Executing on a Goal

This week the management group at the business school had a day long planning session and talked about how well we had executed against last year's goals and then planned a new set of goals toe execute against in the 2014-15 academic year.  

Yesterday's run was all about executing against a plan.

I have been getting a little more sleep recently.  With 6-8 hours of sleep a night, it is amazing how much easier it is to make it through the day.  Two days this week without a single issue with feeling drowsy during meetings.  Now to work on getting that to 5 and then doing the same over the weekend so that I can make it through things like mass, concerts, children's performances, etc.

But anyway, I slept a little longer than usual, worked from 4:35-5:25 after doing some dishes.  I realize that starting work at 4:35 after doing some dishes doesn't sound like a "late" start but when I had a chance to go to bed before 10 and then sleep till after 4 that gets me my 6+ hours of sleep rather than just 4-5.  The 4-5 has to stop.

In any case, I didn't get out the door until just past 5:45 and then had to wait for my watch to connect to satellites.  I started my run at 5:49.  ANd I had one goal--finish by 6:45 so that I could get to my office as close to 8 as possible.

So, I ran my 7.2 miles and got back at about 6:47.  That was a nice run.  It took me over to Charles, out to Stevenson, over to Sherwood, and back across Overbrook to York before coming home.  And I held 8 minute miles. So it was good.

Where did the 7.2 miles put me?  At 492.2 miles total.  Running along Kemper Rd.  inside the I-275 beltway around Cincinnati. In Sharonville.  Nearest church--St. Michael the Archangel.  I've learned more about some traditions around St. Michael from my kids non-religious school that makes liberal use of secularized versions of both Jewish and Christian traditions in its curriculum than I ever did growing up.  It is interesting how it all fits together.  

Conceptualizing 2000 Miles: A Virtual Running Pilgrimage

So, on January 2nd, I ran my first 8 miles of the calendar year.  I talked about that 8 mile run yesterday.  No need to review.

Today, I did not run.  I have many friends who braved the snow and ice on the roads to either drive to run inside on a treadmill somewhere or to run somewhere outside.  Congratulations to them after the snow last night.  I didn't feel inspired and had a bit of a headache.  That is not enough to keep me in bed when it is 40 degrees out.  But at 25 degrees (or less) and 4-5 inches of snow it was a "no go" for me.

What I did do today is think about how I will accumulate my 266 hours (or so) of running at 8 minute miles over 250 (or so) days during the remaining 363 days of the year.

And I spent some time thinking about what 2000 miles would actually mean.

And to link to spirituality, I found a route from St Pius X church in Towson MD (where we attend and participate) to a church called Our Lady of Perpetual Help in a town call Truth or Consequences, New Mexico, that is 2000 miles.  Here is a link to the pdf describing the path.  Going from one church to another makes it like a "virtual running pilgrimage."  Ending up at a town called "Truth or Consequences" for a goal that is so big and a quest for which I consider "truth" to be success and consequences to be the many possible ways of failing or being injured along the way, is pretty cool.

It is too bad I won't be doing this in reality as it will take me through Maryland, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, and into New Mexico.

So, each day, in addition to whatever else I want to blog about, I'll mention where I am.  The first eight miles that I ran yesterday takes me from our church to  somewhere on Greenspring Avenue north of the city.  It doesn't quite get me to the Church of the Resurrection in Lutherville that led to my early Christmas morning writing about connections from the perspectives of two priests (one Catholic and one Anglican) but it is interesting to me that in the bigger picture of trying to conceptualize my 2000 mile quest as a pilgrimage, even the first stop is near a church.

What will tomorrow bring?  12-16 miles on a treadmill at the Y on a bitter cold morning.  Once I see just how many I run, I will update and we will see where it leaves me on the trail.

Goal is set.  Now, to see where it takes me.  

What Am I Running Toward--or From?

