And So I Ask

The rest of the Florida trip, by way of observations

2011-03-23T20:54:00.000-04:00

#1 - Getting up at 4:00 am to catch a flight, then going straight from the airport to the basketball stadium, then spending 12+ hours at the stadium watching 4 basketball games and getting back to your hotel after midnight makes for one long, exhausting, but awesome day.

#2 - I don't know whose idea it was to combine barbecued pulled pork and nachos, but that guy (and let's face it, it has to be a guy) is now one of my heroes.

#3 - I'm not sure that any of the female Kentucky cheerleaders would satisfy the minimum height requirements to ride the big roller coasters at amusement parks.

#4 - For what we paid for bottled water at the NCAA tournament, it had better have healing properties!

#5 - Getting so drunk that you can barely walk is epically stupid. Doing so on 6 dollar beers at a spring training baseball game is also a really poor financial decision.

#6 - On a similar note, the NCAA's refusal to allow alcohol sales at tournament games might anger a lot of fans (and disappoint a lot of vendors) but it's probably among the smartest decisions they've ever made. I don't even want to imagine what introducing heavy alcohol consumption into that environment could result in.

#7 - TV timeouts suck when you aren't watching the game on TV. During the UCLA/Michigan State game, there were 18 timeouts (8 TV, the maximum 5 called by each team), and then for good measure there was an officials timeout to make sure they had the clock set right near the end of the game.

#8 - I hope, for the sake of the university, that the college-age Florida fans who sat behind us during Florida's game on Saturday were guys who grew up Florida fans but couldn't actually get into the school. Somehow, I doubt it.

#9 - I was shocked (shocked I say!) to find out that the Rita's stand at the Phillies' spring training games was not observing the "Free ice on the first day of spring" ritual.

#10 - Going from 2 days of the intense, win or go home, fans "living and dying" on every play atmosphere of the NCAA basketball tournament, to a spring training baseball game is pretty anti-climatic.

#11 - Given how chaotic the first weekend of the tournament was, how is it that the higher seed won each of the 6 games we saw? We couldn't even get a 5 seed over a 4.

#12 - It would have done serious harm to my bracket, but I so completely wish Kentucky v. Princeton had gone the other way! Great games that go down to the last second just aren't quite as memorable when the "big boy" pulls it out.

#13 - I can't say that I was overly shocked to see a guy drumming on a toilet seat that was suspended around his neck during the Kentucky/Princeton game. That said individual was a member of the Princeton pep band did come as a bit of surprise, however.

#14 - You'd think a guy as big as the Yankees' CC Sabathia wouldn't have any trouble finding baseball pants that didn't fit like pajama bottoms.

#15 - A gentlemen slipped an usher at the Phillies game a $20 to get a chair for an 87 year old man he was with, perhaps his father. A nice gesture, but had he been thinking ahead, he probably could have used that money to get the man something better than a standing room ticket in the first place.

#16 - The Kentucky fans were split in their allegiances during the Florida games, and the same was true of the Florida fans during Kentucky games. Some rooted loudly against their hated rivals, others rooted for them in the name of "conference pride." Those who chose the former chose wisely, and this is not up for debate.

Florida trip summary and Strawberry Classic 5k report

2011-03-21T19:44:00.000-04:00

So, I’m back from my annual “pilgrimage” to the Tampa Bay area with my Dad. Every year since 2004, Dad and I have headed down for an extended weekend in Clearwater, which is just across the bay from Tampa and the spring training home of the Phillies. Our typical itinerary of watching two baseball games wound up being significantly altered this year, for a number of reasons.

#1 – Shortly after we got back from last year’s trip, I noticed that Tampa was a host site for the first weekend of the NCAA Division I men’s basketball tournament. Dad and I are both college basketball fans, and this seemed like a really good opportunity, so I put in for tickets and got selected – to the extent that there actually was selection – I doubt they actually sold out at that point, if ever. Dad’s ticket was the family’s Father’s Day gift for him last year.

#2 – As you might be aware, the Phillies have been pretty good the last few years. Greater success usually brings greater interest in sports teams, and the Phillies have been no exception. Ticket demand for regular season games had exploded the last couple years, but Spring Training tickets had been relatively immune to the phenomenon – until this year. Despite getting in within minutes of tickets going on sale for individual games, I could only get general admission seating (on the grass above the outfield wall) for Sunday’s game with the Yankees, and couldn’t do much better for a Friday game against the Pirates. I initially got tickets for both games, but after some thought determined that with 6 basketball games on the schedule, 2 baseball games might be overkill, so I re-sold the Pirate game tickets.

#3 – I had been planning on running a 5k in Reading 2 weekends prior to our trip. However, the weather ended up being really miserable that day, and since I hadn’t pre-registered, I decided it wasn’t worth the trip. There wasn’t anything in the area to run the weekend prior to the trip, and after the trip would be getting too close to the race I wanted to run in mid-April. I didn’t want to skip out on a March race entirely, so I decided to see if there were any races in the Tampa area during our trip that would be feasible for me to run. It turned out that there were several, and I settled on the Strawberry Classic, which was just outside of Tampa, on Saturday morning.

I am sure that I will cover some of the highlights of the rest of the trip later this week, but for now, I want to focus on the race. I was a bit leery of scheduling a race on a vacation, simply because I wasn’t sure how well I’d be able to manage my rest, nutrition, hydration, etc going in. Thursday was a crazy day – we flew down to Tampa first thing in the morning and went directly from the airport to the basketball arena, where we were for the duration of the tournament action for the day, which meant we didn’t get back to the hotel under after midnight. Friday, however, we didn’t have anything planned, so we slept in, went and had a nice big breakfast, and then stopped at a grocery store so I could pick up some bottled water for the rest of the day, and some cereal bars for snacking that evening and pre-race food the next morning. The rest of the day centered around watching basketball from the comfort of our hotel room, so I was pretty sure rest wasn’t going to be an issue.

I got up just after 6 on Saturday morning, and we were at the race by 7:15. One concern I had about running in Florida was climate – it’s obviously typically much warmer there than in central PA. In fact, it got into the mid-80s every day we were there. However, at race time (8:00 am), it was still only in the high 50s and still – perfect running conditions. It was also consistent with some of the warmest weather I had trained in prior to the trip. It was funny watching a number of the natives shiver – I guess it’s all about what you’re used to.

The start of the race was somewhat disorganized, with some confusion about where the start line was. They set us up at one spot, then moved us forward, then moved us back again. None of these spots turned out to be the “real” line, as I’ll detail later. Also, there was a 10k race that started at the same time and split off about a mile and a half in, and between the 2 races I believe there were well over 400 racers in total. The director was trying to shout some important instructions (like how the courses were marked) over everyone without any amplification. I was near the front of, so I was fine, but I guarantee there were plenty of people who never heard him. It wasn’t a big deal, but this was the 30^th year for this race, so it seemed odd that it wasn't a tighter ship.

Once we finally got started, I settled into what felt like the pace I was looking for. I had adjusted my training after the last race to include much more work at/near expected race pace, and it clearly paid off, because based on a woman who must have had a GPS and was a couple steps in front of me, I ran the first mile in 7:14, which was precisely what I was looking for. Everything I had seen about the course on the internet led me to believe that it was very flat, at least by PA standards, and that evaluation proved to be correct. There were some rolling slight ups and downs, but nothing I would have classified as hills. Between that and the weather conditions, this was a perfect setup for a PR. I hit the 2 mile marker at 14:40 on my watch – which indicated that I had slowed down on the 2^nd mile – but it turns out that was actually misleading. (More on that later) I was definitely starting to feel it, but I was still very strong. This was a new feeling for me this late in the race, as opposed to my previous 2 races where by this time I was just trying to hang on and drag myself to the finish.

At this point, I was feeling very good about at least coming in under 23 minutes, which would have been a PR by over a minute and was my “middle” goal time. When I got to a point that I recognized from the map as being about 2.5 miles in, I lifted my pace just slightly and began really looking forward to the turn back towards the finish. It came just before I hit the 3 mile marker, at which point I looked at my watch and knew I was going to break 23 with ease. There was one final turn to the finish, and after I made that I started my finishing spring, crossing the line with the clock at 22:31 – a PR by over 90 seconds, and 1 second off my most optimistic goal time.

As it turned out, the course had actually been a bit long, 30-40 yards long. They had started us well back off of the real line (which I had noticed when we ran past it and wondered about) because the road was much more narrow at that point and they were concerned about squeezing a mass start through the space. So, I actually probably ran closer to a 22:20. This also explained why my second mile (based on the mile marker) seemed to drop off from my first, which had been tracked from our actual start by GPS. It’s actually probably a very good thing there wasn’t a 1 mile marker based on the “real” start, or that I didn't seen it, because I would have thought I was going too slow and probably lifted the pace unnecessarily.

Suffice to say, I was thrilled with the run. Of the races I have run to date, it was first one that I felt I had run a quality race. After running the first two miles at about a 7:15/mile pace (accounting for the extra length at the start), I covered the last 1.1+ in 7:51, which comes out at a 7:00-7:05/mile pace. That’s the first time my last mile has been my fastest, and in fact, I’m sure it was also the first time my last mile wasn’t my slowest by a good bit. I was not passed by anyone in the 2^nd half of the race, which was also easily a first.

That being said, I still had some very good takeaways in terms of areas for improvement, mainly related to finishing. As pleased as I was by my last mile, it could have been better. I was glad to finally have something left for the last mile of a race, but I felt like I probably had too much left when I crossed the line. In hindsight, I probably could have lifted the pace a bit starting at the 2 mile marker, and I definitely should have started my finishing sprint at the 3 mile marker, rather than waiting for the very last stretch. I’m not kicking myself over this, because I went into the race wanting to miss on the conservative side of my tactics, if I missed. I knew all along I was running a very solid race, and I’ve not raced enough yet to really know how to interpret how I’m feeling late in a race, so I was very cautious about making a tactical mistake that would cause me to blow up before the finish. Going forward, however, I will really be looking to maximize that finish. The first step was having a race where I got into the last mile in a position to have to make those types of decisions, as opposed to one where I was simply hanging on for dear life. Not finishing as well as I could have probably did cost me an age group award, however. I finished only a few seconds behind the guy who finished 3^rd in my age group, and I was really gaining on him coming to the line. I’m pretty sure I would have had enough to get by him had I started my finishing sprint 100 yards further back. Oh well!

So, all in all, it was an awesome day and definitely validated my decision to bail on the Reading race. I'm very excited about getting back into training this week, after a little recovery, and preparing to try to build on this race with some other races later in the spring. My long term goal is to go under 20 minutes, and to that end, I want to at least be under 22 - ideally cracking the 7:00/mile pace barrier (~21:45) - by mid-May/early June, before I take a break from more intense training/racing during the hottest part of the summer. That seems significantly more attainable now than it did before this weekend.

Responding to WBC

2011-03-11T20:57:00.000-05:00

I’m offended right now, in a way so deep and penetrating that I’m not sure that I’ve ever felt anything quite like it. I’ve been on the edge of tears several times, tears of both sadness and anger, bubbling up from within, calling cards of a heart that is very troubled.

Let me back up and give some background. If you live in or around central Pennsylvania, you can’t possibly have missed the biggest local news story of the last couple days: the tragic house fire that claimed the lives of 7 of the 8 children of a Perry County family. The tragedy has made national news, so I’m sure that many far beyond the area know of the story as well. This is obviously an unimaginable tragedy that is painful and gut-wrenching on its own. However, today a new wrinkle has entered the story, with news that the Westboro Baptist Church is planning to picket at the funeral of these children next week.

Events over the last few years, and even the last few weeks, have garnered national attention and made it highly likely that you have heard of this group already. If you haven't, consider yourself lucky. I’m not going to take any space here to further introduce you to them, because I refuse to be a vehicle that exposes people to their message. I will say that their previous notoriety has come from picketing the funerals of soldiers who were killed in combat. If you don’t know anything about this group, you have my full blessing to stop reading. If you do know of them, however, I’m quite certain that you have a better understanding of why I am feeling the way that I described in the opening.

First of all, let me say that I am hoping against all hope that this is a bluff on the part of WBC. While the group has certainly followed through on many of these types of plans in the past, it also wouldn’t be out of character for them to simply announce their intentions in order to make a stir, only to not make the trip. I pray, for everyone’s sake, that that is the end result in this case. However, even if they don’t show up, the announcement and the specter of their possible appearance has already created an additional distraction and negative focus that a hurting family and community just should not have to deal with. I so desperately wish that the media would decide not to pay any attention to the actions of WBC, but that’s just not realistic, and it is already too late for that in this situation. And so, simply as a human being, I’m deeply offended that anyone would ever use the occasion of a funeral for innocent children who died so tragically to promote any kind of agenda, let alone an agenda like that of WBC.

However, as a Christian, it cuts even deeper, because I am offended that they do so in the name of my God and my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. I am angered to my very core that these individuals choose to smear the name of my God by claiming His endorsement of their message of hate. I am incredibly troubled by the possibility that people who don’t know Christ have or might come to see these people as His legitimate messengers. All of it stirs me up so much, on top of the pain I feel for the family and their loss.

And yet, there is still another feeling stirring inside of me; one that is somewhat new to me in a situation such as this, and that is pity. My heart breaks for the members of WBC, for hearts that are so blinded, so enslaved, so broken and destroyed by sin and the work of the enemy that they have arrived at such a twisted view of God – if they are sincere in their beliefs – or have been led down a path of using God as a cover for another agenda. There is something very broken deep inside of them that needs restoration, restoration that only a true encounter with the God whose name they trample on can provide, the restoration that we are all lost without.

This is not to somehow mitigate or excuse the offense – these individuals have made their choices and, absent the mercy and grace of God in the person of Jesus Christ, they will answer for them in full one day. However, Paul makes it very clear that our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the spiritual forces of evil. These people are nothing more than blinded pawns of our enemy, and they are still God’s creations – people that He longs to draw to Himself. No matter how hopeless it may seem, nobody is beyond the reach of God’s grace – and who better to testify to that than Paul: a man whose life took a complete 180 after his own encounter with Christ forever changed his understanding of who God was , and of what serving Him meant.

And so I urge all of my brothers and sisters in Christ who might feel as I do: Go ahead and be angry. I believe it is a righteous anger to take offense at the name of our God being dragged through the mud by those claiming to speak for Him, and at those who would look to exploit the pain of the suffering in such a manner. Further, let those feelings move you to action. And yet, let us not choose to wage war in the earthly realm by repaying hatred with hatred and evil with evil. Shout from the rooftops that these people do not speak for you and your Lord and Savior – but also pray for them, that God’s light would finally break through the darkness, and that they would come to see and know God for who He really is. Stand in the opposite spirit – pray for the hurting family and community, look for tangible ways to show love and support – let the love, grace, and mercy of Christ - and the provision that He has made for dealing with our sin - stand in stark and overwhelming opposition to the message of WBC.

My hope and prayer is that, in all of this, God will take that which the enemy has designed for evil and use it for His glory – to multiply and amplify His work amongst the lives of the hurting and broken and those who surround them – including the hurting and broken who would seek to do harm.

Saginaw 5k Race Report, and future direction

2011-01-22T21:03:00.000-05:00

Well, I see I'm already behind on my commitment to have something new up at least once a week! There's a good reason for that, as the piece I'm currently working on is likely going to wind up being quite long, and is also very, very important to me - so I don't want to rush it just to meet an arbitrary deadline. The point of my system is make sure I'm working on the writing, and I am. Hopefully I'll be able to start putting it up (I'm sure it will span multiple entries like the last one) next weekend.

In the meantime, I'll fascinate you with some lighter writing, the story of my race last Saturday. I ran the Saginaw 5k along with Eli (my good friend and "coach") and my former college and post-college roommate Jeff. We gathered at my place first thing Saturday morning and headed down to Saginaw, a small town along the Susquehanna River, northeast of York. We got there in plenty of time, got our race numbers (despite a moment or two where it looked like they hadn't received or properly handled my registration), warmed up (at least to the extent that was possible on a balmy 25 degree morning) and reported to the starting line.

Our previous "scouting" of the course, which was basically limited to looking at the elevation profile for the route on MapMyRun.com and seeing the posted results from the last running of the race, indicated that it was a mostly flat, relatively fast course. This proved accurate, as there was only one noteworthy hill on the course, which you went up right away after the start, and then quickly back down. Since it was an out and back course, we would reverse the process right before the finish.

As I've previously mentioned, my biggest downfall in my prior race was going out way too fast. Part of this was prompted by the fact that I started right on the line, with all the fastest runners, whom I did NOT belong with, and the temptation to try and hang with them for a time was too great. I did not want to repeat that this time. Having scouted prior times, I expected that I would probably be towards the middle of the pack in this race, and so that is where I went. Having the hill staring me right in the face probably also made it easier to keep my early pace in check. Whatever caused it, I did not go out too fast this time.

In fact, I was initially convinced I had gone out too slow, which is why I was not pleased with how quickly discomfort had set in. This mental struggle was exasperated by the fact that I was expecting the course to have mile markers, when it fact, it did not. When 7:30, 8:00, etc came and went on my watch and I still hadn't seen a mile marker, despite definitely feeling like I was pushing myself, I started to be convinced that this wasn't going to be my day. I eventually saw a sign coming up as my watch got near to 8:45, and I was thinking that was a mile marker - "Are you kidding me?" Fortunately, it wasn't a mile marker, and shortly after that, the race leaders came by me going the other way. Knowing the times I was expecting them to run, I knew that I had to be much further along than a mile, and that I really shouldn't be that far from the turnaround.

As it so happened, I got to the turnaround in under 12 minutes. I wasn't on pace with the kind of performance I was hoping to have, but I still had plenty of room to set my PR. That left me in a much better mood as I came back. The only real mistake I made on the way back was due to, once again, not being quite sure where I was at due no mile markers - I started to put on a finishing kick with probably 3/4 of a mile to go, and I really didn't have more than a 1/2 mile in me at that pace, especially with the big hill coming right before the finish. As such, I ended up slowing again before charing up the final hill. As I crested the final hill and saw the finish clock, it was just under 24 minutes, meaning I had plenty of time to get in under my PR. I thought the clock said 24:02 when I crossed, my official time was 24:05. Because I had started deep in the pack, I'm pretty sure that I crossed the start line a good 5-10 seconds after the official start of the race, so it's more likely that I actually came in just under 24 minutes. But by any measure, I bested my PR by at least 22 seconds.

My goals coming in had been as such: I absolutely wanted to set a PR. I was convinced I had a legitimate shot at taking at least a minute off my PR, and an outside shot at breaking 23 minutes. So, I had only broken my base goal, but I had done it fairly handily. That being said, my old PR came on what, in my opinion was a tougher course. The course in Harrisburg last May had 2 hills (ramps coming up from along the water front) that were longer and probably steeper than the hill at the start/finish of this race, and we ran into a stiff 15-20 MPH headwind for a mile or so. So, in terms of performance, I consider the Harrisburg one to be equivalent to the Saginaw effort. When you factor in that I ran a terrible race back in May, the results suggest that I might not yet be back to the level of fitness I had for that race.

Regardless, it's clear that I can't expect to get better at racing without... racing. It had been 7 months since I ran any kind of race, and 8 since I ran a race with intent of setting a time. In the meantime, I hadn't gone more than 2.25 miles at anything faster than long run pace, and you really just can't learn how your body works in a race without the experience.

So, I've made sure to map out a race plan to get me through to the summer. At this point, I am targeting my next race to be on March 6, most likely the "Shiver by the River" in Reading. After that, I plan to do the 5k run at the Race, Run, Ride & Ramble in Shippensburg on April 17th. On May 1, I'm doing the Broad Street 10 mile run in Philly, along with Eli and some other friends from church. I'm not really planning to "race" that one for a real time, just doing it more for the experience - my only "goal" will be to go under 90 minutes, and by that time, I should be running my long training runs at that pace anyhow. I will do another 5k in May. Ideally, I'd like to do the Armed Forces 5k again, so I can see exactly how I've progressed in a year, but I may have a conflict with that date, if they even have it - I can't find any info on it yet. Regardless, there will be plenty of options for a mid-May 5k. If the real summer heat holds off for a bit, I'll run another in mid-June before taking July and August as my offseason.

In addition to plotting a race plan to make sure I get plenty of experience, I'm also making some modifications to my training schedule. My mile times and the times I've been running in my 400 intervals suggest that I already have the speed to go much faster - which means my problem is stamina. So, I'm replacing the mile time trial workouts (in the middle of longer, easy runs) I was doing every other Monday with longer tempo runs, to go along with the shorter "race rehearsals" I was doing on the other Mondays. I'm also changing my interval workouts from 400s to mostly 1200s and 800s - at slower speeds, but still under planned race pace. Putting in these longer workouts at faster speeds should prepare me better, both mentally and physically, for racing.

So, I've got a plan - we'll just see how well I can execute it over the next 4 months or so...

Pacing, pacing, pacing!

2011-01-12T22:29:00.002-05:00

As I previously mentioned, my first race was not as successful as I hoped due to rookie mistakes. The biggest of those mistakes was a failure in pacing. I was hoping to run a time that would have required a 7:10-7:15 per mile pace, but between the initial surge of adrenaline and starting up near the front with some of the faster runners, I wound up going out in about 6:40 for the first mile, and my race was pretty much done from there. So, I learned right away how important pacing was in a race. Lately, however, I’ve discovered how important pacing is in pretty much every aspect of training.

The most significant example of this was in my interval training. When I’m doing intervals, I run a quarter mile at a pace notably faster than my planned race pace, then walk an eighth of a mile, and then repeat the process for however many I’m supposed to do. The idea is to keep a relatively consistent pace throughout the workout, with everything below or at a particular goal. Going into the training plan, the most I had ever done was 7 or 8 intervals, and I always felt like death at the end of those. The training plan called for me to start my weekly speed workouts at 7-8 intervals and step up to 15-16 over 5 weeks by adding 2 every week. I was really skeptical that I was going to be able to do this.

My pattern had been that my first couple intervals were always several seconds faster than my intended steady pace, while the freshness wore off my legs, and then I would start to see the times fall off towards the end. So, I decided to try a new tactic and hold back a little bit early on. It felt kind of awkward at first, and the end result was that my early intervals would be right at, or just over, goal pace. I immediately noticed a couple changes in how these workouts went. First of all, I found myself feeling much stronger (though still plenty tired) at the end. And secondly, I was now running my fastest times in the last several intervals, rather than seeing a drop off. And so, each week as I had to add 2 more intervals, I found it to be very doable – to the point where by the end of the build-up, I was doing a set of 16 intervals that were consistently faster than the sets of 7 or 8 I had been doing at the start.

Something else that I noticed was that when I focused on holding a bit back, my times didn’t really fall off, with the exception of the initial intervals that I had been running too quickly. Instead, I was running similar times and feeling stronger at the finish of each interval. What became apparent from this was that previously, I had been starting out at a pace I couldn’t sustain and falling dramatically off at the end of the interval. When I held something back early, I set a pace I could maintain throughout, and so I ran a similar time without the extra initial strain of going way too fast.

It’s somewhat counterintuitive to think you can run the exact same distance in the exact same time and yet come away with different levels of fatigue, but it’s quite possible. I saw this play out over a longer distance in my longest race rehearsal. My previous race rehearsal had been 2 miles long. I ran it in 14:45, with almost identical mile splits, and I ended it feeling pretty good, though tired. The next rehearsal, almost 3 weeks later, was 2.25 miles. I went out way too fast in the first ¼ mile, wound up running the first mile in 7 flat, and was in trouble. I wound hitting the 2 mile mark in 14:45 again, but this time I felt like I was dying – and I was in better shape and several pounds lighter than I had been in the previous run.

So, given all that, probably the only thought that will be prominent in my head at the start of Saturday’s race is “DON’T GO OUT TOO FAST!” I’ve put in the work and gotten myself back in shape, so I’m pretty sure that the only thing that can keep me from a good race (short of some sort of disastrous weather conditions) will be making that same mistake again.

Two are better than one

2011-01-11T21:07:00.000-05:00

As I mentioned before, one of the steps I took in overcoming training inertia was to find a friend to hold me accountable to my training. The natural person for this job was my good friend Eli, who ran track/cross-country through college, and who I had been casually talking about running with already anyhow. In Eli, I wound up getting more than just an accountability partner – I got something of a coach as well. Up until November, most of the information I had on running/training had just come from what I had found on the internet or other sources I had read. My first training plan I found online, and the one I’m currently using came from a book. There’s nothing wrong with any of these resources, but there’s no substitute for having someone who’s got lots of experience as a runner available to actually talk to, ask questions of, and get feedback from.

I’ve been sending Eli my training plans and my workout results throughout this training cycle, and he responds with encouragement, suggestions, critiques, etc. The thing about a training plan that comes from a book or the internet is that it’s basically going to be basically “one-size fits all.” In my case, Eli is able to look at how things are progressing and suggest modifications that might help me get more out of a particular workout. For instance, my training plan calls for me to do my long runs very slowly, for the purpose of being able to recover from them more quickly. After the first week, Eli noticed my pace in the long run and suggested that I could probably speed those runs up without too much difficulty, due to how the schedule was laid out. So I tried it the next week, and he was right. I sped up by a full minute per mile, still ended the run feeling very strong, and saw no issues with recovery as I got into the next week.

Beyond the practical benefits to the actual training, it’s been very enjoyable to have someone to share the training experience with. Running can be a lonely business. Ideally, I’d like to have a training partner to go along with me, but the reality is that finding someone at the same fitness level, with similar goals who could work the same schedule as me is probably not going to happen. The next best thing is having someone I can talk to about it, who’s got some level of investment in how I’m doing and who wants to see me succeed.

Training "inertia" is a powerful thing

2011-01-10T20:29:00.001-05:00

I've learned a few lessons over the winding road of my running career over the past few months, and so with these next few posts, I will chronicle a few of them, starting with my experience with what I have come to call training "inertia."

The principle of inertia is that objects in motion tend to stay in motion, and that objects at rest tend to stay at rest, unless they are acted upon by an outside force. More simply put – it’s easier to keep an moving object moving than it is to get it moving in the first place! My experience of the late summer and early fall has made it quite clear to me how much a similar principle applies to training.
The biggest mistake I made in all of this was to allow myself to get completely out of any kind of running routine back at the end of the summer. I wanted to pull back some because of the heat, and I don’t think that was a flawed plan in and of itself. However, in hindsight, I really needed to have had a clear plan for continuing to train in some fashion, and then I needed to stick with it. Once I was out of the rhythm of training, it was far too easy for me to come up with excuses not to work out on a particular day. I mean, really, what was I giving up? This was especially powerful because for a good part of this time, I was still trying to run in the morning, which meant getting up at 5 am. The urge to stay in bed for an extra hour was, unsurprisingly, quite strong. The fact that I wasn’t really even “breaking training” to do so made the impulse that much harder to overcome, and there were many mornings when I reset the alarm for 6 and crawled back into bed.

There is at least one key difference between real inertia and training inertia. In most cases, an object doesn’t become more difficult to move based on how long it’s been sitting still. That big rock in the middle of your yard is going to take as much effort to get rolling today as it would 3 weeks from now, unless special circumstances intervene. This is not true of training inertia. The longer you’re stopped, the harder it is to get started again, because your training being at rest, by its very nature, causes a number of outside forces resisting your motion to get stronger over time. You lose fitness, which means you know when you do go out again, it’s going to be more difficult. And because it’s been so long since you have run, it’s easier to build the mental case for how bad it’s going to be. On top of that, I was also letting my eating habits slide, so I was also putting weight back on. This only magnified the effects of the loss of fitness, because it obviously takes more effort to run the heavier you are. And of course, you find other things to do with the time that you had blocked out to train, so you have the extra effort of clearing the schedule back out to get started again.

So, one thing I must absolutely do going forward is to make sure I always have a clear training plan, and that I’m sticking to it. I still plan to treat summers as my offseason for running, but I need to replace whatever running I take out of my schedule with some form of training, to ward off both the physical and mental aspects of training inertia.

A running reboot

2011-01-09T12:51:00.000-05:00

So, when last we left my adventures in running, I had admitted to having gone through a rather poor period in my training. I had planned on cutting back to 2-3 workouts per week over the summer in concession to the heat. Instead, I ended up going through a stretch where I only ran 4 times in about 5 weeks. My plan at that time was to get myself back into a running groove over the end of August, and then start really training again, with the intent to run a race in mid-October. Suffice to say, that didn’t happen. The plan started off well. I had couple good weeks to close August, and then got a solid start in the first week of my training program during the first week of September. Unfortunately things went dramatically downhill from there.

The following week I went to California with my Mom and Dad, to visit extended family. The large portion of my trip was going to spent fishing with my Dad and uncle above 10,000 feet in the Sierra Nevada Mountains. I took my running gear along, but being honest with myself, I knew that I was probably wasn’t going to be completely faithful to my training schedule. I ended up not running at all. About the same time, I realized that I had a case of plantar fasciitis in my left foot, and it was becoming more acute. Under different circumstances, I might have just run through it. Plantar actually works itself out and becomes less painful while running, so it’s not necessarily a major hindrance to training – it can just make walking and standing the rest of the time rather painful. However, since I wasn’t in a particularly good place with my training to begin with, I decided to take some time off to let it heal, as opposed to having to deal with it for months while continuing to train. That led to another 2 ½ week gap in my training. Once I got started again, I never got myself back into a training groove. By mid-October, I had only run 5 times in about a four week span. I had held off on registering for the October race, so I just let it go, and I was in no shape to run it anyhow.

At this point, I realized I was at a defining moment in my running career. I either needed to get my act together and get serious about training again, or just forget about racing altogether for a while. If I didn’t get going soon, I was going to have very limited time for racing before getting back into the summer. For a variety of reasons, some of which I may share at a later time, I came to the conclusion that the latter was not an option. So, with that decision made, I re-adjusted my plans again. I got a friend to hold me accountable to a training plan. I made plans to run a race in December just for the experience (in other words, I wasn’t going to train for a goal time), in order to give me something that I would need to get in shape for. At that point, my tentative plan was to follow that up with a race in January that I would fully train for, and then continue with several more races through the spring.

So, come the beginning of November, I was finally back at it. I began running regularly again, using workouts that were based on the first week of Jeff Galloway training program I was planning to use when I started “officially” training. At the outset, I backed the workouts down a bit in terms of length and intensity. I was really out of shape relative to where I had been, and I didn’t want to push too hard, too fast and potentially sustain another injury. I got through November running 3 times every week, except for one week when I only ran twice due to a significant intervention by life. As I got toward the end of November, I began thinking that the December race I was planning on wasn’t the best idea. For one thing, the website for it was really sketchy in terms of information on the course, past results, etc. Secondly, I was looking at a couple of mid-January options for my next race. In order to fully train for a mid-January race, I was going to have to start before the December race, meaning I’d have to disrupt my schedule to do it. So, in consultation with my accountability partner, who was also planning to run it, I made the decision to save my money, skip the race, and focus on training for a mid-January race.

Besides, having the plan of the December race had served its purpose anyhow: I was back in a good training rhythm and ready to go further. The Monday after Thanksgiving I started on my full training plan. I had been kicking around a couple of different January races, and eventually settled on running the Saginaw 5k in the York area on January 15^th with a couple of friends. Training for the race went quite well. I only missed one workout, and I pretty much was able to make that up on the elliptical that night. My resolve to stick with the plan was quickly tested. Those who live in this area know December was unseasonably cold, which meant it was “real” winter running weather well ahead of schedule, but I persevered, with the help of plenty of warm running gear. I’ve found I actually enjoy running in cold weather, and that it’s much better than running when it’s really warm! Now, when it’s cold and really windy… that’s another story, but I managed to fight through those couple of nights as well. Luckily, despite the cold, there hasn’t been much snow yet. I’ve only run while it was snowing once, and there hasn’t yet been enough snow to make road conditions an issue for any length of time.

