What have you done with your time this past year? Have you accomplished all that you wanted? Did you do everything that you’d planned to do? How about your body? Did you get into shape, or out of shape?
Some remarkable things have happened here over the last year. Several people ran full marathons (26.2 miles) for the first time. Several more ran their first half marathon (13.1 miles). We took a group to Allerton Park for a 5.5 mile trail run through the woods.
A whole bunch of people went to several different 5 K runs (3.1 miles), and quite a few participated in the C.A.M.A. Park to Park bike rally and the Mill Creek Duathlon (2 mile run, 20 mile bike ride, 2 mile run). I also know of at least two others that did triathlons.
NO PAIN, NO GAIN
Posted: September 16, 2009
Last weekend was “Blues at the Crossroads” in Terre Haute and they scheduled a half-marathon run early Saturday morning as part of the festival. While I’m not a good runner by any means, I like doing a race in the spring and then again in the fall. That gives me a goal, and also helps keep me training. That helps keep me in shape.
After a pretty dismal performance (2:25) in the last one at Sarah Bush Lincoln last spring, I wanted to do better this time. Part of it could be blamed on the extreme wind that day, but the bottom line was I was a lousy runner and needed to train more.
I’d always been a little cautious of running too much, because of all the other workouts I’ve got going on, so I didn’t want to over train. I’d also run into knee problems during the long runs at the end of a training cycle, right before a race.
FINDING INSPIRATION
Posted: September 10, 2009
When writing this column, I usually come to my laptop with a pretty good idea of what I want to write about. Sometimes it’s a continuation of a topic from the week before. Sometimes it’s something I’ve been thinking about for awhile.
There are times, though, when I have no idea what to write about. That can be pretty tough, especially with a weekly deadline. Thank God it doesn’t happen too often. But when it does, even the act of writing often brings an idea or two (seems to be working).
It works when writing songs, too. You can’t just lie around waiting for inspiration to strike. You’ve got to go digging for it. Play your instrument. Listening to the sounds and paying attention to what’s going through your mind.
PLAN “B”
Posted: August 27, 2009
So what do you do when things don’t go your way? If you’re like anything like me, you might throw a tantrum. It might not be a big one, probably no one can see it, but inside, it’s definitely a tantrum.
Once in awhile, it’s visible, and my wife tells me it looks pretty silly. I once knew a guy who was about 350 lbs and when he threw a tantrum, he actually jumped up and down on both feet. Now that worked (for awhile) when we were two, but at 32?
If you look at the 5 steps we talked about last week (denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance), the tantrum would fall into the anger category. But it really doesn’t change anything. You can be as mad as you want about it, but when you get done, the problem is still going to be there.
GIVING UP & MOVING ON
Posted: August 17, 2009
This week I want to talk about two kinds of giving up. The first type of giving up or surrendering is actually healthy for us and even necessary, if we’re going to move past difficult times or events in our lives.
You may have heard about the different ways we (humans) handle a crisis. These are also used to help explain the grieving process when someone close to you dies. The first stage is denial—trying to ignore the problem exists, or trying to pretend it isn’t really happening—but it is.
Once you’re forced to deal with it, though, the next stage is anger. You start thinking, “why me? You want to strike back and look for things or people to blame. But most often, there’s no one to blame. Things happen.