Month: January 2007

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keeping my mom posted

since my mother reads all the blogs that i link to (in posts and on my sidebar) i figured i would thrill her by adding two more:

  • jim’s blog – my brother-n-law, half marathon partner & future marathon partner
  • jill’s blog – my sister-n-law & half marathon partner

that should keep mom happy for awhile.

i once had a dog that could escape my house at any given moment. he was a great dog but he would get out every now and then. i always had to run after him because i was scared of what could happen – after all he was a dog and dogs can do odd things. so i understand what it’s like to have a dog that escapes. still, as a runner it gripes my butt beyond believe when people know their dogs are out of their yard and they don’t seem to care.

while i was running tonight i ran into the snarls of two bulldogs who live a block away from my house. their owner was leaning out her front door trying not to get wet and screaming for her dogs to come back in. instead of coming in her dogs decided it would be more fun to come after me. i turned towards them, screamed for them to leave me alone, and backed away. since they continued to come after me and the owner didn’t seem to care about getting out and grabbing them i shouted over to her that if her dogs came after me looking like they were going to bite me then i would respond by kicking them as hard as i possibly could. she said that i should stop and walk her dogs over to her. while she may have thought this was a great idea i thought it sounded lousy. i responded with my own idea which was that she should get outside and grab her dogs and i would just remain ready to pound her dogs if they attempted to come after me. either fear of me or disgust at the laziness of their owner confused the two bulldogs and they turned their backs on me. i took this as my chance and quickly moved down the street from them. last i saw the bull dogs were still moving away from the owner and she was finally having to get out in the rain and get her two dogs. i hope they kept her running after them for at least an hour.

btw, i sure wished the saints had won but now i’ll be satisfied if the colts win.

my run for the day
distance – 5.5. miles
time – 54:05
pace – 9:50/mile

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speaching

i’m presently reading doug pagitt’s “preaching re-imagined and i’m really enjoying it thus far. because of it i decided to focus on a more interactive approach to the preaching i was scheduled to do at zoar baptist church’s college retreat. i use such an approach all the time with my students but i’ve never tried it with strangers. i think it went okay but i really won’t know until i think about it for a few days and maybe hear from a few people i know who were at the retreat.

the thing that i have enjoyed the most from pagitt’s book has been his focus on an interactive approach to preparing the message. i’ve tried this a few times and i always enjoy it. the biggest problem for me has been trying to find the time since our church has been without a senior pastor.

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name change

i’m sure all of y’all have experienced moments in your life where one theme seems to come up over and over. everything you look at, everything you listen to, and everything you read seems to always come back to the same thing. I am in one of those moments right now. everything i read or experience seems to have something to do with people changing their names and what happens to their lives after doing so. here are some of the influences that have impacted me on this moment:

  • the biblical story of jacob becoming israel – every since i first read this story i have felt an overwhelming connection to it. there is just something about GOD coming down in response to jacob’s prayer for safety and answering that prayer by popping jacob in the mouth. it was exactly what jacob needed but i would imagine it was quite far from the answer that jacob was expecting. once again i am at a point in my life where this narrative draws me in.
  • alexander supertramp – i’m presently listening to john krakauer’s book “into the wild” about the young man chris mccanless. he went out to find a lifetimes worth of adventure (which ultimately cost him his life because of a lack of common sense). the start of this search for adventure began with him shedding his past life by taking on a new name. i don’t agree with much of what he did but i am fascinated by his resolve and convictions.
  • makalu gau – the taiwanese climber gau ming ho claimed the name “makalu gau” after his fifth attempt at summitting the makalu mountain. from that ascent on he went by “makalu gau” as a reminder of what he saw as a changed life. of course, if you read other people’s versions of his ascents he didn’t really live up to that moniker. apparently “makalu gau” was a pretty lousy climber that always got into trouble and wasted other people’s resources in having to be rescued on almost every climb he went on. he didn’t really live up to his claimed name.
  • buster butterfly mcleod – i read this guys 43 things list a few weeks ago. he wanted to change his name for one year to “test” how much a his personality was connected with his name. he chose a rather odd name and has legally changed his name to it for one year. after that year is up he will apparently change his name back to whatever it was before.

don’t worry mom i’m not planning on changing my name. i rather like my name. still i do find all of these stories interesting. it’s intriguing to consider how much of who we are is wrapped up in our names. while, i’m not really into changing my name i do want to make sure that the name i have stands for that which i believe is important. when people thing of my name i want them to have strong images occur within their mind. i hope they think of a person who …