So, as things stand today, I have finished up the hard part of the training and am now tapering for the race on Saturday. The end result of all this is that I feel like I’m going into this race at a level of fitness similar to what I had for my race back in May, perhaps slightly better. My primary goal is simply to best my PR from that race – 24:27. However, I ran a terrible race that day due to some key rookie mistakes, so I’m very hopeful that I can take a big chunk off of that time. My more optimistic goal is to challenge the 23 minute barrier. Regardless of any of that, I’m very happy to be finally getting back into a race and getting more of that experience under my belt.

I'm back!

2011-01-07T20:31:00.000-05:00

Well, I’m back! Admit it, you missed me – all 3 of you that read this space whenever I happen to write something in it. It’s hard to believe it’s been since the middle of August since I posted anything, but that’s how it goes I suppose.

The funny thing about this prolonged absence is that it’s not like I haven’t been writing. On the contrary, I’ve probably written as much over the last 4+ months as I have in several years, it just hasn’t gone onto the blog. Much of it has been rather personal, of a nature that I didn’t just want to dump unfiltered out onto the internet – although I will likely wind up sharing a good bit of it in other forms as I resume “publishing” my work.

Ah yes, about that – I have a plan! I have been clearing space in my schedule to re-dedicate myself to writing, with the stated goal of producing at least one formal writing that is designed for “public consumption” every week. These works will be crafted, revised, edited, etc. For the time being, this blog will be the medium in which I will publish that work. However, in the not too distant future, I plan to launch a second site which will be reserved for those works, a more “professional” space, if you will. That will leave this space as more of a personal blog for informal updates and quips, things that I write on the spur of the moment without much crafting or filtering, basically the things you’d expect to find on a blog. I expect these will become more frequent again as I put more time into writing in general.

So, ready or not, here I come again!

Getting back after it

2010-08-16T18:56:00.005-04:00

Well, my transition to "off-season" running didn't go as well as I had hoped. What I meant by that is that I didn't keep my running up as much as I would have liked. My intention was to stick to 2-3 times out a week, but I wound up doing more like 1 time a week, due to a combination of factors - climate, softball playoffs (I HATE the way our league schedules them), other scheduling matters, and most recently this past week, illness, as I caught a rare August cold. Other than the week of softball playoffs, the weather was probably the biggest driving factor. It continued to be such a crazily warm summer, and it seemed like no matter how much I tried to plan my schedule to fit in on the decent days, virtually every day I scheduled a run wound up being one of those mornings where when I woke up, it was already 75 and really humid out. Had I been in a rhythm, I think I could probably have fought through a few of those days, but it was just too easy to wait for the next opportunity.

But now, the time has come to begin thinking about training again, as I am but 2 months away from my next planned race, the Falcon Fun Run at Messiah's homecoming on October 16. Back when I started all of this, the plan was for this race to be towards the end of a running season that would run from spring until late fall - now it's to be the beginning of my "second" season, which will run from fall through early summer.

I'm switching my training plan to methods prescribed by Jeff Galloway. Galloway is well-known for his training methods, particularly at the longer distances, and most notably the "walk/run" method, which utilizes walk breaks, even while racing. This also applies to his methods at the 5k/10k level, though the paces I've already run at the 5k level are getting close to the end of where I would be walking during a race. His training plan was attractive to me over my prior plan for a few reasons:

#1 - In general, his approach favors dialing back the intensity slightly and increasing the length of the workout, relative to what I was doing with my old setup. I've already done some of the workouts he details, and I find I enjoy the long runs much more - and the speed work is more managable as well.

#2 - This plan includes workouts designed as "race rehearsals", where I will actually run at shorter, building distances at/near my intended race pace.

#3 - This plan only does 4 day a week running - the other did 5, though one day was very light, and I was just never able to fully make that work. 4 running days also leaves me a desired 3 days a week for strength training, without mixing the 2.

Starting tomorrow, I'll spend the next 2 weeks easing back into a more regular running schedule, and then start "real" training on August 30th. I had hoped to maintain more of my form through the summer, but at this point, I'm guessing that getting ready for this first race will be more about recovering the conditioning I've lost (and shedding the few extra pounds I've put back on) than really advancing my speed significantly. Training for this race will also meet the schedule challenge of a week's vacation in California (including several days camping at altitude) during the 2nd week, and an extended weekend in South Bend, Indiana the weekend before the race - but I shall press on!

Galloway has a 5k training plan for breaking 20 minutes and one for breaking 25 minutes - neither of which fits my immediate needs. He makes the methodlogies for determining the pacing of workouts in the plans pretty clear, so I'll be using the workout schedule for the 20 minute goal, but with workout paces designed more for a 22:30-23:00 time. As I get ready to get back at it, my only firm goal for the October race is to better my PR of 24:27 from the Armed Forced Day 5k back in May - as training begins and progresses, I may set more lofty goals.

Well, that was a kick in the head (for reals)

2010-07-26T21:34:00.003-04:00

I've had my share of injuries playing softball through the years. There are ones you expect, that just come with the territory. Examples of these would be a bruise from having a ball hit part of your body, and scraping up your legs from sliding or diving for a ball. Pretty commonplace, nothing to be concerned about. You might even get banged up from colliding with another player.

You do not, however, expect to get kicked in the head playing softball, and you especially do not expect said kick to come from a player on your own team, but alas, that is what happened. Let me allieviate any concern right away - this happened almost 2 hours ago now, and I'm pretty certain that I'm no worse for the wear except for a sore neck, that will likely be be more sore tomorrow.

So, here's how it happened. We were playing our playoff game, I was playing third base, as is my custom. There was a hit to the outfield. I don't remember the specifics, but the bottom line was that a runner was coming to third, and a throw come in from the outfield, rather wildly, to try and throw him out. I had to scamper off the base and make a pretty good stab to keep the ball in front of me. Because the runner saw how bad the throw was, he didn't stop right on the base but kept going around. As he saw I caught the ball, he stopped and went to dive back to the base, and I dove back into the bag to try and tag him. I was too late, and just as my glove hit the ground, I felt a "thud" on the back of my head, and I dropped down to the base.

As it turned out, our shortstop had come running in towards third. I'm not sure if he had been coming that way thinking he would get the ball if I missed it, or if he was trying to get to the bag to give a throw. Regardless, when he saw the runner diving into the base, he evidently tried to jump over him, and succeeded, but he did not succeed in jumping over me. Thus, I received a "nice" kick to the head.

I laid there, head on the base, pretty sure I was okay, but not wanting to get up until I was pretty certain of it. I never lost concisousness, though I gave our shortstop quite a scare, because while I laid there, I apparently had my eyes closed, and since I didn't move, he thought I was out. But I wasn't, I was completely awake, aware of what had just happened, what was going on in the game, etc, and after a few minutes of recovery, I returned to my position and the game continued.

I felt about cloudy for a while - after all, I had just been kicked in the head. However, by game's end (there was only another inning plus), that had all pretty much cleared out. I had my teammate check my eyes, nothing was dialated, and so I was without any of the symptons that I'm aware of for a concussion. Actually, given the nature of the hit, and how I felt immediately afterward, I think my neck took more of the pressure than my, which is why I expect to be sore in the morning.

All in all, a rather different softball experience, and now I can use the phrase "That's a kick in the head" as someone with experience! If only we had won the game...

Charting a new course

2010-07-07T21:42:00.002-04:00

So, I've come to a "new" realization in the last few weeks: It gets really, really hot in the summer.

Okay, so, not exactly groundbreaking, I realize. In fact, it's something I already knew very well - it's just taken on a different meaning for me this year. You see, for the past several years, dealing with the summer heat basically meant dealing with a warm commute to work and toughing out the occasional softball game during a scorcher. Not the most fun in the world, but not really a big deal. Something changed for this year, and that, of course, was the fact that I took up running, which, as you know, generally takes place outdoors.

This ramifications of this realization began to take shape two Saturdays past, when I ran a 5k in my hometown of Shippensburg. This was to be an "experience" race anyhow, in that I wasn't going to be gunning at a particular time goal - and that was really for the best, because as the race approached it was clear it was going to be a really hot day, like around 90 for the high hot (though not as bad as this week). 2 things about the race exasperated the problem. First of all, the race was scheduled for 10 am. Now, I've not been racing very long, but it seems to me that waiting until mid-morning for a race start in the summer is just not a good idea. My first race started at 8:00 am, and had this one been the same, we could have had it about 10 degrees cooler than the 80 degrees we got. As a reference, the book I'm reading on a new training approach I'm looking to transition to considers anything above 60 to be adverse conditions, in terms of your ability to run your best time.

Secondly, apparently these race organizers don't know what distance a 5k is actually supposed to cover. 5 kilometers is roughly 3.1 miles. The night before the race, I drove what I roughly understood the course to be, without knowledge of where the exact start and finish would be. What I drove measured out somewhere over 3.3 miles, so I figured the start and finish would fall somewhere that would cut off the extra .2. When I got there Saturday morning, the start/finish line was actually positioned to make the course at least a tenth of a mile longer than what I had driven, so the race was going to be more like 3.5 miles than 5k.

I went out pretty slow, but the heat was just brutal (there was zero cloud cover and minimal shade on the course to offer any relief), and by about 2 miles I was feeling pretty spent. It was just an experience race, like I said, and I decided that what I wanted to experience was having a decent finish, so I walked for about a half a mile and then put on a very strong finish - came across in about 31 minutes, which translates to more like 28 for an actual 5k. Not exactly stellar, but I accomplished my only real goal of not having a completely miserable day that made me never want to run another 5k :-)

Anyhow, as you know if you live in the area, the week after the race we caught a stretch of spring-like weather, and I resumed my training with new vigor. And then, the heat wave hit. I'd already switched my workouts back to the mornings to deal with the rising temperatures, but lately we've consistently had overnight "lows" in excess of 70 degrees, so even if I get out before 5:30 am like usual, it's still already very warm, and you get the added humidity of the morning to go with it. Now, I see people running all the time anyhow, and if I was just doing easy running/long running, I could probably continue without issue, and just slow the pace down, but I find speed work in this mess to be absolutely brutal - and it's not the most fun thing to begin with. It also doesn't help that I play softball, and the last thing I want to do after playing 2 softball games on a 90+ degree night is go to bed and then get right up and run in more warm, humid weather the following morning.

So I've made a decision - full-scale training in mid-summer may work for some, but it is just not for me, and continuing to push at it is only likely to discourage me altogether. I also would like to remain active in softball and other recreational summer activities going forward, which are at odds with training as well - both from a perspective of taking energy away from training, and from posing extra injury risk. I've been through a winter already, and while there were some issues, I much preferred training in the cold to training the in the heat. There's just so much more you can do to combat the cold as opposed to what you can do when dealing with heat - and the activity of running itself is your ally in cold weather. There was actually only 1 day this winter where I skipped a planned run because I thought it was too cold, and I wasn't really even training for anything at that point, so it was easier to make those kinds of concessions because there was less motivation. February was kind of a rough month due to the 3 massive snow storms, but this wasn't a typical winter for our area in that regard.

All of that being said, at this point, I'm officially declaring myself to be in my running "off-sesaon." The race I was planning on running on August 14th in Mechanicsburg has been downgraded from a goal race to an experience race, with the potential for forgoing it entirely if it's a brutally hot day. Instead of full training (4 days a week, with 2 days dedicated to some form of speed work, 1 long run and one easy run, with each week getting progressively more difficult) aimed at improvement, I will simply look to maintain as much of my current level of conditioning as possible with a lighter schedule that will stay consistent rather than building week to week, with more cross-training as well. Come the end of August, I'll plan to begin full-scale training for the Falcon Fun Run at Messiah's homecoming on October 16, and then look to continue training and racing through the late fall and winter, into late spring/early summer, before hitting the "off-season" again next summer.

So, you live and learn, and you make adjustments. I had a plan, the plan is now changing, and may change again in the future.

What have I become?

2010-06-15T21:58:00.002-04:00

Okay, so the simple fact of that matter is that if you'd have told me any time up to about a year ago that I'd be doing any kind of running on a regular basis, let alone training for and running 5k races, I'd probably have laughed at you. I've gone through most of my life believing that I hated running, and that short of some sort of health issue that left me with little other choice, it would never be something I would get into.

That being said, on Sunday I had what is probably the biggest "who is this person?" moment that I've run across to date in my running life.

First, some background - as you know if you keep up with this blog (which, let's be honest, isn't a dreadfully time consuming task these days), a few weeks ago I began round 2 of my training schedule, prepping for the "Run for Reading" 5k in Mechanicsburg on August 14th. What you may not realize is that there was a rather noteworthy climate shift between the time I completed my serious training and started to taper for my first 5k and when I went to pick up training again - good old southcentral PA summer weather had crept around, which meant I was encountering 85 degree heat with accompanying high humidity, when previously I had been predominantly dealing with maybe 65-70 degree, relatively dry weather as the worst case scenario.

Anyhow, I was able to get through the main part of training that week - I was running in the evenings at/around sundown, so that blunted some of the heat issues, though I was certainly feeling it. When the weekend came and it was time for my 5 mile run, however, it was a different matter. I tried to run on Saturday morning - got out at maybe 9, thinking that would be good enough to beat the serious heat of the day - and it was. However, it was already 75 degrees, with humdity probably up in the 80% range, and the sun was out and just beating down. A 5 mile run at the pace I was planning to run ordinarily wouldn't have been much of anything to me at this point, but about a mile and a half in, I knew I was in trouble. It didn't help matters that I went out slightly faster than I had planned, but I don't think that was really the issue - I was just not prepared for the conditions. I toughed it out, but ultimately I was bonking with pretty much nothing at my disposal to remedy the situation, so I pack it in after a disappointing 3.5 miles.

Overall, I was really discouraged by the workout, and with the weather forecast not looking much different for the next several days (except for when it would rain), I wound up not going out at all for the next week. By the end of the week, my resolve was back and I prepared to get started up again in the week to come - with one notable change - I would move my workouts to the early morning, which is how I had started out, until the middle of winter when it was just to cold. So, I had come full circle, as I was now finding it too hot to run after work. Running in the morning is also helpful now that softball season is in full swing, because I can't really run in the evening on game nights.

The schedule change worked quite well through the week, which brought me to the weekend and my next attempt at a longer run. I was resolved to do a few thing differently this time, which I expected would help. First was to increase the frequency with which I took in water, to compensate for the extra I was losing due to conditions. Second was to bring some sports drink along, to replace some of the things I was sweating out besides just water. Lastly was to be absolutely sure to keep my early pace under control.

However, there was still the matter of conditions - and Sunday was looking an awfully lot like the Saturday of my ill-fated last attempt. All of which leads me to the "who is this person?" moment - I decided to set my alarm for 5:15 on a Sunday morning so I could get out before the sun was all the way up. When I took off, it was only 68 degrees, but weather.com actually said it was 100% humidity. It was actually rather cloudy, so the sun wouldn't have been a major issue anyhow, but I'm still glad I got out really early. The run went markedly better than my prior attempt, and I completed a full 5 miles at a pace I was pleased with, though I did run the last 2 miles on flatter terrain than I usually would because I was starting to feel it and I wanted to make sure I covered the distance.

Really, I think the "who is this person?" moment came after the run, when I had showered, replenished fluids, and had something to eat - at which point I laid down to take a nap before church. That kind of blew my mind. (Don't worry though, I didn't let that interfere with my more standard post-church nap... )

The gameplan, round 2

2010-05-23T21:17:00.003-04:00

Well, the LOST finale has started, but I don't want to watch commercials, so I'm killing time for a few minutes before starting it off the DVR, and so I thought it was probably time to get my training goals for round 2 set down. Lucky you, my special handful of readers :-)

Anyhow, this week was designated as an easy week, and it turned out to be much easier than initially planned. I followed through with running a mile time-trial on Tuesday on the course that has more inclines to it, as I mentioned in a previous post, and came up with a 6:35 that I was very pleased with. My intent was then to run a two-mile trial on Friday night, and then go 4-5 miles today. However, I wound up doing some fasting this weekend, and I figured serious exercise isn't probably the best idea when you're not eating much, so I put those plans on hold.

Anyhow, this coming week will bring the resumption of training. I have previously mentioned the major tweaks to my approach this time out, and there's another one or two I will mention in the details here.

Speed Intervals
Starting objective: 4 intervals, all run in 1:25 or less
Final objective: 7 intervals, all run in 1:25 or less

This is one of my minor tweaks. The training plan itself calls to start at 3 and go to 6 intervals by the end of the schedule. I could do that, with a goal to get much faster this time out. However, I'm already intervaling at or just above the pace I've read I need to look at if I want to get to my long term goal, so it's more important to be able to add intervals rather than speed them up. I don't need more top-end speed, I need more ability to sustain it. I'd like to be able to get to 8 intervals by the end of the 3rd cycle, so I'm planning on going from 4 to 7 with a slight time drop this time, and then just look to go from 5 to 8 with a similar time in the 3rd cycle. You'll note, as opposed to last time, I'm not looking to drop my times over the course of training - I discovered last time that's just not that realistic. I'm adding an interval at least once every two weeks, so that's all I can really ask - trying to go faster at the same time isn't helpful.

Midweek 2/3 mile runs
Starting objective: 2 miles at 8:20/mile pace
Ending objective: 3 miles at 8:10/mile pace

Again, I could do these faster if I wanted, but it would wind up creating problems with my more important workouts, mainly the tempo runs. I proved that point to myself last cycle, when about week 5 I was feeling really good and wound up going 8:05 pace over 3 miles, which was a good 25 seconds better than I was supposed to run - it led to a couple of subpar workouts in a row until I took some extra rest. 8:20 is about what I was able to do very comfortably at the end of the last training cycle, and I'm really not looking to go much faster with these.

Tempo runs
Starting objective: 30 minutes total, 15 minutes fast (7:25/mile pace)
Finishing objective: 40 minutes total, 20 minutes fast (7:15/mile pace)

At first glance, if you saw my first cycle objectives, it looks like I'm taking a step back. I met my goals and was tempoing at/under 7:10/mile by the end of the first cycle. However, there are a couple mitigating factors here - mainly the change of venue. I'm moving from my half-mile loop, which is pretty flat and may be a bit short, to my mile loop, which has more hills to it, and is definitely at least the length I'm counting it as. Also, I think I was previously tempoing too fast. Given my mile time of 6:35 on the same course, 7:25 is an appropriate tempo pace. We'll see how it goes. Regardless, the change of terrain should make these runs much more indicative of what I would be able to do comfortably on a moderate 5k course.

Long runs
Starting objective: 5 miles, 8:45/mile pace
Finishing objective: 7 miles, 8:30/mile pace

Nothing too fancy here - my last long run of cycle 1 was 7 miles at an 8:37 pace. If I can take these runs a bit faster comfortably, I will, but I'm not looking for crazy improvement here, because pushing these runs will, again, negatively impact my speed/stamina workouts.

So, there's the plan. There is a minor catch this time around. My training plan runs 8 weeks, including the taper week before the race, but the next race I'm officially training for is 12 weeks ago. My plan will be to taper mid-plan for the race in Shippensburg on 6/26, give myself another relatively easy week the week after, and then resume by repeating the last week I had done on the schedule. That will eat up 3 of my 4 extra weeks, so I'll still have a week to play with, and how that gets used will depend on how the rest of the cycle goes.

A better way (I think)

2010-05-19T19:59:00.003-04:00

So, as you might know, this Sunday is the finale of ABC's LOST, one of the more anticipated events in recent TV history. The show has been quite popular and has kept it's fans guessing for the better part of the last 6 years, and they will all be watching as the answers (well, at least most of them, I'm sure there will be some mystery left) are revealed. And I will join them, though my journey has been a bit different.

You see, prior to the first of this year, I had never seen a single episode of LOST. I really am not one to be drawn to new TV shows by the previews, so I rarely catch a new show from the very beginning, and by the time I'd heard enough good things about LOST to be intrigued by it, it was several episodes in, and I knew it was the kind of show that I'd want to see from the beginning. Catching up on a show was not as easy back in 2004 as it is today, with the prevalence of things like iTunes, video on-demand service, networks posting back episodes on their website, etc, so I figured some day, at least after the first season DVDs came out, I'd give the show a try and catch up if I liked it. Some day turned out to be earlier this year, and it wasn't by some serious compulsion - I got a Blu-ray player for Christmas, had my Netflix account ready to go, and was looking for some adds to the queue. LOST was one of the more intriguing options to come to mind, so I added the first season and was ready to see if I liked it. After the first disc or so in the first season, I was into the show and decided that I would continue.

This immediately presented me with a bit of a deadline. I knew the season that was upcoming was to be the last for the show. As popular and talked about as LOST was, I also knew that, were I not caught up and able to watch the finale when it aired, there was no way I was going to be go any length of time without hearing some major spoilers - so I had to caught up by the finale. I added seasons 2-5 to my queue and got to work. When the beginning of February rolled around, I set my DVR to record all of this season's episodes so they would be ready for me when I needed them. I initially wound up going almost too fast, and in March and April had to "ration" my watching, because I decided I couldn't go from being able to watch a new episode pretty much on demand to getting caught early in the final season and having to wait week to week. It worked out pretty well, and tonight I just watched last week's episode and last night's episode, so I'm all caught up and ready for the finale.

Inadvertantly, I may have stumbled onto a vastly superior way to watch TV - or at least serial dramas. I see a number of very positive aspects of going this way:

1. No fear of "failure" - Like I said, I don't often get in on the ground floor of shows very often, so this isn't something I've run into too often, but very often serial dramas don't grab enough of an audience and get dumped before they can wrap up their storylines - which really sucks for the loyal fans the show did have. My most recent similar experience to this has been with Friday Night Lights, which started out on NBC, was very nearly axed after its first season, and then was moved so that its first run epsiodes would air exclusively on DirecTV, before re-runing on NBC. It's made it through 4 seasons now (the last two have been shortened), but the 4th season was the first one that ended with any certainty about whether the show was coming back (the last renewal was for seasons 4 + 5, with 5 widely expected to be the last), and yet season finales constantly left plenty of unresolved questions. Heroes also just got axed after 4 seasons having left a lot open in its season (now series) finale, but that show has been consistently going in the tank for the last couple seasons and I wasn't likely to come back anyhow. Regardless, going the "wait and catch-up" route eliminates this concern - you can start watching knowing the plots will be brought to conclusion, or you can at least make an educated decision to watch a show that got the early axe, knowing what you'll be getting into.

2. No waiting - Watching a show as it unfolds always necessitates waiting at least a week between episodes, and in the case of serial dramas, you're usually signing up for months between seasons with some sort of cliffhanger to be resolved. The shorter seasons LOST has run from 4-6 have resulted in almost 9 months between season finale and season premiere, and for shows that run through a full traditional season, these days you're almost invariably looking at some form of hiatus at multiple times to keep the episodes lined up with sweeps and the like. The longest I went between LOST episodes was a week (driven by blizzard related mail delays and a disc that was broken on delivery), and it just so happened that occurred between the 2nd season finale and 3rd season premiere, so I was still months ahead of everyone else on that wait. This also feeds into...

3. No commercials - There are no commercials on Blu-rays, and I can skip them on the DVR'd episodes. Nothing more needs to be said.

4. Ease of recall - Most shows aren't as involved as LOST, but in general, serial dramas are building on something, which makes it helpful if you remember what happened in previous episodes and seasons. I could be wrong, but I'm assuming it's much easier to remember what happened in Season 1 if you watched it a few months ago as opposed to several years ago.

5. Muting of a potential final letdown - Let's face it, a number of these kind of shows have had finales that were quite disappointing. I feel like such a letdown would be much less brutal if you've only been watching for a few months before getting to them as opposed to 5+ years.

Now, there are also some potential pitfalls with this method, the primary one being the obvious issue of spoilers. By catching up before the finale, I've eliminated the possibility the "big" spoiler, but as popular as LOST is, it was inevitable that I was going to pick up somethings, some of which I had picked up before I even started watching. It got particularly difficult once season 6 started up, but overall, I didn't have anything major spoiled. And of course, there's the fact that if everyone tried to employ this method, there would never be a serial drama made again, because they wouldn't get ratings. This is also an easier method for me, because I don't watch a ton of non-sports TV to begin with, so I have time to devote to such an effort, in short bursts.

Regardless of all of that, I've really enjoyed watching LOST in this manner, and will likely try do something similar in the future. I'm probably not patient enough to take this approach with every show that piques my curiosity :-)

Some course corrections

2010-05-18T21:24:00.004-04:00

So, if you read the comments in my race report, you might have noticed that my initial disappointment in my performance in my first ever 5k had begun to fade as the day continued on, and that trend continued. Not to say that I'm totally pleased today, but I'm content with it for a number of reasons.

1. Prior to Saturday, I had never competed in an actual race of over 1/4 mile (I think), so just finishing was an accomplishment I became more pleased with as I reflected.
2. A significant part of my struggles were caused by poor initial pacing. Proper pacing is probably one of the hardest things to do in a 5k, and so it was probably somewhat unrealistic for me to expect to get it right in my first race.
3. My goal time of 22:30 was based on my perception of what my optimum performance should be over 5k, and upon further reflection, there was no reason I should have expected optimum performance given the course, which had 2 short but quite steep inclines, and featured full a mile of running directly into a stiff headwind. (Yes, said wind was at my back for most of the last mile, but trust me, it doesn't even out...) The winning time in last year's race was 17:51, and although they haven't posted the official results for this year's race yet, I was told by my cheering section that the first runner came across the line in well over 18 this year. These are not blazing fast 5k times, and for a race of this size (I would say approximately 300 people) to be won by them would definitely indicate that this is not a particularly fast course. In retrospect, a time of 2300-23:30 was probably what I would have been looking at with proper pacing.

So, overall, I'm in much better place with my feelings about the run. Further, I was quite encouraged by my fitness level today when I did a mile time trial in what I am going to call my personal best, of 6:35. I say I'm going to call it my best, because technically I ran a faster mile shortly before I started officially training for Saturday's rest, in 6:25. However, I ran that mile as 2 circuits of my half-mile loop, which I am now convinced is slightly shorter than a half mile. I ran today's mile on my mile loop, which is definitely a mile and if anything is slightly longer. The mile loop is also rather undulating with a couple of steady climbs, while the half mile loop is pretty flat, so even if they are the same length, I'm convinced my 6:35 time on the mile loop is a much better running performance. I'll have to get to a track at some point, because I'm convinced I could probably start to attack the 6 minute mile barrier on a flat run.

So, all of that said, upon reflection, I'm looking at the following changes to my training and race plans. Originally, I only intended to do 3 races this year, to allow time for a full training cycle in between each one. I'm now convinced I need to run a few more races to get experience, even if I'm not "fully" trained for the extra ones. So, my current plan is to next run the Travis Henry Memorial 5k in my hometown of Shippensburg on 6/26 as an "experience" race, and then the Run for Reading 5k in Mechanicsburg on 8/14 as my next race I'm formally training for. After that, I will be looking for a 5k in the mid-September time frame, while training for the Falcon Fun Run at Messiah's Homecoming on 10/16. I've also decided I'll want to stay in training through to December before taking the coldest part of the winter a bit easier, so I'll probably be looking for a race or two in the November/December time frame.

Because the 8/14 date for the Run for Reading is out a couple weeks beyond my 8 week training schedule, I may actually take the week before the 6/26 run and taper for it, but we'll see how things go. I, of course, reserve the right to change my schedule due to injury, other setback, or my whim:)

I'll be setting some training goals later this week, but I have decided to make two key changes to my training approach this time around. First of all, to help myself with being able to feel proper pace, I'm going to work to discipline myself not to check my watch at intervals smaller than half a mile on my tempo and long runs. Secondly, I am going to move my tempo runs (my longest speed workouts) from the half-mile loop to the mile loop. There are two reasons for this - the first being the distance issue I mentioned earlier - I think running the half-mile loop this time around gave me a slightly unrealistic picture of my pace, by moving to the mile loop, if anything, I'll think I'm going a bit slower than I really am, and I prefer that going into a race. Secondly, the mile loop, while not containing any severe hills, comes much closer to replicating what I could expect on a typical 5k course in terms of inclines than the flater half-mile loop.

So, at this point, I'm really feeling re-energized and ready to start prepping for the next race. Of course, that's not to say I'm not enjoying having a more relaxed schedule this week :-)

Armed Forces Day 5k - Race Report

2010-05-15T09:38:00.003-04:00

Well, after some spotty weather all week, we were blessed with a beautiful day for the race. It was about 60 degrees and sunny, with a nice breeze moving at race time (8 am).

That, unfortunately, was the main highlight of the day, as I made the mistake I absolutely swore I couldn't make and went out too fast. My plan of attack was to be even mile splits, or even negative splits (getting fast over the course of the race), but assuming the rough mile markers I got from the online course maps (there was nothing official out on the course), I blew that possibility out of the water by running the first mile in about 6:50-6:55, which is a good 20 seconds below the 7:10-7:15 pace I was looking to have over the course of the race, and it absolutely cost me in the last half of the race.

Adding to the difficulties was that I had not totally had a good understanding of the course. We started on City Island and did almost a full lap of the island before heading across the Walnut Street walking bridge. At this point, we did a little turn and headed along the river. Looking at the map, I was thinking we were just staying up at the level of the bridge, but we actually dropped down to the lower level via a fairly steep hill. Not a big problem at that point, but it meant that we were going to have to go back up that hill right before the finish, and it also meant there was a similar hill to navigate at the turnaround point about 2 miles into the race. It also put us right down next to the river, into quite a wind tunnel that was blowing into our faces on the way out.

Between the wind in the face and having gone out too fast, my planning of having something in reserve for the last mile just didn't come together, and I was really just trying to hang on. The hill back up onto the bridge pretty much did me in, and the final run back across the bridge was far from triumphant. I did manage a final push to the finish to get in around 24:30, which was a solid 2 minutes below my goal, and I'm pretty that way too fast first mile cost me pretty much all of that time. Granted, 24:30 for a 5k is nothing to be ashamed of in the grand scheme of things, it's still under an 8 minute mile pace, and while the official results are yet to come, I know I finished ahead of significantly more people than I finished behind. That being said, I know I could have done a lot better - by the end of my training cycle I was able to run 3 miles at an 8:10-8:15/mile pace and feel very comfortable throughout, so going well under an 8 minute pace in 5k race shouldn't have been much of a problem - had I done a better job of pacing myself early in the race.

So, that will be a point of emphasis for my next round of training - being able to have a better feel for my pace. The difference between training and a race is that I know my training courses, I have checkpoints all along the way, so if I'm off pace, I know about it within a quarter mile and can make the adjustment. Today, all I had was a rough idea of where each mile was, and so until I got my first reliable time check, I was already in trouble. So, I will probably try to find some less familiar paths to run this time around, and also discipline myself to not look at my watch as much while I'm on my regular paths. I do not think my 22:30 goal was unrealistic for my level of conditioning, despite the fact that I fell 2 minutes short of it - I think the time was more reflective of my lack of experience than anything else.

So, what's up next? I plan to have a slightly easier week this week, perhaps just a couple days where I do some time-trailing at some shorter distances (1 and 2 miles) and then a 4-5 mile run over the weekend, and then I'll reset my training plan with new goals for this time around. At this point, I'm eyeing a couple options for races in late July/early August to be the next one that I'm "officially" training for. There's also a 5k in my hometown on 6/26 that I'm eyeing more seriously after today. It will be squarely in the middle of my training cycle, so I would be looking at it more for getting some more experience at running the distance than for a real barometer of progress - though I would probably be hoping for at least some sort of a PR given my time today.

