Tag Archive for "Big Daddy" -

Running Metaphorically

“The only thing, really, that marks the difference between the beginning and the end is the passage of time” (Pont 210). Isn’t this a great statement about a race and life?

It’s been a while since I’ve posted. Sorry. I won’t bore you with excuses about new babies, sidewalk sales, my sister’s wedding, etc. I would like to point out that the Boys and Girls Club was the people’s choice for the charity I should support. Join the fundraising effort on Facebook by searching for the Boys and Girls Club of Holland.

I just finished reading Finding Their Stride by Sally Pont. It is the story of a high school cross country season as told by the coach. Very inspirational stuff! She writes a lot about how her athletes change throughout the season. She also examines the metaphors offered by running. Her voice comes through so passionately that it made me long to re-live my high school cross country seasons.

The metaphoric side of running is a by-product of all the silent seconds spent in flight (at least for us non-Ipod impaired runners). Every mile offers time to think and examine life. Throughout the memoir, Pont shares her hopes and dreams for the athletes she coaches. She also examines them for changes and growth. The race descriptions serve as a psychological treatise on her athletes; she uses the symbols of the run to describe the teens’ pain, desire, emotion. On my runs, I understand what she is saying.

“Finding pleasure in the pain of running, she feels no need at all to change” (Pont 190). Everyone has been on a run that hurt, a run that pushed them farther than they thought possible. When I push through that wall, when I live in that pain, I finish feeling satisfied. That is what Pont is saying here. She’s saying that to find the pleasure in pain frees us from the pressures and demands of others. We’re free to be ourselves. Runners push through that physical pain, but people often need to push the emotional pain of refusing to fit into the boxes others try to force us into.

This is a short post, but it’s all I’ve got right now. Find a copy of Finding Their Stride by Sally Pont. It will inspire you to find more meaning in your running. Here’s one last quote for you.

“The point is to be better than you thought you could be. That, really, is winning” (Pont 227).

Pont, Sally. Finding Their Stride. Harcourt Brace: New York. 1999.

14th August 2009

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Frustrated Training Plans

If you haven’t voted in my poll yet, scroll down and vote soon. I’m going to take the final results as of Sunday, July 12.

My training for the Akron Marathon is going okay. I’ve been trying to up my mileage, but it has been a struggle this time. I’m not feeling injured or anything. Some of my workouts have just been a little flat. I think this is due to a lack of sleep. Our two kids haven’t been sleeping so well, and proper sleep is vital to training adaption and recovery. Check out this article on Runners’ World. I can do the miles with little sleep, but it is a lot harder to get the quality training runs to work. My body just doesn’t want to pick up the pace for my speedwork.

More than the lack of sleep, it seems like I lack time. This makes no sense. I’m only working a few days a week at Gazelle. I’m not taking a grad class. I should have plenty of time to train. Having two kids makes it a lot more difficult, though. I don’t want to neglect the boys. I definitely don’t want to abandone Anne, either. I don’t want her to feel like she’s a single mother going through motherhood on her own. So I work hard to be around and helping raise our boys. I know how nervous I would be if she told me she was going on a two-hour training run and leaving me alone with our two-month old and our two year old, so I try to be careful about how often I say that to her. I take Myles (our two year old) with me on parts of my runs. That helps, but it is still hard to get out there sometimes.

I’d love to be like Nate Jenkins, though. I saw him the Runners’ World On-line Daily and checked the link to his blog. I love to do high mileage. The training plan that I developed calls for fairly high miles (not as high as Jenkins’ though). I’d like to be around 60 miles per week right now. It’s difficult, though. I feel like I’m always trying to squeeze my runs into blocks of time that are a little too small. This week, I’ve cut two runs a little short just because I didn’t have quite enough time before we had a doctor’s appointment or a social obligation. I hate to cut a run short. It leaves me feeling like I need to make it up at some other time. Then my training becomes helter skelter, though, because I’m trying to squeeze in miles on other days without missing the workouts originally scheduled for those days.

I just need to remember that this is a season of life. Soon, Boston will be sleeping better. When we’re all sleeping better, it’ll be easier to wake up early to run. In a few years, Myles will be able to ride his bike with me while I do my runs. Several years later, he’ll be a teenager and I may be begging him to hang out with me. I guess I should just enjoy this season and fit me runs in whenever I can. I’m trying.

