Tag Archives: running

100,000 steps

09 Monday Jan 2017

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Ever since I received a fitbit for Father’s Day last year, I have worn it pretty much non-stop.  2016 was a rough year for me physically – I pulled my left hamstring…twice.  The second time caused me to be on crutches for about a month.  I took my time with recovery and eventually eased my way into walking and then short running distance.  Then, bam! I had plantar fasciitis in my left heel.  Ouch.  The only way to heal this is to rest the foot.  No running.  Eventually I felt well enough to run again in November.  All during this, I kept my fitbit on.  I watched as I had day of 1,000 steps.  Ugg.  I watched my weight go up too.  More ugg.  I’m the type of person who also gets a bit cranky if I don’t get a chance to exercise – it’s how I get my frustrations out of my system.

The holidays are a rough time to be healthy.  And this year was no exception.  Some more weight, less exercise, a cold that turned into a sinus infection and ear infection.  Down again.

Then I was finally healthy.  It only took 11 months to feel completely healthy, but it came.  It happened to be the end of the year too.  2017 started and so did I.  I’ve been going to the Y and doing my exercise routine, which includes running.  Right now, I’m planning on running outside again next week and slowly building my distance.

But the amazing thing for me was hitting a milestone.  Yesterday I looked at my seven day step total.  I was at 99,818 steps…for seven days.  It was about 9:30pm.  I so badly wanted to see 100,000 steps on the screen.  So I got up and walked around the house several times, until I hit and surpassed the magic number.

Now here’s the thing.  You might be sitting there thinking that either I’m crazy or that I should stop bragging.

Actually I tell you all this for a reason.  This is a personal accomplishment for me and gives me a signal that I’m headed in the right direction.  I’m feeling great, lost the holiday weight, and enjoy what I’m doing.

Does this mean everyone should make a goal of doing 100,000 steps in seven days?  Nope. This is my thing.  I want to encourage you to find your thing.  Do that thing that you really enjoy, that is actually good for you too.  Maybe it is taking a walk.  (I advise getting a dog, you’ll get plenty of steps in this way – trust me, I know from personal experience).  Maybe it’s running.  Maybe it’s swimming, or cycling, or just playing with your kids.  Only you know what that thing is that makes you feel alive and well.  Make this the year you suck it up and get moving. After about two to three weeks it becomes a habit and a commitment.

The commitment and habit turn into trust – trust of your body and of you.  You start to work as a team and you enjoy it.

True for exercise and health, but also true for many other things in live.  What’s your 100,000 steps that you want to celebrate?

Review of 2016

29 Thursday Dec 2016

Posted by in Blog, Family, Running

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So, I’m doing this a couple of days early, but better early than never.

2016 was a pretty good year for me.  Lots happened and if you follow this blog regularly, you’ve seen and heard about them over the course of the year.  As for this blog, this year was a big year – more visitors and views of the blog than the previous two years.  I also had my most read blog post ever this year – soon after the 2016 presidential election – almost 600 reads on a blog post I did arguing that pastors ought to be non-partisan.

2016 also brought about some great travel experiences for our family, finishing up my internship year, starting my last year of seminary, and being approved for ordination.  That’s the quick highlights.

Here’s how I did with my goals for 2016:

Running – complete two half marathons in 2016.  Failed.

Running – I will run 1000 miles this year.  Failed.

I failed because this was a terrible year for me physically.  I turned 40, which means that my body literally fell apart.  I suffered a pulled hamstring at the end of January.  It started to heal and a month later I pulled it again.  It was nasty and gross with internal bleeding and my using crutches for about 3 weeks.  It took many months of recovery and when I got back into running, left foot decided it was time to speak up – I had plantar fasciitis on my left heel.  It was painful and kept me from running even longer.  When I finally was healthy enough this year, it was November.  I ran a Turkey Trot on Thanksgiving – a 5k and did well.  I was proud of my son who beat me by a couple of minutes too.  Maybe another runner in the family?  We’ll see.

Travel – I want to do some trips with the family.  Success.

