Well, I got blog-scooped (blooped?) by Jim, but as can be seen on his site, Sarah and I are having a boy!
I really was excited about having a boy or a girl, and had been dreaming about the joys either would bring (our beatiful girl who would make my heart hurt from loving her so much, or our funny boy who would make me laugh). As soon as the ultrasound technician pointed "it" out to us I started beaming! Instantly I pictured my little buddy.
Right away, the thoughts poured in...I'm going to show him how to skip rocks, and why it's fun to be in the woods. I'll wipe up his scrapes, and tell him to stop bringing frogs in the house. I pictured my little man learning how to honor his mother and how to treat girls. His first kiss, the time he blew milk out his nose from laughing so hard. Oh, and who will ever forget the time when he was 3 that he went poo in front of everyone at a wedding reception...Just dropped his drawers 'cause he had to go (ok that was me...you can ask my mom, it's one of her favorite stories)
We don't have the name anywhere near figured out, so we have to keep thinking on that one, but I can see him already when I close my eyes. He's got his mom's deep, beautiful, brown eyes, my cowlicky hair, her cute feet, and my fingers.
I won't see him for 20 more weeks and already I'm sappy beyond belief...
Tuesday, September 27, 2005
Wednesday, September 21, 2005
Can't wait to see you baby!
Two nights ago I was doing my stretches and then icing my legs to make sure I can keep running. While I sat on the floor with frozen veggies icing my hips and "buns" (by the way...if you're going to ice as much as me, probably a good idea to buy ice packs rather than have to throw away veggies...seriously would you want to eat veggies after you'd iced your legs with them dozens of times?)
So as I sat defiling two bags of veggies, Sarah said...come put your hand on my tummy. I leaned over and put my palm on her stomach when- boop! - I felt a little poke like her stomach bubbled under my hand.
I was so shocked I didn't know what to say. For the first time I'd felt the little life Sarah and I are bringing to the world. Two days later and here I am thinking about it every 5 minutes. I touched my baby (sort of) for the first time!
Now today Jen will likely bring her baby to the world. Yay for baby T #1, and now I can't wait for baby T #2!!
So as I sat defiling two bags of veggies, Sarah said...come put your hand on my tummy. I leaned over and put my palm on her stomach when- boop! - I felt a little poke like her stomach bubbled under my hand.
I was so shocked I didn't know what to say. For the first time I'd felt the little life Sarah and I are bringing to the world. Two days later and here I am thinking about it every 5 minutes. I touched my baby (sort of) for the first time!
Now today Jen will likely bring her baby to the world. Yay for baby T #1, and now I can't wait for baby T #2!!
Sunday, September 18, 2005
Doh!
I can't believe I've never run on the Wildwood trail before. I've often lamented the fact there are so few trails to run where we live, and that I'm forced to run on the roads.
I got up early this morning and drove through the fog to find the trailhead of the Wildwood trail on Newberry road. I actually managed to run 18 miles without hip pain, and felt really strong. I was feeling so graceful at about mile 17.5, thinking something like "this has been great, and now, thanks to God helping me heal, I've had a great run". At that moment, as I took a drink from my water bottle I lurched forward, throwing my water bottle down the trail and planted my whole self directly on the trail with a thud.
I had been distracted and made the classic mistake of not paying attention to my footing on the trail, when a root I hadn't seen seized its opportunity and took me down. I muttered "crud" a couple times and started spitting the dirt out of my mouth. I tried wiping the trail off my face, but it was sticking to the sweat on my arms and I quickly ran out of clean arm real estate with which to clean my face. Of course shortly after this I happened on a family with young kids. The dad gave me a strange look, no doubt wondering just how I had gotten so much dirt on my face.
Anyway, I liked the trail quite a bit, and I look forward to many more weekend runs on it. The mist weaved in and out of the trees all day, and I ran in a canopy of fir and oak with lush greenery all around. It was great!
I got up early this morning and drove through the fog to find the trailhead of the Wildwood trail on Newberry road. I actually managed to run 18 miles without hip pain, and felt really strong. I was feeling so graceful at about mile 17.5, thinking something like "this has been great, and now, thanks to God helping me heal, I've had a great run". At that moment, as I took a drink from my water bottle I lurched forward, throwing my water bottle down the trail and planted my whole self directly on the trail with a thud.