8th July 2009

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Why do you run? Give me a new reason.

Why do you run marathons? This is a question that many people have asked. As a marathoner, it’s a question that is always difficult to answer. That’s like asking someone why they travel or why they enjoy a sunny day or why they eat cake. Sure, the answer begins with enjoyment. While people accept this explanation for why I love the Salty Dog Sundae at Captain Sundae, they won’t accept this answer for why I run 26.2 miles. Right now I’m reading My First 100 Marathons: 2,620 Miles with an Obsessive Runner by Jeff Horowitz, and his reasons for running marathons really connect to my own. He talks about the sense of accomplishment, challenge, and variety within marathons. Someday, I’ll explore these reasons more in-depth. I don’t think I have enough room to write about all my reasons for running marathons right now, though. That’s one thought that I’m going to explore more, so I can be more concise on a future post. Instead, I’m going to add (with your help) a new reason for marathoning. Marathons have always be a personal challenge for me. I’ve never used a marathon to raise money for a charity. That ends now. I’d like you all to help me choose a cause. I’ll be running the Akron Marathon in September, and I will focus on raising funds for the charity you select. Please don’t recommend your friends who are named Charity (lol).

Boys and Girls Club of America: I taught in an alternative high school for four years, and I saw the good that the Boys and Girls Club can accomplish. They give kids a safe place to learn and grow without the pressure to act tough. They provide homework support, organized group activities, and mentorship. Most importantly, they teach kids the skills necessary to become positive role models to the younger kids in the area.

Team Hole in the Wall: This is a team that was founded by Paul Newman. Members of this team raise funds to send kids with life-threatening diseases to camps. It is a grass-roots association of camps designed to let these kids forget about their illnesses and focus on having kid-sized fun without worries. More than 135,000 kids from across the nation and around the world have attended these camps free-of-charge thanks to this chariable organization.

High Cloud Foundation: High Cloud seeks to aid the poorest people of the world. It focuses on women and children in war-torn, impoverished areas. It also works to restore areas hardest hit by natural disasters. High Cloud services women and children in places such as Brazil, Ecuador, Peru, Columbia, Macedonia, the Middle East, Nigeria, Kenya, and India.

Wounded Warrior Project: My brother-in-law is a machine gunner in the Marines. He proudly serves our country everyday. He has served in Iraq and has seen his brothers get injured. The Wounded Warrior Project seeks to keep the public aware of the sacrifices of our veterans, to help severely injured service men and women, and to provide training and transition programs to help these warriors when they return home.

Internation School of Kabul: My friend teaches at this school in Afghanistan. The love and encouragement given to these kids changes their lives. The school is raising funds to improve their buildings and to provide scholarship assistance to their students. This is a great way to make a difference in their country.

Team in Training: Team in Training is probably the best known charity among marathoners. Team in Training raises money to fund research into Leukemia and Lymphoma. They have raised more than $600 million to fight blood cancers by funding research.

So, if I can figure out how to insert a poll, I’d like you to help me choose a cause. If you want to vote for other, please leave a comment letting me know what cause you have in mind.

19th June 2009

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Summer Goals

“School’s…out…for the…summer!” I finished grading exams and essays on Friday. Today is the first day that really feels like summer vacation. Sure, I’ll do some reading for next year’s classes and probably even do a little work on new curriculum for next year, but mostly summer is a time to catch up on time with my family. I also have a chance to work on some areas of life that get neglected during the long weeks of the school year. Maybe the garage will finally get cleaned out, or I’ll do some work in the garden. I might even organize all my old race shirts and thin out my collection a little (nah). Hopefully, I will find some fun races to run. Oh yeah, I’ll head to the beach, too. As you can see, there are a lot of things I want to do during June, July, and August. I need to set some firm goals if I want to get anything that is important to me accomplished.

Goal number one is spend time with my family. My wife, Anne, is forced to fly solo while I am training or working, so part of this goal is to take Myles, our two-year old, on at least one recovery run every week. Thank you BabyJogger! I also told Anne that any day featuring two runs will also require one of those runs to be a Baby Jogger run. Today, we went to the gym as a family. Myles hung out at the Guppy Room (daycare at the gym), and Boston (our one-month old) went into the fitness room with Mom and Dad. Besides working out together, I’m really working on “being present” when I’m hanging out with the family. I’m trying to put the book or magazine down, play together, talk, and just hang out as a family.