So, all in all, I was disappointed today, but not disheartened, and very motivated to continue training and learning so that I can improve. I finished, and for the first one, I guess that has to be the primary goal :)

Well, it's official

2010-05-02T21:24:00.002-04:00

Today, I officially registered for the Armed Forces Day 5k in Harrisburg on Saturday, May 15th, so I suppose it is on...

Training has gone very well to date, although I am skipping my long run this weekend because I've listened to my body. I did my longest tempo run ever on Friday evening around sundown, had a long day yesterday, and just was not feeling totally right when I got up this morning. I might have taken a go at it, except for the unseasonable warmth and accompanying humidity. The bottom line is that my endurance is well built up at this point, this is the only run I've missed in the first 6 weeks so it doesn't seem likely to really mess me up, and overtraining could lead to a major setback.

Anyhow, with 2 weeks to go, and only one week of full training (the last week is an easy week to taper down and be properly rested for the race), it's time to really start thinking about goals.

Assuming the courses I train on are pretty close to the lengths I believe they are, I've been tempo running at about a 7:15-7:20 minute/mile pace, with my longest period at tempo pace being 20 minutes (I covered about 2.75 miles in that stretch). Maintaining that pace for a 5k would lead to something in the vicinity of a 22:30 for. Now, the idea of tempo running is that it's supposed to be below race pace, so in theory I should expect to run faster than that pace in the race. However, I'm going to temper my expectations for a few reasons.
#1 - I think, since I don't have a race history to know my race pace that I'm probably tempo running closer to my limit than I should be.
#2 - I'm not yet fast enough to cover 5k during my tempo runs, so I'll have some extra distance to cover once I get best the longest I've run at such a pace before.
#3 - If anything, I think the course I use for my tempo runs is a bit shorter than I count it as.
#4 - This is my first race - I'm a bit concerned the adrenaline might mess with my pacing discipline.

Of course, there are a couple things that work in my favor:
#1 - My tempo runs are often the 3rd of 3 straight daily runs, and almost always at least the 2nd of two in a row, and they always occur towards the end of the day, so I'm not necessarily on the freshest of legs. On raceday, I'll be running first thing in the morning with a couple days of rest behind me.
#2 - When I tempo run, I start out with 8 to 10 minutes of running at a long run pace, so I'm actually 28-30 minutes into a run when I finish the faster portion. In the race, I'll be starting with completely fresh legs.

All of that put together, with this being my first race, I'm taking a pretty conservative approach and looking for a time around 22:30, though I think I might be capable of better. My plan, for the time being, is to be relatively conservative over the first two miles or so, with the hope of having plenty in the tank for a very good final mile. If I make a mistake with pacing in this race, I want to do so in favor of having something left at the end, as opposed to bonking and having to struggle to the finish. One very nice aspect of the course for the race for a novice like myself is that it is very flat overall.

Another positive development regarding the race occurred today, as some friends, who were just coming off of a half-marathon yesterday, got the bug and decided to run the race with me. I think it'll make for much more fun day having a group for support at the starting line and to celebrate with afterwards, and potentially some company on the run itself depending on how they pace.

The plan, continued - Training Objectives

2010-03-20T10:38:00.002-04:00

Okay, so the "plan" officially starts on Monday. As a reminder, I will be using this training plan. I do, however, have a couple of minor tweaks. First of all, I'm usually busy on Tuesday nights, while Mondays are most often free, so I typically make Monday my interval day and Tuesday my early week rest day, so I'm not rushing around trying to get workout in on Tuesdays. This works well, since Sunday is a very light day anyhow. In addition, as I mentioned in a previous post, I plan to do my intervals with only 200m (roughly) in between, as opposed to 400m.

So, here are my stated training goals for each type of training, based on a combination of what various running sites say I should be able to do based on my current fitness level, and my own prior experiences. Sunday recovery jogs are not included here.

Intervals
Starting objective: All intervals under 1:30
Ending objective: All intervals under 1:25

The difference between starting and ending times on this is merely an acknowledgment that I'm going in a bit out of shape - I'm not really training to make these faster, though if it happens, I won't complain. As you'll notice from the training plan, the goal over the course of the plan is to add intervals, going from 3 in week 1 to 6 in week 7. Before I fell of my training schedule, I pretty easily did 5 in under 1:25, of course, that was with 400m recovery in between. This was also before every other interval was uphill. Anyhow, I went out and did three intervals on Monday - the downhill ones were both under 1:25, the uphill was right at 1:30. This is probably the least ambitious of my training time objectives, and it's by design. I HATE intervals, and they are workout most likely to drive me off my schedule. My pacing is already good for my longer term goals, so rather than kill myself trying to go faster, the focus will simply be on adding intervals. In fact, when I start over after the first race, I will probably start at 6 intervals and look to increase to 8, rather than going back to 3 and looking for a faster time. We'll see.

Midweek 2/3 mile runs
Starting objective: 8:45/mile pace
Ending objective: 8:30/mile pace

Oddly enough, despite being by far the easiest workout (aside from Sunday's easy jog), this one has the most potential to screw up my training, in my opinion. These are not speed workouts, just nice, easy mid-week runs. While I'm very good about starting slow when I'm going 5 miles and beyond, I found during my first run of training that when I'm only going 2 or 3 miles, I want to go. I could absolutely run these workouts faster right now, but I need to discipline myself to maintain pacing, because if I go too fast in these workouts, it will hurt my tempo runs the next day, where I am trying to build speed/stamina.

Tempo Runs
Starting objective: 7:30/mile pace
Ending objective: 7:15/mile pace

Tempo runs are supposed to be "comfortably hard". These workouts will give my best sense of where I'm at in terms of racing goals. By the end of the training plan, my tempo runs should include 20 minutes at the stated pace. A 7:15/mile pace is about 10 seconds/mile over what I would need to run to break 22 minutes. Last time I did a tempo run (2 weeks ago), I was roughly at a 7:30/mile pace for 15 minutes, so I'm feeling good about the starting point - we'll see where it winds up.

Long Runs:
Starting object: 9:00/mile pace
Ending objective: 8:40/mile pace

My best run before my training broke down was 6 miles at about an 8:45/mile pace. I did 4.5 this morning at right at a 9:00 mile pace. This seems pretty realistic to me.

I have... (oh God!) a plan!

2010-03-18T21:14:00.002-04:00

*with a nod to Perfect Strangers for the title inspiration*

Well, spring may not officially be here for a couple more days, but it seems to have gotten to Central PA a little early this year. Blue skies, 60 degree temperatures, and warm breezes have characterized this week, all but eradicating memories of the winter horror that was February. And with the dawning of spring comes the disappearance of my last excuse for not fully getting back into my running training, as the weather is now a reason in favor of going outside for a run, not a strike against.

My basic thought when I took up running backing in the late fall was that if I could survive the winter, I would then really evaluate what I wanted to do going forward. Well, I mostly survived the winter, and was starting to crawl back into my routine last week, so the time had come to really evaluate whether I was just going to be a very casual runner, or whether I was going to have goals and a plan. I have decided on the latter, and so here it is...

This most recent stretch has made it clear to me if I am to maintain any kind of serious training, that I need to be training FOR something. It was just too easy for me to let things go without a stated objective or deadline. So, I've decided to plan for some races, of the 5k variety. When I was sticking to my schedule, I was using this training plan. I really liked it, both in terms of the fact that it seemed appropriate challenging, and presented a good variety so it wasn't boring. I also didn't feel like I was over-training, and I stayed injury-free, which is an obvious plus. This is the plan I intend to use for the forseeable future, and it's an 8 week plan, so that puts my first race in the mid-late May timeframe. I have my eye on a race on May 15th, but I may hold off and look for something over the Memorial Day weekend. It will depend on how my first week goes and whether I think I can step right into the plan. I'm easing back in a bit this week, and early returns are positive, so we'll see.

After I complete the first race, I'll use the results to re-evaluate my fitness level and reset my training paces for another 8 week cycle, which would result in a 2nd race in the late July, early August time frame. After that, I will rinse and repeat, with the intention of running in the Falcon Fun Run at Messiah's homecoming in mid-October. After that, I may look for something in late November/early December time frame, and then slip into a more casual running routine over the winter.

As far as time goals go, it's a little hard to gauge them yet, since I haven't actually run a race. The primary goal for the first race will obviously be to finish, but I have no doubt I can do that unless I do something crazy with my early pacing. Last week I ran a mile (roughly) time-trial in about 6:25, which, according to sites that calculate such things, suggests that with proper training, I ought to be able to run a 5k in roughly 22 minutes. That seems reasonable to me based on where I was before my layoff, but we'll see. My major longer term goal is to eventually go sub 20, but that's definitely a down the road thing.

So, there's the plan. We'll see how long it lasts ;-)

Training secrets: Lessons in what NOT to do

2010-03-01T20:06:00.002-05:00

So, I learned a few things today, some things I thought I would share with you all - some great tips for fitness training.

#1 - Lesson #1: Do not take 10 full days off from running after a couple weeks where you were already running less than your training plan.

Okay, this one is just flat out common sense, and it wasn't my intention at all. However, the weather initially knocked me off my rhythem. The last weekend of January was bitter cold, like 15 for highs, and I know some people wouldn't be deterred by that, but I'm not going to spend almost an hour out in that to run 6 miles. So, I missed my first long run. Then, the following weekend, we got 18 inches of snow, which ruled out running for that weekend. Then, we got another 18 inches of snow from Tuesday night through Wednesday. So, I was officially knocked off of my rhythm, and over a couple weeks went from running 4 or 5 times a week, to maybe 2. So, then, the combination of more weather, schedules, etc led to a 10 day hiatus.

#2 - Lesson #2: If you fail to heed lesson #1, do not resume training with speed work the first day.

Okay, this is a little less obvious, but I probably could have figured it out. After all, my last entry over a month ago documented my hatred of speedwork - what did I really expect to be like when I had allowed my fitness level to dip? And really, I was very, very close to not doing the speedwork today. However, I had really determined that I needed to get back on my schedule this week, and Mondays are speed work. I told myself it would be okay, because due to my decline and then full layoff, I had decided to reset to the beginning of my training plan, which meant I would only run 3 intervals (1/4 mile each), as opposed to the 5 I was doing before the break. Of course, I had decided to go from 1/4 mile of jogging between intervals to 1/8 of a mile, so that was probably a wash, at best, but I convinced myself otherwise.

#3 - Should you stubbornly ignore lesson #2, do not run a time at or near your personal best on your first interval.

Okay, this was a total accident. It had been a couple weeks since I ran intervals, so my sense of pacing was off. I was obviously quite well rested, so I felt very, very good. I didn't check my time at any real midpoints, and since I don't pay that much attention to any kind of mid-splits when doing intervals, I probably wouldn't have realized what it meant anyhow. When I looked down at my watch as I was getting close to the finish, I realized I was going to run my best split ever. This is not a good plan for the first interval under ideal circumstances, but really, really bad when you've been out of the game for a bit. My plan had been to run splits a good 10 seconds above (roughly 10-15% slower than) the time I was now heading for. I coasted to the finish and still ended up just above my best. Uh oh...

#4 - Upon failing to acknowledge the wisdom of lesson #4, consider modifying your plan of attack so that the 2nd interval doesn't finish on an uphill slope.

This was just an oversight on my part. My typical plan of attack on intervals has been simple - run the 1/4 of a mile out, and then jog back in. However, to cut down to 1/8 of a mile in between intervals, the plan was 1/4 mile out, quick little 1/8 mile loop, 1/4 mile back in, 1/8 mile loop, 1/4 mile back out, jog home. With the typical plan of attack, the full out run starts out going slightly down hill for maybe 1/3 of the distance, then flattens out, and when I loop back around, I'm jogging, so I don't really notice the incline that much. Let's just say I noticed it coming back this time. Had I thought things all the way through, I would have abandoned my original plan and just stuck with 1/4 mile rest in between intervals after I ran that blistered first split, but I figured, no worries, I'll just dial this one back a little. Yeah, that didn't go so well. This incline is not severe at all, I actually use it as the finishing stretch for my laps when I'm doing longer runs, and I like how it works. However, when you're running full out and already really feeling it, any incline kills.

So, having ignored all 4 of these lessons, I was left to run an absolutely horrid 3rd interval, feel like death at the end of it, and to walk most of the way home rather than jog. But, on the bright side, I did get back out there, and I learned all these valuable lessons, which I shall heed the next time... probably.

I HATE speed work!

2010-01-25T18:48:00.003-05:00

And of course, there's only one problem with that - I want to go faster.

Okay, I may have jumped into this one a little too quickly. As you probably know if you've read this blog a time or two, I started running about 2 months ago. I started out very simply, but quickly moved to following a more formal training plan, mainly because the only way I knew how to train to run was to pick a distance and try to run it as quickly as I could without passing out, falling over, etc. Let's just say had I stuck with such a plan, my running days would have probably been over in a week or two, because I was legitimately dreading the prospect of running most days.

Of course, most training plans you'll find out there are for a race of some length, so I had to make a decision about what kind of runner I wanted to be, at least for the forseeable future. I settled on a training plan for 5k running. The middle distances really appealed to me, because I wanted a distance that would challenge me, but also one I could really go after to try and get faster at. I just don't feel like I have the temperment (mostly the patience) for very long distances, and while I've come to enjoy my longer runs in their own way, my experience to date has confirmed that. I do feel a sense of accomplishment when I complete a run of 5 or 6 miles (prior to two months ago I think the farthest I'd ever run was maybe 3.5 miles, and that was 12 years or so ago during soccer pre-season), but what really gets me going is the idea of watching my times drop over 2 or 3 miles.

There's just one problem with that - in order to run faster, you have to, well, run faster. Were I just looking to stretch out my distances, I could settle in at comfortable paces and build up my long runs appropriately from week to week. That'll only do so much for my 5k abilities, however, and so at some point I have to push if I want to get faster. I can improve my endurance all I want, but eventually I have to train my body at higher speeds to be able to better sustain them.

The training plan I'm on calls for me to do this in 2 ways. Basically, ideally I run 5 times a week. 2 of those runs are comfortable runs for distance (currently 3 and 6 miles respectively), a 3rd is a timed run at a very easy pace, which occurs the day after my long run for the week. The other 2 days are speed work days. The first form of speed work, a tempo run, isn't so bad, in fact, I still mostly enjoy it. My tempo runs start out with 5-10 minutes at a pretty comfortable pace, followed by 15-20 minutes of running "comfortably hard" - in other words, I feel like I'm really working, but at a pace that I know I can sustain without putting myself under serious distress.

Then there's the kind of work I was doing today - speed intervals. These, I hate. This is the one day on my running calendar each week that I really do not look forward to. Intervals are pretty straight forward. You pick a distance, you run really hard for that distance, then jog/walk the same distance, then repeat the process. The objective is to be able to maintain your speed from the first interval to the last, and over time to increase the number of intervals you can do. . Since I'm training like I'm going to run a 5k, my perscribed interval distance is 400m, or roughly 1/4 mile. I started out doing 3, and now I'm up to 5. These suck. Now, admittedly, the first time I tried these, this happened, so I might still have some lingering bad associations, but I'm pretty sure that's really not it. These are, in no way, comfortable. Now, as I learned quickly, these are not to be run so hard that you need to collapse at the end, the point is to be able to repeat them, but I do put myself into considerably more distress doing these than I do with any of my other workouts. By the end of the fast portion of a run, my lungs are burning and my legs are seriously wondering what exactly they've done to merit this kind of punishment. It definitely takes every bit of the slow jog back to get ready for the next one, especially as I get further into the workout. I also do this in a nearby neighborhood, about the time of day when other people are out walking, and I'm pretty sure some of those people think I'm nuts. Luckily it's not MY neighborhood, so they don't actually know who I am...

The thing about these workouts is that, after the first couple weeks, I haven't seen a lot of visible progress within the workouts themselves, at least in terms of progress that's measured by the stopwatch. That can be a little extra frustrating at the end - and yet I know that it is these, my most hated of workouts, that drive the improvements I see in my other workouts, where suddenly my "comfortable" pace is just a bit faster than it was the week before.

2009 In Review

2009-12-31T16:38:00.003-05:00

Well, it's been a rather light year for me on the blog, but I wanted to go through 2009 and just hit the highlights. This will allow me to bring the year into focus, and also to briefly touch on a few events that, while important, for one reason or another never really made it into the blog. So, here we go, month by month.

January - 2009 was in many ways a year of awakening for me spiritually, one in which God really led me into a more personal, intimate relationship with Him, as opposed to one that was just based on what I knew about Him and what I did for Him. There were many significant events related to this throughout the year, the first one being a leadership retreat that I was on over the second weekend of the year. This also started a recurring pattern through the year of me taking many posts, and many more days than really necessary, to tell a particular story. This story can be found here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here. The retreat ended on January 11th, and I only took until February 8th to finish blogging about it! In the interim, for the second year I became a "Partner In Hope" with St. Jude's Children's Research Hospital via the BOB 94.9 Radioathon, and for the second year in a row, I won one of the big incentive prizes - a guitar autographed by Brad Paisley. We should only be a few weeks away from the 2010 Radioathon - I wonder what they've picked out for me this year :)

February/March - I didn't blog about much in these months, except the occasional musing and the day when my Brad Paisley guitar arrived. In March, there was of course, my traditional pilgrimage with my Dad to Clearwater, Florida for Phillies spring training, made more exciting than previous years due to the Phillies standing as reigning World Series champions.

April - The month began with a quick roller coaster ride in terms of my sports world. I was able to attend the game where the Phillies were presented with their 2008 World Series rings, which has to go down as one of the best moments in my "career" as a sports fan. Unfortunately, the euphoria of that moment had hardly faded when, a few days later, legendary Phillies broadcaster Harry Kalas passed away suddenly and unexpectedly. Somewhere in this month I also celebrated birthday #29.

May - May was highlighted by my heating/cooling system breaking down and taking 2 weeks and 3 technician visits to get repaired. I also discovered some "vintage" grape juice in a cabinet in my kitchen (and by the way, I still haven't gotten rid of it). Not to mention that early in the month, Messiah's softball team became the 3rd program to win a national championship, the school's 9th championship ever, all since the fall of 2000. For a refresher on May, you can go here.

June - What was unquestionably the most pivotal event of my year occured right in the middle of the year, and that was my family trip out to the West Coast - first to Seattle to visit my cousin, and then on to Northern California to visit my uncle and aunt and their family, and to attempt to climb Half Dome in Yosemite. From the plane ride out to the attempt up Half Dome and back again, it was a major event in my life, one that took me 9 posts over more than a month to blog about. Read about it here, here, and here.

July/August - Apparently I spent July and August blogging about the Half Dome trip, and not much else :) Actually, there was a lot going on during this time, however, much of it was of a more personal nature. Some will be covered in later posting, some, not so much. Most significant was that at the end of August, CrossWalk Community was closed after almost 4 years of ministry.

September - Spurred on by my desire to one day successfully climb Half Dome, I buckled down and began a regular workout routine, which coupled with some earlier and subsequent initiatives accidentally morphed into a full-fledged emphasis on health and fitness. Also, over Labor Day weekend, I made another trek to South Bend, Indiana to visit my dear friends, the Ritters.

October - The Phillies had another wild October ride, but fell disappointingly short of repeating as World Series champions, losing the Series to the Yankees in 6 mes. In one of my prouder moments as a fan, I did not join the parade of fellow Phillies fans who became loud advocates for a salary cap in baseball the day after the Series ended. Yeah, tell me THAT's not sour grapes. A summer spent wrestling with God over His plan and hand in the life of my friend Lynn, who is in the advanced stages of ALS, culminated with some realizations, some revelations, and even a bit of clarity, and led to me blogging the entire story of my interaction with Lynn's situation over the past two years. Those posts can be found here, here, here, here, and here.

November - My workout routine began to morph from daily elliptical workouts towards actual running. More on this later. The Thanksgiving holiday came, finding me with a really nasty cold, and also leading to the discover that my dog can actually behave around other people now. That report is here, and here.

December - I began a full running training program, leading to a rather nasty spill that resulted in some scrapes and scratches and a bruised ego, but no long-term damage. Overall, I've stuck with a regular work out routine for 4 months now, which is about 3 months longer that I've ever stayed with one before. That, coupled with my other health-related changes, has left me about 20 pounds lighter (still falling, though at a much slower rate), and on the basis of yesterday's 2 mile run time, in the best shape I've ever been in. This is both a testament to how well this workout routine has gone, and an indictment on my lack of commitment to fitness in year's past, even going back to high school when I was a soccer player. Predictably, the Messiah men's and women's soccer teams both win national championships, the 7th for the men, 3rd for the women, and the 3rd time in both Messiah and NCAA history that they've both won the championship in the same season. All in all, that makes 11 championships for Messiah in the last decade. Equally predictably, the field hockey team made the national title game, and lost for 7th time in 7 tries. Maybe next year...

So, that's 2009 in a nutshell. It was a great year on many, many, fronts - and it has me tremendously excited about what is to come in 2010. Right now, a few things are known. There will, of course, be another trip to Clearwater in March. After a year off, I expect to lead another team to Thailand for about 10 days late in the summer. Assuming I continue to enjoy and stick with the running through winter, I anticipate starting to run some 5k races come spring. Those are just a few things, and of course there are many other things ahead that I could never anticipate, much like many of the things above were to me on December 31, 2008.

So, with all that said, blessings and prayers to everyone for an awesome 2010!

So, here we are at the end of another year.

Another one bites the dust

2009-12-10T17:57:00.002-05:00

And by "another one", I mean me. And by "dust", I mean "asphalt".

That's right, I've been a bit gimpy the last couple days because, well, I'm a klutz. Or at least, I was on Tuesday morning.

You may remember a while back I blogged on my new fitness kick. Well, that commitment has largely remained intact, and after a few months, I became bored of running on the elliptical day after day. There was also the fact that I have a cheap elliptical that's already underwent some modification to keep it together, and has variable resistance that long since stopped working - meaning my only option to increase workout intensity is to go faster. As I've gotten in better shape, I've had to go faster to keep the same level of work for my heart, and I began to fear I was getting to the point where it was just going to fly apart some morning, with me on it.

So, despite the fact it was already mid-November and we were about to head into the dead of winter, I decided that I was going to start running, using the elliptical as a lighter exercise on non-running days. I got started right before Thanksgiving while there was still some decent whether, and then as the weather got cold, I procured some appropriate cold weather gear and kept at it.

And really, it's been going well. It started out kind of rough, because I had zero clue about how to train other than just go out and running as hard as I thought I could for whatever distance I was running, so I always ended up completely wiped at the end of a run, and often played myself out before I got to the goal distance. But I did some research, got an understanding of where I was at with my fitness level and a decent training plan, and I felt like I was really going to get somewhere over the last week.

Which brings me to Tuesday morning. I was doing a workout where I would go really hard for about a quarter-mile, then walk/job back, then repeat. I was going for 3 reps. Bear in mind that I still exercise first thing in the morning, so I started out sometime just before 6 am. In central PA in early December, it's still pretty dark at that time. However, I'm in a populated area, and there's plenty of available light to run by - but you can't necessarily see every detail.

There's been a lot of newer construction in the area that I run in, and a couple of the roads have just been put in within the last year or so - so there's some areas where the sections of the asphalt come together that the road isn't especially even. My course takes me through one of those areas. What's probably worse is that it's near the end of the course, about the time I reach and look down to check my watch for my time. On my last rep, I was checking my time, took a shorter, more choppy stride than normal, and felt my right foot catch one of the seams in the pavement. I'm not sure I would have had a chance of staying upright under any circumstances, but with my right hand on my left wrist, I had absolutely no chance, and I pitched over forward to the asphalt at full running speed - knees first.

Obviously it hurt, but I didn't immediately sense anything serious had happened, so I started to collect myself and get up. As mad as I was at myself about what had just happened, there was one comfort. As I said, I had started before 6, it was about 6:10 am at this point and still plenty dark, so I was thinking to myself "At least no one saw that...". But then, as I started to stand up, I heard a terrible sound: "Are you okay?" You've got to be kidding me! There was a guy out walking, and I had gone down within about 20 feet of him. Being now mortally embarrassed in addition to the physical pain, I quickly responded "Yeah, I'm okay." Let's be honest here, I had no clue yet if I was okay. "Okay" at this point, was defined as being able to stand up. "Are you sure?" There was an edge in my voice this time "Sir, I'm fine." Then, thinking about it for a second, I quickly threw out a much softer "But thank you!" Seriously, what was I doing refusing potential help? But that was what I had done.

As it turns out, I was, largely, okay. I was able to get up and walk about halfway home, at which point I felt okay enough to jog the rest of the way. My knees were, obviously, very sore - but that was about the extent of it. When I got back to the house, I was able to more thoroughly examine myself and discover that the damage was limited to two bloodied and sore knees. I was probably very fortunate it was winter, because I was pretty much completely covered up, which probably saved me further damage to my knees, and any damage at all to my hands and arms. I didn't even tear my running tights, which was perhaps the thing that surprised me most. In reality, the worst injury was probably to my pride.

Anyhow, I've recovered pretty well. Yesterday was a lost day for running anyhow because we had had snow overnight and it was pouring rain in morning - but I was recovered enough to do a good hard session on the elliptical, and I was back out on the road this morning - still a bit sore but not really limited in any way. Tomorrow is a planned rest day, so hopefully by Saturday I'll be all but 100% again.

Thanksgiving Report - Part 2

2009-12-07T18:28:00.002-05:00

Wow, only took me a week to get back to this :)

Anyhow, so Thursday was, of course, time for the traditional Thanksgiving feast. We always gather with my Dad's side of the family at my Pap's farmhouse for this, and this year was no exception. I think all told we had about 25 people this year, ranging in ages from 93 (my great aunt) down to toddler. It's quite an event when we all get crammed around the various tables in the house. Dinner is pretty much the standard classics (well, that, plus oyster stuffing, which I assume is NOT a standard for most families), and dinner is all well and good, but for me, it's all about getting to dessert.

You see, my grandma was ridiculous when it came to desserts, and especially pies. There would likely be pies around virtually anytime we would be there for dinner, but around the holidays, she'd outdo herself. And they were really good. Grandma passed away during my junior year of college, and I miss her greatly, but luckily in this regard, she passed her gift onto her daughters and at least one of her granddaughters (my sister). So, we've never been lacking for desserts, and this year was no exception. Of the top of my head, this year we had pumpkin, cherry, apple, black raspberry (my favorite), and coconut cream pies available, as well as our family's traditional coconut cake. It's always a good thing that we don't just go for dinner and then leave - Thanksgiving dinner gets to be much more of a marathon than a sprint. Along with the standard picking through the leftover turkey, and sampling through the various pies that couldn't be taken in with the original meal, there's also the big box of Kay and Ray's potato chips, and much Pepsi to be consumed throughout the rest of the afternoon and early evening!

Anyhow, after Thanksgiving day is over, it's on to the rest of the weekend, which I always stay with my folks for. The real revelation of this Thanksgiving was related to my dog, Chaser, who comes along for the trip whenever I'm with the folks for a couple days.

Chaser is (by best guess, since he came from the shelter and came into the shelter as a stray) about 4 years old, and a mix between a yellow labrador and a terrier. For those who have met Chaser, you know that he isn't really very social. Actually, that's inaccurate - he's actually so social as to be anti-social. Really, the issue hasn't been his behavior itself, but rather his size. When a little dog, such as my sister's pug, is all excited to see you and scurrying around jumping up at and on you, it might be annoying, but it's not really that difficult to deal with. Chaser, on the hand, is all of 50 pounds, so he makes an impact! He traditionally just gets so excited when there are different people around - more specifically when I'm around and different people around - he's always been good when I've had people take care of him.

Anyhow, I bring him along because I have to when I come home, but his presence has always complicated my visits. He stays down in the basement, which is finished and very comfortable, a perfect place for hanging out. Unfortunately, traditionally he's made it very difficult for the family to come down and hang out, because he just wouldn't calm down. Because he was so on edge, I was never comfortable leaving him uncrated down there unattended, and I didn't want him to be crated for the whole vacation, so I would often spend more time than I wanted to down there with him by myself.

I had had some hints in recent months that he had started to mellow some socially, so I was hopeful this trip might be a bit different, and man, was it ever. He still gave my folks a standard exuberant greeting anytime they came down, but once they got settled in, he did as well, just being very playful and social, but not nearly as jumpy and obnoxious. He would often even, get this, lay down and relax! It was crazy. We had gone from one extra person in the room being too much for him, to a Friday night where my mom, dad, sister, and brother-in-law (and their pug) were all down there with him, and he was just great. I'm sure they all liked Chaser up to this point, but this time I think we were all able to actual enjoy having him around, in the way I enjoy having him around when its just me and him. It really made the time at home so much better, and more relaxing, since I didn't have to neglect my dog in order to spend time with the folks.

So, all in all, after the rocky start, it was a great holiday weekend with the family. Of course, since I was rendered pretty much sedentary while I was recovering from my cold, and had the traditional Thanksgiving gorging along with plenty of food the rest of the weekend, I was 2.5 pounds heavier when I got home. Totally worth it! :)

The Thanksgiving Report - Part 1

2009-11-30T20:59:00.003-05:00

So, the story of my Thanksgiving starts last Monday, when I woke up with something of a "tickle" in my throat. That's precisely how you do NOT want to start a short, holiday week, but it is the hand I was dealt. As I got up and began to get ready for my day, it was confirmed, I definitely had a raw throat that was the result of sinus drainage. I do have allergies, but this seemed like pretty much the wrong time of year for those, so I figured I was probably on the verge of a cold.

This was confirmed when I woke up Tuesday morning, so I cancelled a planned early morning 2 mile run. However, I really didn't feel THAT bad. I felt worse when I got to work, and took some medicine in the morning. By the afternoon, everything had dropped down out of my head into my nose, and I was sounding terrible, but actually feeling a bit better. I was encouraged by this - as a general rule, the worse I sound the better I feel when I'm dealing with a cold. I don't know if that's a universal rule, but it pretty much works for me. I didn't have a fever, and so in the evening I was feeling well enough to attend my first Thanksgiving dinner of the week - with the young adults at my church. I have to say, very high quality meal, although the dessert portion of the event did not measure up to the "real" Thanksiving dinner on Thursay (that's not, however, an insult to the Tuesday night dessert, just wait) As expected, I was feeling a little bit worse off after being out and socializing, but still not too bad when I got home. I didn't take any cold medicine to go to bed.

That was my first in a series of mistakes. I had a miserable first part of the night until I gave in and drank some NyQuill at about 1:30 AM. Morning, of course, came too soon, and I was feeling worse than I had felt the night before. After batting around what I wanted to do in my head, I called in sick to work. I was meeting with my pastor in the morning, so I was going to be late anyhow, and thought I'd probably need to leave early since I was planning on heading home that night and hadn't done any packing yet, so that made the decision a little easier.

After meeting with my pastor (he came to me), I began the remaining series of mistakes - all of which, like the first one, fell into the category of me just not taking my illness seriously enough. I had been convinced since Tuesday afternoon that I was on the downside, and perhaps I would have been - had I taken better care of myself. When I'm seriously fighting something, I'm almost obsessive about making sure I take in plenty of fluids, and I had been so all day on Tuesday. Wednesday, however, was a different story, and after some OJ with breakfast, I really didn't drink anything for the rest of the morning and early afternoon.

Nor did I do a I particularly good job of resting. I tried to get some packing done as I felt like it, and spent a lot of time watching TV in the basement, with a space heater running right at me to make up for the sometimes drafty nature of that room. Not the best move when sick, apparently. Whatever the combination of factors that led me to it, by early afternoon, as I thought I would make the push to pack the car and drive home, I was pretty much laid out, with a fever now pushing 101. I called my Mom and told her I would likely not be home yet that evening. After that, I did what I should have done about 6 hours earlier - drank down a couple bottles of water, took a shot of NyQuill, and climbed into bed for a long nap.

