faster, higher, stronger: 09.07

Tuesday, September 25, 2007

Rest.....rest....and more rest

I know it has been quite some time since my last post...I was on vacation with family last week. I was in Canada fishing and I had no Internet access and no desire to blog while in the midst of the utter silence of the Canadian woods.

I wrote in my last post of some possible injuries. I have not run for 3 weeks now and I feel fatter by the minute just knowing that I am not running. Baseball has also started so I leave school and go right to practice until 6:30-7. By the time I get home, I just crash...

I think (weather permitting), I'm going to go out for a short jog today. I truly hope I can make it through 2 miles without too much pain. Because I missed 3 weeks of training due to injury, I have decided not to run in the Harrisburg Marathon this November. If today's run goes well, I'll play it by ear as far as running goes. I would like to be able to get 3 or 4 runs in per week...anything to make me feel like I'm doing something to keep from getting bigger. I guess my next goal would be to train through the Fall and Winter and be in great shape by Spring and maybe squeeze a Spring marathon in...I don't know, Spring seems sooooo far away right now.

POST UPDATE AFTER RUN ON WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 26:
I did 2 miles and felt good! My legs were definitely not in shape as they tired quickly. My lungs weren't ready for it either but they adapted and my breath was fine by the end of the first mile. I was worried about my left knee and the back of my lower left leg (low calf). Both of those had bothered me throughout training and I didn't run for 3 weeks because the back left leg was sore (not in a healthy way). Anyway, during the run, the knee hurt a little bit, but went away after a few minutes and the calf felt good throughout the run. So I feel pretty good the day after the run so I'm gonna ease into running again. Although I am not running in the Harrisburg Marathon, Jesse still is and I'll be there at the finish line. He's trained hard this year and done very well. I bet he finishes in under 4:30 easily.

Thanks for reading!
SEE YA ON THE HILL!
Michael

Friday, September 7, 2007

Dude...

The title has absolutely no bearing on the topic of this post, I just wanted to start it off like that--as if it were a conversation and I was trying to get your attention in order to tell you something.

If you read the last post, you'd know that I didn't run at all last week. After the 13 miler, my left leg was really sore (not in a good way) for quite some time. It still hurt this past weekend when my boys and I took a road trip to Cleveland. However, I woke up Monday (Labor Day) and the pain was gone! It hasn't returned since, except for a little twinge here and there. I haven't run at all this week cuz I just wanna give it some more time to heal. I'm treating it like a hamstring injury: they tell you when you pull a hamstring that you should do nothing until it feels great again...then take another whole week off. So I'm kinda excited cuz I'm gonna take an easy run of 3 miles today and see how I feel (and how I feel tomorrow). It'd be really nice to be able to pick up running again....even if it isn't for marathons. It goes back to that whole idea of challenging oneself to achieve new/different/better things.

I guess I'm just always looking for something to pour myself in to. When the college baseball season comes, I love the intensity and the preparation that goes into it. When the Legion baseball season starts, I love the amount of hard work the team puts in. No offense to the high school program, but they have not been very competitive the last few years so when Legion season rolls around, they are just soooo hungry to win that they work soooo hard. It sounds corney, but I love working hard for goals. Moreover,I love to see people who really love what they do....people who have found their "niche," that thing that they do well, and they do it. You can see it in their eyes, in the way they smile...and they never get tired while doing what they love doing. Ever notice that?

When I was a Youth Director, I took my youth group on weekend retreats to Camp Nawakwa (near Gettysburg). Because I was the director, I often stayed up all hours of the night getting things ready for the next day, hanging out with the kids, or just appreciating being on retreat at Nawakwa...my point is this: I never got tired on retreat! If I went to bed at 4:30 am Saturday morning, I could get up at 7:30 am (3 hours later) and be ready to go...not tired or even in need of a nap later....I could just go and go and go. I realized that one day...the things I enjoy the most, I never seem to tire of, or during. I could do them forever (it seems). I could go to the baseball field at 11 am, work on the field all afternoon, throw batting practice at 4, hit pre game infield outfield at 5:15, then help coach the game...not feeling drained at all! Now when the game was over, I was beat. I had nothing left. Though even having that feeling of total exhaustion is awesome! When you absolutely have NOTHING left cuz you just gave it all doing something you love. WOW, that is a GRRRRREEEAAATTT feeling.