Success here.  We didn’t have any international trips planned – wouldn’t have worked in our schedule anyway.  But we did take a trip to Pittsburgh, and we explored around Altoona, PA  – where we were serving out my internship year.  I was also able to go to NYC with my family and the youth group for a church trip.  I also went to Atlanta for the Festival of Homiletics – which included a few side trips.  In June our family did a family vacation to Raystown Lake for a week – lots of fun.  I was also able to spend a couple of days down in Baltimore with my supervisor and a mutual friend for a relaxing time.

Career/Calling – Get approved.  Success.

Not much more to add here.  I was greatly relieved and also excited to be approved for ordination.  Seminary is almost done!

Writing – Write a book on the challenges the church faces/things I’ve learned from my time in Finland.  Failed.

I didn’t succeed in this venture.  However, I have written a ton over the course of the year.  The form of the book has changed over the year.  And I’m not giving up on this goal yet. I actually have a few writing goals for 2017.

Financial – Have only student loan debt and a mortgage. Success.

I have no credit card debt, no car loans, no other types of debt.  Plenty of student loan debt and a mortgage, but hey, it’s a start – a big start.

Blogging – Keep writing a travel post and a post on theology/politics/current events each weekday.  Mostly a success.

I wrote 394 posts this year.  (I have a couple more through Saturday, including this one).  I didn’t post every single weekday though.  But many days I had multiple posts in a day.  I wrote travel posts very consistently and posts on theology, politics, and other random things pretty consistently too.

Family – I want to teach my children how to play six new games this year. ????

I honestly don’t know if I succeeded in this goal.  We played a ton of games over the course of the year, so I’m guessing that this was a success.

Overall, 2016 was a good year.  I’m looking forward to 2017.  I’ll have new goals posted either on Monday or Tuesday next week (after the kids go back to school).  Happy New Year!

And they’re off…

17 Thursday Nov 2016

Posted by in Travel

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Ok, I have to admit, this was something pretty cool and fun.  It was a 10 meter length of track.  And it was set up like a race.

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We each took a turn racing each other and had a blast.

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Congrats #3, you won.

The best part about this, and about the Sportsworks center as a whole, is that the kids are having fun while they exercise.  And the entire family is doing it together.  It’s not just physical health here, but relationship health as well.  An opportunity to spend time together, be active and healthy, and build memories.  You can’t go wrong with that.

Goals for 2016

04 Monday Jan 2016

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So I was going to post my goals for 2016 on Friday, Jan. 1, but this little thing called “the internet was down” happened here at our home.  So I decided to wait until today.  I don’t like to make a ton of goals, but the goals I make do push me and often help me do various other things throughout the year.  I don’t do goals in a particular order, but rather for different parts of my life.  So here goes:

Running – I will complete two half marathons this year.  This isn’t really a stretch for me, but more something to keep me on track.  Let’s put it this way, I’ll be disappointed if I don’t do two.

Running – I will run 1000 miles this year.  I got this e-mail about a 1000 mile challenge.  I thought it would be easy.  Then I thought about how many miles that is each week.  This will be a stretch goal for me, but I think it’s doable.

(Author’s update:  I was a bit off on this.  Upon further examination, the challenge that I am referring to is from Mapmyrun.com.  And the challenge is to run 1000 km. I started it anyway.  I’m still shooting for 1000 miles – it would be good for me.)

(Update #2 – There’s a second mileage challenge.  I got it in a separate e-mail.  It’s for ilovetorun.org and it has a challenge of running 1000 miles or running 100 days in 2016.  I signed up for the 1000 miles.)

Travel – I want to do some trips with the family.  We won’t be doing any international trips this year, as far as I can tell.  But that shouldn’t stop us from seeing some of the great cities in the Mid-Atlantic – cities like Pittsburgh, DC, New York City, and Philadelphia.

We also want to see some of the smaller places of interest – places like Gravity Hill.  This is one of those weird places on the planet where you go to the bottom of a hill, put your vehicle in neutral and then feel the car start to roll up the hill.   Pretty crazy.

