Gilead. Marilynne Robinson.

Posted on October 1, 2010 by seanb724

Reading Gilead was like eating a sweet fruit — but in the form of an onion. Imagine a fruit as sweet as a kiwi, but with each bite, another layer is revealed. As you read Gilead, layers of the characters and plot are subtlety pulled away. The story is of a 76 year old man, writing to his young son, about his life, and it is fascinating. The father is a preacher, and is insightful into his own character as well as life in general. I’ll leave it at that.

I must admit, I had much higher expectations for the last quarter of the story than what was actually written. The possibilities for the main conflict, for the characters to grow and overcome, were so strong. But what happened was a bit of a let down after my expectations had built during the first three quarters of the book. Still, the story was good, and the writing exceptional and beautiful.

Quotes

You can know a thing to death and be for all purposes completely ignorant of it. A man can know his father, or his son, and there might still be nothing between them but loyalty and love and mutual incomprehension.
But I’ve developed a great reputation for wisdom by ordering more books than I ever had time to read, and reading more books, by far, than I learned anything useful from, except, of course, that some very tedious gentlemen have written books
When people come to speak to me, whatever they say, I am struck by a kind of incandescence in them, the “I” whose predicate can be “love” or “fear” or “want,” and whose object can be “someone” or “nothing” and it won’t really matter, because the loveliness is just in that presence, shaped around “I” like a flame on a wick, emanating itself in grief and guilt and joy and whatever else.
A good sermon is one side of a passionate conversation. It has to be heard in that way. There are three parties to it, of course, but so are there even to the most private thought—the self that yields the thought, the self that acknowledges and in some way responds to the thought, and the Lord. That is a remarkable thing to consider
People talk about how wonderful the world seems to children, and that’s true enough. But children think they will grow into it and understand it, and I know very well that I will not, and would not if I had a dozen lives.
Each morning I’m like Adam waking up in Eden, amazed at the cleverness of my hands and at the brilliance pouring into my mind through my eyes—old hands, old eyes, old mind, a very diminished Adam altogether, and still it is just remarkable.
Sometimes the visionary aspect of any particular day comes to you in the memory of it, or it opens to you over time
I’m trying to make the best of our situation. That is, I’m trying to tell you things I might never have thought to tell you if I had brought you up myself, father and son, in the usual companionable way. When things are taking their ordinary course, it is hard to remember what matters. There are so many things you would never think to tell anyone. And I believe they may be the things that mean most to you, and that even your own child would have to know in order to know you well at all.
Our dream of life will end as dreams do end, abruptly and completely, when the sun rises, when the light comes. And we will think, All that fear and all that grief were about nothing. But that cannot be true. I can’t believe we will forget our sorrows altogether. That would mean forgetting that we had lived, humanly speaking. Sorrow seems to me to be a great part of the substance of human life.
This is an important thing, which I have told many people, and which my father told me, and which his father told him. When you encounter another person, when you have dealings with anyone at all, it is as if a question is being put to you. So you must think, What is the Lord asking of me in this moment, in this situation? If you confront insult or antagonism, your first impulse will be to respond in kind. But if you think, as it were, This is an emissary sent from the Lord, and some benefit is intended for me, first of all the occasion to demonstrate my faithfulness, the chance to show that I do in some small degree participate in the grace that saved me, you are free to act otherwise than as circumstances would seem to dictate. You are free to act by your own lights. You are freed at the same time of the impulse to hate or resent that person. He would probably laugh at the thought that the Lord sent him to you for your benefit (and his), but that is the perfection of the disguise, his own ignorance of it.
It seems almost a cruelty for one generation to beget another when parents can secure so little for their children, so little safety, even in the best circumstances. Great faith is required to give the child up, trusting God to honor the parents’ love for him by assuring that there will indeed be angels in that wilderness.
The Tenth Commandment is unenforceable, even by oneself, even with the best will in the world, and it is violated constantly.

This is long but well worth high-lighting. I am still processing it:

But to return to the matter of honoring your mother. I think it is significant that the Fifth Commandment falls between those that have to do with proper worship of God and those that have to do with right conduct toward other people. I have always wondered if the Commandments should be read as occurring in order of importance. If that is correct, honoring your mother is more important than not committing murder. That seems remarkable, though I am open to the idea. Or they may be thought of as different kinds of law, not comparable in terms of their importance, and honoring your mother might be the last in the sequence relating to right worship rather than the first in the series relating to right conduct. I believe this is a very defensible view. I believe the Fifth Commandment belongs in the first tablet, among the laws that describe right worship, because right worship is right perception (see especially Romans 1), and here the Scripture commands right perception of people you have a real and deep knowledge of. How you would honor someone differs with circumstances, so you can only truly fulfill a general obligation to show honor in specific cases of mutual intimacy and understanding. If all this seems lopsided in favor of parents, I would point out again that it is the consistent example of parents in the Bible that they honor their children. …
But I wished to say certain things about the Fifth Commandment, and why it should be thought of as belonging to the first tablet. Briefly, the right worship of God is essential because it forms the mind to a right understanding of God. God is set apart—He is One, He is not to be imagined as a thing among things (idolatry—this is what Feuerbach failed to grasp). His name is set apart. It is sacred (which I take to be a reflection of the sacredness of the Word, the creative utterance which is not of a kind with other language). Then the Sabbath is set apart from other days, for the enjoyment of time and duration, perhaps, over and above the creatures who inhabit time. Because “the beginning,” which might be called the seed of time, is the condition for all the creation that follows. Then mother and father are set apart, you see. It seems to me almost a retelling of Creation—First there is the Lord, then the Word, then the Day, then the Man and Woman—and after that Cain and Abel—Thou shalt not kill—and all the sins recorded in those prohibitions, just as crimes are recorded in the laws against them. So perhaps the tablets differ as addressing the eternal and the temporal.
But I believe also that the rewards of obedience are great, because at the root of real honor is always the sense of the sacredness of the person who is its object. In the particular instance of your mother, I know that if you are attentive to her in this way, you will find a very great loveliness in her. When you love someone to the degree you love her, you see her as God sees her, and that is an instruction in the nature of God and humankind and of Being itself. That is why the Fifth Commandment belongs on the first tablet. I have persuaded myself of it.

