Praying and Running

Advent starts tomorrow December 2, 2012. This year I hope that I can refrain from getting so caught up in the secular aspects of the "holiday" season that I miss the opportunity to truly prepare for Christ mas and the coming of our Lord. I have been wanting to do a blog post on the season and what it means. I couldn't quite get it formed in my mind though. Thank God for Cardinal Dolan. Below is an excerpt from an article by him on Advent and below that is a link to the full article. It is not long but very good and well worth the few minutes it will take to read it. ...Jesus waits for us to open up to His grace and mercy; ...Jesus waits for us to admit that, as a matter of fact, we do need a Savior! ...Jesus waits for us to admit that He is the answer to the questions our lives of searching pose. ...Jesus waits for our ultimate return to Him, for He “has gone to prepare a place for us.” Read the whole post here . It's not long but I believe well worth it!

Each person enumerating the things they are thankful for; It's a tradition around many Thanksgiving day tables. We do it in our family too. The responses always range from humorous, to the cliche, to the heartfelt. All fine and good. It is part of Thanksgiving dinner after all. As I began thinking about it this year, a line that we sing in the Gloria at Mass kept coming back to me. "We give thanks for your great Glory." What is this "great Glory" we give thanks for? I started allowing this question to run around in my mind and I remembered somewhere reading or hearing that God's Glory is His Creation. You know existence, the world, the universe, "all things visible and invisible", you and I incuded. To help answer this question and expand on the idea of being thankful for God's "great Glory" I turned to the story of creation in the Bible and to the section in the Catechism on creation for further study. The bible points out tha

This was my first marathon and it was a great personal success. I put in nearly 1200 miles at an average pace of 7:47 MPM in training over the course of 19 weeks with the highest mileage week coming in at 80 miles. In the 19 weeks of training 6 days a week I missed only 2 runs. The first was a medium-long run at the end of a the first "step-back" week. I was absolutely exhausted. The other was a 4 mile recovery run on a day with 2 recovery runs scheduled, you know, a double and life just didn't cooperate. I had several goals for the race with my "In your wildest dreams" goal of 2:54:59, a stretch goal of 2:59:59, a "probably can do" goal of 3:04:59 and a "least acceptable" of 3:14:59. All but the "stretch" goal were based on Boston qualification standards. 2:54:59 would allow me to register on day 1 nearly guaranteeing a spot in the 2014 running of the Boston Marathon. 3:04:59 would allow me to register in the second phase and st

I would just like to take a minute and a few words to recognize those who's support was critical in the successful completion of my first marathon. If you have never known someone training to race a marathon then you might not understand just what a huge commitment it is and how it becomes a part of every aspect of that person's life. I wasn't training to "finish" a marathon. I was preparing to race a marathon and while there is nothing wrong with "finishing" as you can imagine racing that distance demands much more in the way of daily training. During my training cycle I ran an average of 10 miles a day and near the peak of my training it wasn't unusual to run 14 on Monday, 18 - 20 on Wednesday, and 12 or 13 on Friday while still running 6-8 on the other days. This demanding schedule left me fatigued and hungry. Two things that make me a "bear" to be around. So I would like to thank people who put up with me on a daily basis; my family,

This is my second year in a row running this race but there was a huge difference this year. I am in the first week of "taper" for a very aggressive marathon training cycle. Last year I decided to run this race about 6 weeks out and didn't do any real focused training. I had been running long runs of any where from 10 to 12 miles every week or so. This year because I am following a high milage training plan I have been running long runs once a week as far as 22 miles and runs of 12 to 15 miles 2 times a week. I have been excited to run this race for a few weeks now. It is about 2 weeks out from my goal marathon so it was a great tempo training run with plenty of time for my body to absorb the physiological adaptations and make me that much stronger for the marathon. About a week ago my youngest daughter Hannah finished up the cross country season and began an intense off season training program on her own. I signed her up for the 5k as a baseline race for her to build h

This prayer came to me a few weeks ago, has been running around in my head quite a bit and I find it helpful when I realize that I am practicing religious habits out of habit rather than out of love, devotion, and adoration of God. Lord, I don't want to be a whitewashed tomb. (Matthew 23:27) Breath life into these dry bones (Ezekiel 37:5) that may worship you in spirit and truth (John 4:24). Amen Posted with Blogsy