I got back into running in 2006.  It was part of a return to exercise to get back into shape in general in the beginning.  Then, over beer at a local Irish restaurant one night after a worship band practice, someone challenged me to run to train for a half marathon.  It was a distance I knew I could do in high school and that seemed feasible to return to.  Until I reached that distance Labor Day weekend 2007 that is what I ran toward.  I had wanted to participate in the Baltimore Running Festival in 2009 but decided to register too late. I had not realized the popularity of the event

After a hiatus to take care of professional matters, I returned to running again in 2009 and ran toward the Baltimore Running Festival--this time understanding how early I would have to register.  And meeting that goal (although with a time that left me dissatisfied), in January 2010 having seen one colleague and one student run the marathon, I decided to set my sights on the next goal to run toward.  At the time, qualifying for Boston was not high on my list.  I was just trying to see if I could go the marathon distance and the idea of running a 3:20:59 (what I would have needed to qualify at that time) seemed unattainable.

I ran that first marathon in 3:39:48.  It seemed a long distance away from the qualifying time.  But I had also gotten into fundraising through running and so the next big race to run toward was the Maryland Half Marathon in 2011.  I had heard great things about it although that year it moved from its original location in Timonium to southern Howard County.  Beyond that I was raising funds for a new organization--the University of Maryland Cancer Center.  That race went well, although not perfectly.  After that I aimed for the Baltimore Marathon once more.

I ran toward that with everything I had and achieved a 3:22:05.  I had reached the end of my fund-racing for a while (to borrow a term from Back on My Feet), but could see that the 3:15:00 (which was the new qualifying time) was within my grasp.  Suddenly the Boston Marathon became what I would run toward.  From mid-October 2011 until April 15, 2013, that was one of my main purposes in running--and exactly what I was running toward.  I ran two more marathons to qualify--each time aiming for the 3:15:00 I needed and finally meeting that in March 2012.

From then on, I committed not to run another marathon until Boston (which I stuck to) but I did keep training and doing as well as I possibly could at Boston was always at the top of my mind.  Every tempo run--towards Boston.  Every track workout--toward Boston.  Every Saturday long run--toward Boston.  And every in between race--toward Boston just getting ready.

Then I registered.  Getting ready for six months from registration.  The drive up.  Everything was about getting ready and moving toward the race.  Then on race day the ride to Hopkinton and the wait at Hopkinton was about moving toward the race.  Then once I started the race it was all about moving toward the finish.  All very clear.

After the end of the race--even before the explosions--things were less clear.  Why?  It was sort of like when I got promoted to full professor back at the School of Public Health and my next question was "now what?"  For racing, the question is also "now what?"  Eventually I found the next step in my career--my new job in the Carey Business School.

Whether I will find a next step in my running other than just "continuing to run for fitness" remains to be seen.  I have promised my family no more marathons for a while--more than a year at least.

And since the explosions last Monday I feel like I have been running from things rather than running toward anything.  I have run seven of the last nine days.  That is more days than I usually run.  Some of those runs have been high quality runs and others I have had to push through.  But those push throughs have taken my mind off last Monday.  Even just running--oddly enough--takes my mind off last Monday.  In fact, I think it takes me to a time in my mind before last Monday.  It is escapism.   Especially when I run alone.

Over time, I think less frequently about the events of last Monday and it becomes easier to let go.  And the runs become less about escaping.  But for the time being they are helpful as a way to run from the things that I don't want to relive every day.  Remember yes.  Relive those first uncertain moments and the devastation of hearing about three deaths no.

Just some more processing.  

My First Post Boston Marathon Blog--Living Life to the Fullest

It took me a while to be ready to write after running the Boston Marathon and experiencing (from afar--thankfully) the events afterwards.  I wrote this to share with a small publication within JHSPH that is run by students but thought I would share here as well.  I will have a lot more to write about the marathon in the coming weeks. 