I awoke several hours later, feeling much better, though still sick, and feeling really stupid for having not taken care of myself better the previous night and earlier that day. I was also much more optimistic than I had been earlier about whether I would be able to make the trip home the next morning. At that point, if I had had to, I probably could have made the drive that night, and I figured given a good night's sleep, I was only likely to feel better first thing in the morning, even if that would fade.

And I was right, I did feel even better in the morning, though I was hacking and coughing and sounded even worse, which falls right in line with the principle I laid out earlier. I loaded up the car and Chaser and I made the drive to the folks.

When all that's left is to believe

2009-11-12T19:26:00.003-05:00

If you're viewing this via Facebook, this is the 7th in a series of posts that tell a larger story. If you are so inclined, you can read the rest by checking out my profile, or by going to my blog at http://andsoiask.blogspot.com/

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If you've been a regular visitor to my blog, you might know of my recent commitment to fitness. One of the results of that was a long period of time when I would take my dog for long (30-45 minute walks on most evenings). That pattern has slowed in recent weeks, due to a combination of diminished evening light, and the accompanying diminished warmth, but while that was going on, I often found myself with lots of time to my thoughts, and obviously, while I was walking through everything I described, my thoughts often turned to Lynn while I was on these walks.

One day, and I don't exactly remember when in all of this it was, but it's not really important, as I was thinking about Lynn and processing everything again, the hook of a song came into my head. It was a song that I know I hadn't heard in at least 7 or 8 years, quite likely closer to 10. And I'd be willing to bet that most of you have never heard the song, because as best as I can tell it never made its way onto the radio. It was an album cut off a CD by a guy named Clay Crosse. I'm pretty sure the only reason I ever heard it was because I own the CD. The chorus of the song goes like so:

When all that's left is to believe
I give my doubts and fears to You
And fall down on my knees
I may not have the answers now
But You give me what I need
So Father I will cling to You
When all that's left is to believe

There I was again, fighting back tears. There may have been times in my life when a song or lyric spoke as directly to my heart as this one did in this moment, but there certainly haven't been any where one spoke more directly to me.

When you boil everything I've shared over the last number of posts down - when you strip away all the nuances and complexities of circumstance, when you look through everything that has or hasn't happened since September 10, 2007, the simple fact of the matter is that I've been left with a choice. It's the choice Abraham faced when God promised him a son, and then later faced when God asked him to sacrifice that very son; the choice that Shadrach, Meshach, and Abendego faced before the fiery furnace; the choice that Daniel faced before the lion's den; the choice that Stephen faced before the angry mob; the choice we read about time and time again Hebrews 11 - the very same choice we all face in any crisis of faith - the choice to believe, or not to believe.

Over the last two years, anything else that myself, or anyone who cares about Lynn, could cling to for hope has been stripped away, and all that is left is our Father - His Word, His promises. Do I believe that God spoke to me 2 years ago? Do I believe (or better yet, am I "fully persuded") that He is able to do what He promised? The answer to both those questions for me is "Yes." And so I cling to my Father, because there's nothing else left to do.

You know, the doctor's visit where Lynn was given 3 to 6 months to live was in mid-August. If you do the math, you'll quickly understand that we are moving into the early part of that range. When I was with him this past Saturday, he told me how fragile he felt - that one big coughing or gagging spell could do him in, that this was really coming into the final few weeks. That paints a very bleak picture. His response to that was "My healing is right around the corner." And you know what, sitting here today, I can tell you that I believe that too.

Are we fools for such belief? To be honest, I've stopped caring about the answer to that question. The Scripture is full of people who looked awfully foolish for believing God - right up until the point where He stepped in and fulfilled his promise. I acknowledge my imperfect ability to comprehend God, my bias in the situation, and the accompanying fact that I could have read this all wrong, but that's not what I believe, and I choose to cling to what I do believe until circumstances compel me to do otherwise. That time has not yet come.

Not that any of this makes it easy. My eyes were wet yet again as I pulled away from Lynn's house on Saturday - they've been wet at various times as I've been writing over the last many days, and they heading that direction right now. The physical reality hasn't changed, and the picture I can see with my eyes gets worse day by day. But I stand in the spirit of those 3 Hebrew captives I mentioned earlier as they were before the fiery furnace in saying that I know the God I serve is able to deliver Lynn from this disease, and I believe that He will, and yet whether he does or doesn't, He is still God, and there is no one else worthy of my worship.

So that's it, the full story, and perhaps now you understand why I'm sharing it now, even as things look their bleakest. This is where I've been, and I'm driving this stake in the ground to say that, come what may, this is what I believe, and I'm not ashamed of it, at least not anymore.

A new perspective

2009-11-09T19:58:00.006-05:00

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This summer was a big one for me in terms of my walk with God. Regular readers of this blog (all 3 of you) might remember my tale of my attempted trek up Half Dome in Yosemite at the end of June. That trip sparked a period in my life where a lot of spiritual matters across a variety of fronts - although I think it was all pretty well connected, and at some point maybe I'll attempt to piece it all together in something coherent. Today is not that day, however, and so I stick to the front I've been dealing with - my friend Lynn's condition.

As stated, I was struggling. To be quite honest, I was probably back to square one, in a place where I had lost hope and was resigning myself to what I had become convinced was the inevitable. There was only one problem with that - the whole thing about believing God had spoken to me telling me something different. So I re-evaulated those events of 2 years ago over and over again. At first, I believed I was just going back over things to re-affirm my belief in them, but later on it became clear that I was really trying to find a way to convince myself it hadn't happened, or that it hadn't meant what I thought it meant. I figured if I could do that, I could let all of this go and deal with what was ahead.

There was only one problem - I couldn't do it. No matter how many ways I looked at that night of September 10th, 2007, and the weeks that had followed, I couldn't deny what had happened. I'm not sure I can describe what it's like to be in that place - having somehow managed to lose hope that something was going to happen, while being firmly convinced that God had, in fact, told me that it WAS going to happen. Yeah, seriously, figure that one out. Somehow, that's where I was at.

In order to get there, I'm pretty sure you have to have trust issues with God, and the fact that I did was something else I was learning throughout the summer. I was basically feeling like God had told me something while fully intending to do something different. Not that I would have admitted that to anyone else (or even myself) at the time, but its where I was at. Is it any wonder I was feeling like I was hitting a wall in my relationship with God at about this time?

Anyhow, September rolled around, and it had been a couple months since I'd last seen Lynn. In the interim, I'd heard via their newsletter that the doctors believed that he had about 3-6 months to live based on the way his breathing ability was being diminished. Let's just say that didn't help me anyhow. Lynn sent me a personal e-mail in mid-September, and I realized again just how long it had been since I had seen him, so despite my discomfort, we began discussing getting together, and I wound up making plans to see him on the first Saturday in October.

A few days before this visit, my Dad was up here for a visit, and in the course of our conversations, I confessed to him that I was having a hard time finding peace with Lynn's situation, and asked for prayer. As we talked about this, I articulated a lot of what I just shared for the first time. At one point, Dad asked me point blank "Are you mad at God?"

At the time, I said I didn't know, but the next two mornings, I basically spent my morning times with God yelling at him about this. "How could You let this go on so long?" "Where have You been in all of this?" "Why did You tell me You were going to heal him if You weren't?" "Why didn't You just leave me out of all this - it would have been easier." And then, though I don't know that I knew it at the time, I got down to the heart of the matter: "God, I feel like I've been made a fool for believing this for so long." All of it things that I had been feeling for so long, but hadn't been willing to allow myself to say, even to myself, let alone God. Remember that thing I said previously about how bad it is to keep feelings bottled up just because you don't think God would like them? Second time I dealt with that on this journey in a major way.

As I vented on and on, I didn't sense God speaking to me, in terms of giving me some great answer to my specific questions. And to be honest, I didn't expect Him to. I'm only now fully reading through Job for the first, but I've known for a long time how that story ends, and that I was asking questions of God to which I wasn't really entitled an answer. What I did sense was an acceptance, kind of an "Okay, Scott, now that you're being honest with me, we can deal with this" As I took off my mask, the lines of communication were open again.

So the next day, Dad and I made our visit to Lynn. I said before how Lynn makes it difficult to be discouraged when you are with him, because his own faith remains so steadfast, and this particular visit was probably the best personal experience I have had to confirm that. There he was, confined to his recliner, using the movements of his head to type out phrases on his computer, and yet as convinced as that day over 2 years ago that healing was coming. He shared with us a story about how God had spoken to him on the very day that he had gotten the report from the doctor that he had 3-6 months to live. My own struggles with what was going on weren't gone, but here was the other side of the story, the side that was so easy for me to forget - and that I desperately needed to hear. I was seeing God's hand in this again, in a way that had been obscurred for so long. It was so evident that God was with Lynn in the midst of all this, even if at the moment, it didn't look the way I wanted it to.

There was something else that happened that day that was pivotal in what God was doing in my heart, beyond my specific response to Lynn's illness. I saw in Lynn what Paul spoke of Abraham in Romans 4 - beliveing in hope against all hope, facing the fact that his body was as good as dead, without weakening in his faith, without wavering through unbelief regarding the promise of God, being strengthened in his faith and giving glory to God, being fully persuaded that God had the power to do what He has promised. I saw Lynn, even with his body on verge of complete failure, as someone who was more alive than I, in my near perfect health, had ever been. It was humbling, to say the least, and it made me think on all of this in a new way.

In the days that followed, I found myself saying to God: "Now, this isn't a request, but I believe if I had to through what Lynn has to get to where he is with You, it would be worth it. And so if walking through this alongside Lynn in the way You've chosen me to do is part of what you need to do to make me into the person You designed me to be, and to bring me into a a deeper relationship with You, then I'm okay with that too." It's probably the most realistic picture I've ever had of what's really being said in Romans 8:28.

But make no mistake, none of this means that I've given up on Lynn's healing. And I think I've got one last post in me to talk about that.

Consumed by doubts

2009-11-08T19:25:00.007-05:00

I sometimes forget that I have the blog set up to post on Facebook, and so folks that aren't typical visitors to the blog might see a post and not realize that it's part of a longer story. If you're reading this via Facebook, this is the 5th in a series of posts that tell a story. If you are so inclined, you can read the rest either by going to my Facebook profile, or directly on my blog at http://andsoiask.blogspot.com/.

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So, over two years have passed since the first part of this story took place. I'm not going to spend a lot of time walking through the whole journey of those two years, but I will give you some of the highlights.

As previously mentioned, Lynn and family had been scheduled to head back to Thailand on September 12th, 2007, 2 days after our team meeting. That was obviously postponed, and over the next few weeks/months, Lynn underwent more thorough testing that confirmed the initial belief of the doctors that he had ALS. There actually isn't (or at least wasn't then) a test that conclusively diagnoses ALS, basically they test for everything else that could cause the symptoms in question, and if they don't find anything, ALS is diagnosed.

Not too long after getting the diagnosis, Lynn began making plans to return to Thailand. At the time, his symptoms were essentially isolated to his face, weakening the muscles of his jaw, mouth, etc and making his speech somewhat slurred. The family returned to Thailand in February of 2008, hopefully that Lynn's healing would come in short order. Unfortunately, that wasn't the case. His condition continued to deteriorate, and at the end of September (right about the time the Phillies were finishing up another exciting regular season finish) word came back that they would be returning to the States in early November.

All the while, I was still processing and dealing with this as best I could, and it wasn't easy. First of all, I didn't really know what to do with the kind of promise I believed that God had made. I mean, seriously, what would you do with it? It was exciting and hopeful, but yet healing hadn't come right away. If you are regulars to my blog, you might remember that I once wrote about going a number of months (until I went back to Thailand with a team from McBIC in June of '08) before I would allow myself to grieve for what my friend was suffering through. I had convinced myself that expressing that pain would be showing a lack of faith in what God had promised. Can I tell you a lesson that I've had to learn a few different times through the years, and in fact, multiple times as I've witnessed what's happened with Lynn? Keeping thoughts, feelings, etc bottled up because you don't think they are "right" in God's eyes is about the worst thing you can ever do. Just because I didn't express the feelings didn't make them go away, and I certainly wasn't successfully hiding them from God - I was just keeping them inside, letting them tear me up without dealing with them. The fact that I was "trying" to keep them from God certainly didn't help that relationship. And in this case, as God later showed me when I allowed Him to, there was nothing wrong with the feelings in the first place. It hurt to see what my friend was suffering through, whether I believed healing was ultimately coming or not.

The real problem I was having, however, as this moved along, was my own ability to trust God. You see, it was really easy to believe that God could heal Lynn when the only thing that appeared wrong with him was some slurred speech. But when I went to join the welcoming party at the Harrisburg airport at their November return, when I saw Lynn being wheeled in on a wheelchair, looking much lighter and more frail, it suddenly became a different matter altogether in my head, and in my heart. When I realized I could hardly understand him at all anymore, the mountain seemed just that much higher. When I went to a prayer gathering for him a few nights after he came back, and saw that he had to be helped to walk back to the room, an ugly word started to play in my head, and in my heart: "Why?"

I thought I was at peace with God on the "why" question, that we had come to terms and I had seen His hand at work in this process when I was in Thailand. It "made sense" to me, but that was no longer the case. It didn't make any sense to me at all why, if God really was going to bring healing, that He continued to wait and allow my friend to suffer, to allow his friends and family to suffer watching him. I mean, hadn't Lynn been through enough? Hadn't he learned enough? Hadn't those of us around him learned enough? What possible reason could God have for continuing to delay? And as the "why" continued to go unanswered, the doubts played at my heart, subtley at first, but continued to build.

There was an all-night prayer time in March that we all believed God had asked for, that afterwards Lynn and others believed there had been a break, and that healing was completed, it was just a matter of seeing it come to pass. But after some immediate initial hopeful signs, things just continued to get worse. There was time at a healing service in March, where we pleaded and pleaded with God, and nothing. I remember checking myself at that point, wondering if continuing to implore God to do NOW what He had already said was done was demonstrating a lack of faith, but not having the first clue about what else to do.

At this point, it got really difficult for me to see Lynn, so I didn't. And it was pretty easy to avoid seeing him without really "trying" to avoid it. He was an hour away, the only times I really had a good opportunity to see him were at these Friday night prayer gatherings, which suddenly I could always find a good reason not to go to.

And so, it was over 3 months until the next time I saw him, at an open house when the family moved in July. I hadn't heard anything positive about his condition, and so I knew that aside from that, all that time was only going to mean he was in much worse shape. I had heard through the grapevine that he was in a wheelchair fulltime now. As I spent time with God that morning, knowing (and yet not really knowing) what I was getting ready for, I remember God asking me the question of the moment: "Do you still trust me on this? Do you trust that I have not been silent, or absent in this, and that what you see as a delay has all been part of my perfect plan?" My honest answer: "I don't think I do, but I want to."

When I got the open house, his condition was as bad as I had imagined, perhaps worse. He was in a motorized wheel chair, and he had to control it by pushing his nose against a joystick, as his hands just didn't have the function. He could barely speak at all - he had a computer that he could type on by using the motion of a dot on his glasses like a mouse, but that wasn't working that day, so communication was incredibly difficult. The most difficult thing for me to watch was when he wanted to hold his nearly year old daughter and we had to move his arms away, set her down in his lap, and then wrap his arms around her, because he couldn't do any of that on his own.

Now, I will say (and I'll elaborate on this more later) that even in the midst of all this, I was still okay when I was with Lynn. His spirit and faith throughout this have been remarkable, and he makes it really difficult to be discouraged when you are spending time with him. (Of course, it also sometimes served to make me feel guilty for my own doubts, but that was my problem, not his.) However, once I left that afternoon to begin the drive home, the physical reality of what I had witnessed began to overwhelm me, and I was fighting off tears the drive home, at times less successfully than others. This was a Sunday, so I had to go to CrossWalk in the evening. As we gathered for prayer with the leaders before the service, I felt the tears coming again and knew that I was going to lose the battle to fight them off at some point, so after the prayer I pulled my pastor aside and we went into a different room. When he asked me what was up, it was pretty much all I could do to get out "I saw Lynn Myers today after not seeing him for 3 months" before it all came loose and I wept bitterly on his shoulder. I just couldn't deal with this anymore, and whatever "brave" face I had had left to put on was gone.

And so, I went back into my pattern of finding "good" reasons not to make the trip down, and it was almost another 3 months before I saw him again. Fortunately for me, God had some work to do in my heart before that time came.

Hope restored

2009-11-07T21:39:00.002-05:00

So, I got distracted for a few days, had my momentum broken, and it's taken me over a week to get back to this story. Anyone surprised by this? If you are, you haven't really been paying attention recently...

Anyhow, if you're a Phillies fan, a baseball fan, or probably even a sports fan in general, you generally know how this part of the story ends. The story of how the baseball season ended in Philadelphia in 2007 is not exactly a secret, but here's how I walked through it.

In the immediate aftermath of that Monday night, as I was still going over in mind if what I thought had happened had REALLY happened, the Phillies proceeded to lose their next two games in impressive fashion, to the tune of being outscored 20-2. Let's just say that didn't really help my skepticism. At the end of play on September 12th, they were 7 games behind the Mets division lead with 17 games to play, which made that avenue to the playoffs seem pretty much done with. They were much closer in the wild card, but there were several teams in the mix, and let's just say that the Phillies weren't exactly inspiring confidence. So, the thought that it had been God speaking to me in the car a couple nights prior moved further into the back of my brain.

But baseball is a funny game, and things can change pretty quickly. They came back and won their next 6 games, including a 3 game sweep of the Mets, and suddenly the odds seemed more manageable, while still pretty long. Even as the doubter in me kept telling me that this whole thing was nuts, and that it probably wasn't going to come true anyhow, I remember clinging to it, hoping that it really was true. As a classic example, the 5th game in this 6th game win streak was against the Cardinals, and the Phillies came as close as you can to blowing an 11-0 lead, holding on to win 13-11. I remember being upstairs in my bedroom, following the game on my computer, and praying. It was as close as I'll ever actually come to praying for a particular outcome of a sports event, but that wasn't what I was doing. I wanted so badly for what I thought I had heard from God to be the truth.

As stated, they pulled out that game, and then the following, but a 3-3 stretch in the next games left them 2 out in the division and 1 out in the wild card with 5 games to play. Very possible, but they were going to need to play very well. Getting the division seemed out of the question, because the Mets were playing 2 very bad teams in their last 5 games - if they just went 3-2, the best the Phillies could do was tie them. But crazily enough, the Phillies won their next 2, and the Mets lost two games to the woeful Nationals, and when the Nationals came to Philly for the last 3 games of the season, the Phillies and Mets were tied for first place, the first day all year that the Phillies had been in first place.

Oddly enough, I had tickets to the first game of that final series, the last Friday game of the regular season. I'd had them for months - I had gotten tickets to 6 games in a package at the beginning of the season, one game each month, and had chosen this particular game hoping to catch a game in the pennant race, and man, had I gotten it right.

From the pure perspective of a fan, this was easily the best experience I've ever had a pro sporting event. The house was packed, the fans were absolutely electric, and absolutely everything went right for the Phillies that night. Cole Hamels was masterful, throwing 8 shutout innings with 13 strikeouts as the Phillies dominated the game 6-0. As an added bonus, the Marlins had jumped ahead of the Mets early, and we were tracking that game on the out of town scoreboard all night as well. It ended after the Phillies game, and so I was sitting in my car with the postgame show on the radio, and the announcement of the final score led to a massive wave of honking car horns, rally towels being waved out windows, etc. For the record, the car horn thing wasn't the best situation when you already had people trying to navigate out of a crowded parking lot and some horn honking going on with that, but to the best of my knowledge, there were no accidents.

From the perspective of this journey I was on, this was the night that I finally fully embraced what I believed that God had said to me 18 days earlier. As I took everything in, even as the Phillies fan in me was going over all the things that could go wrong over the next 2 days, I found myself overwhelmed with the sense that I knew this was going to happen, and the trip home down the Turnpike was almost its own worship service.

The following day, my folks came up to my house to watch the game with me, hoping for the possibility of seeing the Phillies clinch the division. Unfortunately, that possibility had already gone out the window before the Phillies even took the field, since the Mets had won their game (in grand fashion, in fact, by the score of 13-0). They still had a chance, however, to ensure no worse than a tie for the division, which would force a 1 game playoff against the Mets. In true Phillie fashion (it can never be simple or easy), they played their worst game in the recent stretch, lost to the Nationals, and feel back into a first place tie. As frustrated as I was with the result of that game, and as much as the Phillies fan in me was screaming "here we go again", I remember saying several times to my folks: "They're going to do it." It wasn't bravado, it wasn't me trying to talk myself into it, it was just a very flat statement of faith at that point. Admittedly, there was probably less confidence assigned to it than there might have been 18 hours before, but I believed it, nonetheless. I was resigned to the strong possibility that it would require a 1 game playoff, but I believed it would happen.

The next day, I watched as the Mets, who started their game a bit earlier in the Phillies, gave up 7 first inning runs to the same lowly Marlins team they had throttled the day before. (Like I said before, baseball is funny) Realizing that that would likely mean the Phillies could close out the deal today, I hung on every pitch in their game. They jumped out to an early lead, and the final outcome was never in doubt. The Mets game went final during the last inning, and as the Phillies recorded the final out and the celebration began, I was completely overcome with emotion. Now, understand, I'm a bigtime sports fan, and I've been known to have emotional reactions to this sort of thing before - but this was different. This was not simply the joy of watching my favorite baseball team end a 13 year playoff drought. I was overcome with the fulfillment of what I believed God had spoken to me a few weeks earlier, and what I believed that meant about my friend. The Phillies had come back from 7 games down with 17 games to play, the biggest September comeback in MLB history - a baseball "miracle" as it were.

Now, as I finish off this part of the story, let me make one thing clear - I don't believe, and never have, that God was out there manipulating baseball games for my benefit, or that he had some sort of direct hand in the Phillies winning the division back in 2007. I do, however, believe that God sees these things coming - and that he had used this particular event to speak to me right where I was at, and in an arena where he was sure to have my attention. Needless to say, the hopelessness I had felt at that September 10th meeting was now a distant memory.

I wish I could say that the reason I'm sharing this now, just over 2 years later, is because Lynn has been healed. Sadly, that is not yet the case. But it's not over yet either, and so I'll get into "the rest of the story" as I continue on.

Was that you, God?

2009-10-30T21:14:00.003-04:00

So, I hopped in the car and started the drive home. As would be expected, I turned on the radio to listen to the Phillies game. They were playing the Colorado Rockies on this particular evening. As I mentioned in my last post, I was a bit frustrated with and rather pessimistic about the 2007 Phillies at this point. I don't remember all the particulars anymore, but I do remember that the Phillies were losing the game when I turned it on.

I don't recall how long I had listened or what exactly happened, but I was frustrated enough (my general mood given the meeting I had just come from probably wasn't helping) to turn the game off. As I was continuing to drive up the road, grumbling about the Phillies in my head (and quite possibly aloud), just knowing this was going to be another year when they fell short, the words "Don't lose hope" suddenly came into my head. It's really hard to describe what was going on here, but it just completely felt like something that was coming from outside of my own thoughts and musings, like someone else was entering the conversation. Was this God speaking to me?

You have to understand something here - up until about the last year, I had very minimal confidence in my ability to hear from God, at least on my own. On the rare occasions where I was willing to believe God was speaking to me, I would invariably preface it with "I'm not really someone who hears from God" or some variation on that theme. So, for me to quickly tag something as a potential word from God, especially in what was a very "non-spiritual" context, it had to have grabbed my attention pretty significantly.

One thing I immediately understood - if this was, in fact, a word from God, He wasn't just talking to me about the Phillies. I mean, maybe God is a big baseball fan, but I was pretty sure if He was giving me a message, the real point was about the other subject of the evening - Lynn. I believed He was telling me not to lose hope for Lynn, and that the Phillies were his way of confirming it.

Perhaps now you might understand one of the reasons why I've kept this under my hat to a large degree? To this day, it still seems a bit out there, even to me, and I lived it. Needless to say, I was skeptical. Along with my general skepticism about my ability to hear from God, there was the simple matter that I've always, and continue to be to this day, very cautious when I feel like I hear something from God that is what I know I really want - because it's not particularly easy to be objective in these cases. I mean, let's evaluate what I felt like I was hearing from God here - that my good friend was going to be healed from a fatal disease, and that my favorite baseball team was going to finally make the playoffs. There's not much question that's something I could dream up. And let's be realistic, the Phillies were right in the wild card hunt - as much as my past memories told me otherwise, making the playoffs was still a pretty strong possibility.

Still not really knowing what to think, I turned the radio back on and listened as the Phillies came back and won that particular game. As I got home, I determined to file the events of the evening away, taking a "wait and see" approach. I mean, after all, in a few weeks I would know if the Phillies made the playoffs or not, and if they didn't, there wasn't much more to be considered.

Some context

2009-10-28T18:10:00.003-04:00

In my last post I told you to remember the fact that Lynn and I were both Phillies fans, because it would be important later. Well, in order to put this part of the story in proper context, I have to give provide a mini-history of the Phillies themselves. It's something else to be writing this out only hours before the Phillies open up the World Series against the Yankees, seeking to win their second straight championship.

The Philadelphia Phillies baseball team is one of the oldest professional sports teams in the US, with a history that goes back well over 100 years. They've been around for a long time, and for most of that history, they've been, well, pretty bad. Earlier that summer, the Phillies had suffered their 10,000th loss as a franchise. Actually, I missed being at that game by one night because they won when I was there. When the Pittsburgh Pirates finished off their 17th consecutive losing season in 2009, they set a major league record, wiping the Phillies record of 16 from the books. People make a big deal these days about how the Cubs have gone 101 years without winning a World Series, they made a big deal about how the Red Sox went 86 years in between championships. The Phillies had a similar run at the beginning of their history, going 77 years before winning their first, and as of the summer of 2007, their only, championship.

That happened in 1980, when I was about 6 months old. They made it back to the World Series in 1983 before losing to the Orioles, but by the time I was old enough to start being a fan, they were pretty much back into their historic pattern of ugliness. In fact, from the time I can remember following them through 2000, every season, with one notable exception, ended with more Phillies losses than wins. The exception, 1993, was glorious, right up until the point when it ended in the World Series, with Joe Carter's series ending home run off of Mitch Williams in Game 6.

In 2001, there was a shift. The Phillies went from being terrible every year, to being good, but not quite good enough, year in, and year out. Every year between 2001 and 2006 (with the exception of 2002, when they only won 80), the team won at least 85 games, and in most of those years they finished agonizingly close to a playoff spot, just missing out in the final days of the season. I'm honestly not sure what was harder on me as a fan - when they were just terrible, or when they were always getting my hopes up only to dash them.

2007 was shaping up to be another one of those "good, but not good enough" years, and early September had been particularly frustrating. The team had won 4 straight from the archrival Mets at the end of August to close within a very manageable 2 games behind in the division. However, by September 10th, the day of our meeting, they had managed to give all 4 of the games that they had picked up back with a rough stretch of play that had corresponded with a Mets hot streak. They were only a couple games back in the wild card, but I just wasn't very impressed in general, and while I refused to give up completely, I was resigning myself to yet another season that would end in a frustrating near-miss, with no postseason for the 14th straight year.

So, anyhow, that's what was going on with the Phillies as our meeting broke up that night and I said my goodbyes. As I was about to walk out to my car, Lynn suggested I could go in the house and see if that night's game was on TV. I declined, as I needed to get started on the hour drive home, and I could listen to the game on the radio in the car. As I declined, I threw out an offhand comment, paralleling our Phillies to the word of the evening: "Yeah, speaking of not losing hope..." Lynn and I both chuckled about it knowingly, and I headed out to my car.

A loss of hope...

2009-10-27T19:31:00.005-04:00

And so, after yet another lengthy hiatus, I am back. And I have a story to tell. I make no promises about how long it will take me to tell it, because I know that only gets me in trouble...

Much of this story happened over 2 years ago, and much of it I have never shared with more than a handful of people who are particularly close to me, or particularly close to the situation. This is for reasons that are my own, and which may become clear as I go along. I choose to share it more publically now, for reasons which are also my own, and which also may become clear as I go along. Have I piqued your curiosity yet?

Anyhow, I have written at various times over the last few years on this blog about my dear friend Lynn, who spent several years serving God in Thailand, and whose team I went on trips to support in 2007 and 2008. I've also mentioned that he is currently suffering from ALS, also known as Lou Gehrig's Disease, a degenerative nuerological disease in which, simply put, the brain gradually loses the ability to communicate with the rest of the body. There is no medical cure for ALS, and as such, it is fatal.

It was in late summer of 2007, while Lynn and his family were back in the US on home ministry, when I first heard the term "ALS" in connection with Lynn. The diagnosis wasn't official at this point, but it was what the doctors were strongly suspecting. I got an e-mail that Lynn sent out to some of his core support team with this news in it one day while I still was at work, and it was all I could do not to burst into tears in the middle of my office. I was stunned, especially since I didn't even know Lynn had been having the health difficulties that had led him to see the doctors in the first place. Needless to say, it was very difficult to finish off the day at work, but I got through it.

Oddly enough, I was going to be seeing Lynn in a few days. In the way of background, one commonality that Lynn and I share as friends is our love of the Phillies. We came by it in different ways - Lynn's entire family on his Dad's side are Phillies fans, stemming back to Lynn's paternal grandmother. (That's right, I said grandmother.) I, on the other hand, am first generation. My parents are both Phillies fans, but they got it from me, not the other way around. I'm not particularly sure why I'm a Phillies fan. I just always remember loving baseball, and that the Phillies were the first team I encountered. Anyhow, having gotten that little piece of information out the way (remember it, it will be important later), Lynn and I had planned a couple months before to attend that Friday night's Phillies game together. We had 5 1/2 or so hours in the car ahead of us, and one of the topics had obviously already been set.

I remember that car ride like it was yesterday. I spent much of the trip down uncomfortably babbling on about the many thoughts that had been running through my head over the few days between the news and the game. Much of my ramblings centered around my theology of healing - that God can and does heal, but doesn't always, and how whether Lynn lived or died I believed God would work good in it and bring glory to Himself, and advance His kingdom in Thailand. There was other stuff, but it was pretty much all variations on that theme. I kept running my mouth to the point where later in the car ride Lynn called me out for it, and let me know that I needed to work on my listening skills. Tough love, but he was right. Listening isn't always my best skill to begin with, and it can get really bad when I get uncomfortable.

I was uncomfortable because, the truth of the matter was this - I had basically conceded Lynn's life. Despite my belief in God's power to heal, when I had seen those letters "ALS", I had already made the determination, whether I would have admitted it to myself or not, that Lynn was going to die from this illness and whatever work God was going to do in this situation wasn't going to include healing. Why? I'm still not 100% sure to this day, but it will probably make more sense as I get further along. The simple fact of the matter was that I was fixated on the physical reality that was right in front of me, and defining God's work on the basis that this diagnosis, which was absolutely real, was the final word, and something that God was going to have to work within the boundaries of. Even though my "head" view of God allowed for a miraculous healing, my "heart" view of things had already ruled it out.

A little over 3 weeks later, on September 10th, I was gathered with Lynn, his wife Amy, and the rest of their core support team at Lynn's parents' house (where they were staying while on home ministry) for a team meeting. This was to have been our last meeting before Lynn and Amy returned to Thailand on September 12th, a return that was now on indefinite delay due to the medical situation. Obviously, there was only one subject on everyone's hearts.

As we gathered, Lynn began to share how God had given him the word that his sickness was not unto death, as in the story of Lazarus in John 11. Obviously, given where my heart was at, this was rather difficult for me to accept, and I approached it with requisite skepticism. "Of course that's what he heard, that's what he wanted to hear." and other variations on that theme were playing in my mind. I was hoping against hope that he was right, but really not believing that he was, for the most part.

