Author: electrobro@gmail.com

Day 31 – 3 Miles – Waited until after work to run (which I hate).  It was a pretty easy run.  3 miles has finally gotten to be relatively easy so, therefore, it is no longer useful.  I’m going to miss you, 3 mile runs.  Well, 11 miles on Saturday, then 4, 5, 4, and 13 miles next week.  It’s starting to feel more like training.  Anyway, hopefully, I will get back to my morning runs.

The  neighborhood is getting back together.  The lights were back on and the debris is mostly cleaned up.  I wonder how long before lives are back together.

Later Days.

Day 29 – Rest & Day 30 – 5 Miles – Well, I was planning on knocking out my 5 a day early, but family plans vetoed the run.  So this morning, after a night or wind and rain and tornado warnings, I got up, looked at the radar, looked outside and it looked promising.  It was just a drizzle so I got myself ready and headed out the door.  I didn’t make it down the side walk when the sky opened up on me.  Reset, Maybe we will try this in the afternoon.  I t will be a little colder, but the rain should have moved on.  Don’t want to wait to long or I will be contending with snow.

I’ll be back in about 12 hours.

Day 26 -28 – Rest / Day 27 – 7 Miles – I took an extra day off this weekend to allow some healing for my left Iliotiial Band to heal.  The pain in my back and hip were causing me to loose sleep.  I waited as long as I could on Sunday to run, but I pushed off last night and knowcked out my 7 miles.  It didn’t feel to bad.  My wind was great, but my legs were pretty tired during the last mile. It’s Monday morning and due to the late run last night (and the lightning and thinder) I did not run this morning.  I will see how I feel tonight to decide whether running today is prudent.   Not feeling too inspired right now about writing so I better move on to my day.  Later Days…

Day 25 – 3 Miles:  Well after all the talk about pain, weariness, and adversity; today felt relatively great.  I hurt a little bit at the beginning, but after I got started I was cruising.  So now I feel guilty for having a good run.  I must not have worked hard enough.  I am cheating myself.  I guess I’ll just quit.  Oh, yeah, I did mention something about renewal, didn’t I?  OK I will except this day of feeling good after a run, but let’s hope this is the exception, not the rule.  Bring on the pain!

Day 21 – Rest Day / Day 22 – 3 Miles – Rest day was more than needed.  This mornings run almost felt like a continuation of Saturday.  I feel like this journey is going to tougher than it seemed at first.  I have to admit, to this point, other than the discipline, things have been relatively easy.  I have not been sore, or overly tired at the end of any run. That is not to say that I have not had tough days, but I have not been sore the day after a run.

I am not complaining, as a matter of fact, this is what I expected.  I fully anticipated being tired and having days that would challenge my commitment.  I have never trained for any athletic endeavor that did not leave me spent at the end of a practice.  To this point, all I have had to do is get up a little earlier and push my self for about a half an hour, take a shower and throw something down in this here weblog.  Now I feel like I actually might be in training.  Bring it on!

Day 20 – 9 Miles – Word of the Day – Adversity – (Thanks Taylor) We started out the Day at 7:30 with a great word from Taylor.  He spoke at a men’s breakfast at my church on how adversity is what God uses to develop us into the people we should be.  Second Word of the Day, “Team”.  I did not feel great out of the blocks, but I have felt worse.  I had three blisters pop on the bottom of my foot last night, but they were not bothering me, but I was a little worried about it.  So, some where around 9:40 or so, we were off.  About 1/2 mile into the run, bladder started to tell me it was full.  Great!  I was able to shake that off, but it nagged me the rest of the run.  We started with a very reasonable pace and I was doing fine until just about half way.  I had never had fatigue in my legs be a problem up to this point, but my legs were beginning to ache.  By mile six I was starting to fall behind and seemed that the pace was picking up a little.  Just before we got to our water drop just before mile 7, I was beginning to wonder if I was going to make it.  The water break seemed to help, but it didn’t take long before I started falling behind again.

Enter “The Team”!  I might not have made it this far had I been running alone, but at this point it was becoming pretty tough.  Those negative words started rolling around in my head, “Maybe you aren’t going to be able to do this”.  Just about that time, Derek dropped back to run with me.  I would like to say it gave me a fresh wind in my sails, but it didn’t.  What it did do was remind me that I was not in this alone.   If adversity helps make the man, I would say that brothers are made for adversity.  “As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.” (Proverbs 27:17)  Thanks Derek – You have made into the hallowed halls of the “Well Done ” Crew.