Career/Calling – Get approved.  This is the third and final step in the candidacy process for a Lutheran seminarian like myself.  It’s a big deal.  There will be another nasty paper to write in preparation for this, complete internship, do another interview in front of the candidacy committee (about 30-40 people).  Approval essentially says that yes, I’m ready to be called as a pastor somewhere (so long as I pass my remaining classes)

Writing – Write a book on the challenges the church faces/things I’ve learned from my time in Finland.  I’ve been saying I want to do this, this is the year to make it happen.

Financial – Have only student loan debt and a mortgage.  That would mean no credit card debt. I’m well on my way to completing this, but I’ll be thrilled when it happens a little later this year.

Blogging – Keep writing a travel post and a post on theology/politics/current events each weekday.  I’ll not going to say that the goal will be a failure if I miss a few days.  The point is to keep posting content consistently, which for me means each weekday.  I’ll probably take holidays off.

Family – I want to teach my children how to play six new games this year.  Why?  If I’m teaching them a game, then I’m spending time with them and they are learning something new.  I’m already on my way with this one – the girls now know how to play rummy.

Review of 2015

31 Thursday Dec 2015

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If you’ve been reading my blog since the beginning of the year, you know I’ve had some goals for the blog.

Here’s the original post.

And here’s how I did.

Goal 1. Get a great internship site placement.  Check that off.  I am serving at a great internship site, learning many things, have a great relationship with the supervisor.  I feel as though I am learning what it means to be a pastor.  In other words, it’s all good preparation.

Goal 2. Run in three half-marathons.  Check that off as well.  In fact I ran four halves in 2015 – three in Finland in the course of six weeks and one in Pennsylvania here in the fall.

Goal 3. Travel to Stockholm, Sweden, the Laplands and Germany.  Not totally, but pretty darn good.  As a family, we went to Stockholm and individually I made it to Germany.  But we didn’t make it to the Laplands.  We discovered that it was too expensive to go.  So expensive for us that it would have been the only trip we made during out time in Europe, so we scratched it.

Goal 4. Write a book about what I have learned about the church in Finland and how it relates to mission redevelopment in the US.  Not done.  I have something started, but it’s still in the beginning stages.  Having never done a book before, it feels a bit overwhelming in the sense that I am doing something new for me.  We’ll get there though.

Goal 5. Do 20 speaking engagements concerning our trip to Finland and what I learned about the church here and how it applies to mission redevelopment.  I did nine.  At this point I have come to realize a few things about these presentations.  First, the target audience is 50 years old and above.  They seems to be the only ones who care enough to listen.  Second, if it doesn’t directly apply to someone younger than that, they aren’t interested for any number of reasons.  In the end, not a bad goal in the sense that it has helped shrink down what I talk about, improved my presentation skills and focused what I want to write about.

Not too bad of a year as far as the goals are concerned.

Other things that I want to make a note of:

2015 really has been a great year for me personally.  I continued with my studies at the University of Helsinki.  Living overseas was an incredible experience – for both me and the rest of my family.  We all loved it very much.  I can easily say it is one of the very best experiences of my life.  Living overseas expanded my perceptions of many things and opened me to many new experiences that I would have never known before.

2015 was certainly a year of travel for our family.  We traveled around Finland, went to Stockholm and Iceland as a family.  My wife and oldest daughter traveled to Russia.  And I made it to Munich and Salzburg.  That’s on top of the places we went to in 2014 when we started off out journey.  Since then we’ve traveled back to the US and moved to our internship site.

2015 was also a year of adjustments.   Adjusting to the idea of going back to the US.  Adjusting to living in a new location.  Adjusting to American culture again.  Adjusting to working instead of classwork.  Adjusting.

I’m grateful for the wonderful year that 2015 was.  We had incredible experiences and learned a great many things.

Tomorrow I’ll have my goals for 2016.  And then the fun begins – starting to do them.