And just a few more:

We know nothing about heaven, or very little, and I think Calvin is right to discourage curious speculations on things the Lord has not seen fit to reveal to us.
Adulthood is a wonderful thing, and brief. You must be sure to enjoy it while it lasts.
“Do you ever wonder why American Christianity always seems to wait for the real thinking to be done elsewhere?”
Because nothing true can be said about God from a posture of defense.
I fell to thinking about the passage in the Institutes where it says the image of the Lord in anyone is much more than reason enough to love him, and that the Lord stands waiting to take our enemies’ sins upon Himself. So it is a rejection of the reality of grace to hold our enemy at fault. Those things can only be true. It seems to me people tend to forget that we are to love our enemies, not to satisfy some standard of righteousness, but because God their Father loves them.
Love is holy because it is like grace—the worthiness of its object is never really what matters.
Theologians talk about a prevenient grace that precedes grace itself and allows us to accept it. I think there must also be a prevenient courage that allows us to be brave—that is, to acknowledge that there is more beauty than our eyes can bear, that precious things have been put into our hands and to do nothing to honor them is to do great harm. And therefore, this courage allows us, as the old men said, to make ourselves useful. It allows us to be generous, which is another way of saying exactly the same thing. But that is the pulpit speaking.

Octoberfest 5k in huaraches

Posted on September 26, 2010 by seanb724

I haven’t run a road running race in something lke 8-10 years, but I got back from Europe Friday afternoon and said if I woke up in time and didn’t feel jet lagged, I’d head out to a small local race. I woke up early and made it out, registered, etc.

I warmed up in huaraches… I had not decided what to wear yet, and brought 4mm vibram huaraches and my new f-lite 195’s to the race. The run was to be in a neighborhood that I’ve never run before, so barefoot was out… I had no idea exactly what kind of asphalt there might be, and didn’t want to hit chip seal at “high speed” unexpectedly. I hadn’t worn the huaraches that much for running since April or May, so I wasn’t sure how they would feel, but they felt quite good and I opted for them over the f-lites.

Even during the warm up, the huaraches were getting a lot of questions and looks — even causing one lady to trip and fall (I think)! 😦 She was ok, which made me feel a lot better!

Local races here are maybe 100 competitors, so I had secretly hoped for a top 10 finish. But as we stood at the starting line, 3 “ringers” from the big city were there, looking awfully fit and fast. The 1st 1/2 mile was a very slight down hill, and I was cruising in the top 10 – 15. The 2nd half mile was a gradual up to a turn around, and then a gradual down back into the neighborhood. There were no mile markers, but the Garmin showed 1.0 miles in 6:20, about 15 seconds faster than I should have been going, but I was feeling good. 🙂

With just 100 runners, we spread out quickly, but I could hear some comments on the shoes. And with the out and backs mixed in, I could see a lot of the runners looking at my feet. 🙂

The run was pretty flat, but the slight downhills bothered me. I couldn’t really open up and let gravity take over like I wanted to — I’ve always found that downhill in huaraches is a bit tough.

The last 3/8 of a mile was on a small park asphalt path, but it was so twisty and turny…. Again, the huaraches limited me a bit as they were a bit wet from my sweat, but even in shoes, that kind of trail would be hard to get any speed up. I looked in front and realized I would not be able to catch the guy in front, and checked in back and realized I was safe in my position.

I still went as fast as I could, though. I crossed the line in 21:40, or a 6:50 pace, probably a minute faster than I thought I would run in huaraches, so I was pleased. I do think I could have taken 30-45 seconds off that pace if I’d had shoes on, so I am slowly getting back the speed I had 8-9 years ago before all the knee problems.

I couldn’t stick around for the awards and breakfast, as I had to be somewhere, but before I left I checked in and found I was 11th overall. I also had several people come up and ask about my choice of footwear, so I got to evangelize a bit.