As he continued to share, he spoke about the kind of people he wanted to have around him and supporting him in this time - people that wouldn't lose hope. Do you think that didn't drill right into my heart? I had completely lost hope and given Lynn up for dead from the minute I got that e-mail. Heck, the diagnosis wasn't even final yet - but that hadn't stopped me. I remember tearing up, wishing I could feel differently, but not finding it my heart to do so.

We ended the formal part of the meeting by gathering around Lynn and Amy and praying for them. As we prayed, my heart was moved and I prayed aloud, confessing that I had lost hope, and also claiming a willingness to trust Lynn, to trust in what he believed God was saying to him. And you know what, as I prayed that, I felt a release, and I believed that I could do it, that I could trust in what God was saying to Lynn. And maybe I could have, maybe that would have been enough (probably not). However, because of the events that followed, starting immediately after that meeting, I never really had a chance to find out.

Favre-palooza

2009-09-28T18:01:00.002-04:00

Well, since the whole of the national sports media has been "All Favre, all the time" since Brett Favre's game winning touchdown pass in yesterday's Vikings/49er game, I thought I would join the parade. And so, allow me to share my personal favorite Brett Favre moment.

It was the 2003 NFC Divisional playoff game between Favre's Packers and the Philadelphia Eagles. A very exciting game had led to overtime. The Eagles won the toss and elected to receive, but after a 3 and out, the ball, and thus, the game, was in Brett Favre's hand. On the first play of the series, Favre dropped back, looked down the field, and gave the ball a mighty heave. It soared majestically down the field, until it came down, into the waiting arms of... Eagles safety Brian Dawkins - with no Packer within 20 yards of him and the ball. Dawkins ran the ball back 35 yards to the Packer 35, the Eagles drove 20 more yards and then kicked the game winning field goal to advance to the NFC title game.

If you remember that game, or are aware of my affinity for Philadelphia sports teams, you probably saw that coming. I bring it up for two reasons: First, because it really is a fun memory, and second, because I've been wondering for the last 24 hours plus when exactly it was that the media at large lost all sense of perspective on Favre.

Now, I am not a Favre-hater. In fact, there was a period in Favre's career where I would probably have ranked him as one of my favorite players that didn't play for my favorite team. I get why people liked him. He was an immense talent, had a seemingly very "every man", down to earth demeanor, and he played the game with passion and with a gunslinger's mentality that everyone who has dreamed of NFL glory while playing in a pick up game in the backyard can relate to. He was an excellent quarterback, one of the absolute best in the game in his prime, and enjoyed a good deal of success. He merited attention.

At some point, however, this thing got way out of control. I'd love to blame the president of the media's Favre fanboy club, John Madden, but he was only the most obvious culprit. At some point Favre almost became bigger than the game, and his flaws as a player (which certainly existed) were routinely whitewashed while his successes were overemphasized. The story I started with is a perfect example - in addition to making a lot of incredibly positive game-changing plays, it wasn't that uncommon for him to hurt his team's chances with an unnecessary risk or poor decision. That was the downside of having his talent and his mentality - he always believed he could make a throw. There's a reason he's the NFL's all-time leader in touchdown passes, and also interceptions. He did cutdown on the latter in his prime, but not at all entirely.

At this point in his career, and after all the years of "will he/won't he" around his retirement status, Favre is still being assigned a place in the game, that, in my opinion, he doesn't deserve and never really did. The man was great, in all but the strictest definitions of the term, but let's not get crazy. He played a substantial portion of his career alongside 3 quarterbacks who I wouldn't hestitate to rank ahead of him in the NFL pantheonon of greatness in Elway, Brady, and Peyton Manning, and alongside several others (Young, Aikman quickly come to mind) who certainly are in the same neighborhood as he. At present, he has to show for his efforts exactly one Super Bowl win, ranking him alongside such lumanaries of the game as Trent Dilfer and Brad Johnson, and one loss to Elway. He also has, alongside those, a few catastrophic meltdowns like the one I opened this thread with that sent his teams to the golf course.

And yet, one game-winning TD pass, in the 3rd game of the season, and it's wall to wall Brett-mania on ESPN. Almost completely lost in the euphoria has been the fact that Favre's pass would have been for naught had the less than Pro Bowl caliber wideout Greg Lewis not made one of the better catches you'll ever see in the very back of the end zone. In fact (and I chastise people all the time for building arguments around "if" statements that really can't be proven wrong, so I apologize for this), I'm guessing that if all but 2 other active quarterbacks (Brady and P. Manning being the other) had thrown the ball, the headlines would have been talking about a game-winning catch, rather than a game winning pass. However, as a point of support, when referencing the end of last year's Super Bowl, do people more often refer to Ben Roethlisberger's winning pass, or Santonio Holmes' winning catch?

Anyhow, I wish Brett Favre the best, and he has been excellent this season by any reasonable measure. I just wish that the media would allow us all to appreciate Favre for what he is and was, without the need to hyperbolize and hero worship.

It was an accident, I swear

2009-09-22T20:32:00.002-04:00

So, something happened to me recently - something that I very much did not plan on. In fact, as the title suggests, I would go so far as to say it happened by accident. After years and years of avoiding it like the plague, I woke up and realized that I, in fact, am leading an all-around healthy lifestyle. How could this possibly happen "by accident", you ask? Well, let me break it down for you, in chronological order of the several, mostly unconnected events.

#1 - Dramatically cutting back on soda consumption: I had, over the last several months, gotten to the point where I was consuming far more soda than I would prefer. It was easy for me to think this was not the case, because I rarely buy and keep a supply of soda at home. The issue was the trips to the vending machine at work. I was pretty much always having a soda with lunch, and quite often would have another at some point in the day. One day in early August, a co-worker made a point of saying how she could always count on seeing a Mt. Dew at my desk when she came by (she was not meaning anything by it, she's apparently the same way). That was a "Wow" moment, for one thing. Also, the vending machines at my work aren't exactly value price, and while a dollar or two every day doesn't seem like much, it adds up and I was looking at ways to save money. Also about this same time, I noticed the existance of G2 powder packets for use in a bottle of water. I've gone all water at work several times before, but I always slip up because I just need some flavor. G2 has enough flavor to keep me from running to the vending machine, has considerably less sugar, and actually has some positive health value to it, and at about 35 cents for a 500 ml bottle as opposed to 75 cents for a 12 ounce can of soda, the price is right. So, pretty quickly, I dropped from 1 or 2 sodas a day to 1, maybe 2 a week.

#2 - Actually cooking for myself more, less fast food, frozen pizza and Hot Pockets: The thing about this one is, I like to cook, and I like to eat actual cooking even more :) Ever since I've been on my own, I've gone in and out of spells where I am doing a lot of cooking. Around the same time as I cut down on soda, I decided it was time to get serious about cooking again. This was also aided by the end of church softball season, which is an all-consuming sort of thing over the summer (or at least it has been, but I don't intend for it to be again) which gave me a more regular, relaxed schedule. Cooking for myself really isn't that much of a time/effort thing. I have a (now increasing number) of recipes that I really like and that are fairly minimal in their preparation, and since it's just me, I typically only have to actually cook once every 4 days or so. It's funny, when I was a kid living at home, and my mom was doing the cooking leftovers were a drag. Now, given the alternative, having leftovers of a nice recipe for dinner is something of a treat. This one was also a cost saver as well.

#3 - Regular morning exercise - You'll recall my Half Dome story - how I talked about how out of shape I was, how I didn't make it to the top, and how I have designs on going back someday and making it all the way. Now, I personally believe that, even in the condition that I was in, knowing what I know now and actually having the internal desire to complete the hike, I could go back and make it to the top. However, I have no designs on leaving that assumption to chance. So, even though I have no formal plans at this point to head back up Half Dome any time soon, the edict was out there to get in better shape. There was also a cost issue here - I was reaching the limits of the waistlines on some of my pants, and really didn't want to lay out the cash for bigger replacements :) Anyhow, I have an elliptical and had tried to get into an exercise routine right after I got home from California, but I was doing it in the evenings and with softball, it was just difficult to get into any kind of plan. So, a few weeks after softball ended, I was trying to figure out how I was going to stay with an exercise routine. I had had a similar problem with spending daily time with God a few months ago. My solution: Get up early and do it first thing in the morning. That had worked really well, so, I bit the bullet and decided to get up an additional 30 minutes early each morning and hop on the elliptical. This had an unintended side benefit: making me much more awake and alert for my time with God! Ever since the move to the morning, I had struggled with nodding off from time to time. Not an issue after 30 minutes on the elliptical!

#4 - Better hydration, more balanced diet: Okay, the first 3 were pretty much unconnected, but this one was pretty much a case of, well, I've come this far, might as well go all the way. The hydration thing came first - I was already drinking the G2 at work, and of course I wanted to make sure I was drinking with my morning workouts. So, getting into a much better routine of taking in water during the evening just seemed to follow. And, while I was pretty sure I wouldn't have to do anything with my diet to lose weight once I started exercising, there was this sense "I'm getting up at 5:00 am to do this exercise thing, why would I want to completely work against myself when I'm eating". Now, let's be clear - I'm not "on a diet". There's nothing that I've cut out or won't eat now. I'm not counting calories, carbs, etc. Rather than trying to cut out "bad" things, my focus as been on eating more "good" things THAT I LIKE - having the morning OJ, packing carrots and fruit with my lunches, taking a granola/fiber bar along for a snack at work (heading off another vending machine expense), eating apples (honeycrisp apples MIGHT be the greatest snack ever), having more fruits and vegetables with my meals at home. So, while the intent hasn't necessarily been to eat less, cut down on calories, I'm pretty sure I have (I've been snacking less due to fuller meals), and I'm certainly eating better.

#5 - Evening walks - This was another one that kind of followed from everything else, and also from the fact that I have a dog that certainly isn't hurt by taking long walks. I wanted to get in some extra, low intensity activity in the evenings, I'd been thinking for a while that I should be walking Chaser more, and there you go. I've been trying to get at least a 15 minute walk in with Chaser for the last couple weeks, longer when there's no threat of rain.

So there it is - that's how I started living healthy "by accident". Now, I could obviously fall out of this all tomorrow, but I've been at most of this for several weeks now, and quite honestly, am really enjoying it. The end results: Losing weight (about 4 pounds since I started tracking about 2 weeks ago, and likely an additional pound or two between when I started exercising and when I started tracking), seeing my overall, day to day energy level rise dramatically (especially in situations where I'm going on less sleep than I'd prefer), and being able to play an hour and a half of flag football on Sunday afternoon without dying of exhaustion :) I can deal with that!

Reaching the top, sort of... (also, post #300!)

2009-08-02T20:25:00.010-04:00

So, for the 300th post in the history of this blog, I shall finish out the ascending portion of my Half Dome story. I'm pleased it worked out that way, as I thought I was going to get to 300 on like the 2nd post, but then I discovered that there were a few old "draft" posts that never were posted that were included in the count that I was getting on the log in page. (And I actually started and had most of this post written almost 2 weeks ago, but a flaky internet connection prevented me from finishing and somehow it took me this long to get back to it)

So, I personally wasn't at all ready (or even that interested) in continuing up the trail to Half Dome, but I was convinced that God wanted me to continue, there really wasn't much getting around that fact, and so I started again, along with my uncle. As I started, things weren't a whole different than they had been when I had sat down before the 2 miles to go sign. I felt very weak, I was getting winded very quickly, etc, etc. And the trail was pretty steep at this point as well. I took it a very little bit at a time, stopping for a minute or two break at virtually every spot that looked convenient. I noticed that my pace would still keep me putting some distance between myself and my uncle, so I would find a place to sit, wait for him to catch up, sit with him for a bit, and then take off ahead of him.

Eventually I found I was able to go further at a time, and my routine formalized to this - I'd get some good distance between my uncle and myself, sit down, and then take off again shortly after he arrived. I repeated this several times, and then at one of the points where I sat down, I realized I had gotten far enough away that I couldn't see him behind me. I waited for a bit, intending to continue my routine. However, at some point, he must have taken a more extended break, because he didn't come for a while, and I was feeling ready to go on, so I did, basically committing to go as far as I could get on my own. At this point in the hike, I was still basically in the woods, I had really no concept of what exactly was up ahead, or what I would encounter - but eventually I came out into a more open part of the trail and headed up unto and to the left.

As I crested this hill, things flattened out somewhat, and I realized I was coming out of the woods and onto a plateau, where all of sudden I could look out over the valley and see the likes of this:

The tears were back behind my sunglasses, but for very different reasons this time. This wasn't the true end of the trail, but it was something very much worth climbing to see, and something I would have totally missed out on, had I let my own instincts prevail and given up in the middle of the woods. I stopped and paused for a few moments, and then started to head onward. There was actually an additional rise up ahead, and as I started towards it, I saw my Mom and Dad coming back down it. They met me and turned with me to head back over the rise, encouraging me that it opened up even more just ahead, and it did.

I actually think both of those pictures were probably taken from the second location, but I have to provide some sense of building the story. Anyhow, Mom and Dad also led me to the view that caused them to end their ascent:

The famous "Heartbreak Hill. You can't really see from the picture, but to us, it looked like there were people literally going straight up the lower part of that rockface, where there were still trees. In actually, this was not the case, but they were ascending stone stairs of the same ilk that we had ascended on our trek alongside Vernal Falls. And, though we couldn't see this view from there, we knew that after you got through all that, this awaited:

The last several hundred feet to the top of Half Dome takes you straight up the rock face, with just the assistance of the cables you see here. It's really hard to totally get a feel for how steep the climb is from pictures, but Tim's report was, at least in stretches, it was definitely in excess of a 45 degree climb. As I looked at the whole view, I knew, as my parents had, that getting up it was just not in the cards today, and this was where my ascent would end as well. However, as opposed to the last time I had thought my ascent over, I was very much at peace at this time. I had pressed on well beyond where everything in me had wanted to give up, and I was very much sensing I had made it as far as I was supposed to get on this day.

However, a funny thing happened while I was standing there, looking up at the summit. Remember how I said (I think several times) that part of my problem from the beginning was that I didn't really want to climb Half Dome, that I was just doing it because that's what we were doing, and that there was nothing internal pushing me to reach the top? Well, all that was changing with the end of the trail staring me in the face, albeit about 1000 feet or so up. I now WANTED to get to the top of Half Dome. In fact, as we stood/sat there, I almost got to the point of starting of again on a couple occasions, but wisdom prevailed. (I learned once we started down just how wise that was. By this time, the groin injury I had sustained going up the waterfalls was so aggravated, that any time I had to actually "step" up, it was absolutely excrutiating. I was generally okay to walk up or downhill, but it probably would have taken me all of 5 steps up Heartbreak Hill to come wincing back down) However, I told myself right then and there that where I was was fine for that day, but that I would come back someday and get to the top - and I intend to do just that.

But, like I said, this was it for that trip, so after some rest, I was ready to head back down the trail.

A crisis of the will

2009-07-28T21:24:00.003-04:00

2 more miles?! Really? As tiny and unremarkable as that little sign was, it somehow managed to sap every last bit of fight from me. I don't think anyone else in the group was particularly thrilled to see it either. We all sat down around the edge of this open area for a break (an extended one this time), but when I personally sat down, it felt like I was doing so without any intention to get back up - at least not to continue forward. Before that sign, I was still holding out some hope of making it to the end of the hike. But with 2 miles to go, the way I was feeling now, my mind could not conceive of any possible way I could make it all the way and then still have enough to make the final ascent. If I couldn't make it all the way, then what was the point of continuing to put myself through this - especially since I never really had that much desire to do this in the first place. I mean, quiting a mile further up the trail was still quiting, right?

So there I sat, feeling pretty much completely defeated, and with nothing in my body or mind wanting to go forward. I sulked while I ate and drank - not liking the idea of being the first (and maybe only, even though the folks were openly talking about not being able to make it) one to pack it in, but not thinking my pride was worth continuing, especially since I was only postponing the inevitable. After several minutes, my folks decided to go on, but my uncle was planning to rest longer. As my parents left, it was decided that I would wait behind, and if I wanted to continue when my uncle moved on, I would, if not, I wouldn't. In my mind, I was pretty sure what was going to happen, and it was apparently pretty obvious to my parents as well.

There was only one problem - that understanding that I had had since the plane ride on the beginning of the trip that I had an appointment with God somewhere on this hike, and if it had come and gone, I had certainly been unaware. So, God and I had a bit of a chat, that I think went something like this, though in my head, not out loud :):

Me: So God, this was it, right? I'm done now, and I'll understand later where we met - or maybe we'll meet on the way down?
God: You need to go higher.
Me: Are you kidding me? I'm beaten - done. There's no way I can make it all the way, so why would I put myself through this more?
God: I want you to go higher - and I'm telling you you can go higher.
Me: Why? What could possibly be worth continuing this? Tell me where I'm supposed to go.
God: I want you to go higher - isn't that enough for you?

And that's pretty much where the conversation ended. It was obvious I wasn't going to hear what I wanted to hear, so I was left to wrestle internally with what God was asking of me. There was nothing that came from me that wanted to continue - nothing. I felt tears welling up under my sunglasses as I fought - still not sure of what I was going to do when the moment of decision came.

A few minutes later (much, much too soon by my thinking) - my uncle looked over at me and said: "Are you ready?" The answer (the real answer, not what I said), was no - I was not ready. But, my decision was made, I was going to get up anyhow, and so I did - closing my pack back up and preparing to go higher.

A momentary break, and then a turn for the worse

2009-07-27T20:21:00.003-04:00

Shortly after passing by the Nevada Falls, the trail really flattens out for a while. There's an initial stretch past the falls that is pretty bumpy and rocky, and in fact you actually go down somewhat for a bit (again, exceedingly frustrating when you know you weren't anywhere near done going up), but overall, this is about a mile or so of the flatest stretch on the trail (at least the part of the trail that I covered). It's very peaceful, you walk by the river that feeds the falls, it's just overall a nice breather after all the climbing. One thing that is a negative about it, or at least was for us, is that it's much more open and out in the sun than most of the trail. I never really got a read on how hot it actually was up there - but it was in the high 90s down on the valley floor the other days we were in the area, so I'm pretty sure it wasn't terribly far from that range where we were hiking most of the time. Now, in that part of the world, it's very, very dry, so without the humidity, the heat is easy to escape when you are shaded, but it does really beat down on you when you're out in it.

This whole segment of the trail is also in the shadow of Half Dome - and by this time we could already see a few people on the cables heading up from the lower dome to the very top, looking like ants on the side of the big rock. We did sit down for a while near the river, and at this point I was still feeling alright, although the toll of all the climbing over the last couple hours was definitely setting in. After getting up from our rest, we made rather quick work of the flatter part of the trail and then turned up into the forest to begin ascending again.

This, unfortunately, is where the story of my ascent takes an unhappy turn. Shortly after we (at this point we was my Mom, Dad, uncle and I - Tim and Megan had pushed on ahead) had headed up into the forest, it was noted that we had missed the last "real" (and I use that term VERY loosely) bathroom on the trail. The reason we had missed it was because it wasn't actually "on" the trail, but was rather at a backpack campsite that was just off to the right of the trail before it made the turn back up into the woods. So, we went back. I'm not sure I particularly remember why I did, cause I didn't really have to go and I really didn't have worries in the event that I wound up needing to go in the woods. But back we went. I suck at estimating distances, but I'm going to guess we went back about a quarter mile or so.

I am not sure totally sure what it was, but after doing that, everything turned in the wrong direction for me. I think my parents would say the same thing. I became much more fatigued, both physically and mentally, and everything became much more of a struggle. Thinking back on what went wrong, it was probably a combination of things:

#1 - I had been very focused on keeping myself hydrated, but I don't think I paid enough attention to how much food I was taking in.

#2 - The lack of sleep from the night before was finally setting in to some degree

#3 - That trek back to the bathroom had been back in that open section that let the sun beat down, and probably didn't help.

#4 - We were getting higher, and the altitude wasn't exactly helpful

#5 - I think going back threw some psychological switch, along with all of the above.

We were climbing again, but it wasn't that bad compared to where we had come from, and yet I was really struggling now. The stops were coming more frequently, and being less helpful. For the first time, I was really doubting whether I was going to be able to do this, and the bigger problem, which I alluded to earlier, was that I had never really WANTED to do this, so it was hard to convince myself that continuing to do this to myself was going to be worth it. I kept going, thinking to myself that, while I knew it would get a lot steeper at the very end, it would probably be okay until then. Of course, then Mom asked my uncle if it got much steeper before the very end, and he said, yeah, right up around there. Great!

And it did get steeper (by the way, you'll notice I've not been posting many pictures in this part of the story - that in itself is evidence to what we were going through, because the photographers definitely weren't in the same mindset that they were earlier), and at this point I think we were all openly questioning whether we could make it - and I was questioning whether it was even worth it to try. I didn't really want to give up, especially not this soon. So, with my original dreams of the trail not getting much steeper until the very end dashed, I consoled myself by looking at the time, thinking about when we had left (I'm thinking we'd been on the trail almost 5 hours by this time), going on my rough estimates of what kind of time we should have been making, and thinking, "It can't be much further". I'm thinking, it's 8 miles to the summit, on flat ground I could do that in 2, 2 1/2 hours, so, double that for the climb, maybe minus a bit. My math led me to believe, without asking of course, that we were within the last mile of the hike.

Then of course, we came out into an open area, where I saw this:

WHAT?!

Scaling the falls

2009-07-23T20:08:00.008-04:00

So, like I said, the first segment of the trip was really just a warmup, and the adventure didn't fully begin until we crossed over the bridge and made our turn up the Mist trail.

I need to be clear about something - I didn't go into this hike with any illusions about my capabilities. I knew going in I wasn't in peak physical condition, or anywhere close to it. One thing I was banking on, however, was the fact that I've always had pretty good endurance relative to my overall conditioning - which is to say that when I'm being smart about it, I can usually find a good solid pace that I can maintain for a long time. That was my intended tactic for the hike. The only problem is that setting a consistent pace is REALLY hard to do when the terrain keeps changing on you. As I recall, when we initially made the turn up onto the Mist trail, the hike was basically just a somewhat steeper version of what we had been doing previously. However, as we continued to trek toward the top of the lower (Vernal) falls, we encountered this:

And then this:

Followed by these:

And then... well, you get the picture. All of which provides appropriate context for this picture:

It wasn't all bad, however, as we got to do much of this in full view of this, which was the destination for this leg of the hike:

By now, perhaps you better understand my earlier comment about why you wouldn't come DOWN via the Mist trail unless you had a death wish. Those were very steep stone steps, many sections of which were quite slick due to the mist coming off of the falls. Going up them was difficult, and in fact exceeding such, but coming down them would have been absolutely treacherous. Somewhere on these steps I pulled a groin muscle - which is more significant later in the story. For this part of the climb, it was just an annoyance. But anyhow, we all finally reached the top of Vernal Falls, and took the bridge over the river to begin our ascent to the upper (Nevada) falls.

My recollection is that overall, the hike to Nevada Falls was not quite as steep and strenuous as the steps to Vernal. However, there were a few sections that left me wishing for the steps:

Really though, most of it wasn't that bad, and even that wasn't quite as treacherous as it might seem from the picture. It does, however, represent another reason not to descend via this trail. I remember being pretty pleased with how I was doing physically at this point. Don't get me wrong, it was hard, and overall, the hike was kicking my butt. We'd go for a while, I'd get tired, and the altitude left me pretty winded much of the time, but we were taking plenty of breaks, and usually just a minute or two would leave me feeling fine to go on for a while. I was feeling pretty optimistic about my chances of making it to the top.

Eventually, we made it to the top of the Nevada Falls - and the next restroom -, where we left the falls behind and made the transition to the next part of the hike.

Taking to the trail

2009-07-22T18:14:00.004-04:00

So, apparently not even having a ton of good material to work with is enough motivation to keep me blogging regularly. Oh well, here we go again. For background, given that I'm sure you've all forgotten what I wrote 2 weeks ago, please see the last few posts!

So, anyhow, there I was, getting up at about 4:30 in the morning, having slept very, very little, and staring at the prospect of taking to the trail for the hike I laid out in my last post. I'm going to be flatly honest - I think had I not come away from my God appointment on the flight out with a sense that God had something for me on this hike, I might have forgotten the whole idea right then and there, climbed back into bed, and then settled in for a relaxing day at the house with my grandpa. The fact of the matter was that there was nothing in me that really wanted to do this (make a note, that will be important as the story progresses). Tim had gotten this wacky idea while looking at the rock from Glacier Point when he and Megan were out a couple years ago, and then Mom had latched onto it and it had become a family event. I wanted to go on this trip with the family, and this was something everyone else was going to do while we were out there, so I agreed to give it a shot. Don't get me wrong, given that I was doing it, I was hoping to make it all the way, but there was nothing internally really driving me to do it, and the lack of sleep made the whole thing seem all the less pleasant. However, I knew what I had felt God telling me, and I also knew it didn't surprise Him that I hadn't slept, so I stayed the course, did my final packing, and hopped into the van for the drive for the trailhead, or rather for the parking lot which was 3/4 of a mile from the trailhead, as I mentioned before.

So, after a quick breakfast at the van, we were off, walking our way towards the trailhead. Thankfully, this part of the trip was at least mostly flat. After you get to the trailhead itself, the first part of the trail is pretty tame. It's paved, and while you are (mostly) going up hill, it's fairly gradual, more of a rolling kind of climb. In fact, there are several segments where you actually dip back down for a while - and trust me, when you are acutely aware of the fact that you have a lot further up to go, there are few things more frustrating than heading downhill.

That part of the trail, while plenty to test the casual hiker such as myself (I'm not even sure that term captures my level of unpreparedness) - it's really just a tune up. The real adventure doesn't start until you reach the bridge that is just about a mile into the hike. A couple things are significant about this point. First of all, just past it is the first restrooms along the trail (also a place to fill up your water). Secondly, this is where you make the choice between continuing your ascent via the Muir trail or the Mist trail.

These trails diverge before coming back together at the top of the 2nd waterfall shown on the picture I posted previously of the entire hike. The Mist trail is shorter by at least a mile and a half, and conversely much steeper, but it's also more scenic, because it takes you up right beside the falls, such that you get hit with their mist when there's enough water coming over them (there was for us), which is where the trail gets its name. Traditionally hikers will ascend via the Mist trail and descend via the Muir trail, which is much longer, but much more comfortable descent. The reason for this is simple - you don't want to come down the Mist trail unless you have a death wish. I'll explain that in a bit more detail later. Anyhow, we were following the traditional path and turned up alongside the river to ascend the Mist trail, at which point the adventure truly began.

Some opening perspective

2009-07-06T20:34:00.006-04:00

I had been debating whether to open with this, or do it after the story of the attempted climb, which is when I got my dose of perspective. For a number of reasons, I decided I'm going to lead with it.

This is what I attempted, along with the rest of my immediate family, to accomplish:

As daunting as Half Dome itself looks in the picture I posted a few blogs ago, if you could walk right up to the base of that rock and then go up it, it wouldn't really be that daunting of a task. As you can see, that's really not an option. There are, I understand some other ways to hike to it that might not be quite as daunting, but this is what people are talking about when they talk about the hike to Half Dome.

You start somewhere towards the bottom right of the picture, probably not even on it, below the lower falls. You then hike out along the water at a steady, managable climb. Eventually, however, that changes and you start climbing up right along the right side of the falls, getting a fair share of mist, on very steep rock steps that are quite slipperly. Eventually, you get up the top of the first set of falls (Vernal Falls), at which point you cross over to the left side of the water. You then hike up a path, less steep than those start, but still plenty steep, doing plenty of switching back, that takes you to the top of the second set of falls. (Nevada Falls)

After you get past the Nevada Falls, the trail flattens out for a mile (and even descends, which trust me, you HATE on a climb like this since you know you're eventually heading back up) or so as you hike along the river and back behind the smaller peak you see on the right side of the picture. This part of the hike is done in the shadow of the dome itself, and you can see people making the final ascent, if there are any at that time, which there typically will be anytime from the later part of the morning on. After that nice little reprieve, you cut left back up into the forest, climbing back around behind Half Dome itself. Eventually you come out to more of a plateau, probably connected to some of the rock you can see there behind Half Dome, where you're standing, basically looking back at the camera, looking at the "lower" dome and the final ascent to the top. You hike through some more woods, and then up a very steep incline via stone steps and all kinds of switch packs, to the top of the lower dome, known "affectionately" as Heartbreak Hill. If you get to that point, the last 400 feet or so is at a 45 (Tim says greater) straight up the rock face, with the aid of cables to hold on each side to keep your balance.

The only modification on the trip back down is that at the top of Nevada Falls, you cross over the falls and take a longer, flater, less scenic hike back out of the mountains. This is longer, but much easier on the body, and much less dangerous than going down those steep, wet stairs I referred to beside Vernal Falls.

The trailhead is at about 4000 feet above sea level, and if you complete the entire hike, you'll walk about 17 miles round trip, and ascend 4800 feet before coming back down. My trip ended, along with my mom, dad, and uncle, on the plateau I spoke of before the final push to the lower dome. Megan made it to the top of Heartbreak Hill (pictures to come) before the heights got to her, and Tim made it to the top. Additionally, in our case, we couldn't park in the lot closest to the trail head, so we wound up having to walking better than 1/2 of a mile from our car to the trailhead in full gear.

This picture was taken the day after the hike at a scenic view place called Glacier Point. As you'll see as I get to the end of my story, I wasn't feeling particularly down on myself for not making it to the top anyhow, but as I saw this view, any lingering feelings of angst about what I hadn't done were totally washed away as I realized what I HAD done.

So, there's the full extent of the challenge - feel free to refer back for context as I elaborate.

The build-up

2009-07-05T12:33:00.005-04:00

Okay, sorry for the delay here. As I mentioned in Monday's post, I was not feeling very well. Apparently I picked up a pretty nasty head cold on the flight home that had really laid me out by Tuesday night. It wasn't until Thursday that I was really starting to feel better, and then Friday, I pretty much just slept as my body was begging me for recovery time. Yesterday I had a family wedding, and so here we are.

So, anyhow, I met my Mom and Dad in Seattle and we spent two very enjoyable, though not very restful, days in the city with my cousin who is attending Seattle Pacific University. We did many of the standard tourist things, such as visiting the Space Needle and Pike Street Market. All of these things involved much walking (finding parking is a significant issue in Seattle, at least where we were), which afforded me a good chance to better break in my hiking boots. It also tired me out really good, particularly the first day. As you may have guessed already, relaxation was not really the dominant theme of this particular vacation. I also picked up a minor foot injury that I was concerned might be an issue on the hike, but really wasn't.

So, on Sunday evening we hopped on a plane and flew to Northern California, where we were met by my aunt, uncle, and grandpa at the airport and then rode back to my uncle's to spend the night. Monday was actually a pretty laid back day, as we did some various visiting, picked up some supplies and packed up for our adventure. On Tuesday, we drove up to Yosemite, had a picnic in the park, and then headed over to our home away from home, away from home for the next couple days.

Having settled in, Mom, Dad, Megan, Tim, and I set out to do some "warm-up" hiking to see some of the easier to get to sights of Yosemite. Our first hike was maybe a mile and a half or so round trip (I suck at estimating distances, so take that for what it's worth) to the base of Yosemite Falls:
Next up was an even shorter hike (under 1/2 mile round trip) to the Bridalveil Falls.

To be completely honest, that would have been enough hiking for the trip for me. However, that was obviously not the plan, and we headed back to the house for dinner and final preparations. The plan was to be on the trail by 5:30 am, which would require leaving the house by 5, and getting up no later than 4:30. So, as I got into bed around 10:30, I was already wondering if 6 hours of sleep would be enough to take on this crazy task I was up against. As it turns out, that should have been the least of my concerns. We were staying at about 6000 feet above sea leval, and the altitude, probably coupled with the anticipation of what was to come in the morning, led to an almost sleepless night. I think I might have fallen asleep for about 30 minutes at one point, but I'm not sure, and that was absolutely the most I got. I was not the only one in the house to report the same kind of night.
So, whatever uncertainties I had had about this climb (and whether I even wanted to do it) were magnified as we rounded up everything in the van and drove down to the trailhead.