I had been distracted and made the classic mistake of not paying attention to my footing on the trail, when a root I hadn't seen seized its opportunity and took me down. I muttered "crud" a couple times and started spitting the dirt out of my mouth. I tried wiping the trail off my face, but it was sticking to the sweat on my arms and I quickly ran out of clean arm real estate with which to clean my face. Of course shortly after this I happened on a family with young kids. The dad gave me a strange look, no doubt wondering just how I had gotten so much dirt on my face.
Anyway, I liked the trail quite a bit, and I look forward to many more weekend runs on it. The mist weaved in and out of the trees all day, and I ran in a canopy of fir and oak with lush greenery all around. It was great!
Saturday, September 17, 2005
Gear!
Mike and Jim made me get up at 5:30 on a Saturday. This after Mike got me to get up at 5:50 on Friday for a fruitless effort to ride bikes together to work. Today it was for REI's gear "garage" sale. It always makes for an experience of the best and worst in people.
Best...I stood in line from a little after 6AM to 9AM while Mike and Jim made me laugh over and over. We even discussed utilitarianism, and tried to determine just how many utils we each were worth. (Note: Mike has 3 utils, but that's another story)
Worst...People shoving me out of the way, grabbing 6 backpacks and 5 sleeping bags to ensure they got the best deal. These people apparently are willing to ignore the value of their fellow-man in order to score some used gear. We took the approach that "they can have the gear, it's not worth it". Jim went so far as to walk out with nothing but an 83 cent water bottle, ethics intact! Mike got a nice roof cargo box for a good deal.
I'm sure our wives love that we keep spending money on gear. Spending time with the guys this morning though, I was realizing we're buying the gear to use it to create more memories of hikes, camping in the rain, peaking mountains, etc... (that's how we'll justify it anyway, and hope our wives believe it!)
In the meantime I have to figure out when I'll start using the little pack I bought for running, so I can convince Sarah it was a "steal"!
Best...I stood in line from a little after 6AM to 9AM while Mike and Jim made me laugh over and over. We even discussed utilitarianism, and tried to determine just how many utils we each were worth. (Note: Mike has 3 utils, but that's another story)
Worst...People shoving me out of the way, grabbing 6 backpacks and 5 sleeping bags to ensure they got the best deal. These people apparently are willing to ignore the value of their fellow-man in order to score some used gear. We took the approach that "they can have the gear, it's not worth it". Jim went so far as to walk out with nothing but an 83 cent water bottle, ethics intact! Mike got a nice roof cargo box for a good deal.
I'm sure our wives love that we keep spending money on gear. Spending time with the guys this morning though, I was realizing we're buying the gear to use it to create more memories of hikes, camping in the rain, peaking mountains, etc... (that's how we'll justify it anyway, and hope our wives believe it!)
In the meantime I have to figure out when I'll start using the little pack I bought for running, so I can convince Sarah it was a "steal"!
Thursday, September 15, 2005
Shhhhhh
A strange thing happened to me the other day...I logged into my blog and noticed I had a comment from a person with the user name "Shhhhhh".
It was such an odd and exhilerating feeling to know that some stranger out in the world had viewed my blog. (here is theirs... http://pagesfromtheuk.blogspot.com/)
I’m guessing from the reference Shhhhhh is from somewhere in England. Of course I bragged to Mike, saying a stranger had viewed and commented on my blog. I returned the favor and commented on Shhhhhh’s blog.
There’s something about the idea that any random person in the world might get some insight into who I am that is kind of exciting. I suppose that's just the human innate desire to be known and to know. It's probably also why I keep writing as though I were addressing a mass audience even though pretty much just my wife, my brother-in-law/friend, my mom and my other friend might read this. I figure at any moment several hundred people might discover this and think my writing is so fascinating that they must log in day after day to see what's happened to Eric today.
To blogging, and to the chance to cross paths with interesting strangers!
-ET
It was such an odd and exhilerating feeling to know that some stranger out in the world had viewed my blog. (here is theirs... http://pagesfromtheuk.blogspot.com/)
I’m guessing from the reference Shhhhhh is from somewhere in England. Of course I bragged to Mike, saying a stranger had viewed and commented on my blog. I returned the favor and commented on Shhhhhh’s blog.
There’s something about the idea that any random person in the world might get some insight into who I am that is kind of exciting. I suppose that's just the human innate desire to be known and to know. It's probably also why I keep writing as though I were addressing a mass audience even though pretty much just my wife, my brother-in-law/friend, my mom and my other friend might read this. I figure at any moment several hundred people might discover this and think my writing is so fascinating that they must log in day after day to see what's happened to Eric today.