Gotta go, gonna try and get 3 miles in and hope the leg holds up. Have a great weekend y'all! Thanks for reading!
SEE YA ON THE HILL,
Michael

SOME GOOD QUOTES

***"Our greatest fear is not that we are inadequate,but that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant,gorgeous, handsome, talented and fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be?You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinkingso that other people won't feel insecure around you. We were born to make manifest the glory of God within us. It is not just in some; it is in everyone. And, as we let our own light shine, we consciously giveother people permission to do the same.As we are liberated from our fear,our presence automatically liberates others."-Marianne Williamson***"The only people for me are the mad ones ... the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn, like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars.-Jack Kerouac*** "Citius, Altius, Fortius" A latin term, it means "Faster, Higher, Stronger." ***"Running, one might say, is an absurd passtime upon which to be exhausting ourselves....but if you can find meaning in the kind of running you have to do to stay on this team, chances are, you can find meaning in another absurd passtime....LIFE."-Bill Bowerman***"Be on fire for something."***"Anything you vividly imagine, ardently desire, sincerely believe, and enthusiastically act upon must, absolutely must come to pass."

What does "See ya on the hill" mean?

When I ran my first marathon (the LaSalle bank Marathon) in October of this past fall, I raised money for the foundation started by my favorite athlete (and childhood hero): Walter Payton. Walter Payton was (and still is) my idol because of the way he played the game of football. He was never the biggest guy, never the fastest guy, and never the strongest guy, yet he found ways to kick and scratch for every yard on every run. He never gave up easy, never just ran out of bounds, and never slid to avoid a hit. In the off-season, he would embark on this hellish training program that always included hill running. He would run hills until he could no longer walk, and then muster up the courage and strength to keep running. He would invite other football players to come and run hills with them and then laugh as they utterly destroyed themselves just trying to keep up with him...all the while he was just warming up. I think life is a lot like runninig hills. Running hills is hard. Running hills will really test you. There is no way to rest while running uphill. Hills, to me, are like those challenges we face in life: job challenges, financial challenges, personal challenges, relationship challenges, emotional challenges, etc. We can avoid'em and pretend they don't exist (at which point we'd be stuck standing at the bottom of the hill), or we can put our heads down and get running. That's not to say that if you just put your down and run, that you'll conquer every hill...sometimes the hill is just too steep. But to me, the analogy of the hill is more about your willingness to climb than it is how many hills you've conquered. Cuz we all know by now in our lives that once you've conquered one hill (or failed), there will surely be another hill ready for you. So I see this running as a hill for me, a challenge that tests me, and challenges me. That's why I finish my blogs with "SEE YA ON THE HILL," cuz I figure if I see you on the hill, that means you to, have accepted whatever challenge has been laid before you, as opposed to just standing at the bottom, unwilling to climb at all.

WHY RUN A MARATHON?

I have been asked that question many, many times since I started running 2 years ago. I can't honestly say that I've yet to come up with a viable, concrete, understandable answer to the question. I should admit here that I HAVE NEVER ENJOYED RUNNING, NOR HAVE I EVER BEEN ANY GOOD AT IT. I played soccer in high school and I was a fullback, so I did the minimal amount of running. Anyway, I started running cuz I was fat. In 2004 I was going through some life/relationship issues and I wanted to make some changes...I felt little control over what was going on in my life and I was searching for something I could control, my weight was something I could control. I started running a mile before I would do my lifting routine (I would go to a memeber of my family's home and workout in their basement-gym ((BIG shouts out and a big thanks to Karen and Steve)). Then I began running a mile before and then another one after lifting. At this point, I must admit, I was just excited when I finished my mile in under 10 minutes (now thats my super-easy pace). At some point in 2005, a friend of mine (BIG shouts out to OG) asked me to run in a 5k (3.2 miles) with him. He had already paid the entry fee for another runner who had cancelled on him and he didn't want his money to go to waste. So I ran it and finished in 25:41 (not bad). After that, I figured-what the hell-if I can run 3 miles today, I can do it again tomorrow and then the day after, and try to get rid of some of this fat I got goin' on. As the 3 miles became easier and easier, I bumped my runs up to 4 miles, then 5 miles, and so on all the way up to 8 miles before it finally got too cold to run outside and I packed it in for Christmas. I began to wonder what enjoyment I got out of doing the act of something I didn't actually enjoy. After much thought, I found that I enjoyed the challenge of going farther than I ran yesterday...knowing that with every step, I was now running 1 step farther than I had ever run before in my life. That Christmas, in need of something in my life to make me feel a lil'more worthwhile, something to take my mind off my struggles (still in the midst of personal/relationship issues), I set upon the goal of doing (what I felt at the time was) the impossible: run 26.2 miles. I looked forward to the training, the focus (cuz my focus would be on something other than what it had been focused on for the year prior) and the determination it was gonna take to get me to the finish line. I set my goal, I did it, and now I wanna go again and improve upon my first attempt. That's why I run. Those personal issues I had are now long gone and have been totally dealt with. Now I am left only with the challenge of being better than I was the last time out...of making myself a better man, a better citizen, a better human being. Come along for the ride! Encouragement is always welcome!

faster, higher, stronger

Tuesday, September 25, 2007

Rest.....rest....and more rest

Friday, September 7, 2007

Dude...

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