For my 40th birthday my wife got me, among other things, a Garmin Forerunner 610. I have never done a product review before and decided to do this one because after using the watch a single time I could see how much potential it has as a training tool. What can I say, when something positively impacts my life I want to share it so that someone else may benefit too. Instead of a single post however, there is so much that this watch does that the review will actually be a multi-part post of at least two and maybe more. It's hard to say because I find this watch more useful every time I run. A few key features that I want to hit in this post are the user interface, the GPS, and the lap/split functionality. First off, the user interface is very well done. The 610 is a touchscreen device and initially I thought that the touch interface was going to be problematic because it didn't seem responsive enough until I read the manual and followed the manufacturers recommendation on ho

I ran this race for the first time last year at the suggestion of a coworker and I was hooked. This is a small town race with about 450 or 500 runners and walkers participating in a 5k walk, 5k run, or the race I run the 10k. The people who put this on really know how to do it to. The cost is a mere $18.00 for the 10k run + shirt + a ridiculously large 5 lbs goody bag packed full of things like moon pies and granola and everything in between. The best part is the supreme breakfast buffet that is served up after the race. Biscuits and gravy, eggs, bacon, sausage, yogurt, fresh fruit and a host of other breakfast foods. This breakfast smorgasbord is included in the race entry as well. I'm telling you, the people of Burnettsville know how to put on a race and I just don't think you could find a nicer group of people than the swarm of worker bees that volunteer their Saturday morning to put this race on. I was very excited for this race because my oldest daughter Kasey was runn

Last week before Mass I  was once again surprised by what had sadly become cliche to me. On the 1 hand it saddens me that I have fallen into the trap of letting it become cliche and meaningless but on the other hand I am so happy for the times when I discover the beauty, truth, and goodness of our faith that gets buried in these cliches. The discovery was simply this, I am created by a God who loves me and truly want to be reunited with me. He doesn't just say this, He showed me by taking on humanity, walking along side of humanity and subjecting Himself to the worst humanity had to offer, hanging Him on a cross to die an excruciating death and forgiving humanity, and me, despite it. I don't think this is a free pass and don't want to imply that it is. I still have to respond but God wants me to be with Him and all I have to do is respond. When I really think about it this is cause for great joy. What should cause this joy to ever fade; what could?

I have never been a person to pray for specific favors. It never felt right to me. My prayers generally are for strength, guidance, an acceptance of what comes my way. That is always how I "felt" right praying. To pray for a specific favor like a good grade, to do well in some competition and things like that just always felt a little wrong and to pray for physical healing was something I never would have considered. I am not saying this was any kind of selflessness. I am not sure exactly what it was. A fear of seeming childish or perhaps it was out of fear that my faith would be shaken if the prayer wasn't answered. Regardless, this is how I generally pray. And that is not to say that I don't or didn't think that God doesn't concretely answer prayers. I believe that He does. For instance I have always prayed when overwhelmed something like "God, I cannot do this all alone, please help me" and I will somehow, someway find my way through whatever it

I love it when the a daily reading from Mass is one that has a special meaning. But today both the first reading and the Gospel were passages that have meaning for me. The first reading , 2 Timothy 2:8-15 contains our Bishop's Episcopal Motto "The word of God is not chained" and the Gospel Mark 12:28-34 included the "Two Great Commandments", "The first is this: Hear, O Israel! The Lord our God is Lord alone! You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.The second is this: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. There is no other commandment greater than these." The first is meaningful because it is our Bishop's Episcopal Motto. If it means enough to a "Successor to the Apostles" to make it his motto then it should probably be a passage that I contemplate, perhaps I would learn something. The second from the Gospel is a great passage that I find really sim

I am always interested in how the readings at Mass come together to form a cohesive teaching and theme. All though most of the time I try to find it on my own by reading them before Mass the connection is more often than not lost on me. That is when I rely on either the Missal (or some form of it) or the priests homily to point it out. I always get it, I just sometimes need some help. After all, I am not a biblical scholar and let's be honest there is a whole lot of background, cultural anomalies and "you had to be there"'s going on most of the time to make the connections. So when I do make that connection, when I can see the cohesiveness on my own, I get kind of excited.  That happened  this Sunday and because this last Sunday was the Feast of the Holy Trinity the homily focused on the mystery of the Trinity. Almost any commentary to be found on Sunday's Mass was focused on that as well.  There was also an underlying connection in the readings that really poi