To blogging, and to the chance to cross paths with interesting strangers!
-ET
Tuesday, September 13, 2005
Why I changed the title of my blog
So I realize this posting will seem windy, but I wanted to explain why I changed the name of my blog and the significance of the new name.
The other day I was running through my favorite trails in the Corvallis, Oregon area when a thought hit me so clearly and I think it will end up being one of those key moments in life that I'll look back on and see how it set me on the path I ended up on. I love those moments of epiphany running seems to bring to me.
First some context: Recently I found my passion for running after having taken several years away from it. In fact it's really been 6 years since I've had this kind love for running. (How I found it again is another story. Maybe I'll post it sometime.)
I got back into running a little too exuberantly. After taking those years off, it was only a few weeks of training before I ran 40 miles in three days and played 36 holes of golf. While doing some speed training on the third day of that stretch I “tweaked” my hamstring and started feeling pain in my hip as well. I didn’t do a good job of resting to let the injury heal after that and for the next 7 weeks + I struggled to reconcile my reclaimed passion with my body’s need for healing rest.
I prayed with fervor, continually asking God to heal me and allow me to follow this “bliss”. For me running is a spiritual experience. When I’m on my own in the woods, early in the morning, slightly chilled in the mist that shrouds the top of the evergreens on the hills, I feel so blessed. My heart responds in worship and gratitude to my creator and savior, and I have a sense of simple communion with the God who loves me.
I found it difficult to understand why God would gift me with the talent to run, fill me with a burning to run, bless me with His presence when I run, and then not allow me to run. Of course, God is not a vindictive sadist, and I realize I brought this injury on with my own lack of judgment. Nonetheless, I argued to God that it only made sense to heal me and allow me to spend those times worshipping Him.
As time continued I began to get paranoid. Maybe God, in His omniscience, knew that running would bring me down a wrong path and had allowed my hip injury in order to spare me from something. Of course, this thought scared me and seemed so tragic. “Whatever lesson you want me to learn, Lord, please teach it to me without taking running away from me”, I kept praying.
I started stretching, icing, resting, taking anti-inflammatories, going to the chiropractor, got a sports massage, and wasn’t seeing much progress. So I tried something different. I found a book detailing an approach to running based on engaging your core muscles, rather than using your leg muscles. Many of the ideas of the author were gleaned from martial arts. The premise is something close to the idea of leverage. That is, utilizing your core abdominal muscles, the rotation of your spine, and the reaction of your leg tendons you can run the same mileage- or even more –with much less wear and tear on your body.
One of the key principles is to adjust your posture. Incorrect posture causes undue stress on nearly every area of your body. The principle of engaging my core muscles, and utilizing the leverage of my spine seemed intuitive to me. The principle of adjusting my posture in general, and while running seemed like a no-brainer, but something I had sorely neglected.
As I worked on my posture, continued icing and taking anti-inflammatories, and worked on my flexibility I hoped for positive results. More importantly I had come to a place of surrender to the Lord. I had decided in my heart regardless of whether I got my way, I would praise His name and surrender myself in obedience to the will of Christ. Of course, I was still honest with God that I would be sorely disappointed if I couldn’t run. The important thing to me was that I would say “blessed be your name” (great song) regardless of my circumstances. I trusted that if I was not able to run it would be for my best whether I could see that or not. In the meantime I would try my best to run again and ask for God’s blessing in my efforts.
I did begin to see results, and now I’m cautiously optimistic. I’ve run twice in a row without pain. It had been something like 8 weeks since I had run without pain, so those two runs have me very hopeful (one of those was today…see the posting just before this).
The real story behind all this is what I realized about both my running and life. As stated earlier, the idea behind the book I’ve been reading is if your body isn’t properly aligned you will pay the price. If your posture is incorrect you will be on a path to pain. You may not experience it right away, but over the years you will put undue stress on your joints and muscles eventually wearing them down. You can keep it up for so long, but at an unexpected time you will break down. Additionally, if you use your muscles in a less than optimal way they will wear down. You can do weight training to delay this “meltdown”, but it will still come.
The only real solution is to correct your posture and run from your core. If you drive your movements from your core you will not only run farther without breaking down, you will also recover faster from your runs.
Back to the moment of epiphany on the Corvallis trail…I was focusing on my posture and on using my core to drive my movements, when I suddenly realized, this is the same problem I have had in my life. It doesn’t just apply to my running. Suddenly it was so clear to me.