In Honor of Labor Day, USA – 1000 Steps

07 Monday Sep 2015

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Today is Labor Day in the US.  It honors all working people for their labors.  It’s also a day of rest from our labors.

To honor this, I decided to go somewhere near where we live that was built from hard labor – 1000 Steps.

There’s an incredible history to these steps:

There are actually 1,043 steps in the Thousand Steps Trail. They were created in 1936 as a means of transportation to work for the miners high up on the mountain. I don’t know what anyone else thinks, but having done this climb I think it is pretty incredible that this was the morning and evening commute everyday for the men who worked up on the mountain. Quite a commute!

Source – Jacks Mountain

Read the whole page for more interesting nuggets of information.

Now on to my journey up the 1000 steps.

1000 StepsFirst step – getting there.  I drove about 45 minutes along beautiful Rt. 22.  It cuts through some gorgeous farm land and up and over mountains.  It’s quite a beautiful road.  When you finally do find the entrance, you’ll be a bit surprised – The parking is not well-marked – I figured out it was the parking area because a whole bunch of vehicles were parked along the side of the road.  Then a lovely climber helped point me in the right direction.

1000 StepsThe picture above is pretty much what the 1000 steps are all about.  It’s climbing, up hill the whole way.  It’s actually quite amazing when you think about the fact that workers created these steps, after working all day, to make their journey easier.

I wanted to run up the steps as part of my training for a half marathon.  I heard that it can take over an hour for people to walk up the steps.  Running would be faster, but really hard work.  And it was.  I took many breaks along the way.

1000 StepsWhen you see this step, it’s a glorious feeling.  You know you are almost to the top.  Someone, some time ago decided to mark each 100 steps off.  I’m glad they did because it feels like you just climb for ever.

But then you get to the top and bam – you get your reward:

1000 StepsIt doesn’t get much prettier than that.

1000 StepsComing back down the 1000 steps was fun too – I ran down those, without a break.  But they are a bit treacherous at places, so it’s best to use caution.

Overall – 1000 Steps is well worth the hike (or run if you are crazy enough to do it).

Stewardship of the Body

27 Friday Mar 2015

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I bet you could easily list the topics that aren’t spoken about in church.  I bet you could easily name the topics that are typically talked about in pretty negative tones too.

Today, I’m going to touch one of those “topics-that-shall-not-be-talked-about.”  Actually, it a category of topics – stewardship of the body.

Please understand, I’m not hear to tell you what to do.  That’s not my job, my role, nor do would I ever enjoy that.  Plus, the odds are that you’ve heard that speech before.  And even better odds are you went away from that speech feeling like crap, angry at the speaker, or just dismissed the person because they acted like a Pharisee – “do as I say”…

Instead, I want to ask a few questions and offer some reflection.

Why don’t churches talk about stewardship of the body?  This seems like something important.  Maybe it’s because we would have to open up about “difficult” topics like sex, food and eating, drugs, exercise, addiction, etc.  These are tough topics for Americans to talk about.  It’s so much easier to laugh about them when someone cracks a joke about any of these on a sitcom isn’t it?  It eases the tension.  But it doesn’t actually make us face our own fears.

What is stewardship of the body?  As I reflect on this, my definition of stewardship of the body is this – I’ve been given this body by God to go through life.  It is not just a part of who I am that will go away after I die, as if I can escape it.  It is me, just as my mind is me, my spirit is me, and my soul is me.  All of them together make up who I am – a unique creation.  Stewardship of the body means taking care of my body in a way that respects what God has given me.

I believe the church has a big opportunity when it comes to stewardship of the body.  Health is a big focus and rightly so.  You can read some great articles about health in the workplace – here’s one example. Pretty innovative stuff.  But there is something missing.  Just as there is something missing in all of the health-related articles out there.  Before I get to that, let me share with you one more thing.