I later found I won 1st in my age group (40 – 49 — turning 40 recently has its benefits!), so I have a mug and a $5 gift certificate to the hop shop waiting for me. Not quite enough for a growler, but pretty close. 🙂

All in all a good huarache run, and I got the locals talking about minimalism. 🙂

MR 340, Part III: Anecdotes and Miscellaneous Photos

Posted on September 8, 2010 by seanb724

See part I for how I got involved in the MR 340, and part II for a fairly (somewhat) brief account of the race itself. Now here in part III, I’ll include some miscellaneous photos and anecdotes from the race that I did not include in the race report.

Fish Hook
As was the case at most of the check points, I always tried to jump out of the boat and, with the pretense of “holding the boat steady” so it would not float away and that it would be easier for others to get in and out of the boat (while in reality relieving myself in the relative comfort and obscurity of the water), I did that about 24 hours into the race, which would have been Jefferson City. I really have no idea what check point it was — from the water and not being familiar with the river and the area, while they each looked a little different, I really had no clue what the names were. But based on timing, I’m pretty sure it was Jefferson City…

At this particular check point, while holding the boat, all of a sudden I felt like something was biting my foot — there was a piercing/stabbing shot of pain on the left ball of foot… I had my Vibram Five Finger KSO’s on, which while not the best shoe for this kind of race, is about the only shoe I have right now that was a decent choice. How could something be biting me through 4mm of vibram material??!! I pulled my foot out of the water and saw a treble fish hook sticking through the material. Luckily only one hook had penetrated, but it was in deep enough that I could not pull it out without taking the shoe off, but it was also in deep enough that I could not get the shoe off easily without hurting my foot more. With the help of one of the crew members, I finally got the shoe off and we were able to get the hook out of the shoe. But I’d feel the pain in my foot the rest of the race and for a couple of days after. Luckily it was a clean, non-rusted hook, and the wound healed up rather nicely.

“Brawny”
At some point the 1st afternoon, when we had worked our way up to the top 5 or 6 boats, we got to know several of the boats around us. The top two boats were pretty far head, but boats 3-8 or so we traded places with until about 28 hours into the race (when we settled firmly into 3rd), so we did get to converse with them fairly often. I started hearing our crew call one of these paddlers “Ronnie,” though it turned out they were saying “Brawny.” I’m not sure where that came from, but my guess would be Redfern. They said he looked like the man on the Brawny paper towel packaging because of his beard. At one point, when we were told who was in front of us, I heard “Andy…” and there was no Brawny or Ronnie, so I finally figured out Brawny was Andy. (BTW, Brawny liked his nickname — he took it as a compliment!)

Brawny got pretty far ahead of us at one point, running comfortably in 3rd. We finally were able to catch him, and it was then that he told us the barge that had just gone by had caused waves which made him capsize. After “swimming for 20 minutes,” and getting all his gear together, he jumped off the river bank and got in behind us in order to draft. A few of us in the back were trying to devise a strategy in how to drop him so that it would not come down to a sprint finish for 3rd at the end, but he dropped off the back after about 15 minutes of drafting and we never had to implement our strategy. Which basically would have been to paddle faster. 🙂

We were never to see him again, but after we had finished we heard he had dropped. But then about 20 hours after we had finished the race, and gone back to the finish line to get the dragon boat out of the water, we saw him come in! I was quite happy to see that, as typically the front runners of a race, if they have a bad day, will just drop. Not many persevere to the end. I walked over, shook his hand, and congratulated him on sticking it out, and he said that is why he was there. We later found that he had gotten pretty sick after he dropped off our tail, and had pulled over to rest. Eventually he made it to the next CP, where he refueled and tried to go out again, but capsized twice within a minute of going out. At that point he went back ashore, went to a hotel, showered, slept, etc., and, 19 hours later, went out to finish the race.

On Friday before the awards ceremony Brawny came to lunch with us and we got to chat for a while over a beer. (I had the Missouri Mud, which was appropriate, since the river is quite muddy.) He seemed like a good guy and I was glad to have been able to share some of the MR 340 experience with him. Plus, he’s raced the Texas Water Safari, which I hope to do some day as well. 🙂

Here’s a photo of Brawny:

Breaking the World Record
The prior dragon boat distance world record was just 82 miles, so we beat that fairly early in the race. Dragon boats are normally raced in sprints — 500 meters or 1000 meters, and not typically raced in distance races — especially a race of 340 miles! In fact, there were some that thought we wouldn’t even finish, or if we did, we would slow considerably as the race progressed and we suffered attrition. But we never lost a paddler and, while we had one slow section the second day, I blame that a bit more on slow water. 🙂

Here is a photo taken from the boat when we passed the 82 mile mark… Not a very exciting shot, but at least we got it on record!

Sunset and Crab Moon
The 1st day was overcast all day, which was great, as it kept the heat down and the sun off. Right before it got dark, it started to clear, and we were treated to a fantastic sunset:

Just after this, it clouded up a bit more, and then we saw some bright white glowing clouds glowing in the shape of an erie, evil crab. Unfortunately, I don’t have a picture of that. It was just the moon shining through some of the thinner cloud layers, brightening up the sky.