In life, just as in running, if you are “running” with poor posture or by using your “leg muscles” instead of your core you are going to be causing stress points which, if not addressed, will cause you to break down. So simple, and yet we fail to notice this so often!
Think about it for a moment, and let me paint the picture a bit more. If we are leading ourselves in our careers, relationships, and life decisions, we are using our “leg muscles”. What’s more, if we’re not spending time reading God’s word and meditating in prayer, our core is so weak our life’s “posture” will surely be twisted and tilted in unhealthy ways.
No wonder so many are tired, stressed, weak, and wondering why things are not going their way. Just as I wasn’t running from my core, so many of us aren’t living from the core. And what is our core to be if not Christ Himself? I realized, without spending time in communion with Christ, allowing him to correct my spiritual posture, I am creating unnecessary stress points in my life. I’m sure there are many I don’t even know about. They’re festering, gaining intensity, and eventually will strike and leave me wondering what happened.
This is no new concept and I don’t intend to claim it as mine. Christ modeled this “postural” approach by spending countless hours in communion with the Father. He was aligning Himself to ensure His core was filled with the will of God and He would be moving with the leverage God gave him, rather than of His own will.
While it’s not a new concept, it is a new mental image for me, and something I want to spend time thinking about. I may develop the concept for myself as I think about it more, and while it’s pretty raw right now, I hope this has spurred you to think about your spiritual posture and core. Is your spiritual spine twisted? Are you getting a hunched back? Is your core strong? Do you have a spiritual “six-pack” or a “spare tire”?
So let’s focus on meditating on God’s word, spending time in communion with Him, and allow him to adjust our posture, and build up the strength of our core so we can “run the race and fight the good fight”!!
The other day I was running through my favorite trails in the Corvallis, Oregon area when a thought hit me so clearly and I think it will end up being one of those key moments in life that I'll look back on and see how it set me on the path I ended up on. I love those moments of epiphany running seems to bring to me.
First some context: Recently I found my passion for running after having taken several years away from it. In fact it's really been 6 years since I've had this kind love for running. (How I found it again is another story. Maybe I'll post it sometime.)
I got back into running a little too exuberantly. After taking those years off, it was only a few weeks of training before I ran 40 miles in three days and played 36 holes of golf. While doing some speed training on the third day of that stretch I “tweaked” my hamstring and started feeling pain in my hip as well. I didn’t do a good job of resting to let the injury heal after that and for the next 7 weeks + I struggled to reconcile my reclaimed passion with my body’s need for healing rest.
I prayed with fervor, continually asking God to heal me and allow me to follow this “bliss”. For me running is a spiritual experience. When I’m on my own in the woods, early in the morning, slightly chilled in the mist that shrouds the top of the evergreens on the hills, I feel so blessed. My heart responds in worship and gratitude to my creator and savior, and I have a sense of simple communion with the God who loves me.
I found it difficult to understand why God would gift me with the talent to run, fill me with a burning to run, bless me with His presence when I run, and then not allow me to run. Of course, God is not a vindictive sadist, and I realize I brought this injury on with my own lack of judgment. Nonetheless, I argued to God that it only made sense to heal me and allow me to spend those times worshipping Him.
As time continued I began to get paranoid. Maybe God, in His omniscience, knew that running would bring me down a wrong path and had allowed my hip injury in order to spare me from something. Of course, this thought scared me and seemed so tragic. “Whatever lesson you want me to learn, Lord, please teach it to me without taking running away from me”, I kept praying.
I started stretching, icing, resting, taking anti-inflammatories, going to the chiropractor, got a sports massage, and wasn’t seeing much progress. So I tried something different. I found a book detailing an approach to running based on engaging your core muscles, rather than using your leg muscles. Many of the ideas of the author were gleaned from martial arts. The premise is something close to the idea of leverage. That is, utilizing your core abdominal muscles, the rotation of your spine, and the reaction of your leg tendons you can run the same mileage- or even more –with much less wear and tear on your body.
One of the key principles is to adjust your posture. Incorrect posture causes undue stress on nearly every area of your body. The principle of engaging my core muscles, and utilizing the leverage of my spine seemed intuitive to me. The principle of adjusting my posture in general, and while running seemed like a no-brainer, but something I had sorely neglected.