Some context

2009-06-29T20:41:00.003-04:00

So, I get back from vacation, all rested and stuff, with extra time due to a lack of TV and shaky internet, and lots to blog about, and what happens? A day later, I feel like crap, either due to an oncoming cold or some really late allergies. Oh, well, I shall try to press on!

I will get to the climb itself in due time, however, in order for some of it to make sense, you need context. The context comes in the story of, of all things, my plane trip to the West Coast. On the way out, I flew from Harrisburg to Detroit, on my way to Seattle. One of the reasons I haven't had nearly as much to blog about recently is because my reading has tailed way off. That means there's a number of books out there that I've either been interested in or had recommended to me that I haven't read yet. One of these was The Shack by Wm. Paul Young. Since the cover informs me there were at least 5 million copies of the book printed before mine, I'm going to assume that a large percentage of people who might read this have read the book. I had not, though I had heard of it many times, particularly from several folks whose opinions I value, and it was definitely on my radar.

Prior to this trip, I did not own the book. And I had brought plenty of other reading material with me for the plane trip, especially when you consider that I don't really usually read on planes anyhow. But anyhow, when I got to the Detroit airport, I had a long walk ahead of me. As I headed down to my gate, I saw a Borders coming up in front of me. Not particularly sure why, but I found myself wondering if they had The Shack in this little airport store, thinking that after I had found my gate and had something to eat, I’d come back and look. I didn’t have to “look”, because as I walked by the store and glanced into the store, the book was out on the front display, prominently featured. Now, I’ll gladly admit that could have been coincidental – the book is a bestseller after all. However, I will note at this point that I passed a number of airport bookstores on the way back and peeked in out of curiosity, and didn’t see any with this particular book at the front of the store. Take that for what it’s worth, it’s only mildly relevant to what came next.

Anyhow, coincidence or tap on the shoulder from God, I decided I’d go back and get the book after I’d indulged in some dinner at the airport Taco Bell. And that is what I did. The end result was that my flight from Detroit to Seattle was basically a 5 hour appointment with God. It’s funny, with my slowed pace of reading, my volume of books read is way down, but the few books I have read have been incredible, and it was clear to me that I had read them when I was supposed to read them and not a moment before. This was especially true in this case. Had I read the book shortly after the first time it was recommended to me (probably about a year and a half ago at this point), I’m sure I would have enjoyed it and seen it as an excellent book. In this moment, God was using it to speak to right where I was at, confirming a number of things I’d already sensed Him saying to me over the last several weeks, and also taking me further and making them more personal.

I wrote down a good bit about that experience and the book the next morning, and I’ll likely share some more of that later on, but at this point, to make a long story slightly shorter, I’ll just share the two most relevant pieces I came away from that plane fight with. First of all, God was asking me if I really trusted Him, if I trusted His goodness and His design for my life. The second thing I came away with was that I had another appointment with Him ahead of me on that trip, and it would be somewhere on the trail to Half Dome. Color me intrigued…

More to come, now I must go to bed.

The Climb

2009-06-28T22:40:00.007-04:00

Last night I returned from an 8 day vacation to the West Coast. Last Friday night, I flew out to Seattle, where I met up with my parents and spent Saturday and most of Sunday with my cousin who is in college at Seattle Pacific and staying in the area over the summer. After that, we hopped on a plane together and flew to northern California to meet up with my sister, brother-in-law, and grandfather to spend the week with my aunt and uncle and their clan (two grown children, both married, with 9 kids between them). The centerpiece event of the trip was a family (mother, father, sister, brother-in-law, uncle, me) expedition to climb this:

For those who may not recognize this by sight, this is Half Dome in Yosemite National Park. And to be more accurate, the expedition was to hike around behind this big rock and then up the backside of it. (No, I've not gone completely insane and taken up free rock-climbing) Once I lay hold of some of the trip pictures (my mother and brother-in-law are both shutterbugs, so while I had my camera with me, it seemed excessive to use it), I'll be able to give you a better sense of what we actually set out to do, but for now, you get this stock photo of the Dome I found on the internet. And no, there wasn't any snow to be found on it last Wednesday, though it is surrounded by a number of higher peaks that remain snowcapped.

I'll go ahead and end the suspense for you now by telling you that I did not make it to the top on this particular journey. Of our party, only my brother-in-law actually did, which was fitting since he was the one who wanted to do this in the first place. However, that does not mean there wasn't a great adventure had, and much to be learned, all within the context of a wonderful and much needed vacation. Over the next several days, I intend to chronicle many of the raw details of the trip and the climb, as well as my reflections. So, if you care, stay tuned :-) After a long dry spell, I've finally got some solid material to work with for a while. I also have extra time on my hands, as my satellite TV receiver died right before the vacation, and I'll likely not get the replacement until later this week. Of course, my internet connection has also gone kind of flaky (I'm currently in the longest stable window I've had with it since I got back, which is why I'm finishing this now rather than risk not being able to do it tomorrow) and may not be fully fixed until mid-week either, but I'll do my best!

When was the last time you glowed?

2009-06-05T22:12:00.002-04:00

That question was posed to me by my mentor as we met a few weeks ago. Well, to be fully accurate, he was telling me about how he posed the question to someone else, but that’s really not the point.

The question draws back to the story of Moses and the Israelites in the desert. In those days, Moses would go off to the mountain to meet with God, in a manner that I don’t know to have been duplicated anywhere else in Scripture. When he returned to the camp, God’s glory reflected off him to such a degree that we’re told he quite literally glowed, to the point where he had to wear a veil, because the people became afraid of him.

The implication of the question is clear – the presence of God is transformational. It makes a difference – one that people can see. So when was the last time you, or when was the last time I, were so impacted by experiencing God’s presence that people noticed?

Since achieving an actual physical glow seems to be reserved for a very select few (Moses is the only one in Scripture I can think off the top of my head), perhaps we might do well to look at a Biblical example that has more practical application – something we could realistically expect to happen. Fast forward a few thousand years from Moses to the earliest days of the church. Peter and John were called before the Sanhedrin and required to defend themselves for, of all things, performing a miraculous healing. After they had spoken, we’re told of the Sanhedrin’s reaction: “When they saw the courage of Peter and John and realized that they were unschooled, ordinary men, they were astonished and they took note that these men had been with Jesus.” Peter and John’s faces might not have literally been lit up like Moses’, but it’s clear – they glowed. There was something about them in that place was so evidently different, so beyond what would have been expected from a couple of former fisherman, that even their accusers took note of the effect Jesus’ presence had had on them.

You know what I’m talking about here, because I’m sure you’ve seen it before. New believers glow – especially those who have come to know Christ out tragic or ugly circumstances. That initial influence of the presence of God in someone’s life makes such a profound difference, someone would have to be blind not to see it, even if they couldn’t necessarily figure out what the change was at a glance. If you’re like me, you’ve probably been jealous of that “new believer glow” at times, and of the genuine passion and enthusiasm that typically marks it.

Unfortunately, however, that glow often fades over time. It may happen more quickly for some then others, but it happens. We settle into every day life, to our jobs, our routines. We settle into a church culture that, at least to a large extent, focuses more on how much we know about God than on how well we know Him, and that is built more around doing God-centered things than on actually experiencing relationship with Him. And it some ways, that’s only natural – those things are much easier to get our human minds around.

Being natural, however, does not make something correct. The idea that the “glow” is primarily only a new believer thing is a lie that I’m sure our enemy loves when we buy into. The truth is this: It doesn’t matter how long you’ve been following Christ, what state your life is in, what your bumps and bruises are, or how many of them there: the presence of Christ is every bit as transformational for you now as it’s ever been.

I’m becoming convinced that everything I really needed to know about following Christ I learned from a Steven Curtis Chapman song, and just missed the bigger picture on until recently, because every time I have one of these big realizations, it’s not too long before a lyric that I haven’t heard in months and even years starts running through my head. In this case, a few days ago, the words from a verse of a song called “Live Out Loud” found their way into my inner iPod:
“And if we have been filled with livinghope, we're gonna overflow And if God's love is burning in ourhearts, we're gonna glow There's just no way to keep it in “

I’ve probably heard/sung along with those words literally hundreds of times in my life, and until earlier this week, one of two things always happened. The first, which probably was what happened most, was to just like the catchy lyric and beat and not give it much thought. The rest of the time, I put some thought into it, recognized the truth of the lyric, and focused on what I should be doing to “overflow” and “glow”.

The fact of the matter is that I was focusing on treating the symptoms rather than on curing the disease, as it were. I’m guessing SCC wasn’t consciously focused on the logical constructs of his lyric (then again, how would I know?), but the reality is that these are causes and effects. If God’s love is burning in my heart, then I WILL glow. So, the solution to the absence of a glow is not trying to force a glow, but to press in to God, seek His face and His presence, and make sure that His love is, in fact, burning in my heart – allowing that glow to natural shine from within me. There’s nothing wrong with treating symptoms – in fact, sometimes without treating the symptoms, you’ll never have a chance to cure the disease. The problem is when treating the symptoms gets in the way of curing the disease, or even worse, when we start to believe treating the symptoms IS curing the disease.

I’ve become very aware lately of the extent to which I settle for a saving knowledge of Christ rather than a transformational relationship with Him. It’s not that the former is a bad thing, it’s just that the latter is so much better – so much more. That’s really how I look at much of the Christian life – as a choice between good, better, and best, as opposed to simple right and wrong - though trust me, there are plenty of those choices out there too.

I refuse to believe that the glow that Moses, Peter, John, and others experienced is reserved only for a chosen few. Finding that glow, I believe is a choice. It's not, however, a choice to put on a forced glow, one which, by the way, most everyone can see through. Instead, it’s a choice to make seeking and experiencing the presence of God in my life my first priority. Am I always successful? Probably not – but that’s not a reason not to seek after a God who makes it very clear that if we seek after Him, we will find Him. Seeking after the presence of God in my life is a daily choice – and one that can’t just be an act of simple discipline, but instead has to be driven by an inner understand and belief that this is what I need. It’s about saying to God “Here I am. What do you have for me today?”

I can think of nothing else I’d rather have said about me when I’m done on this earth than that I was just an ordinary person, but you could tell I had been with Jesus. So simple, so profound, so powerful. It is the cry of my heart to glow – to allow the presence of Christ to so fundamentally transform my life, that without even thinking about it, I radiate His glory to those around me.

I can't fix it...

2009-05-28T20:11:00.002-04:00

I can't fix it... no matter how much I want to, no matter how obvious it is to me, no matter how much it breaks my heart or causes me to pound my head against the wall in frustration.

I can't fix it... no matter how much I try, no matter what limits of myself I press to, no matter what amount of energy I expend.

I can't fix it... no matter how much they want it fixed, no matter how much they turn to me, no matter what they expect from me.

I can't fix it... and when I try, when I let myself believe that I can, I always wind up here - disappointed, frustrated, defeated, and angry at me and them.

I can't fix it... and really, why would I think I could? I can't even fix me.

I can't fix it... but there is One who can.

I can't fix it... and even knowing that, I can't make them go to Him - I can only point tp Him.

I can't fix it... but I can walk along side them until they make the choice to take it to Him.

I can't fix it... but I can take their hand and stand with them as they make the journey.

I can't fix it... so I have to let go, to put MY trust in the very One who I am asking them to trust.

At long last...

2009-05-23T13:27:00.002-04:00

Well, after almost exactly two weeks, I finally have a functional heating/cooling system again, as of yesterday afternoon. And just in time too, as this weekend looks like our first extended stretch of hot/humid weather.

They finally got the additional parts I needed and were out yesterday afternoon to fix the furnace blower. I have a service contract on my furnace, so I won't actually be charged anything additional, but they did fill out and give me a copy of the bill - $1300+. Let's just say I'm making out like a bandit on that service contract at this point. At current reates, I could keep the service contract in place for about another 9-10 years, not need any additional work done, and still be money ahead. In fact, the repairman said that they are thinking about changing their contracts to put a limit on the amount they'll cover in fixing a blower motor (mine is a little more complicated than a standard blower system apparently) specifically because they saw how much my parts were. Oh well, I'm not paying this time, and I would say that if the motor blows up again any time soon, it'll be time to replace the entire unit.

Vintage Grape Juice

2009-05-19T18:17:00.002-04:00

This happened yesterday, and I was going to post about it yesterday, but I felt like 3 posts in one day after a month of silence was both a bit gratuitous, and would also set a standard that I could possibly hope to come close to ever again. And so, here we are.

Anyhow, I was putting away some dishes yesterday, and I wound up opening a kitchen cabinet that is probably the one I open least frequently. Don't get me wrong, it's not some deep abyss, I probably go into it at least once every month or so. However, there's not much up there that I regularly use. Anyhow, this time, for whatever reason, something caught my attention that I felt was worth investigating. It was an unopened bottle of Giant brand grape juice that made me wonder: "Hmmmm, how long has THAT been in there?" I really didn't know, but I was sure it was a pretty darn long time.

So, I pull the thing out and take a look at the cap. "Sell by: 9/22/04" Whoa. Now, by itself, that might not be the biggest story ever. I'm sure many folks have things that time forgot buried deep in their cupboards. The catch in this case - I've only lived in this house since May 2005.

That's right, when I moved, I brought along a bottle of grape juice that was 7 months expired, and now have kept it for an additional 4 years! Tonight when I got home, I grabbed it and actually opened the thing just to take a whiff, because, well, aren't you almost obligated to do that in such a situation? It still hasn't made it to the dumpster yet, and we'll see just how long that takes.

My heating/cooling saga

2009-05-18T16:48:00.002-04:00

Now that I'm in the blogging mood, I might as well tell this story...

My A/C is currently not functional. Well, that's not really true. The A/C is working just fine. In fact, so is the actually heating unit in the furnace. The problem is that the furnace blower won't run, which means that the wonderful cool (or warm, depending on the situation) won't leave the furance and head into the rest of the house. This happened a week from last Friday. My A/C takes a long time to get the temperature down if it gets behind, but does a great job of maintaining once it gets to the right temperature, so I usually try to anticipate with the forecast when I turn it on. Friday was not that warm, but it was to get pretty hot on Saturday, so I threw the A/C on when I got home on Friday night. It ran for a while, and then cut off. I thought that it had been a rather short cycle, but didn't think much of it until I went outside a bit later and realized that the A/C unit itself was still running. Oops. After some quick self-diagnostics confirmed the issue was that the blower wasn't working, I called the repair company and they came out on Saturday, confirmed what I already knew, sort of, and ordered the part. Fortunately, Saturday was a single hot day, rather than the beginning of a wave, and it cooled off very nicely overnight so I was able to keep the house very comfortable.

On Wednesday, they came back out with the part. Unfortunately, it turns out that there are 3 different parts involved in making the blower run, and the part they replaced was not the one that was causing the problem, at least, not all by itself. So, we're playing this game again at some point this week once the other 2 parts come in. Anyhow, not a huge deal, it wasn't that warm during the week. There were, however, several pretty warm days toward the end of the week, and by Saturday night, it had gotten to right about the point in my bedroom where I start to be uncomfortable sleeping. Fortunately, again, it was a pretty cool evening already, so I was able to open up the house and cool things down a bit before bedtime, and then by Sunday morning, it was perfectly comfortable in the house.

This, however, is where I should have checked the forecast. I'm figuring it's going to warm up later in the day, so I'll leave the house open for a while and then close things up in the afternoon so it doesn't get too warm in the house. So, I went downstairs to the basement (which is easily the most stable part of the house temperature-wise) for a few hours. Little did I know that we were looking at a high of about 60 for yesterday, so when I came back upstairs, it was about 58 in my kitchen (it was still about 55 outside), 62 in my living room, and not much warmer in my bedroom, with no real hope of help from the weather for warming things up, and no functional heating.

So, I did what any resourceful person would do in this situation: I put the oven on the cleaning cycle. This was actually quite fortuitious, because it needed done, and I always have a hard time figuring out when to do it, because if I'm running the heat or the A/C, it winds up making the temperature in the house really uneven, because it's maybe 10 feet from the thermostat. In this case, it was just the ticket to make the house quasi-comfortable again.

Now, if only they would actually get the parts and get out here to fix the thing so I don't have to be creative again in the future, it would be great!

More Falcon magic

2009-05-18T16:23:00.003-04:00

I've been pondering my return to the blog for the last several days, but being that I'd gone almost a month since posting, I really felt like I wanted to come back with a bang. Well, as they've made a habit of doing over the past number of years, some Messiah College athletes gave me a perfect opportunity.

With a 2-0 win over Coe in this afternoon's national championship game, the Messiah College Lady Falcon softball is your 2009 NCAA champions. The championship, which is the first for the softball program, is the 3rd championship for Messiah teams this academic year, and the 9th for the athletic program overall, with all of them having come since the fall of 2000. I've been over the incredible run Messiah athletics has been on over the past decade a number of times, and it just keeps on rolling. This one, more so than any in recent memory, however, came completely from of the radar at the beginning of the season. The Lady Falcons were 22-21 last year, and didn't even make the championship game of the conference tournament, so I don't think anyone forsaw the magically 43-4 run that ended this afternoon with them hoisting the walnut and bronze trophy that signifies a national championship. I believe I read where a 30 win season was the team's pre-season goal.

However, in softball, as much as in probably any team sport out there, it only takes one 1 player to make a complete and total difference, as long as that player is your pitcher. Such was the case for the Lady Falcons this year, as they rode the arm of freshman sensation Jessica Rhoads to paydirt. The numbers were just staggering - a final record of 28-1, an era of roughly .5, averaging almost 2 strikeouts per inning, holding opponent's to a batting average of about .080, and it all culminated in a 4 game run at the College World Series in which she allowed only 1 run (in the first game of the tournamet) In what will have to go down as one of the all-time great awards "snubs", I believe I read the other day that Rhoads was not named as an All-American. That really speaks to just how much Messiah came out of nowhere - they weren't even ranked until NCAA tournament time, and then they were very near the bottom of the Top 25.

Anyhow, it's just incredible to see another Messiah championship go in the books! Let's go Falcons!

(Oh, and for the record, I just scooped both Messiah's athletics homepage and the official site of the D-III softball national championship with this report. I rock! :-) )

Silenced too soon

2009-04-14T16:59:00.004-04:00

It still stings, and I'm not ashamed to admit it. I thought I'd feel better today, but I don't really. It's really amazing how something that is ultimately so insignificant can have such a profound impact when its gone.

Okay, enough with vagueness. In case you haven't heard, Harry Kalas, the Hall of Fame broadcaster who spent 38+ years as the voice of the Philadelphia Phillies, died suddenly yesterday at the age of 73. He passed out in the booth while preparing for yesterday afternoon's game with the Washington Nationals, and never woke up. I got the news via email read on my cellphone at about 2:30 pm yesterday, and I'll be honest, it was hard to focus the rest of the day. And it's not like I've been moping around and depressed ever since, but in quiet moments when my mind has a chance to go there - it does, and I'm left feeling like something is missing that can never be replaced. It's not a loss like a friend, a family member, a loved one, but its a loss, none the less.

I'm sure to some of you, this doesn't make any sense - and from a totally outside perspective, it really doesn't. We're talking about a game here, and not even really a game, but the guy who broadcast the game. And yet, I have a hard time believing there's too many people out there who call themselves Phillies fans who haven't dealt with similar emotions, to some degree, since they got the news.

Baseball is, yes, just a game, but it is also a passion for many, and a significant part of our national heritage, as are broadcasters like Kalas - signature voices who have been the constant defining characteristic of the team they call for decades. I've been alive just 2 days under 29 years, and been a Phillies fan for most of those years, since I first understood what major league baseball was. In this era of baseball, more than ever, players, coaches, owners, they change all the time - but Harry's voice was the one constant you could count on at every Phillies game - it was always there, and even though intellectually, you know it wouldn't always be there, you FELT like it would be, and you could never imagine anything different.

Harry the K was a rare figure in the sports lore of the notoriously tough town of Philadelphia, in that he was universally and pretty much unconditionally beloved - and he loved the fans, and he loved the team he covered. Along with his distinctive voice and his signature calls "That ball is outta here!", he brought a clear passion and love of what he did and the game he called to the booth. He showed personality and feeling without being a Vitale like fanboy. He gave you the feeling, with every rise and fall of his voice in the big moments of games, that he cared about the game as much as you did as a fan, and did it all while being the consummate professional. In the eyes of many Phillies fans and players, something didn't happen on that field unless Harry made the call. It sounds corny, but I found out first hand myself just how true that was last October, in the moments shortly after the Phillies clinched their second World Series championship. The game was on Fox, of course, and I had heard Joe Buck call it live, and sure, I was excited. But a few minutes later, they ran the replay with Harry's call from the Phillies radio booth, and it brought just a whole other level of emotion. Don't ask me to explain it - I can't. There was just something fundamentally right about Harry's voice with that moment. Up until yesterday, I still got chills every time I heard that call. Now, the chills are still there, but there's just something different, knowing Harry will never again call a great moment in Phillies history.

As an aside, even though Kalas was the Phillies lead broadcaster in 1980 when they won their first World Series, 2008 was the first time he got to experience calling the winning out of the World Series live. You see, in 1980, network rules didn't allow for the local radio crews to broadcast games. The Phillies broadcast crew did a re-creation the next day. Not surprisingly, that rule was overturned in 1981, due in no small part to outrage from Phillies fans that they didn't get to hear Harry make the final call.

I knew this day would come, the day when Harry's voice would leave the Phillies booth. In fact, in recent years, I'd remarked to fellow fans that I hoped he would walk away before his skills had eroded too much, unlike a number of the other greats of his generation. I never wanted to have any memories of him other than as the Hall of Fame talent he was, and so I hoped he wouldn't hang on too long. But I always assumed that the day that came on Sunday, the day of his last call from the Phillies booth, would be announced, and that I'd have a chance to listen, to take in - that we fans would have the opportunity to say thanks. Even had he been forced from the booth suddenly, I always figured he'd still be around, that there'd be a sold out "Harry the K" day at Citizens Bank Park, another opportunity for a team and its fans to show their appreciation. And yet it wasn't to be.

I didn't get a chance to watch much of Sunday's game due to Easter time with family, and I hadn't watched a game on TV or listened on the radio in several days before that. And so I'm left with my final real memory of Harry, which came 4 days before his final game, when he threw out a ceremonial first pitch before Wednesday's game, the day of the Phillies World Series ring ceremony. I was there, watching from the front row of the 300 level behind home plate, as he strode out onto the mound to a standing ovation, wearing a Phillie red dress coat that on any other guy at any other time would have seemed completely outrageous, but for him, in that moment, was exactly right. I saw him rear back and throw - a pitch that made it maybe 2/3 of the way to the plate and then rolled across it. I heard the crowd, that crowd of notoriously tough fans who had just given a Citizens Bank executive who threw his ceremonial first pitch to the backstop a sound booing, roar its approval, and then I saw him give a triumphant thumbs up as he walked away.

It's a different era these days, with TV and the ESPN era having made sports broadcasters national icons, and glorified personalities like Vitale, Berman, and the like. This new age of broadcasters is full of guys who are trying "be someone". Harry was clearly only ever interested in being Harry, and that's what made him so special, and it's why, while they will continue to play baseball in Philadelphia, it will never be the same. Harry WAS Phillies baseball, and while they can, and will, fill his job, they will never replace him.

Rest in peace, Harry the K.

Contrary to popular belief...

2009-04-09T20:31:00.003-04:00

I'm not dead, and neither is this blog, though I'm not necessarily sure how you would have been able to tell recently. It's crazy to think I've gone a month without posting. Allow me to give you the dime tour of the month.

Sunday, March 15th - I led (note, I didn't say "preached") at CrossWalk

Sunday, March 22nd - We had our first church softball practice. I had a sniffle and a tickle in my throat that I THOUGHT were signs of the beginning of my typical week or so of draining sinuses that seems to accompany the coming of spring for me in recent years. Realized the next morning, however, that it was actually a last attack from cold season. I slogged through most of the week and was feeling better just in time to pack up and get ready for...

Friday, March 27th through Monday, March 30th - The annual pilgrimage to Clearwater, Florida and the Phillies spring training. The mood was a triumphant one this year, and it was great to be down in the warm weather celebrating the return of baseball season. We spent a frustrating (due to 30 MPH winds) day on the golf course as well. All in all a great trip, and we got back just in time for me to fight through my sunburn and spend a very busy week preparing for...

Saturday, April 4th - The Bible quizzing tournament that I run every year. We were at a new church this year, with, unfortunately, our smallest field ever. However, it was a great facility with a very helpful host church. Everything ran smoothly, and I spent less time than ever on setup/teardown stuff both before and after the tournament. Of course, the trophy shop forgot to attach ribbons to most of the medals I gave out (you know, the things you actually use to hang them around people's necks), and we had a snafu with the individual scores that I'll have to correct. All and all, though, a very fun, but very long day. Ordinarily I'd kick back and chill the whole next day, but that wasn't an option because...

Sunday, April 5th - Headed south (though not THAT far south) for a family Easter dinner (mom's side). Came back for CrossWalk, and then headed home to watch the Phillies open their defense of their World Series championship, which didn't go very well. Luckily, baseball has a 162 game season, which leads me to...

Wednesday, April 8th - I took the afternoon off from work and went with a friend to see the Phillies game, before which they hand the World Series ring ceremony, something I just HAD to see my own eyes. It was a totally awesome experience, and it seemed the game itself was going to be a letdown, with the Phillies trailing 10-3 and looking at an 0-3 start, until they score 8 runs in the bottom of the 7th, with nothing more than walks, singles, and a HBP. Easily the most bizarre rallies I've ever seen, and the wildest comeback I've seen live.

Moving past "should"

2009-03-08T10:55:00.003-04:00

An interesting thing happened to me last Sunday.

Let me give you some background. I've mentioned my mentor Joe in previous entries. Back in mid-January, we had our first "official" mentoring meeting. As we talked about various things, we got around to my personal, daily time with God, which, at the time, was pretty much non-existant. I shared with him my struggles at spending even 15-20 minutes with God on a daily basis, and he, of course, wondering if I had ever tried an hour. I looked at him rather cross-eyed and gave him a "Didn't you hear what I just said?", but he persisted and I agreed to try. More on the implications and results of that in a future entry.

The larger issue he addressed in that time, however, was the fact that with this, as with anything, if I was only doing something because I "should" or "ought" to do it, and didn't see the benefit or worth of it, that would only last so long. So, until I spent consistent time in God's presence and saw the difference that it made, it was always going to be a struggle. His suggestion was that I start by signing up for an hour in our church's prayer room on a weekly basis, and build from there, which I agreed to do. However, I also decided I would just dive right in outside of that, because, well, I had the time and there was no reason not to. I had just gotten possession of the back room in my basement back from my roommate who had moved upstairs, so I christened it as my prayer room (among its other uses) and began setting aside time to go back there, shut the door, and just spend time in God's presence, praying, reading, reflecting, and just listening. It wasn't, and still isn't, a daily thing, but it definitely became a more regular part of my life.

I'll be honest, however, that, while I felt God speaking and using these times, I still felt like I was dealing mostly from "should" - until last Sunday. I had spent my time in the church prayer room on Monday, personal time at home on Tuesday, and then had just let it go the rest of the week. And I had a bad week in a couple of areas. As I came to Sunday, I was really feeling it, and something went through my head that, to be honest, I'm not sure ever had, at least when talking about personal prayer - "I NEED to spend time with God today". It wasn't because that was what I was supposed to do, or because I thought Joe would scold me when he found out how much I was "slacking", it was because I really felt like there was something missing because I hadn't talked to God in a while. So, I took care of it - and God spoke to me so much in that time, and was just so faithful throughout Sunday night at CrossWalk.

I've picked back up some reading lately, and the book I'm reading right now is Fresh Wind, Fresh Fire, by Jim Cymbala. One of the key points in the early chapters of the book is that same one that Joe made to me back in January - prayer can't really truely be effective when it comes from a place of what I "should" or "ought" to do. Now, that's not to say that there's no place for making spending time with God a discipline (quite the opposite in fact), but if that's ALL it ever is, than we've missed something.

Our church office administrator wound up at Hershey Med this week after waking up with seizures early Tuesday morning. Examination revealed a mass on her brain. Obviously this news made it around the church very quickly, and on Tuesday night there was a gathering of 15-20 people in the church's prayer room to pray for her (among other gatherings elsewhere). It was a very sweet time of prayer, and our associate pastor, who organized the time, mentioned how much she craves for these sweet times of corporate prayer, and how unfortunate it is that it often takes a crisis to bring us to such a place. It's very true, and I think that the reason for that is we often don't truly understand our need for God in our daily lives - it takes something we recognize as bigger than us to bring us to the point of crying out to Him. I see the same thing at work with those connected to my friend Lynn who has ALS. If nothing else (and I still wholeheartedly believe that something else WILL happen), God has used this crisis to get His people to seek Him like never before, and in ways that even go beyond just asking for Lynn's healing. It took me having something in my life that I realized I couldn't deal with on my own before I really began to press in. By the way, the woman with the mass on her brain was released 2 days (they said it would take 5) after surgery to remove the mass, and is now awaiting the results of tests to determine whether the mass was cancerous or not.

In my own life, and around me, I see God using circumstances to cause His people to cry out to Him like never before. And none of this is to say that I've "arrived" in this. I find myself this morning in a situation that bears some resemblance to last week, which is probably why I felt compelled to finally write about it. My prayer is that He would continue to move me past "should" and "ought" and to a deep, abiding need to spend time with Him and cry out to Him, and that the same would happen for others. It's what has to happen if we're to see the promise of II Chronicles 7:14, which was give to Israel but I certainly believe applies to us today, realized: "if my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land."

Cleaning out the cobwebs

2009-02-24T21:16:00.003-05:00

You might be led to think, based on the slowdown of activity on this blog of late, that I've become much more busy. There might be a grain of truth in that, but that gives me too much credit. I've just been very lazy, less introspective (at least in terms of my willingness to sit down and right about it) and haven't had much in the way of amusing experiences to relay. Also, I recently became active on Facebook, which is stealing some of my otherwise idle online time.

I feel a rush of awesome blog entries coming on, but I wouldn't hold my breath on that if I were you either :-)

Stating the obvious

2009-02-12T16:55:00.004-05:00

PennDOT puts out a little daily news/informational blurb that comes up in Outlook as the first thing you see after logging into your e-mail. Many days I just click over to my inbox without reading it, but today for whatever reason, I decided to take a look. The article was about safety around trains/railroad tracks.

Most of these tips were just plain common sense, and it's sad that they feel like they need to tell people about these things. Let's be honest here - if you, as a pedestrian or a motorist, wind up in an incident with a train, either you've done something incredibly stupid, or something bizarre and completely out of your control happened.

One of the points really caught my attention, however. This point mentioned when approaching train tracks you should be cautious and remember that "trains always have the right of way".

I'll be honest here - I'm not sure that I knew that, in the legal sense, trains always had the right of way on the train tracks. The reason I didn't know that was because it never really occured to me that right of way was at issue when you're dealing with an oncoming train, and you're either on foot or behind the wheel of a car. I mean, seriously, if the train didn't legally have the right of way, would it really change anything in practice? The train is much larger, has no ability to manuever off the tracks, and is in all likelihood going much faster - of course it has the right of way. Pretty much every of physics is working in its favor.