Boat Position Changes
While all the paddlers got to change sides every 30 – 40 minutes, only a few of us got to change positions (rows). The 1st half of the race I was in row 9, and the 3 steer-ers would rotate through that row. It was good that we had row 10 with only one paddler — we had one person drop from the team the week before the race — but it would have been extremely tight if row 10 had two paddlers in it when we needed to switch steer-ers. The 2nd half of the race, I moved up to row two, which allowed me to meet some of the other paddlers. Even tough we were all in the same boat, at 41 feet we were spread out front to back pretty far, and there really is a sub-culture built around those you can easily talk with (the row immediately in front of you and behind you) and those you can somewhat talk with (two rows up and two rows back). Beyond that, not a lot of chatting occurs.

Nutrition
I have my long race nutrition pretty dialed in these days, and had no problems whatsoever. While one of my teammates had two 1 gallon igloo jugs for water for me for the race, they seemed excessively large and I was able to borrow someone else’s half gallon jugs. We used two, so that one was in the boat, and one could be filled by our ground crew. If it had been really hot, I could see a half gallon being a touch small on the really long legs during the day, but we did not have that problem.

Beyond water, I used my normal Perpetuem (Hammer Nutrition), and has been my recent want, mixed in a TB or two of chia seeds. I typically shoot for 500-600 calories of Perp/chia mix per sports bottle, and use that as anywhere from 60-90% of my fuel, depending on the intensity of the event. Then I mix in some gels, energy bars, and cliff shot blocks. For real food, almond/peanut butter and honey, salt and vinegar chips, famous amos cookies, etc. It all worked out fine in this race, where I was definitely closer to the 60% range on the perp/chia, and maybe even as low as 50%, since the intensity was lower than something like an ultra-run.

Boat that got sucked into a strainer
After we finished, we heard rumors of various problems people had along the course… One person supposedly lost their boat in the fog and had to sit on the rocks, nearly hypothermic, for hours until they could be rescued. Another boat had gotten crushed on a bridge pylon, etc. I’m not sure which ones are true and which stories had grown in the short time since they had first been told, but at least one boater did have a scare, and they posted about it on the RiverMiles forum, so I’ll just post a link here. It is worth a read — it shows how dangerous the river can be! (But there is a happy ending — and an MR340 finish! Woohoo on the perseverance!)

http://rivermiles.com/forum/YaBB.pl?num=1283050380

NetCam
After we had finished the race, and recovered with sleep, it was fun to head over to the RiverMiles forum and read what had happened along the river while we were on the water, and to read about what had occurred since we got off the water. One funny thing was that Val, who was supposed to be on the team but could not make it once the race was postponed, was posting about us, and hoping to catch us on one of the river netcams. Well, she caught us, and the photo is below. Supposedly the netcam takes a shot every 12 seconds, but we only showed up in this one… Maybe were were going too fast! 🙂

Miscellaneous Photos
I did not carry a camera, but I have a bunch of photo’s from teammates, a bunch have been passed around on Facebook and email, etc. There are a couple pro photo sites out there, and I’m either in the process of talking to the photographers about permission to use the photos and/or purchase some. But if any of the photos that have been passed around via email and Facebook are copyrighted, I apologize! Just let me know and I’ll fix it.

The two pro photo sites are:
http://cindyhilesphotography.com/-/cindyhilesphotography/galleryindex.asp?c=20285

http://www.pbase.com/johnnie_bling/mr340_2010

John Niebling also has a site here: http://www.hipsnapcreative.com.

And here are a bunch of shots:

I bet this was a familiar sight:

Everyone is pretty content, and there Redfern is yelling his head off. 🙂

MR 340 Part I, Pre-Race

Posted on August 30, 2010 by seanb724

June 15th, 2010

I was just ten days past my Half SCAR Plus run, recovering nicely, trying hard not to think about what might be next, though the thought of a Fall 50 miler (running) kept creeping into my mind, when I received an email from my old Florida teammate Will, from team “Are We There Yet,” that simply read:

“I am on a team that is paddling a dragon boat in the Missouri River 340 at the end of July. If we finish it will be the world record for longest race in a dragon boat. We lost a person. There are some folks in line to take the spot, but there is probably a chance for another opening. Are you interested?”

Do you know what my response back was? “I don’t even know what a Dragon Boat is!”

To which he responded:

“It is, for our purposes (even though not technically accurate), a big, ceremonial canoe that, in its most common form in the US, seats 20 paddlers in 10 rows of 2, with a drummer in the front who helps with timing, motivation and communication, and a steersperson in the back who steers with an oar through a lock on a steering arm. So it would be like canoeing with a lot of teammates, except that you only paddle on one side at a time. We will be switching sides periodically.”

My first response was “No!” I have enough experience in 2 – 3 day adventure races with 1 to 3 other teammates to understand how difficult team dynamics can be with that few number of people – who could imagine what it would be like with 20? I also like the aspect of adventure racing that allows you to change sports, from running to biking, or paddling to running, etc. Doing one sport for 48 hours (plus or minus), did not sound fun at all. I also thought about the utter chaos we would have at check points — trying to re-supply 21 people in a short amount of time seemed to be an impossible task. And I hate wasting time at check points!

But, the two words “World Record” kept coming back to me. So a couple of days later, I let Will know, who in turn let the team captain, Christina (later named the Imperial Commandress), know, and a couple of days after that, a spot opened and I was on the team.

And best of all, we’d be raising money for the Shriners Hospital of St. Louis. Please consider donating here to this cause here.