  • is passionate about his faith & LORD
  • is a good husband and father
  • loves his family and friends because he realizes that the most important things are things
  • may be late often but will try with every ounce of discipline he has to not let someone down when a commitment has been made
  • is open to new ideas, people, and experiences
  • is amazed by beauty and trying to experience more of it
  • is not afraid to take big risks even after he has failed

i hope that’s what people think. if it’s not then you can just start calling me fred cause i’m starting over.

my run for the day
distance – 5.0 miles
time – 48.44
pace – 9:44/mile

[Listening to: The Moment I Said It – Imogen Heap – Speak For Yourself (5:56)]
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ouch

the weirdest thing has occurred today – well actually it isn’t really the weirdest thing, that would be me singing on and winning american idol, but this thing is at least a little odd. it has been two days since i ran the first light half marathon and i finally have the first part of my body that hurts. it’s my … shoulder that hurts. i don’t have any idea why my shoulder would hurt so bad but it is definitely painful. i don’t remember running on my hands but perhaps i did. that would at least explain why my shoulder hurts so bad. i think next time i will run on my hands and maybe my leg will hurt instead.

SIDE NOTE – who dat?

SIDE NOTE – on my runs i am presently listening to john krakauer’s “into the wild” about the death of christopher mccandless in the wilderness of alaska. mccanless was a young man you wanted to live out a jack london/henry thoreau/leo tolstoy lifestyle that pushed him to some pretty far extremes. it’s a fascinating book thus far.

my run for the day
distance – 5.1 miles
time – 53:02
pace – 10:23/mile

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13.1 stories

my legs have rested and i’m moving better now so i thought i would write out a few interesting stories from the half-marathon i ran yesterday.

  • i didn’t get to see this but pam did and told me about it – there was a 1.2 mile fun run that was organized along with the half marathon. the last person to finish the fun run was a 6 to 7 year old boy who had down’s syndrome. he had run the whole race by himself. when he got close to the finish line his mother jumped out to stand at the finish line. she began shouting to her son “i am so proud of you! you can make it, just keep running! i’m so very proud of you!” when the crowd realized what an amazing moment this was they all jumped into the act. the crowd began to scream wildly for the little guy. he was just focused on his mother and she kept shouting how proud she was him. the whole scene ended with him running into his mother arms and everyone else cheering. of course, pam couldn’t see this because she was too busy balling her head off.
  • the start to my race was a little more exciting than i had hoped for. i run with an mp3 player. when they started the race with my brother-n-law, sister-n-law, and i in the middle of the pact i pressed the “play” button on my mp3 player. it was at that very moment that my mp3 player fell out of its strap and onto the pavement. when i turned around to get it i was face to face with 400 people who were running straight at me. for some reason these people didn’t seem to understand that i needed to go back the twenty feet to my mp3 player. i swam upstream towards my player moving people out of the way. when i got to my mp3 player and reached down for it things didn’t get much better. now instead of me avoiding bodies that were coming towards me it was my hands quickly avoiding feet that were coming towards them. even though i finally was able to get my player back it was probably the scariest part of the entire race for me.
  • the water station at mile 6 was manned by men and women in red dresses – every single one of them. it was a very odd experience. some of them were very ugly guys in very skimpy dresses.
  • the whole event got me very excited about the music city marathon that we are going to in april. it was fun running with 1,000 people. it will be incredible running with 20,000 people. my brother-n-law is blogging about his training for the marathon. you can read his blog here.
  • i just found out from the race results on the mobile press register that i was 214th out of the 410 half-marathoners.

SIDE NOTE – i’ve started watching the dvd edition of the “firefly” tv show. it’s really good. too bad the series only lasted one year.

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finished reading

this week i finished two great books:

  • fast food nation by eroc schlosser – it was a great book that is already affecting my view on fast food, agribusiness, and consumerism in general and i am sure it will continue to do so.
  • crucifixion by martin hengel – this is a scholarly discussion of the greco-roman view of crucifixion. it is not so much a discussion of the method of crucifixion as it is a discourse of how crucifixion was viewed in the ancient near east. it gives new insight into paul’s meaning in 1 corinthians 1:18.

both of these books were top notch reads.

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been there, done that, got the t-shirt

today i finished my first half marathon. i’ll tell y’all more about the interesting things later (things like my mp3 player falling on the ground at the start of the race and me having to bob and weave backwards through the start of the race to get it from in between hundreds of runners’ feet, or the struggles i had with a desperate need to use the bathroom and no option available). i’ll tell y’all those stories later. right now i’m tired and i don’t really want to think about exerting myself (even mentally). the only thing that has probably been harder in my life was climbing a shear cliff on a mountain within the sangre de christo mountain range in colorado. this was a very close second. i would have never been able to run all 13.1 miles if it had not been for pam or my brother-n-law and sister-n-law.

my run for the day
distance – 13.1 miles
time – 2:09:39
pace – 9:53/pace