Inspiration from an Eight Year Old I Did Not Know

People sometimes ask me why I lead such a busy life.  I see it as a rich and full life that also happens to be busy rather than just a busy life.  But, leaving semantics behind, I would like to use my Boston Marathon 2013 experience to frame and answer to this question once and for all. 

On April 15, 2013, I ran my first (and for the foreseeable future only) Boston Marathon.  I had worked for three years to get there.  I decided to run a marathon in January 2010.  I started my training for the 2010 Baltimore Marathon in May of that year and over the next 22 months ran a total of four marathons before I finally qualified for Boston.  April 15 was described in advance by one of my training partners as the pinnacle of the running side of my life and she encouraged me to reach for greatness.  From my 3 AM nervous wake up until I finished the race around 1:20 PM, the Boston Marathon was something I could think of as the best running experience I ever had and while I did not run my best marathon time ever I spent every minute of my 3:15:56 with the goal of reaching for excellence in my mind.  Then, even for the first 90 minutes after the race the day continued to be the best running experience ever.  I met up with the two men with whom I’d traveled to Boston.  We all accomplished what we wanted.  We enjoyed some post-race activities and were preparing to return to our hotel and come home. 

That was when the explosions occurred.

My two friends and I were on the subway when someone noticed information about the explosion on Twitter.  Everyone reached for their phones.  As information began to emerge, the subway was evacuated.  We were left wondering about the extent of what happened as multiple emergency vehicles raced by and needing to find an alternative means to return to the hotel.  When we arrived at the hotel more details emerged.  The most heart wrenching of all the details to come out that afternoon and evening was that an eight year old boy who had been there to watch his father was one of the three fatalities associated with the explosions.

That was difficult for me because I have an eight year old.  While my own family had never intended to join me in Boston, they could have.  And no one could have predicted when the explosions were going to occur.  If my family had made slightly different decisions and the attack had been planned slightly differently, that could have been my son.

Reflection on this point led to an interesting Facebook post exchange with a young woman I had mentored when she was a student in the Schreyer Honors College at Penn State, where I had done my undergraduate work.  After she posted about glad for my safety, I posted back, “Thinking of the development I have seen in you since I mentored you in SHC at PSU and the way I lead my life (so busy and so full) this is just a reminder to live life to the fullest EVERY DAY since each of us has no idea when life as a whole or some important part will be pulled out from underneath us in a way we could never guess.”  After that we shared a back an forth about how this same sentiment motivated us both and how I could take at least a little credit for her sharing the sentiment with me. 

My life is full because I don’t want to miss anything and I don’t want my wife and sons to miss anything either.  This point was emphasized by the loss of life not only for the eight year old but also two relatively young other individuals in the explosions and the many serious injuries that will leave lives changed forever.

Do I do a lot?  Yes.  Is it too much to try to fit in?  Possibly.  Do I sometimes wish I had more time to just sit around?  Yes. 

However, when I ask myself what I have gained by leading a full and rich and busy life I find the following.  I have found the person I love to spend my life with (married nearly 21 years now), found multiple personal and community activities I love to be involved with (running, Sunday school teaching, worship band at church), found a job I love and have been successful in (full professor and now vice dean), and brought up three boys who are now 17, 13, and 8 to experience all that life has to offer them at those ages. 

Finishing the Boston Marathon in a near personal best time gets me past one item that was a long-term goal.  However, it was just one goal.  I am only 43 and have what I hope are many years to live and many miles to run before I die.  However, if something had happened to me as a runner on Monday, I would enter whatever comes after life on Earth not worrying that I had missed something. 

The death of the eight year old on Monday is an inspiration to me to renew my commitment to the premise by which I have led my life up to this point and to take that commitment joyfully into the future.  Reaching one goal shouldn’t make me complacent.  It should simply set me up to set and reach other goals.  If the goal is not to miss anything in life, then my wife and my sons and I will be busy. But I think it can be a joyful and happy form of busy reflecting the passions that each of us have for different things in life in which we wish to excel and that we wish to enjoy.