Here is the logo from this year’s shirt, which shows the map of the course. We’d be paddling from Kaw Point in Kansas City, all the way to St. Charles. The other points on the map would be the check points where we’d have to check in with race staff, and where we could stop and refuel. We were also allowed to “fly by” these as long as our ground crew made visual contact with us to check in for us.

And another:

Training
Wow, here I am entering an extremely long paddling race, with what appeared to be a serious paddling crew, and I’m thinking, “I’ve only paddled once this year, and that was to take the kids out on the canoe for an hour!” Hmm, how to get in shape in less than 5 weeks! Well, I had a good aerobic base from the ultra run, and I had been keeping my strength training up so I felt like I had a decent strength base as well. What was left? Paddle, paddle, paddle! And paddle some more!

Looking back at my training log, it looks like I was able to get in 8 rowing specific workouts, with canoe paddling as long as 3 hours on Jordan Lake, though most were in the 90 – 120 minute range. I had to get up at 5 a.m. a few times to fit in these kind of time commitments around work and personal life schedules. That is not a whole lot of paddling!

Here is a photo of the dragon boat in action… Our team was able to get in a couple of training runs on it, though getting 16 – 20 paddlers together is tough schedule wise!

Postponement
About a week before the race, we got a clue from the race director that the race would likely be postponed. The Missouri River was at or above flood levels, and many of the check points would be inaccessible. And the river could be dangerous. And then it happened. The race was put off until 8/24.

There was a mad dash scrambling to put the pieces of a team back together. Many members had commitments in August such as school, work, etc., but a core group remained, and we eventually were able to secure a team with 20 people on it — leaving one seat empty. (We later found that one empty seat was essential to allow the 3 steers the ability to rotate on the fly in a safe fashion. If that back row and been completely full, it would have been much tougher to make changes!)

You would think that would be a good thing for someone like me, who had very little paddle specific training in place. But I had an extremely busy time right around then, with a couple of trips planned, and I was only able to get in three more paddling workouts in!

Travel
It came time to travel west to Kansas City. I took an early morning flight to DFW, where I hooked up with Will and Ryan. I had not seen Will in several years, and was introduced to Ryan. Our DFW to KC flight was delayed about 40 minutes, as a seat belt was broken. On a half empty flight, that should not have caused any problems since you can just move someone to a new seat — but the broken seat belt was the pilot’s! That delay was a bit concerning as we were supposed to meet the team at the race start and take the boat out for a quick practice, before the mandatory safety meeting, and now we were cutting in to that time. But we got picked up and went straight to the start, where we quickly changed clothes, where introduced to everyone, and jumped in the boat.

Practice
We paddled the boat as a full team for the 1st time for about 45 minutes. (Actually, I think we were missing one or two people…) At this time, I hate to admit it, but my realistic side was kicking in… Or, perhaps more accurately, it was pessimistic side! Our paddling was awful — we were not synchronized in any way, and there were several in the boat that had paddling strokes that left a lot to be desired. One of the team mates in front of me happened to be a very accomplished adventure racer, ultra-runner, and paddler, and we started talking about attrition rates. We both guessed as high as 20-25%, which would be 4-5 paddlers. A boat as big as that would be difficult to move quickly if we dropped that low. And while we never openly discussed the particular people that we individually thought would not make it, I’m sure we were both thinking about it. This turned out to be a great lesson in “Don’t Judge a Book by its Cover,” because I was dead wrong. The entire crew made it to the finish, and some that I thought would be weak, turned out to be strong.

Dinner
Doug, one of the paddlers, who lived a couple of miles from the race start, had opened up his place to several of us, which was very generous considering he didn’t know most of us at all. I rode to his place with Christina, and then the three of us, as well as Doug’s wife, went to a casino buffet dinner, where we (well, me, at least) stuffed ourselves silly. 🙂 Apparently, river boats were awarded the right to offer gambling a long time ago, and the law was written such that as long as there is a little water between the land and the casino, that’s legal. So the “boat” we were on was a building with a little bridge over a 5′ span of water.

Pre-race safety meeting
We headed to the safety meeting, checked in, and were briefed by the race director on what to expect, the rules, etc. We heard “high fast water” about 100 times during the safety video — while the water had certainly dropped since the postponement in July, it was still very high. And fast. “Drink!” (He had suggested making a drinking game out of the video… 🙂 )

Final Preparations
After the meeting, I went to the grocery store with Eric and Michael for some last minute food grabs — for me that included famous amos cookies, some mixed nuts, etc. Then we headed over to Doug’s, where the 5 racers and 1 support crew member made our final preparations. There were a lot of zip lock bags and food flying around. We finally got to bed around 10:30 or 11. I used my buff to cover my eyes since not everyone was quite ready to turn out the lights when I was — is there no end to the uses of a classic buff? 🙂 I love mine!

Wake-up call
I woke up about 5 a.m., before the alarm went off, and started to get ready. It had not been a great night of sleep, but certainly wasn’t terrible. Just like the night before most races, I’m always anxious and wake up a few times during the night, only to check the clock and realize there is plenty of time. Doug’s wife walked Michael and me to a nearby cafe, only to find it was closed. 😦 I really wanted needed my coffee. Then she drove us a bit further to a very nice grocery store that had a large breakfast buffet. And coffee. Now I was ready!

