? Would I have still gotten some sleep and felt better? Would encouragement from a secular friend have been equally helpful? I just don't know. For me, trying to imagine a life without God is like trying to envision a square circle. All I can say is, I think that those who don't have a Christ-centered life don't know what they are missing. I can imagine living in some poor 3rd-world village and being perfectly satisfied, but only because I was unaware of such cool things as air conditioning and cell phones. Indeed, all of us in the human race are in that same boat--we cannot conceive of what was lost in the Garden of Eden, and have to be as happy as we can with poor imitations.
Just as an aside--I sometimes wonder what it feels like to not be a Christian. Sometimes we allow ourselves to think (wrongly, I believe) that our only two options are an abundant life in Christ (John 10:10 is one of my pet verses), or an empty, meaningless life. How many sermons have we heard where some poor soul was rescued by God from the brink of addiction or suicide? But many people I know live quite pleasant lives without faith, or with faith in something different than orthodox Christianity. How would my struggles of this week have been different without the fellowship and prayers of my friend? Would I have still gotten some sleep and felt better? Would encouragement from a secular friend have been equally helpful? I just don't know. For me, trying to imagine a life without God is like trying to envision a square circle. All I can say is, I think that those who don't have a Christ-centered life don't know what they are missing. I can imagine living in some poor 3rd-world village and being perfectly satisfied, but only because I was unaware of such cool things as air conditioning and cell phones. Indeed, all of us in the human race are in that same boat--we cannot conceive of what was lost in the Garden of Eden, and have to be as happy as we can with poor imitations.
Friday, October 9, 2009
Obama's Nobel Prize
When I read the news this morning that President Obama had been awarded the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize, I honestly kept waiting for the punchline. I thought there must be something from Snappleface or The Onion or SNL going on. After all, nominations were due on February 1st, when Obama had been president for less than 2 weeks. But it turns out that the news is true. Although I couldn't resist the opportunity to add that little detail to my piece on Obama's similarities with Jimmy Carter, I'm really of two minds about the whole thing.
First of all, I don't want to criticize Obama. It's not like he asked for this. If there's any embarassment to be felt, it should be by the Nobel committee. And secondly, I always pull for Americans to win, whether wars, sporting events, or the World Series of Poker. To whine about this just because it's Obama strikes me as being a lot like cheering when Chicago didn't get the Olympics. If Bush had won the Nobel for his work fighting AIDS in Africa, I would have been offended had the left complained (which I'm sure they would have).
That said, this still falls into my category of "things about the modern world I hate." The other two sitting US Presidents to win this award brokered big peace treaties that stopped hot wars (Teddy Roosevelt in 1906, Woodrow Wilson in 1919). Other Nobel laureates I respect include Mother Theresa, Martin Luther King, and Lech Walesa, just to name a few. But in recent years we've seen the "Peace" prize go to Yasser Arafat, the anti-land-mine lady (who apparently has no clue how South Korea's existence depends upon land mines in the DMZ), Jimmy Carter (who deserved a lifetime achievement award, but, like Obama, was rewarded for being hostile to Bush), and most recently Al Gore. I feel the same way about the Nobel Peace Prize that I do about the Grammys ever since Michael Jackson won more than the Beatles, or the Oscars in the last 10 or so years (come on--American Beauty vs. Gone With The Wind. Please.) While I'm at it, I also think the NBA hasn't been worth a darn since at least 1992, and even comic books aren't as good as they used to be.
So it's not about Obama. It's about us. In a world where every child gets a trophy, every rec league soccer game ends in a tie, PE classes ban dodgeball because it picks on the weak, an Boise State can be a contender for the NCAA National Championship, this is not surprising at all. Congratulations to President Obama for winning his award. Too bad the award lost its meaning long ago.
First of all, I don't want to criticize Obama. It's not like he asked for this. If there's any embarassment to be felt, it should be by the Nobel committee. And secondly, I always pull for Americans to win, whether wars, sporting events, or the World Series of Poker. To whine about this just because it's Obama strikes me as being a lot like cheering when Chicago didn't get the Olympics. If Bush had won the Nobel for his work fighting AIDS in Africa, I would have been offended had the left complained (which I'm sure they would have).
That said, this still falls into my category of "things about the modern world I hate." The other two sitting US Presidents to win this award brokered big peace treaties that stopped hot wars (Teddy Roosevelt in 1906, Woodrow Wilson in 1919). Other Nobel laureates I respect include Mother Theresa, Martin Luther King, and Lech Walesa, just to name a few. But in recent years we've seen the "Peace" prize go to Yasser Arafat, the anti-land-mine lady (who apparently has no clue how South Korea's existence depends upon land mines in the DMZ), Jimmy Carter (who deserved a lifetime achievement award, but, like Obama, was rewarded for being hostile to Bush), and most recently Al Gore. I feel the same way about the Nobel Peace Prize that I do about the Grammys ever since Michael Jackson won more than the Beatles, or the Oscars in the last 10 or so years (come on--American Beauty vs. Gone With The Wind. Please.) While I'm at it, I also think the NBA hasn't been worth a darn since at least 1992, and even comic books aren't as good as they used to be.
So it's not about Obama. It's about us. In a world where every child gets a trophy, every rec league soccer game ends in a tie, PE classes ban dodgeball because it picks on the weak, an Boise State can be a contender for the NCAA National Championship, this is not surprising at all. Congratulations to President Obama for winning his award. Too bad the award lost its meaning long ago.
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