Right of way isn't really at issue in a situation where a collision would leave one party completely obliterated and deal just a glancing blow to the other one, unless there's catastrophic stupidity involved on behalf of the first party. The same principle holds for pedestrians in crosswalks. The fact that you had the right of way and the motorist who plowed into you is liable for your death isn't going to provide much comfort to your friends and family at the funeral, so you'd probably better watch for traffic anyhow, especially since those white lines hold only the authority, and no physical power, to keep you safe from on-rushing vehicles.

If the question of who has the right of way actually enters your mind when dealing with potential encounter with a train, well, to be frank, you're probably going to wind up winning a Darwin Award someday, even if it isn't this particular day.

The "new addition"

2009-02-11T20:29:00.005-05:00

So, after waiting a few weeks, yesterday I finally received a phone call telling me that I could come by the radio station to pick up the Brad Paisley autographed guitar that I won for being charitable at the end of January.

The full view, for effect

Closeup on the autograph

Unfortunately, it appears to be too much to ask for a star of any kind to have an autograph that could actually be identified as their signature just by looking at...

I was actually pleasantly surprised by the guitar itself. I was pretty much expecting it to be your basic, cheap guitar, pretty much like the one I already own that came in a box set. And, while it certainly wouldn't come anywhere near the level of the kind of guitar that a real serious guitar player would play, its definitely a step up from what I own. At the very least, it's more attractive. I restrung it (I wasn't impressed with the condition of the strings, and there was a silica gel packet rattling around inside that I couldn't get to with the strings on), tuned it up, and there it sits on my guitar stand. I figure as little as I actually play around with my guitar, I can actually use this one without worrying about diminishing its condition. Of course, perhaps having a better guitar that is signed by such a talented singer/guitar player will inspire me to get serious about the instrument again, but holding your breath regarding that occurance wouldn't be advisable :-)

My primary concern at this point is Chaser's interest in it. I was hoping since it was just replacing another guitar, it wouldn't attract his attention, but it seems to have anyhow.

Finishing the retreat story, at long last

2009-02-08T20:49:00.002-05:00

I really need to stop stating my intentions regarding when particular postings will occur. I thought, since I was in a lull in terms of how regularly I was posting, that such statements would motivate me. This, however, has not turned out to be the case, and has only served to make me look perhaps even more negligent. So, from now on, no more promises. You'll get what you get, when you get it, and you'll LIKE IT! :-)

So, anyhow, here's the last entry in my retreat saga, which will wrap up my storytelling of the event, only 4 weeks after it occured!

One of the things that kind of stinks about these weekend retreats for us CrossWalk folk is that, unlike "normal" church folk who go to church on Sunday morning, we can't necessarily just come home and relax for a Sunday evening after one of these things. And you invariably need some time to come down off of these things. We, however, still had to do church on Sunday evening, and being that we are the leadership, all of us bailing wasn't an option. When we left things, the member of our team who was going to be leading that night had told us his plan was just going to be to have us all share about the experience we had just had. I liked that idea, but encouraged him to make sure we led that in a fashion that made it a two way conversation.

He had actually left on Saturday night, and by the time I arrived at CrossWalk on Sunday evening, about 30 minutes before the service, that plan had changed, and he felt that we needed to do the last listening exercise we had done at the retreat with everyone - and that I needed to lead it. I was a bit taken aback, but also excited, because I had kind of been thinking the same thing. So, I collected myself and later in the service, that was just what we did.

As folks were sharing what they had heard, my friend, the one who had started the whole story of the week by driving me batty the Sunday before, got up and shared that God had brought to his mind the parable of the talents. I neglected to mention that I got pretty emotional while sharing about this friend during the retreat, and I got all teared up again, because I even more completely understood what God had been saying to me in that time. In the human arena, he would definitely be classified as a 1 talent guy. But in the story, that man with just the one talent buried it and didn't do anything with it. God was showing me that part of what He was calling me to do with MY talents was to help my friend use his one talent for everything it was worth, and that that was an incredibly great thing. What a wild set of bookends for the whole week.

That evening also crystalized for me what was ultimately the biggest lesson of the week for me. I had heard it said a couple times throughout the weekend, and again that evening, what a great job I had done leading the weekend. I received that, but at the same time, it was so clear to me that it wasn't about me at all. I was nervous, I was stumbling at times, I left some things out, etc. All that I had done was listen to God, and been obediant to what I believed He was calling me to do - He had taken care of all the rest. And so, as I spoke to close the service, I shared that, and also just encouraged everyone to really begin listening to God themselves, and doing they heard. The big lesson for me, that God really drove home, is that He doesn't move because of great speakers, although He uses great speakers. He doesn't move because of gifted leaders, though He uses gifted leaders when He moves. God moves when ordinary people like me, and like you, and like anyone else, listen to His voice, and do what He says. It's that simple.

Of course, the word I used there is simple, meaning uncomplicated, and not easy, meaning, well, easy :-)

So, that brings me to the end of this particular story. I appreciate those who have followed along with me while I processed this even for myself, and that its made sense through all the twists and turns.

Another "getting older" moment

2009-02-07T10:50:00.002-05:00

I promise, I'll get the last segment of the retreat story up, probably even tonight. But I've realized that my extended run of self-reflection has robbed me of opportunities to post some lighter material, because when I sit down to blog, I feel like I should be doing the heavier stuff, and that can be fairly daunting. It's probably why my posting has been so sporadic recently even though I have plenty to talk about. So, rather than let this one go until I finish my heavier stuff (which, quite frankly may never happen, because I've got more than just the retreat), I'm going to go with it, knowing that at some point the retreat story will get finished.

Anyhow, while I know I'm not "old" in the grand scheme of things, but I am definitely getting older, and I get reminders of that from time to time. One of my biggest wake-up calls on this front came a year or so ago, when I realized how many things I could remember that had happened 20 years or more ago. It hadn't bothered me right when I turned 20 that there were things that had happened 20 years ago that were within my lifetime, because if I couldn't remember them, did they really count? But, by the time I hit 26-27, I couldn't escape that anymore.

This week's reminder is in that mold. As I remind you frequently, I like country music, and its what I listen to at work. My folks, particularly my Dad, have always had at least some sort of connection with country (its hard not to growing up in rural southcentral PA), but when I was around 7 or 8, there was definitely a stronger connection there - particularly with Randy Travis. I remember that we had a couple of his tapes in the car that would play rather frequently.

All of this is to say, this week, as I was listening to the radio, I heard Carrie Underwood's new single for the first time. It sounded really familiar, and then it hit me - it was a cover of "I Told You So", originally sung by none other than Randy Travis. Now, it's in no way uncommon for a contemporary artist to cover a classic song, but I'm pretty sure this is the first time that I've been aware of someone covering a "classic" that I can remember hearing when it was new. It's another one of those experiences I'd have gladly been willing to put off for another decade or so.

Now, admittedly, this probably didn't sting as much as it could have, because, while I remember the song from when it was new, it's still more of a song from my parent's generation than from mine. I wasn't really making my own musical selections yet at age 8. I'm sure it will be much less pleasant for me 20 years from now, when someone is covering a "classic" tune by Brad Paisley, Carrie Underwood, etc. Of course, I just realized that by writing this, I've made sure my parents are aware of the existance of this cover, speeding along the very experience I'm dreading...

Sorry Mom and Dad. Love you!

Reflecting

2009-02-03T18:55:00.002-05:00

So, I'm back again. I've decided I'm going to endeavor to contain my reflections on the retreat weekend in no more than 2 posts, which I hope to have completed by tomorrow or Thursday. I simply have to get this finished and move on, because I'm way behind and I'll never catch up at my current pace. God is just doing so much in and around my life right now. Suffices to say, I think this recent period of a few months will be one of those before/after periods in my life, a clear and definite turning point.

Anyhow, the first time we spent listening to God at the retreat was in response to the story of Jesus calling the little children to come to Him. This, as you might recall, was our "practice" session. As I sat down from starting the exercise for the team, and really allowed myself to focus in on Jesus myself, I sensed him asking me, in that picture, why I wasn't coming all the way to him, or at least why I hadn't yet. A very fair question indeed. I've been following Christ, in one manner or another, for pretty much my whole life. I didn't formally accept Christ until I was 5 or 6, but I grew up in the church, loved Sunday School, believed the stories, etc, so it was always pretty much just a matter of when, as opposed to if. However, I've spent a lot of my life being a "good Christian" as opposed to truly seeking after Christ and really drawing near to him. It was okay being near Jesus and just kind of being associated with him, but to REALLY go to him? That's scary. So, right away, I had a point to dwell on. I won't elaborate much further on that sort of things, because as I get beyond the retreat, that'll come out in more detail.

Our second listening session was regarding the purpose/identity of CrossWalk. As I listened in this time, I was immediately drawn to 1 Corinithians 14, starting with verse 26. People often tread lightly around this section of Scripture, because it deals primarily with a couple of tender issues for many churches - tongues, and women in the church. That wasn't where I was really drawn, however. I was more taken with the beginning of it, "When you come together, everyone has a hymn, or a word of instruction, a revelation, a tongue or an interpretation. All of these must be done for the strengthening of the church." The word "everyone" especially jumped off the page at me. I'm not about to get into a debate about the merits of the traditional Western way of doing church, I'm really not that concerned about anything beyond what God has for me and my church. But the simple fact of the matter is that that way of doing church does not start with Paul's statement as a base assumption. We pretty much pre-determine which certain people will speak, lead, and build up the church on a given Sunday. We don't operate under the assumption that anyone in attendance might have something that the church needs on that given day. And as much as CrossWalk had started out with the mind of being non-traditional, that had come to apply about as much to CrossWalk's way of doing church as any other church out there. Coupled with a number of other things I had been seeing, hearing, sensing leading up to the retreat, it was quite clear to me that God had a design for CrossWalk that looked much more like 1 Corinthians 14 than what we do at McBIC on a Sunday morning, or had been doing at CrossWalk on a Sunday evening.

The last reflection time was started by looking at John 14:12 and asking God what great things he had to do for His kingdom through each of us. The first thing I heard God tell me was that I am a writer, and that that was not a gift I was to keep to myself. This was quite convicting, because the reality is that, for the most part, I have kept it to myself. I mean, I say I'm a writer, I tell people I'm a writer, I blog for friends to read. And yet, to this point, I hadn't really done much in the way of really keeping my eyes open for ways to use my writing to serve God, and the church. Think it was a coincidence that I had had that devotional to do, and that I didn't get it done until right before the retreat? I know I don't. That's why I jumped at the chance to write a second devotional when asked, and I'm really asking God for opportunities, and trying to keep my eyes open for when he presents them.

Moving on from that, I felt God drawing me to the extent to which He's challenged me and drawn me to expect more of Him recently, to expect Him to be who He says He is, to do what He says He will do. I sensed that He has designs for me to use that word to challenge others to do the same. That, coupled with the writing, has me seriously pondering whether there isn't a larger writing in me that I need to start working on getting out :-) I'm not sure if its a book, but who knows?

Lastly, I got a picture of my friend. You remember him, he's the one with some special needs who frustrated me to the point of blowing up at him the Sunday before the retreat. You know, while I've always believed on some level that God had some work to do in his life as a result of my relationship with him, I've always tended to look at that relationship from the perspective of what God's using it to do in me. He's taught me more patience than I could ever have dreamed, and I've also learned a thing or two about unconditional love. And yet, as I sat in that moment, it became so clear to me that God so deeply desired to do incredible things (beyond my imagination) in his life, at least in part through our relationship. It was a very humbling moment, and a major perspective shift that I've carried through into my interactions with him since. (More on that in the next post)

So, I've successfully gotten through all my various reflections in one post, which just leaves the next post to discuss what happened at CrossWalk the evening we got back, and then I can move on!

Seeking and Finding

2009-01-28T21:34:00.002-05:00

So, I've decided that my best approach at this point is going to be to use this post to give a synopsis of the remaining events of our Saturday, and then spend some posts reflecting on some of the things that I personally took away from the experience. There was so much that was shared and heard, etc by everyone that I couldn't do it justice, and would likely wind up misrepresenting some other folks.

Anyhow, after the experience we had talking about how we had all heard from God, we began to transition into our primary purpose for the day, and that was... hearing from God. First we started with a "practice session", as suggested by my mentor Joe. Now, it seems a bit silly to talk about "practicing" hearing from God - what we were really doing was spending some time listening regarding something that was not the central topic of our time.

A technique that Joe recommended to faciliate a time of listening to God was to use a Scripture, describe the scene and read through the Scripture, having folks imagine themselves in the scene, and then using that to focus them on a picture of Christ as they seek to listen. That is what we did for our "practice" session, and I (at Joe's suggestion) used the story of Jesus and the little children, as appears throughout the gospels (I think I used the Mark account, but it's not really that important). We spent some time listening in that picture/scene, and then got together and shared. It was pretty clear that God was really ready to speak as we listened. Having had our "practice" session, we had a bit longer session on our topic du jour (what God's purpose of CrossWalk is), and then had our no-lunch lunch break.

While we were on our break, and many of us took a beach walk in like 40 degree sunshine, perhaps the most pivotal event of the weekend happened. One of our members got word that his niece had overdosed overnight, and was in the hospital with a less than stellar prognosis. As we reconnected, he shared this with us, and that they were getting ready to do dialysis, etc, etc. Of course, we prayed, and then we went into a time of worship in preparation for our afternoon session. As we were finishing up our singing, he got a call that whatever blood level (bad) they were monitoring regarding the decision for dialysis, etc (I'm not a whiz on the technicalities of what happened). had significantly dropped, and things were looking much better. More excitement.

For our final time of listening to God, I took a cue from something I heard sensed earlier in the day, and the verse I had done my devotional on back on Thursday, and we went into the Last Supper scene, to the point of John 14:12 ("I tell you the truth, anyone who has faith in me will do what I have been doing, he will do even greater things..."), and asked God what great things He had for each of us to do for His kingdom. Another great time of sharing and hearing from God followed. By the end of our time, it was clear that God had spoken to each person individually at least once during the day. So much more than I had hoped and imagined when dreaming of the retreat. (Hey, that sounds familiar.)

We closed our formal time by breaking our fast with communion - and let's just say we did it with a bit more than wafers and the little communion glasses :-) It was just a very special way to seal our time.

On the lighter side of things, the next order of business was to REALLY break our fast, and so it was off to Outback Steakhouse, where we wound up having to endure about a 25 minute wait before even getting a table. We had had menus at our disposal while waiting, so when the waitress came the first time, we ordered drinks, appeitizers, and our meals all at once. I really would have liked to have heard our servers honest opinions about what she witnessed at our tables in terms of our eating, because we were so ridiculously ravenous, and just inhaled a good portion of the meal. I'm sure we had to have been quite a sight. The rest of our evening was about relaxation and enjoying each other's company, and then we headed home on Sunday morning.

So, there's the story (although there's one final follow-up piece I'll hit when I'm reflecting on the lessons), and next, I'll start the good stuff - what did all mean, what did I learn, etc, etc.

Hearing from God

2009-01-27T18:50:00.002-05:00

I must apologize for how sporadic I've been at continuing my retreat story. There's been a good bit going on with me lately (not busyness persay, but just stuff), much of it along the lines of the kinds of things I'll be sharing about the retreat, and all very good. If I can ever get all caught up, it will make for a pretty awesome collection. But anyhow, back to the story...

So, our team made it to Ocean City, NJ for the retreat, absent on the trip down (and altogether, really) the messy weather that the doom and gloom (and constantly wrong this year) weather forecasters had said would meet us. As is typical when we do a retreat at this location, we got in around 8:30-9. We had our first (and only major) glitch of the weekend when we found out that the realtor had forgotten to leave us the key to the 2nd condo we had rented. Fortunately we had enough room at the primary place, the 2nd condo was just to make sleeping arrangements a bit better for our married couples.

We basically just unpacked and then chilled for a while before turning in on Friday night. We awoke Saturday morning, and without having to worry about the "chore" of making/getting and eating breakfast, we got right to it. We had a time of worship and then just really spent some serious time praying that God would guide our time, protect us from any interference, help us to focus in on him, etc.

After that, my mentor Joe had suggested that the first order of business when preparing to go into a time of listening to God was to have a discussion about hearing from God, how that happens, various forms, etc. As I had been praying about our time, my sense was that the way that discussion should start was to simply ask everyone to share when the last time they felt they had clearly heard from God was, and how it had happened. Since I had an obvious answer to the question (my experience from the Tuesday before the retreat), I led off.

This time was my first tangible confirmation that God really had something special in store for us that day. A couple of others shared their stories, and then one of our number started to share, and he said that he felt like God had spoke to him even as we were sharing. He shared how as the first few of us had been sharing, he had been struggling with a bad attitude/some unbelief - kind of a "This isn't real, they aren't really hearing from God" sort of mentality (been there, done that myself, many times btw), but then he really felt God's conviction asking him why, if none of this was real, was it being fought against so strongly? Good question, huh? And then another one of the guys said he felt like God had spoke to him even as the first was sharing. Totally awesome! Even in this time of discussion, when we weren't even "trying" to hear from God, he was speaking, and was using the time to clear away some doubt and other obstacles to what He was going to share with us as the day went on.

I had been very excited for the weekend before, but I was totally stoked at this point. God was showing up and proving so faithful!

Feeling a bit charmed...

2009-01-22T16:58:00.005-05:00

Okay, so I promise to get on with my retreat story, perhaps even with another entry tonight, but I have to step in with a quick interlude due to today's events...

Long time fans of this blog may remember how I wound up in the 5th row of the Carrie Underwood/Keith Urban concert in Hershey last Valentine's Day. (And if you don't, here's a reminder.) For the quick version, the local country radio station does a radiothon to benefit St. Jude's Children's Research Hospital every year (as do something like 900 country radio stations nationwide in the course of a year). Last year I finally "broke down" and became a "Partner in Hope" (that's St. Jude's term for someone who commits to a minimum monthly donation throughout a year). Like most teleathon/radioathon type events, this one has various incentives to provide extra enticement for people who might want to give. The incentive during the hour I gave last year was to be entered in a drawing to win tickets in the 5th through 1st row at the concert, and I won the 5th row seats.

Well, fast forward to today, and it was radioathon time again. I've since decided that St. Jude's will be my charity of choice (outside of my commitments to giving to missions work), and so I was planning on re-upping as a "Partner in Hope" for this year. Having already made the choice to give again, I decided to wait a bit to see if there were any incentives I found particularly interesting. The incentive for the 1 pm hour caught my attention - being entered into a drawing to win a guitar autographed by Brad Paisley. I'm guessing that you've deduced by now that I wouldn't be telling this story if I hadn't won, and you're right. I was pretty stunned when they read my name again this year, especially since they had just read it about 10 minutes earlier, as one of the handful of those who signed on as Partners in Hope that they thanked by name over the air. (I had been listening most of the day, and I think they'd gone to the pile for names maybe 3 times, for a total of 8 to 10 people, but they did it like 2 minutes after I got off the phone after calling in my donation)

So, I guess you could say I'm feeling a bit charmed at the moment. I'd go play the lottery, but I actually think there's something else at work here, which is why there may be a Part 2 to this story coming at some point...

Getting back to it

2009-01-21T20:40:00.003-05:00

Whoops. Definitely did not mean to take such a long break in my storytelling. Oh well, I'm back. This entry will be the last piece of the background, and then we'll actually get to the retreat itself.

Back in the beginning of December, my pastor put out a call to the church for people to contribute devotional writings on the theme "Breaking Free" for a book that we will use as a church for the 40 days of Lent. I'm not generally a fan of packaged devotional programs, but I have to say, I thought having a devotional that was created entirely from the church body was one of the coolest ideas ever, and being a writer, I quickly said yes. The due date for the entries was the Sunday of the retreat. I procrastinated for the first month, and then after the new year, was geninuely trying to get the thing written, but coming up blank on inspiration, until the day before we left for the retreat, when God led me to John 14:12 and I wrote the following:

“I tell you the truth, anyone who has faith in me will do what I have been doing. He will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father.” – John 14:12

At first glance, you may wonder what connection that verse has with the theme of breaking free. Allow me to explain: For me, the transformational reality of my recent life has been my ability to break free from the prison of my own low expectations.

You see, for me, it was always very easy to believe that God was capable of doing incredible things, even beyond all I could ask or imagine, as we’re told in Ephesians. Where it broke down for me was in my willingness to believe that God could use me to do those things. I resigned myself to a fairly trivial experience in terms of my relationship with God, and you could see that in the way I spoke about myself, both to myself and to others – “I’m not really someone who hears from God.” “I’m not an intercessor.” “I’m not…” – you get the picture. And, of course, I was right – not because that was the way things had to be, but because it was how I expected them to be. These were all self-fulfilling prophecies that limited the extent to which God could work in my life. God couldn’t speak to me, because since I didn’t expect to hear from Him, I didn’t listen. God couldn’t use me as an intercessor, because since I didn’t think I could do it, I didn’t try. The list goes on, but I’m working within a space limit here so I’ll leave it at that. Suffice to say I wasn’t really buying the notion that God could do the same things, and even greater, things through me that Jesus did.

However, the thing that jumps off the page to me about this verse is that Jesus gives no disclaimers or qualifications – it very clearly applies to anyone who has faith in Him. Guess what? I’m anyone! And so are you. The question is, do we believe it, and more importantly, do we live like we believe it? When we seek Him, do we expect to find Him? When we pray, do we expect to see answers? When we listen, do we expect Him to speak? Do we expect God to do great things through us?

Our honest answers to these questions will largely define the extent to which God is able to work in us and through us. As I’ve been able to truthfully answer “Yes” to more of those questions in my own life, I’ve begun to find Him more, see more answers, hear Him more, and so forth. It’s funny how that works, isn’t it?

PS: As a side story, apparently not everyone fulfilled their commitments to write, and we wound up short of 40 entries, so at my pastor's request, I'm now on the hook to write the devotional for Easter Sunday. No pressure there, right? :-)

Letting God fill in the gaps

2009-01-15T18:25:00.002-05:00

One of the lessons God taught me through the retreat experience, before we even got to the retreat, was that of his ability to fill in the gaps of my inadequacy, assuming that I'm following his plan.

In my last entry, I mentioned an "e-prayer" I got from one of the other core team members shortly after my Tuesday evening touch from God. Turned out that my prayer request ended up sparking an awesome "e-prayer" meeting on our core team's discussion group, with virtually everyone chiming in. It was pretty awesome, in that it became very clear that our hearts were being focused on what God had in mind for us, and that God was using what had been meant for evil to bring good about, both in my life and for our team.

However. what also grew out of that prayer time was the revelation that about half of the team was (or at least had been) down on the plan to fast during the retreat. You see, we had a number of first time fasters, and so there was not much in the way of an understand of what we were doing, and what the purpose was for it. And, retrospectively, I never really talked about that with the team.

The reason for that was rather simple - I first fasted when I was a teenager in youth group, and have fasted many times since. I won't say that fasting is easy for me, but it's not a big deal for me at all. I've been through it, seen how God has used it, not had any really bad experiences, etc. At this point in my life, if I'm feeling led to fast, or if someone else ask me to join them in fasting for something, its just something I do and don't think a whole lot about. Since it wasn't a big deal to me, I didn't really anticipate it being a big deal for anyone else. Of course, it was easy for me to forget that the first time I did it, it was a big deal. So, not having a serious conversation with the team about it was a significant oversight on my part, one which left unaddressed could have really de-railed the trip.

Fortunately, as I've said, God is more than happy to fill in the gaps for our inadequacy when we're walking in his will. What also came out in that "prayer meeting", and the following discussion, was the extent to which God had already been working on those who confessed to having bad attitudes. That, coupled with a bit of follow-up on my part, created a much different dynamic than I might have otherwise expected under the circumstances. I won't say I had the most enthusiastic group of fasters ever, but I had a very obediant (to God, not to me) group, and as I'm learning more and more these days, that's really all that counts in the grand scheme of things.

Facing opposition

2009-01-14T17:31:00.002-05:00

My week did NOT get off to a good start last week, and trouble started on the evening of the first day of the week, that being Sunday. In the way of background, I have a friend who I serve as kind of a mentor for. I won't go into a ton of detail here, but suffice to say he has some special needs that present some unique challenges and require patience, which I sometimes run short on, though I've learned more than I ever had before as a result of our relationship. I love him dearly, but he be extremely frustrating at times, and Sunday night was one of those times. We had gotten together for what I thought was a really good conversation on Saturday, and what did he do as soon as he saw me at CrossWalk on Sunday night, but come over and do exactly what we had spent a good part of that conversation talking about not doing. Later in the service he did something else that we've been over again and again. He topped it off after the service by coming over and interrupting a conversation I was having to tell me that the Eagles had won, something I had told him (and everyone else) I didn't want to know, since I was DVRing the end of the game to watch when I got home. I totally lost my patience and blew up at him. And of course, me being me, I felt absolutely terrible about that later. So that was how I went into my work week.

And then there was Monday and Tuesday. Have you ever one of those times where for a stretch of a couple days, it just seems like every little stupid thing that can go wrong and frustrate you does? Nothing big and earth shattering, just a long string of small things. Well, that was basically my first two days of the work week. There was a personal issue here, a logistical issue there, etc, etc. And of course, when you become frustrated and distracted, you start compounding the problem by doing stupid stuff yourself, like getting halfway between your building and the parking garage and remembering you don't have any cash and that's all the parking garage takes. (Bear in mind, the only reason I was parked in the garage that day was because they had started working on the road I usually take to get the bus and the required detour meant I missed the bus) Anyhow, by the end of the work day on Tuesday, I found myself just feeling totally overwhelmed with frustration. I was staring blankly at my computer monitor, blinking back tears, and like I said, for no real major reason.

As I was reflecting on this on my walk halfway to the parking garage, and then back to my building and the ATM, and then onto the parking garage again, it struck me that the timing of this was somewhat suspect. Now, I believe there is an enemy who does attack, but I tend to not be one who is looking for the devil behind every stumble, struggle, or misstep. However, given what I was preparing for in the coming weekend and the convergence of everything, I really got the sense I was being hit with some opposition. Now, this realization was satisfying on one level, because I saw it as confirmation that God had something in mind for this weekend. It was, however, not very pleasant to live through. So, when I got home, I called Joe and asked for his prayers, and sent out an e-mail to the rest of the core team asking for the same. I also spent some time praying.

Later in the evening, I had transitioned from prayer to really just listening and waiting on God. Now, I've said before that I didn't used to think of myself as someone who heard from God very often. That attitude has since changed, but it would be factually correct to say that, to this point in my life, I haven't been someone who has seen visions from God. Well, I'm here to tell you that I saw a vision last Tuesday night. And it was totally out of left field relative to where my mind was at the time, so I'm sure it was God :-) I saw a hand appear and reach down into my chest. I suddenly became very, very aware of my heartbeat, and the words of Ezekial 36:26 came to my mind (well, I didn't know the reference at the time, but I knew the quote): "I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh."

Whoa. I'm pretty sure I still haven't come to understand everything that happened in that time. However, at that moment, I felt a real release from everything that had been weighing me down over the last 48 hours or so. A few minutes later, there was a *ding* from my computer announcing the arrival of an e-mail from one of the other core team members in response to my prayer request, in which he had written an "e-prayer" (more on e-prayers in a future entry) that he had to have been praying right as I was in that moment with God. Pretty wild. Whatever lingering frustration or heaviness I may have had was later completely erased by what was easily the best and most refreshing night of sleep I had had in a long time.

It would be nice to say that I got up the next day and just floated through an incredible end of the week, but that wouldn't be true. The rest of the week was pretty much just a typical week. However, my anticipation for what God was up to was only growing as we got closer to the weekend .

Laying the foundation

2009-01-13T18:32:00.003-05:00

So, the idea for this past weekend's retreat was born in the late summer, and it was put on the calendar at some point around September/October, without a whole lot more thought about it for a month or so. Somewhere in there I felt the additional sense that we needed to fast as a team through our prayer and seeking time, and I put that word out to the team as well.

(Note - this is going to be one of those jumps that might not seem to make sense for a bit, but I promise I'll bring it back around, perhaps even by the end of this post)

Due to some issues I had been wrestling with in my own life for a while, I had told my pastor at some point in this timeframe that I really felt I needed to find a spiritual mentor to provide me with accountabilty and to really hold my feet to the fire and spur me in my relationship with God. Nothing had happened with that, until a Sunday evening toward the end of November. We had a special speaker at CrossWalk that night, and I really felt God saying that I needed to follow through with that idea. So, I pulled my pastor aside after the service to discuss it. He brought up Joe, the man from the couple I mentioned in my previous post. I didn't really know Joe a whole lot, and kind of thought it wouldn't be a particularly natural fit, but I was also intrigued by the idea, so I agreed to get together with him and see how it would go. We setup a meeting for the first Monday in December, but with the Thanksgiving holiday in between, Joe actually forgot and didn't show up that first night, so we postponed for the following Monday.

In the interim, we had our December Core Team meeting, which was going to be our last "business" meeting prior to the retreat. Because of all the various things I mentioned in my background post, we were facing some very significant decisions and so forth regarding our direction. Up until this point, I had been selling the retreat as a time where we would have nothing on the agenda but praying and listening to God, and processing what we heard Him saying. However, at this meeting, I got a bit spooked, and that, coupled with some suggestion by our team that we really needed to discuss a few things, led me to start creating an agenda for the retreat.

Back to Joe - we met the following Monday, and without me even bringing up the retreat or anything about it, our conversation led me to process the decision I had made the prior week, and determine that I needed to hold onto what I believed God had originally laid on my heart. I shared this with Joe and he affirmed that course of action, if that was what I really believed was the vision God had given me, and it was. I pulled my pastor aside at the next opportunity and let him know I was taking those items we had put on the agenda back off, and that they would only come out if we weren't getting anywhere listening to God, or if that was how we sensed God leading. At the time, Joe's missing of our first meeting was an annoyance to me and an embarrassment to Joe, but I really believe that God used it, because had we met before that core team meeting, I think there's a very good chance I would have made the change of plans and then never looked back. Joe did agree to be my mentor, but due to the holidays and some other complications, we haven't had a formal meeting since then, though we've had a number of conversations.

As it was, I was left my original vision, which was was something that, not only had I never led before, I had never really even been involved in something like this. How in the world do you spend an entire morning and afternoon (that was the schedule I had in mind) listening to God while staying focused, without falling asleep, etc? Re-enter Joe, as this was an area of his expertise. I tapped his experience and together we put together a framework for our time.

That pretty much brings us up to the week before the retreat, the story of which will start the Sunday before the retreat.

Some background...

2009-01-12T17:51:00.002-05:00

Okay, so before I get into the story of my retreat this past weekend, I need to lay some groundwork, starting with some disclaimers.

First of all, this will be a series of posts, much like my reflections from Thailand, though possibly not as long. I will, however, be laying this out over several days, simply because there's way too much for a post of civilized length.

Secondly, the full story goes back across about 6 weeks, and contains a number of moving parts. So, if it seems like there's a bit of jumpiness from one post to the next for a while, it's probably because there is. I promise to bring everything back together in the end, or at least to try really hard to do so!

And now, for some background. For those who don't know, or who do know but forgot, I attend CrossWalk Community, more typically referred to simply as CrossWalk. CrossWalk is a satellite congregation of the Mechanicsburg Brethren in Christ Church (better known as McBIC), which has been my home church for the last decade. What does that mean? Well, we're not totally sure we know either, but here are the particulars. We meet on Sunday evenings in the McBIC building. Our pastor is on the McBIC staff (also has duties with young adult ministry in general). If you become a member at CrossWalk, you're a member of McBIC. However, we do church a bit differently at CrossWalk. Rather than sitting in rows of chairs, we meet around tables. Instead of a sermon where only the pastor speaks and everyone else listens, we have time for discussion around our tables, and often have discussions with the whole group. The service was started with the goal to reach young adults, and also those who aren't comfortable in a traditional church setting.