We had to make two trips to the start with all the paddlers, crew, and gear, but we were there in plenty of time to put everything together for the start…

(to be continued…)

A Million Miles in a Thousand Years. Donald Miller.

Posted on August 2, 2010 by seanb724

I’ll tell these things to God, and he’ll laugh, I think, and he’ll remind me of the parts I forgot, the parts that were his favorites. We’ll sit and remember my story together, and then he’ll stand and put his arms around me and say, “Well done,” and that he liked my story. And my soul won’t be thirsty anymore.

What if your life was a story? What if your life was a story and you were the author, or at least co-author (but main-author)? How would you change your current story? How would you make memorable scenes? How would you invite others into your story? In the book Miller discusses life as a story, and how the elements of story come together in each of our lives. We can have a captivating story, or a dull story — we choose, as we are the main author. Many of us are guilty of not changing our life story, because we have become content, or we are afraid of change. (Or both.) But should we be content with where we are today? Could greater things be in store?

He didn’t discuss it much, but of course other people are part authors of our story as well. I had this revelation a few weeks ago when Kelly threw a surprise party for me on my 40th birthday, and I got to see so many people from my life — family, of course, and friends from college, friends from nearby, and friends from far, some of whom I see often, and some of whom I see rarely (these days). And they are all a a part of my life story. I have many “memorable scenes” with all of the people I saw, and there will (hopefully!) be many more. But, as the main author of our life story, we have so much to do with those scenes… What more can we do to create more and more of those scenes that stand out from the dull monotony of every day life? Not that every day needs to be an adventure of some type — there are opportunities for memorable scenes more often than we typically think.

Another key point, for me, was how we choose to invite others into our stories — and how we help create memorable scenes for them. I want to be better about this.

I have to admit that this book unexpectedly made me be quite introspective, which is rare for me. I’m not an introspective person by nature. But when you think of your life as a story, you think about the quality of the story. Is it a good story? Is there character development? (“I wanna have friends I can trust… that love me for the man I’ve become not the man that I was…” — Avett Brothers) Is there conflict that is overcome, preferably for “the good (noble?)”. (“I have fought the good fight….” 2 Timothy 4:7)

The quote I opened this post with struck me… It is from the very end of the book, and is key. Don’t we all want to hear “well done” from God on that last day, and that “He liked my story?” I can’t wait to be reminded of those parts of my story that I’ve forgotten, but that were important not just to me, but to Him.

The Primal Blueprint. Mark Sisson.

Posted on July 30, 2010 by seanb724

This was mentioned on the Google minimalist list a few times, and the latest thoughts on wheat (outside of Conventional Wisdom) are pretty interesting to me right now. Sisson outlines 10 rules of the primal life style, ranging from nutrition, to exercise, to sleep, and play. I won’t get into all of them here but just focus on a couple that are most important to me, nutrition and exercise (though I love to sleep and play too!)

Since I am behind, these are just some quick thoughts… Also, as an “experiment of one,” it will take some time to digest (pun intended) all of the information in this book!

I agree with much of what he writes about food such as the avoidance of all high fructose corn syrup, highly processed and refined foods, etc. I am starting to believe more and more his feelings on veggie oils other than olive oil. I am not so sure I agree with him on beans and legumes. I am curious about his feelings on wheat and other grains. I do think that the body’s insulin response should be considered in light of the whole meal, not just individual parts of the meal.

I also feel similar to how he feels about what he calls “Chronic Cardio…” My take is world class athletes are often not that healthy, as they have to push their bodies so hard to be world class. His argument is that what most Americans do for exercise — those that do exercise — do too much hard cardio, where he defines cardio as > 75% MHR. He suggests long slow cardio of a few hours at 55 – 75% MHR, which is what you would get on a decent hike. He also advocates sprinting and “lifting heavy things,” which goes along with my exercise philosophy of doing lots of different things. For me that includes running, hiking, biking, paddling, weights, yoga, plyometrics, etc. He also states if you are in good Primal Shape, you should be able to jump into events as long as ultras and do ok. Sounds good to me! 🙂

Along the lines of Real Food by Nina Plank.

And now for a few select quotes:

The doctor of the future will give no medicine, but instead will interest his patients in the care of the human frame, in diet, and in the cause and prevention of disease. —Thomas Edison
My goal with the Primal Blueprint is to expose much of the lucrative health and fitness industry as ethically and scientifically bankrupt.
“Perfection is impossible. However, striving for perfection is not. Do the best you can under the conditions that exist. That is what counts.” —John Wooden
Americans will always do the right thing—after they’ve exhausted all the alternatives. —Winston Churchill
Experience teaches us how difficult it is, if not impossible, to be lean, fit, energetic, and healthy following Conventional Wisdom.
However, too many lengthy workouts at elevated heart rates (between 75 percent and 95 percent of maximum) can put you at risk of exhaustion, burnout, injury, and illness.
The high-carbohydrate diet required to perform these workouts day-in and day-out only adds to the problem. At the extreme—such as with the overtrained marathon runner or ironman triathlete—a commitment to fitness can actually accelerate the aging process.
A man’s health can be judged by which he takes two at a time—pills or stairs. —Joan Welsh
pursuing specialized athletic goals is inherently destructive to your health.
When I take responsibility for my actions, my misfortune becomes a growth experience—an appealing alternative to feeling like a victim or placing any importance on the notion of bad luck.
Increase your daily activity level in every possible way—walking or cycling instead of driving for nearby errands, taking the stairs, parking at the edge of the lot, strolling the neighborhood after dinner, and enjoying leisurely hikes on the weekends.

