Praying and Running

I have been stunned every time the Holy Father has spoken. Usually it is because he has a way of communicating the truths and nuances of our faith in a way that always resonates with me. The faith, as Pope Benedict XVI conveys it, always seems so simple, beautiful and undeniably true. However, today I am stunned by his resignation. As much as I am stunned, I am saddened. I have great admiration and respect for the Pope and as I stated above he has always spoken in a way that really "speaks to me", so to speak. I believe Pope Benedict XVI was exactly the right Pope for where we are, both the Church and humanity as a whole, at this point in history not only because he spoke, taught, and lived the truth of our faith unapologetically, but also because he was very effective at being able to communicate that truth. Even though I am saddened that we will be losing this Pope, I have always believed in the supernatural guidance of the Church and therefore I must look with Hope and J

The first phase of training for the Carmel 2013 Marathon is complete. This phase is called the endurance phase and lead me through a build up in mileage from running 55 to 80 miles in a week. I am now in the last few days of a recovery week where my mileage and intensity is purposefully cut so that my body can respond to the stimulus provided and make the adaptations needed to allow me to run more with less fatigue. This will be valuable in the next phase as I will increase the intensity of running while maintaining and even increasing the distance in order to teach my body run further, faster. In looking back at this period of training which began on 12/23/2012 I have logged about 350 miles at an average pace of 7:41 / mile for a total of over 41 hours of running. My average distance is about 8 miles per run with the longest run being 21.1 miles. The average of 8 miles per run doesn't really tell the story though as the runs tend to be either 12 - 15 miles or 5 miles. About once