The other day I got all caught up in setting running goals for myself for the rest of the year. After the goals were set, I found myself starting to worry about how I was going to reach them. Wondering if there would be time to sufficiently prepare for them all. My goals were to run a 5k in under 20 minutes, to run a half marathon in 1:25 minutes and qualify for and run in the Boston marathon in 2014. At first, I thought that setting and meeting these goals would make me a more serious runner. In fact, I thought that to be the "serious" runner I want to be that I needed these goals. However, while I was running the other morning I realized that first of all, I was thinking about how to shift my training to meet my 5k goal. Then I began thinking about the right approach to a 1:25 half while training to qualify for Boston in a full marathon a month later. That is when I realized that the ancillary goals were starting to consume my focus and quite possibly interfere with the b

Initially I bought this book because I have really enjoyed the author, Greg Strosaker’s, blog and following his training on DM( dailymile ), a workout journal and social networking site for athletes. Honestly, I wasn’t sure what to expect but I didn’t think that I would be getting a book that I would put down and look forward to picking back up, but that is exactly what I got. In other words, knowing the book was a compilation of training entries from dailymile and blog posts I was expecting an enjoyable read but nothing that would really grab and hold my attention. I soon found out that the book would be one that I was eager to get back to. In the prolog you get an overview of the injury that would bring Greg’s previous season to an early end and the treatment he went through to get back to running. This really sets up the book nicely and puts you in Greg’s corner wishing him the best as he begins running again after a season ending injury. Once through the prolog you are taken al

If there is one characteristic of worship during Easter that I would point to as something that I truly enjoy and look forward to more and more it is the frequency with which we pronounce "Alleluia". The word certainly is not restricted in use to only the Easter season but during this season we use it a lot. In addition, this word is familiar to nearly every single person regardless of their faith. In fact, the word seems so common place that its significance sometime seems lost. But when you stop and take a minute to look at this word, which the Church seems so intent on saying during the main celebration of the Christian faith, its significance is striking. As this article in the Catholic Encyclopedia points out, the word Alleluia comes to us from several places in scripture, most notably in the Psalms and in Revelations and is the worship-word of Creation. The word means "All hail to Him Who is!" I like to keep this significance in mind  at Mass when we pr

A year of anticipation. A year of preparation. 12 weeks of intense, focused training. 3 weeks of competitive banter with a dailymile running friend. All of this led to a 1:32:39 13.1 mile PR effort at the One America 500 Festival Mini Marathon on 5/5/2012. I ran my first half marathon here a year ago and I was hooked on racing. I knew when I crossed the finish line in 2011 that I would be running more races. I knew that I would be back for the 2012 running of this race. What I didn't know is how much faster and how much more competitive I would be. In other words, I have been looking forward to this race for a year. It has been a primary focus of my life for the last 12 weeks as I went from my regular running to an intense focus on preparing for this race. The mini is the largest half marathon in the country. 35,000 people run the half marathon and another 5000 run the accompanying  5k for a total of 40,000 participants. Factor in these people's family and other spectators

Easter is not over! Lent, our preparation for Easter, lasts for 40 days. For 40 days we deny ourselves everything from candy to hot showers and even sleep. We are putting aside our creature comforts in order to bare our souls and make room for a greater relationship with our Lord. So intent, somber and focused is our preparation that even at Mass we omit the beautiful music of the Gloria and the Alleluia before the Gospel. The point is, Lent is a time of long and intense preparation for Easter. So we spend all of this time, 40 days (46 counting the Sundays and Holy Thursday, Good Friday and Holy Saturday), preparing for the joy of Easter. When Easter Sunday comes in the church the penitential purple of Lent is taken down and replaced with the gold that signifies the great celebration that is the Easter Season. What you will notice for the next 50 days when you are in church is that the gold remains. The church will remain decorated with the gold of great celebration because the cel