Way behind on posting about the books I’ve read…

Posted on July 30, 2010 by seanb724

I’m way behind writing about the books I’ve read. At least six books behind. 😦 I’ll try to catch up, but that means I’ll probably write less than I normally do. With Kindle Highlights, I just put them in Evernote note’s, which is great, though the process is manual and leaves a lot to be desired! I hope someone comes up with an automated way to do it soon! 🙂 That also means I only grab a few quotes to put here, while the rest I have forever in Evernote.

The Runners Guide to the Meaning of Life. Amby Burfoot.

Posted on July 8, 2010 by seanb724

This book didn’t have a lot of meat, and I read it well over a month ago (meaning I have lost my 1st impressions, since it wasn’t that impressionable) so I won’t write much now. (I’m about 3 or 4 books behind in writing about the books I’ve read!) So how about just some quotes? I know that is boring and lazy, but there are some good quotes! I’ll even highlight some of my favorite.

As runners, we all go through many transitions-transitions that closely mimic the larger changes we experience in a lifetime. First, we try to run faster. Then we try to run farther. Then we learn to accept ourselves and our limitations, and at last, we can appreciate the true joy and meaning of running.
Every workout reveals new truths and releases new dreams.
Running has long suffered, in my opinion, from an early attitude best described and captured by the classic novella and movie of the same name: The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Runner.
I wasn’t yet wise enough to see how traditions make us stronger.
Now I began to see these transitions differently. In a world that perpetually moves faster, never slower, we need all the anchoring points we can find.
I have heard a million people say that running is the most boring activity that they can possibly imagine. Since I’m sure I’m not any smarter or wittier than these people, I can only guess that they never learned to listen as they run. If they did, they would surely he entertained and informed by their own thoughts.
I have learned that there’s no such thing as an easy decision. But I have also learned that it’s much better to make decisions and move on than to he trapped in the agony of the process.
Indeed, only about 5 to io percent of the overall marathoning population is fast enough to qualify for Boston. [ Hmm, I’m still pondering going for a 3:20 which is my BQ time! ]
The answers lie within, not outside. The best solutions are achieved from personal resolve, not from multiple credit cards.
“Bid me run, and I will strive with things impossible.” -WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
The simple approach is often the best. As we enter ever more technical times, with ever increasing levels of complexity and decision making, we need to remember that the simple path can harness great powers.
During his much-read and discussed life at Walden Pond, Henry David Thoreau preached simplicity above all else. He felt that the unencumbered life was paradoxically the fullest.
While running at first appears to depend on great physical strength and endurance, it is, in fact, based almost entirely on strength of mind. Those who have the will will succeed.
“It is distance, not speed, that holds the answers. The reward comes with crossing and confronting the boundaries of fatigue. For these runners, satisfaction is measured in miles, not minutes.”
many wise people have observed that you can’t accomplish something if you don’t believe you can. Or the converse: If you believe something is beyond you, it is.
While you always have to stay focused on your goal, you also need to stay flexible enough to adapt to different conditions. When in the mountains, enjoy the mountain scenery. Nobody achieves his goal without having some fun along the way. Without fun, we’d give up long before the finish
… parents can’t be cookie cutters. We can’t mold our children into ourselves or anyone else. We have to let them run free to discover themselves. It’s the greatest gift we can give them.
if I were handed a couple of decades, I would cherish them so. I would give every moment the honor and respect it deserves

p.s. I was quite surprised when Burfoot mentions the following book as one of his favorite all time books! GODEL, ESCHER, BACH: AN ETERNAL GOLDEN BRAID, BY DOUGLAS R. HOFSTADTER

MR 340

Posted on July 7, 2010 by seanb724

After my “Half Scar Plus” 42 mile run on 6/5, my plan was to take it easy for a few weeks, and not plan any more runs or races immediately. Of course, it was difficult not to think about what might be next, and I already had ideas about a 50 miler in the Fall, such as the Vermont 50 on 9/26. But I was being good and not getting too serious about anything, when out of the blue I received an email from Will, a former team mate of mine from my Florida Adventure Racing days. The email said:

I am on a team that is paddling a dragon boat in the Missouri River 340 at the end of July. If we finish it will be the world record for longest race in a dragon boat. We lost a person. There are some folks in line to take the spot, but there is probably a chance for another opening. Are you interested?

