Saturday, Sunday and Monday

Saturday morning I ran Town Lake with my Marianna (my sister-in-law) and her friend Jill. They are training for a half marathon in January and are both avid bikers. They ran from the First Street bridge to IH 35 and back. I kept going when we got back to First Street and went to the Pfluger bridge loop, which is by Lamar. I found myself walking some, which I don't normally do, but I think there were 2 contributing factors. First, I was talking while running. The second factor was the terrain. The parks around the house where I run are all flat. Town Lake, however, has several hills and a few ramps to get from lake level to street level. I think for next Saturday my goal will be to start at First Street, go to IH 35, then back the other way to MoPac, then back to First Street. I will walk the hills, ramps and steps, and run the rest to MoPac, walking from MoPac to First Street.

I found a great app for my Blackberry called Roadrunner GPS. It is a running and fitness tracker which works off the GPS on my phone. This app tracks my distance, mapping out the trail, gives me the total time for the workout, what my mile time is, average mph, and calories burned. It seems to be very accurate, and it should be a great help for tracking the progress of my runs!

Yesterday I rested. Well, I rested from running, at least. I preached about Dietrich Bonhoeffer and his commitment to his faith, even being committed to death by hanging for doing what he knew was right. The scriptural basis was Luke 12:49-56. I believe there is a crisis of faith in our nation. There are many who say they are religious, but they do not practice that religion. Bonhoeffer lived his faith and died for his faith. According to the doctor that witnessed his execution, “I saw Pastor Bonhoeffer ... kneeling on the floor praying fervently to God. I was most deeply moved by the way this lovable man prayed, so devout and so certain that God heard his prayer. At the place of execution, he again said a short prayer and then climbed the few steps to the gallows, brave and composed. His death ensued after a few seconds. In the almost fifty years that I worked as a doctor, I have hardly ever seen a man die so entirely submissive to the will of God.” May we all be so submissive to our God and our faith!

This morning's run was 4 miles. My goal was 3, so it was good to go past it. However, my time was way off. Maline started back to work today, so we had to get up and get going earlier then we are used to. We hit snooze a few too many times, but we finally got up and took care of business. Tomorrow we have training with Moe, then running Wednesday and Thursday.

Until next time, Live, love, laugh!

New Shoes, New Shirt, New Route

My new shoes arrived yesterday. I bought the Asics Gel-Nimbus 11 running shoes from Amazon.com. They feel good. I did a short run of 2 miles and then 1 mile walking last evening to start breaking them in. I also received a running shirt as part of registering for the marathon. Between the shoes, the shirt, and my natural good looks, I looked great!

This morning I had a bit of a hard time getting started, however. Just after I walked out the door, the battery on my mp3 player died, which meant no tunes for the morning. My pedometer, which does not actually measure my distance accurately (after doing 6 miles on Town Lake Saturday, it said I had done .15!), also bit the bullet this morning. It has a clock on it, which I use to keep track of my speed, and to some degree, my distance. I had to really force myself to say I could make it a decent run, and set out grudgingly with my eye on 3 miles. I hit the road at a slower pace then normal, doing what I think was probably 13 minute miles and went my usual route. I got to the park, ran under the road, and came out to another park, which I started running last week. When I got to the end of the trail at the second park, there was a sidewalk leading into the neighborhood, so I took it instead of turning around. I followed the road to the middle school, then back up and around the soccer fields, up to the head of Harper Park, then turned around and came back. When it was all said and done, I hit right around 5 miles, I think (remember, my pedometer was dead, so I had no way of timing myself and determining how far I ran). It was a good run, and the new shoes feel great.

Tomorrow will be a lite upper body workout. I want to rest my legs for a day before running Town Lake Saturday. My goal is to do 6 miles Saturday running at a pace of 12 minute miles. So, anyone wanting to run Saturday, meet at Town Lake under the First Street bridge at 6:30! See you then.

Food for thought: Veni, Vidi, Vici.