Goal number two is to incorporate more cross training into my life. I biked to school all last week, and I really enjoyed the early morning time on the bike. I’m trying to find a way to include at least one medium-length bike ride each week. Also, I haven’t been in the pool since January. I was just getting used to the water when I got a tattoo. After he finished the job, the tattoo artist warned me about how damaging the water would be to my design. He said no swimming for at least a month. Well, it’s been over a month. Swimming once a week should add to my cross-training routine. The challenge of these goals is to add the cross training to my running without overdoing. If I try to do too much, I’ll risk missing out on time with my family and risk an over-training injury.

My third goal also relates to cross training; I need to maintain a core routine. This is one of my weaknesses as a runner: I often cut my core workouts to save more time for running. When my core is really strong, I know I’m a much more efficient runner. I just need to dedicate time to building this area. I’ve got loads of planks, crunches, and dips to add variety. I just need to be more committed to making the time for them two to three times per week. I’m going to aim for core workouts every Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday or Sunday. Josh Cox Core Workhout

Fourth, I want to experience new things. I’d like to take Anne to the Waldorff Pub in Hastings. I want to take Myles on a train ride to Chicago. I want to read books like Born to Run and My Life on the Run. We love to try new foods, new restaurants, and new activities. Everything takes time and everything (seems to) take money, so it is a delicate balance to live adventurously without overdoing it. This is a skill that I hope Myles learns early in his life. Leave a comment if you have a suggestion for a can’t-miss adventure my family should experience.

These are my four main goals. If I can stay focused on these four things, I will feel proud and refreshed at the end of the summer. Hopefully, I get some work done on the garage and the garden, too. I know there are limits to how much I can focus on accomplishing, though. A list too long leaves me grouchy and disappointed. None of my studens want me to come back to school feeling like that next year.

8th June 2009

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This is BigDaddy enjoying the moments before the Green Bay Marathon.

As a high school teacher, I get to experience graduation season every year. Every year, I see many seniors acting excited to reach the end of their high school journey. I also see many of these graduates hiding fear of this same ending. Many of my kids say, “I can’t believe this is the end. Can you believe this is our last (fill in the blank with any high school memory).” This year, I started listening to students talking about they are excited about. No more essays. No more stupid school rules. No more teacher’s prying questions. These are the most common responses. It made me wonder: why do we so often focus on what is ending and lose focus on what is to come? Even better, let’s enjoy where we are.

Runners would enjoy running infinitely more if they dwelt in the present instead of the past. In Stumbling on Happiness, Daniel Gilbert gives numerous examples of how our minds are faulty at recording past events and horrible at predicting our future. Yet, we define ourselves by personal bests set in the past. Every race I run is instantly compared to my previous best efforts.Yesterday, I did the Panther Prowlat West Ottawa High School. It was a small 5k, no prizes, about 130 runners total. I was aware that John “MadDog” Donnelly would be running, so I knew I would be pushed in the race. Before the race began, I was thinking about the last time I ran this race. I set a PR, but Donnelly beat me by ten seconds. This time, I started hard and led through the first mile. Instead of the enjoying the race, though, I thought about another 5k that I raced with the MadDog. I passed him at the two mile mark only to be re-passed in the last quarter of a mile. Rather than enjoying the first race that I led, I was thinking about the past. I continued dwelling on history through the end of the race. During the last 100 meters, I realized that I was going to win. I have never outright won a race. I did it! I won! Oh, but my time was not as good as last time (on a different course). Immediately, my first outright win was compared to my previous PR. My wonderful wife helped me to realize that this is ridiculous. Even if I didn’t win. Even if my time was 20 minutes slower instead of 10 seconds slower. How could focusing on the past be worthwhile? I should have been celebrating where I was at the moment.

All too often, the moment is lost in plans for the future, too. Too often, I have finished a race only to be looking at Marathonguide.com or Michigan Runnerto find my next race. This robs the present. We need to savor the races we’re running. I run marathons. Training schedules dominate my days to race once or twice a year. I should enjoy the marathon when I’m running it. During those 16-, 18- or 20-week training schedules, we need to live in today’s Interval or Fartlek. If you’re always thinking about the next race, why are you running the current one?

So that’s my lesson for the weekend. Enjoy TODAY’S run. Savor TODAY’S race. Live in TODAY. And graduates, be nice to your parents and teachers.

31st May 2009

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