CrossWalk launched over 3 years ago at the end of September in 2005, and got off to a fast start. For the first year to 18 months, we were averaging about 100 people on a given Sunday night, and seeing lots of spiritual fruit in the way off people coming to Christ and others who had been with Christ but been away coming back and rededicating their lives. It was a very, very exciting time. Then, as the newness started to wear off and our opening round of momentum faded, we started to see attendance dip, but were still seeing a great amount of life change. Not too long after our 2nd anniversary, we really started to struggle in a lot of ways, and 2008 in general was just a very tough year. Attendance really fell off and we just weren't seeing nearly the amount of fruit that we had before, though there were still some great stories.

I was on the original launch team for CrossWalk, and have served on the "core team" for probably 2+ years, though I don't remember exactly when I joined. Since summer 2007, I've been in leadership of that team. What is the core team, you ask? Well, that's a really good question, as it's really been evolving from the get go. The beauty of having a small church underneath a larger church is that we don't have to deal with much in the way of formal structure and governance, so we can be very flexible in trying to figure out what works, and we have been doing that almost from the beginning. However, the best description for the core team would be a church board/deacon board hybrid. It's a group of key lay leaders, along with our pastor, who serve to set direction and provide oversight to CrossWalk. My leadership role on that team, until recently, has mainly been administrative in nature - I would call the meetings, run them, follow up on things we decided, etc.

One of the encouraging things that we saw happening in the midst of some tough times at CrossWalk was a number of gifted leaders migrate towards CrossWalk from the standard McBIC service - including a couple who had been with CrossWalk at launch, but had soon migrated back to McBIC for a variety of reasons. Their return coincided with a stated new emphasis on prayer, as that was something that they were very passionate about and gifted in. He, in particular, took a significant role in encouraging us as a core team, and as a congregation at large, to put a stronger emphasis on really seeking God first, rather than trying to plan and figure our way out of things and then ask God to bless our plans.

One of the immediate results of this was that prayer, which had at first consisted of the standard opening "God bless our meeting" prayer, and then moved to some significant dedicated time at the end of meetings, became the first order of business at our core team meetings, and a place we went back to throughout. As this was going on, I was processing the idea of the Core Team retreat. Our pastor has family connections to a condo in Ocean City, NJ, which means we have a very low cost place to go for a winter getaway. Last January we had gone there, schemed and planned for a weekend, came back with a nifty little program that got everyone excited for a few weeks/months, and then disappeared. As I thought through doing a retreat again, I really felt like we needed to do one, but this time sensing God saying that we should keep the focus on prayer, and on really listening to Him regarding His plans and desires for CrossWalk were.

So, there's how this weekend's retreat was born. Tomorrow, onto some of the runup to the retreat...

Took me long enough...

2009-01-11T20:27:00.002-05:00

Wow, 11 days into 2009 without a post. I've really been slacking.

Anyhow, this is just the blog equivalent of a "bump" (for the uninitated, bump = "bring up my post" and is a post that serves no other purpose than to move a topic to the top of message board by giving it the most recent post), because while I don't have the time or strength to get into it tonight, there will likely be some significant posting coming tonight. I was on a retreat this weekend with the "core team" from my church. In fact, I led the weekend. The retreat, the events leading up to it, and the aftermath were/have been exceedingly significant for me personally, and I believe for our church, and so I really feel like I need to lay them out and also use the blog to more fully process them myself.

The case of the missing Dew...

2008-12-30T18:01:00.003-05:00

So, today was Tuesday, and as is my custom (okay, so it's not my custom, but I do do it quite frequently, either by myself or with a friend), I went down to the cafeteria in my building for "Taco Tuesday". On Tuesdays, they make a really big taco salad, which is really pretty good, and not a bad price for amount of food you get. It's one of the few foods at the cafe I both trust to be good, and am willing to pay for.

Since I was alone today, I got the meal to go, and headed back up to my desk. I went down to the soda machine on my floor (the fountain sodas at the cafeteria are massively overpriced, and I don't really want that much soda normally anyhow) to purchase a can of Mountain Dew. Now, given the title of this post, I'm sure you're all assuming you know what happened, but I'm betting you don't! You see, we've all had the vending machine malfunction where you either don't get a soda at all, or you get the wrong kind of soda. That is not what happened to me today. I put in my change, hit the button, and a can of Mountain Dew was vended.

However, it didn't quite sound right when it came down. The characteristic "thud" was lacking somehow, and when I picked up the can, I understood why. From its weight, it couldn't have been more than half full, if it was even that. More bizarre was that it was a sealed can, with no holes or leaks in it. Somehow, this can only received half (or less) of its allotment on the line, was sealed up as usual, and made its way to our vending machine, where a worker slid it in without noticing.

The can was unopened and intact, but it did have a few dents in it. Given the location and grouping, my assumption was that it was damaged in the vending process, without the soda providing structural stability as it normally would. However, there was no way to be sure of this, and let's just say a half-full, dented can of Mountain Dew is not something I was interested in trying out just to see if it was okay.

So, somewhat bewildered and out of available change, I walked back to my desk and showed off my discovery to my bemused co-workers. I put the can on my desk, where it will likely either ward off, or attract, evil spirts due to its mystical nature. Then, I got some more change, went back to the breakroom, and this time spent the extra money to get a 20 oz bottle of Mountain Dew from the other soda machine. This is one where you can actually see the soda bottles before and as they vend. I think I may have trust issues with concealed vending machines for a while after this...

Saying farewell to a legend

2008-12-29T18:37:00.002-05:00

This is about a week old, but it happened right before I went home for the holidays, and I just couldn't let it go without comment.

Last Tuesday was a sad day for Messiah College soccer. I'm sure most of you already know, but for those who hadn't gotten the news, Messiah's head coach of 12 years, Dave Brandt, announced his resignation, and accepted the job at Division I Navy. (Story here) Now, there is absolutely no bitterness here - Coach Brandt has proven beyond all doubt that he has mastered D-III, and if he desires a different challenge, I wish him all the best. I'm a Navy soccer fan as of last week, and I have no doubt that Coach will do many, many positive things there.

Still, I can't help but feel saddened for what Messiah just lost. I don't know Coach Brandt personally (other than as my racquetball instructor the fall semester of my senior year), and I only know his coaching from a fan's perspective, but what he did in his 12 years at Messiah is the stuff of legends, and it was made even more special by the way he did it. His early departure from Messiah, which keeps him from racking up the kind of career victory numbers that others have, is likely the only thing that will keep any discussion about who the best D-III soccer coach ever from immediately ending with him.

Let's do some quick rundowns, shall we: Messiah compiled a 246-26-12 record during Brandt's 12 years at the helm, averaging 20.5 wins a game. I don't believe any single Messiah team had won 20 games prior to his arrival. His winning percentage is the highest among any coach in NCAA men's soccer history. Messiah never missed the NCAAs in his 12 years, went to 8 Final Fours, and won 6 national championships, the most of any single school in D-III history. This is where it gets crazy, however. Often, in college circles, coaches aren't really evaluated until they've gone through 4 years, at which point every player on the team was recruited by the coach and the seniors have had 4 years in the system. Brandt's 4th year at Messiah? 2000 - the year Messiah won it's first title. So, in the 9 years that the team was "fully" Brandt's, they won 6 titles, and went to the Final Four 8 times. The most impressive stretch in there would have to be 2002-2006, in which they won 4 of 5 titles, including 3 straight from 2004-2006, and had a 5 year unbeaten streak in NCAA tournament play (the only time they didn't win the tournament, they were eliminated on penalty kicks in 2003, which goes in the books as a tie). Twice in Brandt's tenure, the team reeled off 31 consecutive victories, the 2nd including a perfect 24-0 season in 2005. By my quick math, Brandt's teams were a staggering 42-4-3 in NCAA tournament play. (Did you catch that? Brandt won more NCAA title games in his Messiah career than he lost NCAA games, period).

What made this all the better was how Brandt's teams racked up these amazing numbers. As a rabid sports fan of a variety of professional and college teams, I'm used to having to root for teams that exhibit behavior I don't particularly approve of, basically just conceding that to be part of the reality of sports. With Messiah, there was no such problem. I can probably count on a couple fingers the times that I was dismayed by the conduct of a Messiah player or team. Brandt's teams were crazy talented, but they were also disciplined, passionate, and sportsmanlike. They demonstrated that you could play hard, tough, and physical, but do so (largely) within the rules, and without dirty intent, even in the face of dirty intent from the opposition. Brandt coached an attractive, flowing, team-oriented system that is rather uncharacteristic of college soccer in this country, at any level.

I have little doubt that whomever takes over the helm of the Messiah men's soccer team will carry on all of these traditions, and do so with success, though likely not as much success as Brandt had. (Let's be realistic, even Brandt was unlike to match his first 12 years over the next 12 years, but who knows, really?) Coach Brandt's imprint will no doubt be on the program for as long as it continues. However, there is no question that the program has suffered a loss, and only time will tell us just how big it was.

So, Coach Brandt, thank you for the memories, and the best of luck in your new challenge. Go Midshipmen, and of course, Go Falcons!

Praying for spring...

2008-12-22T18:41:00.002-05:00

Of course, given that today is only the 2nd official day of winter, that does seem a bit futile right now.

Man, it's cold, and I'm just not ready for this kind of cold - negative wind chills this morning. I'm just thankful that Monday is the day I drive to work and park a few feet from the door, as opposed to the rest of the week, where I have to stand and wait for the bus. I think had I been taking the bus today, I would have waited for the later bus, which takes a slightly different route which allows me to watch for it from my parked car and get out right as it arrives. That wouldn't have been helpful this afternoon, however, because I can't do that from my building, and it was still only in the low 20s, and very windy at that time.

And I love my dog dearly, but if I have moments of regret regarding getting him, they are on days like today. No matter how much I want to stay inside, I still have to take him out - or let him ruin my basement carpet. These are the kind of days where the latter at least momentarily sounds a viable plan.

I'm not sure there's much that beats coming home on a day like today and stepping into a warm house - a luxury all too easy to take for granted (as I learned last winter during an overnight power winter power outage). Well, yes, there is something that beats it, and that is coupling it with a nice steamy mug of hot chocolate, with a blanket over your legs and a warm, furry dog laying beside.

(But I'd still trade all of that for an early spring)

More mailbox adventures

2008-12-17T17:37:00.000-05:00

You might remember my rant a while back about the parking habits of some of my neighbors around our development's mailbox center. It's not at all rare for someone to pull right up beside that thing, without really getting out of traffic, and also making it difficult for someone (me) who did the proper thing and parked in one of the visitor spaces right next to the mailboxes, to get back out. Well, today someone did something that had me longing for the good ole days where that was the most inane thing I had to deal with.

Let's start at the top, however. The eventual culprit pulled into the development right ahead of me as I came home from work. He slowed down almost to a stop going into the entrance, because there's been some recent digging done there and there's a bit of a ditch in the paving. (I'm almost positive that slowing down actually makes the impact worse, in this case). Then, predictably, he did the same at the speed bump a few yards further in. And after that, he preceded to inch his way along the road. Now, let's put this in perspective for you. The speed limit in my development is 10. And, while I don't always totally adhere to said speed limit and might be a bit annoyed by someone going exactly the limit, in order for me to rant about someone's slow driving, they have to be going noticably BELOW the limit. He was. So, I'm already a bit annoyed at this guy, and when he turns up like he's also headed to the mailboxes, I start thinking to myself "He's going to the mailboxes, and he's going to park right alongside them too."

I wish. There was this glimmer of hope when he continued on past the actual mailboxes, and then, shock and dismay. There are 4 parking spaces right beside the mailboxes. A car was parked in the one furthest from them. This guy stops his car across the front of the remaining 3, still squarely out in the street, and blocking my path to 3 perfectly good parking spaces, rather than parking in one of them. I was reduced to parking about half my car in the first parking space, and the other half in the "no parking" area between the spaces and the mailboxes. Let's just say I had some not so neighborly thoughts, but I bit my tongue, got my mail, and got out of there. It really boogles the mind though.

Still not going green...

2008-12-10T16:24:00.002-05:00

but it's getting a lot harder to make that argument since I'm now carrying around a debit card with the word "GreenSense" and a picture of a tree on it, that was made from recycled plastic. I can explain, really!

I'm not going to run through the long story of why, but I decided last week that I needed to open a secondary checking account - a basic, no fills account to handle a relatively small amount of money. Given that choice, I was faced with deciding between any number of banks with various similar account benefits. Rather than spending a ton of time sorting through them all, I decided, as a loyal Phillies fan, to go with Citizens Bank, the official bank of the Phillies and the namesake of the Phillies ballpark. Go Phillies!

Once that decision was made, I was left with opening a "Green" checking account. That's the name of Citizens Bank's basic free checking account, the only one that doesn't require a minimum balance of any kind to avoid a maintenance fee. Once you have that checking account, the GreenSense program is a free option. What is the GreenSense program? Well, you agree to enroll in online banking and get electronic statements rather than paper. I do that with virtually all my accounts anyhow, because the paper is a hassle and online banking rules. Then, they give you ten cents everytime you pay for something out of your account without using paper (a check). That's right, everytime I use my debit card, or make a payment online, or anything like that, they give me 10 cents, up to $10 a month. So, I could opt out of the program, if I don't like being paid for things I'm gonna do anyhow.

This, by the way, is how "going green" should work. The program really isn't an incentive for me to be more eco-friendly, because I prefer to do the things I'm getting rewarded for anyhow, just for the sake of convenience. However, from the perspective of Citizens Bank, it saves them money to not have to send a monthly statement, or process a check, or other things like that. So, rather than just preaching the benefits of "going green", they pass some of that savings on to their customers in order to incent them to buy into those programs.

I think Amanda commented on my last "not going green" rant that it would be much easier to get people to "go green" if they stopped using that terminology and just started educating people on the personal benefits that many "green" decisions have, and I have to agree. The term has been stigmatized with a lot of people. I'm far too practical to be scared off of something like this just because it has "green" attached to it, but I know people that aren't. Of course, maybe Citizens Bank figures the number of people who would be attracted by the word is greater than those repelled by it, and they might be right. I, for one, will stand confident in the knowledge that I have a "green" debit card for my benefit, with collateral environmental benefit just being bonus!

Follow up on yesterday's events

2008-12-07T20:44:00.003-05:00

I didn't have a ton of interest in writing a long entry yesterday, so I left my soccer report at the bare facts, but I have to comment on how the men's game finished, because it's totally everything I love about sports.

If you were to peruse the tournament info, you would find that Messiah's senior GK Nick Blossey was named the Most Outstanding Player of the tournament. Were you to look at a box score for the title game, however, with no other information, you'd probably scratch your head. Blossey is in there, but with a 0:00 under the "Minutes" column, with junior teammate Jared Clugston having logged 110 minutes, the full regulation and both overtimes. If you go back to the semi-final game, you won't find him in the box score at all. In fact, the last box score you'll find him in with any minutes to his name would be the November 8th Commonwealth Conference championship game against Widener. Yes, that's right - Nick Blossey was named the Outstanding Player of a tournament that he didn't log a single minute of official playing time in.

Crazy, right? Well, not so much. You'll also notice that the game went into a penalty kick shootout. There's nothing that says that the goalie who plays in the regular game has to be the goalie for the shootout. It would seem counterintuitive to put your backup goalie in with the national title on the line, but that's exactly what Messiah did. Blossey is noticeable taller than Clugston, and according to Messiah coach Dave Brandt is probably a better pure shotstopper, though Clugston possesses other skills that make him the choice for the job during a normal game. Even factoring in those advantages, it still seems kind of crazy to bring a cold (literally, it was in the 30s in Greensboro) goalie off the bench at the pivotal moment.

But man, was Blossey up to the task. You'll see that the final score of the shootout was 3-0 Messiah. Yep, Blossey didn't allow a goal in a penalty shootout. If you don't really know soccer, you probably don't necessarily appreciate what that means. A penalty kick places the ball at the center of goal, 12 yards away, with the goalie on his line and not allowed to move forward off that line (to cut down the shooter's angle) until the shooter touches the ball. Penalty kicks are supposed to go into the goal, especially at this level. In order to make a save on a properly struck penalty shot, without cheating forward, a goalie basically has to guess correctly where the shooter is going to go with the ball, dive and hope. You'll often see a shooter just rip the ball right where the goalie is originally standing, assuming they are going to go one way or the other. Misses in a shootout more often result from a shooter trying too hard to fake out the goalie, or trying to place it too perfectly, and they just miss the goal, than from a save. Messiah's lone miss of the shootout was an example of this.

However, Blossey saved all 3 attempts he saw, guessing right each time and deflecting the ball safely away from the goal. And none of these were cheap saves. I'm sure the Stevens shooters did something wrong, like I said, PKs are supposed to wind up in the back of the net no matter how good the goalie, but these were very well placed shots that Blossey had to fully lay out for. A truly transcendant performance.

By the way, I hate PK shootouts. They are probably the worst way any sport of note resolves tie games. I felt this way when Messiah somehow always lost them, and I still feel that way though they've won a couple at critical moments over the last several years. However, in this case, they afforded the opportunity for one of the best stories I've encountered. You just couldn't even write this if you were trying. The guy spends his entire career as a backup (I believe he's made about 5 starts in 4 years), doesn't play a minute in the NCAA tournament, and then gets thrown in at the absolute pivotal moment and comes up with an all-world performance. Let's say it again - Nick Blossey's participation in this year's tournament lasted all of 5 minutes, and didn't even register as a minute for the stats, and yet he was named the Outstanding Player of the tournament, and I don't hear anyone arguing. Were soccer a more prominent sport in the US, and had this happened at a higher level, Blossey would probably already be fielding calls from Disney to secure the movie rights. (If only this had happened last year when the finals were actually AT Disney World)

It's hard to even wrap your head around it, and this is why, to me, sports will always be the best "reality tv". (Even though this wasn't technically on TV...)

My alma mater can play some soccer

2008-12-06T20:28:00.002-05:00

For those of you scoring at home, today both the Messiah men's and women's soccer teams took home NCAA Division III national championships in Greensboro, NC. The title was the 6th in 9 years for the men, and with the 6th title, they broke the record for most by one school. The women won their 2nd title overall. The games were polar opposites, with the men beating Stevens Tech on penalty kicks after a 1-1 tie through regulation and 20 minutes of overtime, while the ladies blew the doors off of 2 time defending champion Wheaton, with a 5-0 victory, avenging last year's title game loss to Thunder. (BTW, on the year, the Messiah ladies out scored their opponents by a total of 119 to 9, wrap your head around that).

In doing this, the 2008 Messiah teams became only the second from the same school to win both men's and women's titles in the same year. The first? The 2005 Messiah teams, also in Greensboro.

I was following the action via live video streaming over the internet, and one of the announcers mentioned that he had seen a Messiah fan with a t-shirt that referred to Greensboro as "South Grantham", and at this point, it's pretty apt. The men's and women's Final Fours have been held in Greensboro now on 3 occassions, meaning 6 titles have been given out, and Messiah has 5 of them. The teams are a collective 10-1 at MacPherson stadium, the lone loss coming by the women, to Puget Sound, in the semis in 2004. (Since the girls played first that year, that means Messiah teams are currently on a ten game winning streak at that field, pretty wild stuff)

Anyhow, nothing particularly insightful here, just wanted to take a chance to brag on the alma mater once more. With the Phillies winning the World Series, I'm not sure what to do with all of this winning by my favorite teams...

8 things to know about me

2008-12-02T19:16:00.002-05:00

Okay, so my good "buddy" Jeff has seen fit to "tag" me, which means if I want to play along with this particular game, I need to tell you 8 things about myself. Like Jeff, I'm unimpressed with this particular tag, because it's so open ended and as such involves a lot of thought. I've seen others that I found more entertaining, but such is life. Jeff has been warned that I will start ignoring these things if they become a trend (and he's apparently taking the same stance with the guy who tagged him). I'm uncertain whether I will tag anyone else. I'll decide after this post, or maybe even tomorrow or the next day.

So, here they are, 8 things you just HAVE to know about me.

1. I took a break from writing a a fairly comprehensive personal financial plan I want to implement for myself by and during the new year to write this post. (Okay, a fairly boring start, but it was easy and I needed something to warm up with)

2. I scored the first in-game goal in the history of organized soccer in my hometown when I was in elementary school. At least I'm pretty sure it was. I was involved in the first youth soccer program we had. I was at/in the first game that happened and we got shutout. The second game night, there was an older team and a younger team both playing, as I recall. I was on the younger team and scored our only goal of that match, and I believe the older team was shutout again. Oddly enough, that was also the ONLY goal I ever scored in a live game at any level.

3. Probably as a result to the lack of athletic prowess my previous item hints at, I was a crazy serious Bible quizzer in junior high, high school, and even my first two years of college (after that I was too old). My church won 2 denominational championships while I quizzed, and I was the top scorer at the denominational finals each of my last 3 years. The BIC isn't exactly a large denomination, so it isn't THAT impressive, but it was something that defined a good portion of my teen years.

4. I have only fractured one bone in my body (well, at least that I know about, there may have been a finger or toe that I didn't go to the doctor for and thus don't really know about), and that was my nose, and it occurred at... high school marching band practice. My first one ever, to be precise, the summer before my sophomore year. A couple of us were goofing around during the break. I made a joke about one of the guys, another guy thought I was talking about him and put me in a sleeper hold. Those things actually work in real life, and not just on pro wrestling! Unfortunately he didn't REALIZE his sleeper hold had been successful, and he let go, allowing me to fall face first onto the floor. The first thing I remember was pushing myself off the floor, seeing blood drip out of my nose, and hearing someone else say "Hey kid, you're bleeding!" Thanks, fella. But, diehard that I was, I got the bleeding stopped during the break and finished the practice, allowing my mom to freak out when she came to pick me up. My oblivious band director didn't even really know what had happened until my Dad called him the next day.

5. I was a two time National Geographic "Geography Bee" champion at my school, once of the elementary school in 5th grade, and once of the junior high in 8th. You're probably getting the picture now: I was, and probably still am, a total geek. (I too, like Jeff, was on the math team)

6. I have a wide variety of sports memorabilia from my various favorite pro and college sports teams, but my most prized piece of memorabilia is the bracket I filled in for the D-III men's soccer tournament in 2000, the first year Messiah won it all, which I was able to get signed by the entire team. 4 (and hopefully 5 after this weekend) more titles later, there's still nothing that tops that first one.

7. If I had to subsist for the rest of my life with only one kind of junk food available to me, it would the blueberry cake donut from Dunkin Donuts.

8. I have holiday candles sitting in the middle of my dining room table. Why is this noteworthy you ask? Because I haven't done any holiday decorating yet, and they are still sitting there from last year.

Okay, I'm done, and I still haven't decided whether I'm going to tag anyone or not. You can't just make such decisions rashly, you must mull them over, sleep on them, and such.

In the meantime, if anyone is really dying to be tagged, you can let me know.

Another Thanksgiving in the books

2008-12-01T19:44:00.002-05:00

Upon reflection, Thanksgiving is probably my favorite holiday of the year. There are a number of reasons, which I shall endeavor to list.

#1. The food. I know everyone eats big at Thanksgiving, but I find it hard to believe that many people do better than we do annually at the Benedict family Thanksgiving. We have all the traditional things for dinner, and then transition into dessert, with the choices usually including at least 4 different kinds of pie (black raspberry being the choice of this writer), a ridiculous coconut cake, and perhaps another dish or two.

#2. Family. I love getting to spend time with my immediate family, and I'm also a big fan of the most of my extended family that I run into over Thanksgiving. I don't even sort of dread the holiday family gatherings like you hear about from some people. Thanksgiving also has the advantage over Christmas in this area, in that I don't have to dent my wallet buying gifts for them, not that I mind such things :-) I also live only an hour away from my Thanksgiving destination, so I don't have to bother with the headaches of long trips.

#3. Extra long weekend. Now that I work at the state, Thanksgiving means a mandated 4 day weekend, as the day after Thanksgiving is an official state holiday. We don't even get an extra day at Christmas, no matter where it falls (well, we haven't yet). Thanksgiving also has a distinct advantage over other holiday type weekends, in that the holiday occurs at the beginning of the long weekend rather than the end. So, rather than having the big gatherings on the last day before returning to work, and losing some of the effect of the long weekend, my typical Thanksgiving involves a very busy and hectic, but fun Thursday, and then 3 days to recover by relaxing with the family and watching the various sporting events that come with the weekend.

#4. The food. Wait, did I already mention that?

So yeah, Thanksgiving rules. This year, however, was an exception to some of the norms I laid out in #3. It was, in fact, busy from the get go, and I had to crash on Sunday evening to recover prior to heading back to work.

The highlights:
Wednesday night: Got home from work, handled some errands, and then packed myself and Chaser (this is something of an ordeal) up to head home to the parents' house for the weekend.

Thursday: We left at around 11, stopped off and spent some time with Mom's side of the family before they had their dinner, and then headed on to my grandpa's house for Thanksgiving dinner with my dad's family. This is usually a massive production, but even more so this year. My Dad is from a family of 8 children, but only 4 of them are typically in the area for a Thanksgiving. However, this year, my uncles from California and New York were in with their family, as was my aunt from Montana, so the gathering was a bit larger and a bit more exciting. Lots of eating and talking, home at a relatively reasonable hour.

Friday: Got up and hung out with Mom for most of the day while Dad worked. Since so much of the family was in, we headed back to the farm in the evening for dinner - shrimp, oysters (not for me) and steak, along with all the leftover pies and cake from Thanksgiving, and a new addition, an incredible raspberry cheesecake. This particular extravaganza didn't break up until about 10 pm.

Saturday: Got up and ran some errands with the folks before getting ready to head to Harrisburg for my cousin's wedding in the afternoon. Nice wedding, more time with family (this time mom's side) at the reception, all very fun, but also very draining. Headed home around 9, in bed around 11.

Sunday: Church in the morning with the folks, as well as my sister and brother-in-law who were in New York with his family over Thanksgiving (he was also taking care of my uncle's farm so they could come down here). Lunch afterwards. Quick nap back at the folks' house before once again packing myself and Chaser up and journeying home. Arrive at about 4, unpack, crash.

So, there you have it, the dime tour of my Thanksgiving weekend. All in all, it was a blast, it just wasn't my typical Thanksgiving. I hope everyone else had a great holiday!

A different perspective on the snow

2008-11-24T22:24:00.004-05:00

So, as you all saw, I ranted about the early snow on Friday.

Just a few minutes ago, I got conclusive proof that there are always two sides to these sorts of thing. I believe in my past posts I've mentioned my Thai friend Silk. As a quick refresher, Silk is a native Thai who became a Christian back as a teenager while the first wave of BIC workers were in Thailand, in the Bangkok area. As a natural connection upon their arrival, she became very close with my friends who are serving there now, and is actually in the process of formally joining their team. As part of that process, she is in school for a year here in the States, at the Global Awakening school in nearby Mechanicsburg.

It doesn't snow in Thailand, and though Silk had been to the US on two previous occasions, both times were in Florida. So, though I didn't think of it at the time, last Friday was her first time to see snow (actually she saw some on Thursday too, but it didn't REALLY snow until Friday). She just sent out an update to friends and supporters, and man, was she excited. Lots of exclamation points. Let's just say she was probably the polar opposite of my attitude.

It's just really interesting to think about that, and how your own experiences completely color the prespective from which you see the world, such that the exact same event is perceived and reacted to in completely different ways depending on the person. For me, the snow was a source of complete frustration, for Silk, a source of complete joy. The reality of how everyone views the world through a very different lens is one I've been very aware of for a long time, but tonight it just stepped up and slapped me in the face. It's something to think about, whenever you see someone overreacting to something, or doing something that seems irrational to you. There's a good chance (I mean, a really good chance) that they have some experience from their life that is coloring that event, one that you don't share, and therefore don't understand. Whether we see it or perceive it, or even understand it, there's always a reason why we do what we do and feel how we feel.

So, I guess, retrospectively, I can be glad for the snow and glad for the joy that it brought my friend. However, Silk did mention in her e-mail that she's praying for a LOT of snow. We may have to have a chat about that one next time I see her...

Remind me again... why is global warming a bad thing?

2008-11-21T16:33:00.005-05:00

In order to set the mood for those of you who do not not live where I live, here is the view from out my back door:

For further reference, I live outside of Harrisburg, PA, and it's November 21st. This should not be the current view from outside my back door. In this part of the world, at least in my lifetime, we rarely seriously have a good look at a white Christmas, let alone a white Thanksgiving (I think it's going to get just warm enough in a few days that we will avoid that fate, but still). It's like we almost completely skipped fall this year. It stayed warm for a while, then got unseasonably cold for a bit, then was unseasonably warm for a long stretch, and now we're getting full on winter weather in November. Boo.

And this had to have the most annoying way to get an inch or so of snow in history. It was snowing quite hard this morning when I drove to get the bus, it was snowing quite hard (and the wind was blowing pretty hard as well, from the direction I was watching for the bus in) while I was waiting for the bus and while I rode the bus back to my car and then drove home, while almost no snow fell while I was at work, and it quit shortly after I got home. That's like the exact opposite of how I want snow storms to operate!

Oh, well. You win this round, nature.

Read the sign!

2008-11-19T20:48:00.004-05:00

There's a good chance I've already ranted about tonight's subject in the past, but I'm too lazy to try and find out for sure, and even if I have, it's worth mentioning again. So here I go.

Anyhow, I was at Wal-Mart tonight. Now, I know that I've ranted about various ridiculous human behavior that I've witnessed at Wal-Mart and other stores like it in the past, so a trip to Wal-Mart is always quite likely to yield blog material. And tonight's trip did not disappoint, because I suffered through what might be my single biggest pet peeve. I'm serious. Those who know me know that I'm fairly mild mannered. I might get short or terse, or give someone attitude, but it's very rare that I get upset enough to yell, and I really can't recall ever going off on someone in public. However, were I ever to get crazy fired up and go off on a random stranger, I would almost GUARANTEE it would be because of this one thing: someone going into an express checkout with dramatically more items than you're supposed to have!

It happened again tonight. This guy had raided the toiletries section and had two levels of a mini-cart lined with soap, shampoo, travel size stuff, etc, and he was scooping it up to the register, and the cashier was ringing it up, like nothing was wrong. That, I might add, is what makes this situation particularly frustrating, because there are two people involved, and I can never figure out who I should really be mad at - the person who saunters up to the register blatantly ignoring the rules, or the cashier who refuses to tell said person to go pound sand (or, if they insist on being polite, telling them to go to a different aisle).

Let me be clear, I'm not the item Nazi here. I personally count to make sure I'm under the limit if I'm not sure, but if you're a couple items over, that's not really a problem. Most of these express lanes say "About X items or less", so they give you some wiggle room. There was no way this guy thought he only had 20 items, and no way the cashier thought that either. I think tonight I was more upset at the cashier for not simply saying: "Excuse me sir, this is the express lane". It's a more serious problem at Wal-Mart than some places, because their express checkouts are designed for that sole purpose. They don't have the conveyor, so when someone has a ton of items, it takes extra long.

This behavior has become more widespread in recent years, at least to my eyes. I would like to simply pass it off on the ever increasing self-centeredness of our society, and I'm sure that's part of it, but I see another culprit as well - the mini-carts. It pains me to say this, because I love the mini-cart, but I think people seem to have this belief, conscious or unconscious, that if they are using the small cart, they can use the express lane, no matter how many items they've crammed into the thing. It seems to me that the most outrageous violaters are always mini-cart users these days, which is a change from when I used to see the typical express lane violaters as those who had stuffed a bunch of small items into a basket.

So, please, if you're a violater, think about what you're doing next time, and obey the rules. And if you're a cashier, have the fortitude to enforce the rules. You'll both contribute to make the world a better place. Well, at least a better place for me, anyhow.