If you think people in church aren’t interested in health, think again.  Just one example – the interest in organized running races.  It’s no secret that marathons and other distance runs have grown in popularity over the last several decades.  People care about their health and they are will to do some crazy things.  Think I’m lying?  Check out this picture:

SAMSUNG CAMERA PICTURESThis is the picture at the start line of the Helsinki marathon in August, 2014.  But it could have been the picture of the start line of any major city in the world.  The crowds at these things are amazing.  And the beauty of this is that these are “average” people, not super athletes, or professionals.  They have jobs like everyone else.  They are moms and dads, sons and daughters and even some grandparents.

Here’s something else to note – 99.9% of the people running these races aren’t running them to win.  They know they don’t have a prayer, nor do they really care about that.  That’s not what it’s about.  They do it to test themselves, to be healthy, as a challenge, etc.  There are probably as many reasons as there are people.

A few paragraphs ago I said that there was something missing.  What’s missing in all of this is the wholeness of the person.  So often, work-related health initiatives, marathons, exercise programs, diets, etc focus solely on the physical side of things – the body.  Science is really good at explaining so many things about the body.  But science can’t tell us about the intangibles of a person and how they relate to the body.

We have big challenges in the US – we have girls who have an unhealthy view of their body.  We have a weight problem.  We have food portions that are larger than ever.  We have people obsessed with exercise to the point that it is their religion.  We have all sorts of challenges when it comes to the body.  And we have a church that oftentimes seems to think about health as if this many people are interested:

Start line The people are interested.  But also scared and uncertain.  We, as a church, have an opportunity to walk alongside people on their journey of life.  We have an opportunity to broach the subjects that everyone is afraid to talk about. When we do, I bet we’ll be amazed at the sigh of relief that people will have.  Not because we have all the answers, but because we are willing to face the fears that people have with them.  We’re willing to show our own humanity too.

Ultimately, the biggest fear we all have and one that relates specifically to the body, is death.  If we stop kidding ourselves, this is the reason why we do all the health-related activity – to delay death.  We fear that death is final and that there is nothing after it.  This is where the church has a unique opportunity because we claim to believe that Jesus overcame death.  We claim that death can be beaten because of what Jesus did.

When we start with that in mind, it makes the conversation about the body a bit different.  We don’t have to do all sorts of crazy things in order to save ourselves and beat death – Jesus already did that for us.  We can look at who we are, what our capabilities are, what we are called to and then look at how we are called to stewardship of the body.

Overwhelmed

02 Tuesday Sep 2014

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Yesterday was the opening of the University of Helsinki for the academic year.  It was a pretty neat event overall, even the parts that I didn’t understand because they were in Finnish and Swedish.

The part that overwhelmed me was the student carnival.  I can’t remember the last time I felt that overwhelmed. There were a ton of people.  Everything was in Finnish (which I know very little of, and not really enough to make sense of sentences yet).  The carnival is the opportunity for students to find out about student organizations on campus.

I certainly felt like a foreigner.  And I felt old, well, at least older.  Realize that most of the people there are around 20 years old.  I’m 38, old enough to be their father, literally.  The combination of the tons of people, Finnish language and noise and you have a recipe for being overwhelmed.  It didn’t help that I was by myself, so I had no one to walk with or help me understand what was going on or being said.

So here’s the good side of this experience (because you know I’m usually focused on the positive).  It was another cultural experience – way different from I was used to.  Feeling overwhelmed means I felt a limit to what I could handle.  Limitations are important and knowing what the limitations are is just as important.  I’m not superman.  And sometimes I don’t realize what my limitations are.  A few weeks ago I discovered another limitation – distance running.  I discovered that full marathons are starting to be a bit difficult and, probably more important, less enjoyable.  So in that case, I decided to focus my attention on half marathons – it’s a distance I like and I do well with.

Back to the carnival – discovering my limitation in this instance allowed me to take a step back, leave the event, and look through the student handbook at the list of organizations.  From there I can pick who I want to contact.  Yes, it may take longer and I will meet fewer people initially, but I’ll feel better about the experience and the end result is the same – I’ll join in where I want to and where I feel I should be.

