Final Step in Rebuilding

Before my not so fun run on Mother's Day I had done 15 miles on the NCR trail with my training partner, Joselyn, on May 3.  As I sit and write on a day of rest on May 31, I feel that I have successfully rebuilt, although next Sunday, 35 days after the last 15 miler, will be the real test.

But, yesterday, I went through the last step in regaining confidence.  How?

It was a hot morning yesterday.  My car thermometer said low 70's even when I parked at Paper Mill on the NCR trail.

Joselyn and I said, "13, or 14 if we are feeling fine."  We ended up doing 14.  The feeling of being fine was definitely there.

The 14 started off easy--an 8:33.  Then a few more miles at over 8 minutes.  But then we got into a zone and just ran.  The first half--as we ran from the Paper Mill parking lot to a point about 1/4 mile north of the building with rest rooms at Monkton was 56:56 (reflecting those early miles).  The second half we came back and ran it in 54:13.  What a difference.  Yes, it is a little downhill, but not really that much.  That is an average of over 20 seconds faster per mile and some were definitely run even more strongly than that.  And we didn't have any slower than 8 minutes in the second half.

That was despite being dripping with sweat to the degree that once again, I could have wrung out my shirt.

That was despite the humidity.

That was despite the lack of any real breeze.

And as I sort out what my next challenge will be with running, it was great to feel like I was completely back in control at a distance that was exactly what I expected, with my breathing not totally out of control, in the company of a good friend, and ready for the rest of the day.

The rest of the day was pretty good too--my youngest son's lacrosse team won't both games convincingly and made it to the playoffs in this weekend's tournament.  My son, however, has to learn the lessons I have with finding ways to keep going when it is hot.  Not an easy task for a 45 year old.  Not an easy task for a ten year old.  We all learn such things.

My rebuilding to where I was before my Mother's Day run is now done.  It is time to move on.  And to find out again what I am capable of when I put my mind to it.  Both in running and in writing--blog and other projects. 

A New Normal for My Running?

The month of January has been an interesting one for my running.  Thanks to the challenges of work and family and icy roads as numerous snow storms have blown through (and sometimes past) the mid-Atlantic region, I have accumulated only 109 miles in the month.  

Last year I ran 2222.2 miles total.  That translates to an average of over 180 miles per month.  

In fact, I would have to probably trace back to well before my training for the Boston Marathon (so at least to 2012) to find a month in which I ran less than 110 miles.

The first question for me to ponder is whether this is the new normal.  And the second is whether I am okay with that fact. 

So, first, I think it may become the new normal.  Although I do hope to get more like 120-150 miles in each month for the rest of the year.  Those long Saturday runs of at least 10-13 miles will help a lot and they will be much easier to do after ice hockey season ends this winter and even in the early parts of ice hockey season next fall.  So, I don't expect to run 2222 miles again.  But I do hope to run more than 1300 miles.  We'll see where I end up.  So far, this is a year of trying to figure out how to rebalance the many aspects of my life.  And January and February are often challenging months to run anyway.  

Which leads me into the second question.  As long as the reason for the smaller number of miles is a healthy rebalancing--more sleep, more family, more writing, and maybe even more work, that is fine.  If the work is because there is a crisis rather than because I have the opportunity to do what I love that would be a problem. If family is to do fun things together and not some crisis then, of course, that is a good thing.  If the sleep is just to bring myself up to a healthy level rather than because I am unhealthy and my body needs repair then that is a good thing.  And as long as my writing continues to bring me joy that is also a good thing.

And I have been doing more writing, although the readers of this blog will not necessarily see it.  Instead, I am making sure to write more in my professional blog, I am writing for students, and I am writing essays that are not showing up here yet as I try to put together a series that is tentatively called Spirituality by Number.  We will see where that quest takes me.  

So, the new normal of 30 fewer miles a month is just fine as long as I continue to put that time to good use.  

How has your year been so far?  

My Annual Review and Look Ahead

Here were my goals for 2014…

(10) Run.  Do it a lot.  But keep it in its place.  Use it as a focal point.  Use it for goal setting.  Use it for friendship building.  Use it to seek meaning.  I’d say I handled this one quite well getting in 2222.2 miles PR’ing at 3 outdoor race distances, and ending my running year with a sub-19 5K on the treadmill. 

(9) Keep teaching Sunday School.  I did this for the spring semester.  But then it ran up against numbers (3) and (1).  I am still involved in ministry at my parish.  Just in a different way. 