As I worked on my posture, continued icing and taking anti-inflammatories, and worked on my flexibility I hoped for positive results. More importantly I had come to a place of surrender to the Lord. I had decided in my heart regardless of whether I got my way, I would praise His name and surrender myself in obedience to the will of Christ. Of course, I was still honest with God that I would be sorely disappointed if I couldn’t run. The important thing to me was that I would say “blessed be your name” (great song) regardless of my circumstances. I trusted that if I was not able to run it would be for my best whether I could see that or not. In the meantime I would try my best to run again and ask for God’s blessing in my efforts.
I did begin to see results, and now I’m cautiously optimistic. I’ve run twice in a row without pain. It had been something like 8 weeks since I had run without pain, so those two runs have me very hopeful (one of those was today…see the posting just before this).
The real story behind all this is what I realized about both my running and life. As stated earlier, the idea behind the book I’ve been reading is if your body isn’t properly aligned you will pay the price. If your posture is incorrect you will be on a path to pain. You may not experience it right away, but over the years you will put undue stress on your joints and muscles eventually wearing them down. You can keep it up for so long, but at an unexpected time you will break down. Additionally, if you use your muscles in a less than optimal way they will wear down. You can do weight training to delay this “meltdown”, but it will still come.
The only real solution is to correct your posture and run from your core. If you drive your movements from your core you will not only run farther without breaking down, you will also recover faster from your runs.
Back to the moment of epiphany on the Corvallis trail…I was focusing on my posture and on using my core to drive my movements, when I suddenly realized, this is the same problem I have had in my life. It doesn’t just apply to my running. Suddenly it was so clear to me.
In life, just as in running, if you are “running” with poor posture or by using your “leg muscles” instead of your core you are going to be causing stress points which, if not addressed, will cause you to break down. So simple, and yet we fail to notice this so often!
Think about it for a moment, and let me paint the picture a bit more. If we are leading ourselves in our careers, relationships, and life decisions, we are using our “leg muscles”. What’s more, if we’re not spending time reading God’s word and meditating in prayer, our core is so weak our life’s “posture” will surely be twisted and tilted in unhealthy ways.
No wonder so many are tired, stressed, weak, and wondering why things are not going their way. Just as I wasn’t running from my core, so many of us aren’t living from the core. And what is our core to be if not Christ Himself? I realized, without spending time in communion with Christ, allowing him to correct my spiritual posture, I am creating unnecessary stress points in my life. I’m sure there are many I don’t even know about. They’re festering, gaining intensity, and eventually will strike and leave me wondering what happened.
This is no new concept and I don’t intend to claim it as mine. Christ modeled this “postural” approach by spending countless hours in communion with the Father. He was aligning Himself to ensure His core was filled with the will of God and He would be moving with the leverage God gave him, rather than of His own will.
While it’s not a new concept, it is a new mental image for me, and something I want to spend time thinking about. I may develop the concept for myself as I think about it more, and while it’s pretty raw right now, I hope this has spurred you to think about your spiritual posture and core. Is your spiritual spine twisted? Are you getting a hunched back? Is your core strong? Do you have a spiritual “six-pack” or a “spare tire”?
So let’s focus on meditating on God’s word, spending time in communion with Him, and allow him to adjust our posture, and build up the strength of our core so we can “run the race and fight the good fight”!!
Went for a great run this morning, well great for the most part. There's a park system here in Toronto connecting several really large parks with creeks, woods, trails, gardens... It was nice running, and I was especially thankful to the Lord for helping my hip to keep healing (no pain today).
One problem though...I figured I'd run an out-and-back course, since I know nothing of Toronto and didn't want to get lost. Unfortunately on the way back I took a little section of trail I hadn't taken on the way out. I was starting to get concerned, but then met up with the creek I'd been following for a while, and figured "just follow this back to where you started".
Good idea, but next time it would be good for me to take an inventory of how many creeks there are before assuming every creek I see is the one that will lead me back. By the time I realized I was well off course I was trapped in a maze of overgrown trails (using the term trails loosely here...more like raccoon paths among the dead tree branches and overgrown plants trying to trip me up.) I was also absolutely drenched in sweat head to toe (normal for me, though this was beyond even my standards...more humid here than home I think). So on this oh-so-hot day, running under the noon sun, in a city I am unfamiliar with I started thinking..."hmm which way should I go, and just how long is this run going to be?" Not a fun feeling when you're already "bonking" from not eating before the run or during.