Although I don’t remember the exact words or even where I found it, the sentiment of something I read last year has really stuck with me. The author pointed out that on the first Good Friday there were 3 kinds of people present. Those who hated, mocked, beat, tormented, and ultimately crucified our Lord; those who loved Him and watched in horror as He was treated in such a way; and those who were indifferent to Him and what was happening. Surely the people who treated Jesus in such a despicable way sadden Him, how could it not.  However, the author pointed out how those that were indifferent to Him must have really saddened Him. Here is Our Lord being beaten, mocked, tortured and executed in a most horrific and excruciating fashion. He didn’t have to endure this treatment but he did for our sake. Yet people were indifferent to Him. We all know how it feels to make a sacrifice for someone else and not be appreciated. What sacrifice has anyone of us made that can even begin to compare

I have been praying the Rosary for several years now and I notice from time to time that things get just a little too routine. When this happens I feel like I miss the point of the prayer. On my run this morning I finished the Joyful Mysteries of the Rosary and realized I hadn't been paying much attention to it. In fact, I finished it and it seemed as though I hadn't actually prayed. This is Lent and it is no time for zombie prayer! What to do? Pray it again and try harder to stay focused? Move on and try to get into some contemplative prayer? Just count it as a Rosary prayed and try again tomorrow? Then I thought of a new strategy. I would spend time summarizing, paraphrasing,  and analyzing each mystery before praying the prayers and then try to keep the fruit of that exercise in mind as I prayed the mystery. I have no doubt that this technique is not unique to me. If the truth were known, I probably read or heard about it somewhere but I can't really say when or where.

Are we really watching this fight? The fight between an inalienable right granted to us by our Creator and the new "right to health insurance" granted to us by our government. Worse still, it is only being called a "right to health insurance". That is not even what this fight is about. Instead, there is a certain political faction that is trying to trick us into thinking that birth control is health care. Not only that but, they are trying to make us believe that health care is incomplete without artificial birth control and abortion inducing drugs. What this fight actually comes down to is a fight between the inalienable right of free expression of religion and the right to methods and drugs that have existed for only about 50 or 60 years. It is a fight between a right that is truly ours as part of our very nature and a  "right" to demand that someone else pay for our lifestyle choices. Because anyway you cut it birth control is a lifestyle choice.

I read Humanae Vitae this weekend. If you are unfamiliar with this document it is a papal encyclical written by Pope Paul VI in 1968. The document addresses the problem of artificial birth control in the context of modern society and applies the Church's Traditional teaching on the matter. When it comes to current events involving birth control and the teachings of the Catholic Church you don't have to look far to find people saying things like "it's none of their business", "why doesn't the Church move in to the 21st century", "what does an old celibate guy know about sex anyway", "the Church just wants to tell women what they can do with their bodies" etc, etc ad nauseum. Sadly, it is not only people who are outside of the Church saying this but Catholics themselves often express like sentiments. I think the most common objections to the Churches teaching are answered in Section 17 "Consequences of Artificial Methods&q

In today's(1/15/2012) Gospel reading for Mass , our Lord asks "What are you looking for?" of 2 men who follow after Him. I am sure there are many ways to contemplate this reading but one particular angle that presented itself to me was "How would it change my day to day plans when I answer this question to the Lord?" As a Christian, I profess to live a life of following Jesus. Therefore, I could expect at any moment for our Lord to turn to me and ask "What are you looking for?" If I recall this question as I go about my daily life, put myself in the place of the disciples and know that it is God that I am answering, how does that affect my answer and thus my actions throughout the day? It seems that using this question to make my day to day plans and decisions would be a great start in the struggle of trying live the Christian life. I know that answering the question is just the beginning but I think answering it in this light would help in moving

Count your blessings. We have all heard it and probably said it. It helps us get through tough times and put our trials in perspective. There is certainly nothing wrong with counting your blessings. But how often do we contemplate our blessings and what happens when we do. A while back I spoke to a priest because I felt like my relationship with God had kind of stagnated. The priest introduced me to the daily examen prayer . In the daily examen prayer you look at your day with gratitude and spend time reflecting on the blessing that you received that day. And even though there are other parts to the prayer, it was through it that I discovered the difference between counting blessings and contemplating blessings. I have become very interested in this prayer because through it I can really see how God is in my life. It allows me to understand how strong that relationship is. Before I found this prayer I might go all day without thinking about God much at all except during times of ac