We all finished under 10 min/mile.  My legs and feet were in definite need of some soaking and I took a good nap.  After about 4 hours, I was feeling pretty good.  I hope that I am not always causing adversity for my team mates, but if I do, remember, it is for your own good.

Day 19 – Rest Day – Rest day (for most of us). We I set my alarm to sleep in. Up at 5:15 anyway. So I figured I would jump in throw out a few thoughts about my team.

First off, I never imagined a marathon as a team sport. Growing up, I played quite a few sports; baseball, football, basketball (sort of), track, cross-country, wrestling, and little swimming. Wrestling, track and cross-country, are individual sports, where in competition, it is just you against everyone. Sure, I was on a team. As a matter of fact I was team captain on all three of those teams. We encouraged each other, but in the end, it was just you against your competitors.

I am sure that if we were competing for top honors in this race it would be different, but when your goal is to train hard and finish, the team is really a team. I think that if one of us could not finish this journey to the end, we would all feel a loss. When each of us cross that finish line, all of us share in the victory. How many sports allow you to win 10 times in one competition?

Weekly – “Well Dones”

Zach – Awesome grit and determination fighting through injury and discouragement to get back into training. You are an encouragement to all of us. Super Job!

Bobby – Your growing excitement is contagious! You are a guys that gives his all to everything. We need more of that not just in our team, but in life in general. Kudos on getting the blog up and going.

Greg – Greg is an example of pushing past the ordinary and setting higher goals. He is pushing himself to work harder on his daily runs, to pursue a higher standard of excellence. His drive has caused me to always re-evaluate my own effort. Many times I do not push myself on my daily runs. I am satisfied to just get through the run. Greg reminds me that we need to get everything we can out of our daily training. Thanks Greg.

The Halfers (minis) – Lauren and Nick. You guys get left out of much of our discussions, but your commitment is no less. Anyone who pushes their own limits is making the same commitment as the rest of us. With only two of you running together, I would think that it would be harder to stay motivated, but you two keep plodding along. Good job.

Tammy and Becky – Our marketing gurus. Thanks for jumping in head first on our effort to promote our fund raising effort. Your guys are awesome!

Taylor – Our fearless leader. Everyday, Taylor brings encouragement and accountability to all of us. Although he may have trouble regulating his pace during his runs, he is a great pace setter for us as a team leader. I know that if I have a bad run, he is going to bring encouragement, if I have a great run, he will share in my excitement and if I slack off, he is going to give me grief. Your awesome Man!

(If your reading our weblogs, and have not given to St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital yet, get on the stick! Check out the support St. Jude links on the sidebar. If you are not comfortable with the computer giving thing, E-mail me and I tell you how you can give. If you can’t give financially, at least send the runners a word of encouragement. Thanks)

Day 18 – 3 Miles – Up at 5:38(no alarm), little breakfast and out the door at 5:55.  It was one of those days.  I think this is the closest I have been to rolling over and saying “not this morning”.  But, I persevered, I got my feet on the floor, took my daily meds and vitamins, breakfast, and then “where are those pants?”  the one real problem with this dri-fit stuff is that a pair of pants is not much bigger than a sock! Also it is slippery and slips easily behind the dresser. Great!  Well, out the door in sweats.  Now I had decided yesterday, that today would be the day for picking up the pace.  Man, am I psyched! Not!  Down the hill, pushing, breathing hard, and I already feel like garbage.  Now the beginning of the up hill mile.  Still trying to push and stay focused.  About a mile in I was really thining about walking home.  Then the wheeze started.  I thought about the inhaler, but that was almost disasterous last time since it increases my heart rate.  Just keep plodding along.  I was able to stay focused and kept pushing (on and off).  I finished with a 100 yard dash and I finished with a pretty good time for me.  I think for me, pushing to run hard is much harder than pushing to run longer.   I definately don’t want to run like this everyday, but I will try to push the pace at least once a week.  Or maybe I’ll just roll over and go back to sleep and when I wake-up this nightmare will be over!