My first response was: “I don’t even know what a dragon boat is!” Will responded that while not exactly technically accurate, a dragon boat is a large ceremonial canoe that typically seats 20 paddlers, has a drummer in front to keep strokes in sync, and an oarsman in back to steer. At first I really had no interested in racing with 20 other people! While I had been trying to get Will to race the Texas Water Safari, a 260 mile paddling race, with me for years, the thought of racing with 20 other people, instead of just one, scared me. An adventure race of 2-3 days with just 3 other teammates can be tough enough in terms of team dynamics and chemistry, yet here was a race with 17 more people to throw into the mix. I couldn’t even imagine it!

But over a few days, my sense of adventure started to get the better me. Then there was definitely a spot for me. And the thought of having my name on a world record was intriguing, as well. 🙂 Finally, the race would start just a couple of days after my 40th birthday! Looking at the calendar, it was a bit tight logistically to fit into my work and personal life, but there was just enough window to make it happen. And when both my wife and my boss gave me the green light (Thanks K and D!), I decided to go for it!

So here is a picture of the boat that has been custom built for this adventure:

On top of the chance to paddle 340 miles in a couple of days with 20 other adventurers, and the chance to go for a world record, we are also doing this for the Shriners Hospital for Children in St. Louis. I encourage you to take a look at our team web page, Beauties and Barnacles, and consider making a donation to the Shriners Hospital for Children in St. Louis.

Orthodoxy. GK Chesterton.

Posted on June 15, 2010 by seanb724

GK Chesterton quotes show up all over classical Christian education, so one of my goals this year was to read some of his works. I have already read one fiction work (The Man Who Was Thursday), so this was my non-fiction work. Orthodoxy is sometimes mentioned in the same sentence as CS Lewis’s Mere Christianity, so it does seem to be held in high regards.

This was a difficult book to read. There were long stretches were it was extremely tough, and just when I thought I should give up, there were a few pages that became lucid and clear, and were well worth reading. Like finding Nirvana when you least expect it.

So, is it worth it? I’d have to say that I can’t recommend this book to everyone, but if you like reading difficult books, if you are a Christian looking for some interesting slants on theology that differ from the norm, and that sort of thing, than go for it! 🙂

And with that, I’ll just include a few (select) quotes…

This at least seems to me the main problem for philosophers, and is in a manner the main problem of this book. How can we contrive to be at once astonished at the world and yet at home in it?
We need so to view the world as to combine an idea of wonder and an idea of welcome. We need to be happy in this wonderland without once being merely comfortable.
The poet only asks to get his head into the heavens. It is the logician who seeks to get the heavens into his head. And it is his head that splits.
Mysticism keeps men sane. As long as you have mystery you have health; when you destroy mystery you create morbidity.
He admired youth because it was young and age because it was not. It is exactly this balance of apparent contradictions that has been the whole buoyancy of the healthy man. The whole secret of mysticism is this: that man can understand everything by the help of what he does not understand.
A man was meant to be doubtful about himself, but undoubting about the truth; this has been exactly reversed.
For the old humility made a man doubtful about his efforts, which might make him work harder. But the new humility makes a man doubtful about his aims, which will make him stop working altogether.
The test of all happiness is gratitude; and I felt grateful, though I hardly knew to whom.
An optimist could not mean a man who thought everything right and nothing wrong. For that is meaningless; it is like calling everything right and nothing left. Upon the whole, I came to the conclusion that the optimist thought everything good except the pessimist, and that the pessimist thought everything bad, except himself.
Courage is almost a contradiction in terms. It means a strong desire to live taking the form of a readiness to die. “He that will lose his life, the same shall save it,” is not a piece of mysticism for saints and heroes. It is a piece of everyday advice for sailors or mountaineers.
A soldier surrounded by enemies, if he is to cut his way out, needs to combine a strong desire for living with a strange carelessness about dying. He must not merely cling to life, for then he will be a coward, and will not escape. He must not merely wait for death, for then he will be a suicide, and will not escape. He must seek his life in a spirit of furious indifference to it; he must desire life like water and yet drink death like wine.
Now here comes in the whole collapse and huge blunder of our age. We have mixed up two different things, two opposite things. Progress should mean that we are always changing the world to suit the vision. Progress does mean (just now) that we are always changing the vision.
We are not altering the real to suit the ideal. We are altering the ideal: it is easier.
The modern young man will never change his environment; for he will always change his mind.
Unfortunately, if you regard Nature as a mother, you discover that she is a step-mother. The main point of Christianity was this: that Nature is not our mother: Nature is our sister. We can be proud of her beauty, since we have the same father; but she has no authority over us; we have to admire, but not to imitate.
If I am asked, as a purely intellectual question, why I believe in Christianity, I can only answer, “For the same reason that an intelligent agnostic disbelieves in Christianity.” I believe in it quite rationally upon the evidence. But the evidence in my case, as in that of the intelligent agnostic, is not really in this or that alleged demonstration; it is in an enormous accumulation of small but unanimous facts. The secularist is not to be blamed because his objections to Christianity are miscellaneous and even scrappy; it is precisely such scrappy evidence that does convince the mind.
The man who lives in contact with what he believes to be a living Church is a man always expecting to meet Plato and Shakespeare to-morrow at breakfast. He is always expecting to see some truth that he has never seen before.
All other philosophies say the things that plainly seem to be true; only this philosophy has again and again said the thing that does not seem to be true, but is true. Alone of all creeds it is convincing where it is not attractive;