Running in Finland

21 Thursday Aug 2014

Posted by in Finland, Health, Sports

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SAMSUNG CAMERA PICTURESThe statue pictured represents Paavo Nurmi, Finland’s running saint, if you want to consider him that way.  Here’s a brief synopsis from Wikipedia that is as helpful as anything else:

Paavo Johannes Nurmi; 13 June 1897 – 2 October 1973) was a Finnish middle- and long-distance runner. He was nicknamed the “Flying Finn” as he dominated distance running in the early 20th century. Nurmi set 22 official world records at distances between 1500 metres and 20 kilometres, and won a total of nine gold and three silver medals in his twelve events in the Olympic Games. At his peak, Nurmi was undefeated at distances from 800 m upwards for 121 races. Throughout his 14-year career, he remained unbeaten in cross-country events and the 10,000 m.

(Source – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paavo_Nurmi)

So, needless to say, running has some history in Finland.  Which surprised me when we came here.  When I think of running, I don’t think of Nordic countries, I think of warm countries.  But things change over time, and so do athletes.

At any rate, running in Finland is actually pretty nice.  Because it is usually cooler out through much of the year, you don’t worry too much about over heating.  The road system is perfectly designed for runners, walkers and cyclists.  There are trails everywhere – literally.  In fact the Finns decided that these forms of transportation are so important they created a system of trails just for walkers, runners and cyclists.  I would guess there is just as many of these trails as there are roads for vehicles.  They made running easy and safe.  A lot of the trails mirror the road ways, but are usually off of the road.  No need to cross many streets either – there are plenty of bridges over roads and tunnels under roads to eliminate the danger of crossing the street.

Running in Finland also has another advantage – the scenery is beautiful – lots of trees and open sky.  There’s usually a good deal of lighting to, in case you feel like running in the winter when it is dark.

Overall, running in Finland is a great.

Helsinki City Marathon

18 Monday Aug 2014

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I ran in the Helsinki City Marathon on Saturday.  It’s a beautiful course (This is Finland we are talking about).

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One hour beforehand, you won’t know anything was about to happen.  Yes the streets are blocked off, but where are the people?

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Here is the Olympic Stadium – aka the Finish line.

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I took this picture of the sky because the range of weather caught my attention. It starts out clear and sunny on the left and goes to cloudy and gloomy.  This would turn into a good analogy for my marathon.  More on that a few minutes.

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The start line just before the gun goes off.  There is lots of energy and excitement.  And the sun is out.  The odd thing about this marathon is the start time – 3pm local time.  I’ve never run in a race with an afternoon start.

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Soon into the race, the crowd stays close.

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I was pleased with my halfway time.  I was on a good pace.  I was also wishing that the half was the end.

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One of the highlights of the race was coming into downtown Helsinki from the South.  We went by Market Square and as we approached, we could see the Lutheran Cathedral.  It’s a beautiful site and very uplifting.  It’s also where we start to see large crowds cheering us on.  This certainly helped me and gave me a boost of energy that lasted for a short bit.

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30 kilometers in.  My time is starting to take a hit.  It’s at this time when I’m in the wall and am just counting down the km’s until the end.  Lots of walking and jogging.

Every marathon, every run I do, I learn something.  Here are the things I learned from this race:

1. I enjoyed the race, even though I struggled in the second half.  I was slapping kids hands and just enjoying the scenery.

2. I knew my training had not gone well before the race, so I had very low expectations for this race and well, I met those expectation.  I think this allowed me to enjoy the race.

3. I think this will be my last marathon (at least for now).  I felt great at the halfway mark and then it all fell apart.  I’m going to focus my running attention on 1/2 marathons for now.  I’ve done 10 of those and have always enjoyed the distance.  You can push out a great race and you don’t come away wiped out for the rest of the day.  Even with my crappy training, I still did a better 1/2 marathon than some of the 1/2 marathons I’ve trained for in the past.  If I had been just running in a 1/2 on Saturday, I would have kicked it up a notch and easily finished under two hours, probably closer to 1:50.  And with better training, I’d being going for a person best.

4. I still enjoy running, and think I enjoy it more now than before the race – no pressure to continue with marathons.