(8) Keep writing.  Did it and look forward to continuing to do it.  All good.

(7) Find a place for music.  I have been listening to a lot of music—between my oldest son graduating from the School for the Arts with his horn and piano foci and his now being a student at a conservatory and then my 15 year old continuing to sing in the Maryland State Boychoir.  I have listened to a wider variety of music on Spotify and elsewhere—including a lot of country for the first time in my life (my apologies to anyone whose country interests I ever criticized before).  And I have begun to define better how music relates to my worship experience—I need to sing rather than to listen to really make my worship experience as powerful as it can be.    

(6) Bake more.  I am not sure that I managed this one.  This also came up against (3).  But I have certainly kept baking and worked on a few new things (like fancy pumpkin and banana breads).  And continued to work with my sons, especially my now ten year old, to teach them as well.

(5) Take more pictures.  I did some of this.  I am trying to make sure that I carry my cell when I run and then use it to tell stories better.  And I have also used pictures of some of the things that I have had shared with me (like five stones from my last MPH advisee) and gotten pictures of me with other runners that have helped to highlight my year. 

(4) While I have access to all types of electronic technologies, put them down more. I am not sure how well I did on this one.  I still use my devices a lot.   

(3) Recognize my limitations more.  Definitely recognizing that I have to say no to some things and I have to think about my limits more.  This has affected numerous other goals. 

(2) Structure my time better.  Certainly did this to some degree to achieve my running goals.  Certainly did this with family to achieve the goals of getting the kids to all their activities.  Got some more sleep too. 

(1)      Remember that family comes first.  Done. Must continue.  Have run fewer races.  Have gotten more sleep to try harder to stay awake through events.  Have traveled less so that I could help with kids getting places.  Have made this my number one priority.

Now to look ahead.  But I am going to make this year’s a little more objective and a little more measurable and I will review them once a quarter rather than just once a year. 

(10) Run at least four days a week.  I’m not going to try to run more miles than I did this year (2222.2).  I’m not even going to shoot for 2000 miles in 2015.  There will be years in the future for other mileage goals.  This year I’m mostly going to aim to keep up my three quality workouts a week and one with Back on My Feet.  I hope to use running as all that it was last year for friendship and writing.  No other goals—right now.  Then, I will plan to do some cross training and/or weight training as well to keep up my overall health.

(9) Bake at least one pizza/stromboli and one other bread or cranberry sauce each week.  (In addition to general meal prep that I do most of in our household.)  This will hone and continue to develop my skills in the kitchen.  It is something I love. 

(8) Do something with art at least once a week.  This could be as simple as a pencil sketch.  It could be a photograph that I somehow process.  It could be an artistically posed photograph.  It could be appreciating art more in the same way that I will work on appreciating music more. It could be thinking about art that I’d like others to work on.  I’ve got ideas for a second tattoo, but that might be a marriage-ending incident if I do that.  Although with the passing of Mark Pacione and the focus on living a little more in the moment because you never know when the end will come (Mark was a healthy 60), I’d settle for a simple tattoo at this point.  Of all the things that I have though about for my second (cornucopia, golden apples, loaves of bread, cassowary, and red egg) the red egg (associated with Mary Magdalene who is the patron saint of a contemplative life) really speaks to me most.  

(7) Continue to work on appreciating music more in my life.  This might mean finding time to play an instrument I’ve learned before.  Working more with my mandolin (Bleak Midwinter would be an excellent song to play on the mandolin—or learning the chord progressions for old Hooters songs).  Or just appreciating the performances more from a critical listening point of view.  Many ways I can achieve this.  Goal—once a week of some time spent with music more than just having it on in the background.

(6) Blog once a week in my personal blog and once a week in my professional blog.  Of course, if I can fit in more, all the better. 

(5) Finish Decoding Spirituality—a series of essays I have written and am stringing together as a book—about  the ways in which I have worked to find meaning in the numbers around me throughout my life and the insights this has given me about how others might find meaning.  (Don’t worry—the conclusion wont’ be that everyone should be as numbers centered as I am.) 

(4) Sleep at least six hours each night.  Of course, all the experts say 7 or 8.  I would love to get 7 or 8 every night but I don’t know how I can possibly do all the other things I want to do his year (while continuing to recognize limitations).  But I don’t want to have an abundance of 4-hour or 5-hour nights sleep nights.  The best thing I can do for this—track and have an accountability buddy for my sleep in the same way that I have found that have accountability buddies for exercise makes such a difference. 