I had started with what I thought was plenty of water in a bottle I carried, but I was quickly fading now that I had already run longer than planned and still didn't know my way back to the car nor how long it would take. By the way, fun experiment...see if you can get lost in the woods in a city of over 3 million people. I was successful. I've found a good strategy is to cross various creeks whenever you get the chance, run up ridiculously steep ridges, get stuck in too much plant life, turn around, take the next creek crossing available and repeat.
I'm probably exagerating this all a bit, since it turned out I ended up running something like 12 miles, which I have done on many occasions. For some reason though, the combination of being lost, hungry, thirsty, and more tired than normal just made the run keep stretching out.
Still a great run though...very peaceful and rewarding.
-ET
Sunday, September 11, 2005
Toronto
I am an excellent planner. I forecast future events and wisely make decisions based on what will happen. Such as..."I'm going to get up at 4:30 AM to go on a business trip, so why not have the guys over the night before?"
OK, maybe I'm not so smart...*note to self: go to bed earlier than midnight if you're getting up at 4:30. This is not to say I didn't have a great time. Got a good bunch of guys I hang around with and there are usually a good amount of laughs when we get together.
Anyway, now I've travelled from Portland to Cincinnati and from Cincy to Toronto. Another interesting twist along the way on this one...I rented a car and got directions which were completely wrong. Yahoo!'s website had me take the wrong exit and then I was looking for a street which was nowhere to be found. Cost me an extra half hour by the end. Doh!
So I'm groggy and hungry now, but at a very nice hotel. Off to get some food!
OK, maybe I'm not so smart...*note to self: go to bed earlier than midnight if you're getting up at 4:30. This is not to say I didn't have a great time. Got a good bunch of guys I hang around with and there are usually a good amount of laughs when we get together.
Anyway, now I've travelled from Portland to Cincinnati and from Cincy to Toronto. Another interesting twist along the way on this one...I rented a car and got directions which were completely wrong. Yahoo!'s website had me take the wrong exit and then I was looking for a street which was nowhere to be found. Cost me an extra half hour by the end. Doh!
So I'm groggy and hungry now, but at a very nice hotel. Off to get some food!
Thursday, September 08, 2005
Coaches (and my introduction)
First a quick intro on who I am:
My name is Eric. I'm in my late 20's. Married, have a dog, baby on the way, grew up in Oregon, currently live in Beaverton. Was a decent runner (competed at the small college level, nothing too noteworthy). Will post pictures soon.
Likes: Backpacking, Running, Golf, Reading while drinking Chai tea, my wife making me laugh
Dislikes: Self-centeredness, personal attacks, hip pain, tomato juice
While on my run yesterday I bumped into my college coach. I hadn't seen him in a while and it brought back a few memories. I owe so much of who I am to the many teachers and coaches I've had through the years.
My college coach (Wes) taught me to focus on my effort and not on the result. I still hear him in my head saying "give your best, leave God the rest". Such a valuable physical and spiritual lesson. I still apply it to my work life and to my training.
I look back with particular fondness on memories of my high-school cross-country/track coach (Paul Mariman). He passed away a few years back, but many of his lessons are still forefront in my mind. He was always so positive and taught me to dream. He showed me how to visualize myself accomplishing things I thought were amazing, then he'd tell me I could do them until I believed him. I don't think he ever uttered an unkind word to anyone, and today I can thank him for teaching me to challenge myself and to remove self-imposed limitations.
More to come...
My name is Eric. I'm in my late 20's. Married, have a dog, baby on the way, grew up in Oregon, currently live in Beaverton. Was a decent runner (competed at the small college level, nothing too noteworthy). Will post pictures soon.
Likes: Backpacking, Running, Golf, Reading while drinking Chai tea, my wife making me laugh
Dislikes: Self-centeredness, personal attacks, hip pain, tomato juice
While on my run yesterday I bumped into my college coach. I hadn't seen him in a while and it brought back a few memories. I owe so much of who I am to the many teachers and coaches I've had through the years.
My college coach (Wes) taught me to focus on my effort and not on the result. I still hear him in my head saying "give your best, leave God the rest". Such a valuable physical and spiritual lesson. I still apply it to my work life and to my training.
I look back with particular fondness on memories of my high-school cross-country/track coach (Paul Mariman). He passed away a few years back, but many of his lessons are still forefront in my mind. He was always so positive and taught me to dream. He showed me how to visualize myself accomplishing things I thought were amazing, then he'd tell me I could do them until I believed him. I don't think he ever uttered an unkind word to anyone, and today I can thank him for teaching me to challenge myself and to remove self-imposed limitations.
More to come...
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