(3) Tell people “thank you” not just at the big times (like thanking Jackie after my PR in Philly and Lauren after my two person marathon relay) but for little things.  After the passing of Mark Pacione and several others who have been lost in recent years starting with Gerry Paradiso back in 2010, I have realized just how important it is to communicate appreciation to people as often as possible.  It doesn’t have to be a big production every time.  Sometimes a hand-written thank you note.  Sometimes a hand-written and hand-designed thank you note.  Other times just a high-five or hug with a thank you at the end of a run.  Sometimes a quick “thanks for taking the kids on a day I couldn’t” at home in the evening.  But always living a life full of gratitude to the amazing people around me.

(2) Stay in touch with friends.  In the past year I had reason to reach out to many friends from elementary school as I remembered the importance of people who had known me for a long time after my son and the young woman he had been dating for more than 3 years left for college as “just friends.” That led me to think about the importance of people with whom I spent a lot of time early in my life.  People who have know me forever. I have also realized how important accountability friends (last year for running) are.  They help me focus and keep it real.

(1) Family must stay #1.  No matter how much I run.  No matter how hard I work.  No matter how much I write.  Family is always first.  If ever there comes a year when that is obviously not true, I must reassess.

Happy 2015!

Repetition While Moving Forward

Today is Friday.  I'm still writing about Tuesday's workout. Hopefully by the end of the weekend I will be caught up. 

On Tuesday, I was out on the real track for the first time in a while.  It was just below freezing.  The sun was coming over the horizon by the end of the workout.  We had a group of eight out at the track.  There was almost no wind.  It could not have been better.

We ran mile repeats (or 1600 as the case may be these days).  I did three at sub-6:10 and a fourth at sub-6:20.  I would like to get myself back to where I could hold the sub-6:10 pace for all four.  It has been a while since I've worked that hard on the track.  One observation a fellow runner made is that it tends to be much more comfortable to run that hard on the track rather than on the treadmill.  I would tend to agree.  Didn't feel any muscle strains.  Did feel like I was wiped by the end of the fourth.  Although it didn't show up with any drowsiness at work that day.

How far did I run total?  Adding the mile warmup, quarter between each mile, and 1.25 mile cool down, a total of 7 miles.   That put me up to about 319.  And that puts me on Dewey Ave, US22/US40, on a bridge, crossing Wills Creek, in Cambridge, Ohio.  The path between my last point west of Lore and here included about 3 miles on a trail.  Pretty cool.  The Catholic Church here is St. Benedict--interesting connection as Pope Benedict XVI was the only Pope I've seen in person to date.

Mile repeats always get me thinking about repetition.  But since I am thinking of my virtual pilgrimage, I also think about moving forward.  So how do I conceptualize repetition while moving forward?

Two short ideas.  First, on Monday while at work, I had two conversations about a relatively new program in one of the sister schools at my university called Energy Policy and Climate.  Interesting course.  In one case, a Chinese university wanted to send some students to take classes in that program as well as classes in the business school.  In another case, a student was interested in figuring out how to combine his interest in finance with an interest in energy policy and climate.  Both of these activities are all about connecting dots in my professional world.  Two conversations is repetition. Both represent interesting steps forward for the schools and students.  And working with the leadership in the sister school represents a professional move forward for me.

The other observation is my nine year old who saw me reading a novel at a rather quick pace asking me why I like to read.  I could (and probably should) write an entire blog entry on that topic at some point.  But the short answer is to explore ideas (sometimes again and again, or the same idea dealt with by different authors) while gaining new knowledge and perspectives.  Even my blog writing represents that in some ways.  I read to think about ideas.  I write to sort out the ideas.  I write about a variety of things but some topics do keep coming up.  And when all is said and done, I have moved forward by working through the topics.  So perhaps my simple answer to my son should be "It's cheaper than therapy."  But the more complex answer is it allows me to explore and re-explore concepts that help me to sort out my own world view and how it is evolving moving forward.   

64 is 2 to the Sixth

The title of today's blog is a statement of mathematical fact.  Why is it relevant today?  I did not run 64 miles.  I only ran 6.4 miles.  For a total of 273 one day before the end of the seventh week of the year (tomorrow will be day 49).  That puts me at an average of 39 miles per week (with a week of only 33 miles over just 4 days).  On track for my 2000 for the year.  And I'm on US 40 in Ohio now.  State #4 on my journey.

So why the mathematical statement.  Well, I ran 6.4 because I got to the Y a few minutes late to do a full hour.  And I wanted to get to 273 total.  So, 6.4 worked.  And being the nerd I was as a kid (the guy who had all the powers of 2 up to 2-to-the-sixteenth memorized), I made a connection.

So, on yet another day of treadmill running, Since one of the themes of any additional art that I might commission some day (tattoo or otherwise since Sherry is not thrilled with the idea of another tattoo) is a cornucopia, I thought about six things that have doubled (rather than just doubling one thing six times) since I started my serious running again in 2006/7.

(1) My love of running.  This year so far it has been solitary again, but it is social as well as physical.  It is spiritual.  And it is critical for my sense of well being.

(2) My appreciation of the talent it takes to play music well.  While I have stopped playing so much music myself over the past year, I watched how little progress I was making.  And I watched my oldest son and his girlfriend continue to develop.  I saw what it takes.  I saw how long they worked and how hard they worked.  And I realize now more than ever just what it takes to become an exceptional musician.  Similar to what it would take to be an exceptional academic.  Or an exceptional writer.  Or an exceptional runner.

(3) My appreciation of art and what it takes to make good art.  This started with my tattoo.  Observing the creative process.  But it continues even more from watching my second son who will likely follow my oldest to the Baltimore School for the Arts but this time for visual arts rather than music.  Seeing what it takes.  Even occasionally giving it a try myself.  And realizing just how much effort is required.

(4) My appreciation of how much effort it takes to parent my kids.  I have done the single parent thing for a week at a time now and then when Sherry has had the opportunity to go on short vacations by herself.  However, over the past six weeks, I have spent a lot more time doing the single parent thing repeatedly while Sherry has taken Christopher (or in one case both Christopher and Kelsey) to audition at various colleges.  I really do appreciate what Sherry has to do.

(5) My self-expression.  When I began running again in 2006/7 I had not even journaled seriously in ages.  Now, I write all the time.  And I share.  And it relieves a lot of stress.  And my self-expression is not just writing.  The tattoo is a part of that as well.

(6) My search for answers.  Particularly in the past year with numerous sudden and unexpected passings.  And my search for answers in ways that combine what I do at work, what I teach in Sunday school, what I hear in church, and what I think about while I run.

Which brings me to say that I have a pretty amazing and complex life.  An interesting constructed reality in which things like the fact that I happened to run 6.4 miles could lead to an entire entry about things that I appreciate at least twice as much as I used to.   

What was my race time last Sunday? And What Inspiration Can I Find?

I went into the 20 mile race on Sunday hoping to run the distance in 2 hours 26 minutes. In the end, my published time was 2:36:26.  I thought that the originally published time was off a bit, but perhaps I was so out of it after the race on Sunday, that I couldn't read straight across to see what my time was.  The 2:36 time is about what my watch had.  And, there is a lesson there.

I had a hard time finding an inspirational verse to go along with a time of 2:26.  But when I thougth a little harder and was guided by the 2:36 time I ran and thought about my own behavior in an argument last night, I came to Proverbs 2:3-6 where the blessings of wisdom are being discussed:

Yes, if you call for intelligence,
and to understanding raise your voice;
If you seek her like silver,
and like hidden treasures search her out,
Then will you understand the fear of the LORD;
the knowledge of God you will find;
For the LORD gives wisdom,
from his mouth come knowledge and understanding

In short, a reminder that God is the source of wisdom.  God is the source of knowledge and understanding.  These come from God's mouth.  

From my own mouth?  Sometimes a lack of wisdom.  Sometimes a lack of understanding.  Sometimes wonderful examples of the incivility that I discussed in the last blog entry.  

Sometimes in-person discussions can be easier to work around incivility because I have a chance to explain something I said.  Other times in person discussions contribute to incivility as there is not the time to process what I am saying and to ponder it before I write it down.  

These four verses just serve as a simple reminder to me to look for the same inspiration as to my behavior, my wisdom, my understanding, and my civility for my life at home as for my blogging and my interaction with the rest of the world.  And a reminder that sometimes that premise is a fail for me. So, I have to continue to work harder at living up to showing how my inspiration leads to better outcomes in home life as much as it does in writing, advising, teaching, and running.