Why Is Religion Relevant?

My father's recent email with "proof" of Joseph Smith's authenticity along with reading Richard Dawkin's "The God Delusion" has caused a lot of thoughts to run through my head.

I responded to my father's email and clearly articulated how I received it and how it made me feel. His response confirmed that he'd sent it hoping I'd have a Saul on the road to Tarsus moment and be overwhelmed by the obviousness of how wrong I am and how obvious it is that Joseph Smith was God's inspired messenger. He also agreed to leave me alone about the church.
I understand that he feels like I need saving. But why and from what? At a very basic level, what does religion in general and Mormonism specifically have to offer me that I would want and that would make my life better?

Can someone please help me? Why should religion be relevant for me? I could make a list, but they would be easy to dismiss or else would be available to me without having to subscribe to any religious dogma or supernatural assumptions.

So, why? What does Mormonism have to offer that's so important?

Dead Tired

I've been exhausted all week. I got up this morning sore, stiff, and feeling very sleep deprived. Then I walked for a couple of miles instead of running because my ankles didn't stop hurting after a mile of slow jogging. So here's my whiny list of reasons for feeling worn out:

• Weekly long runs and increasing mileage since August
• 140+ miles running last month
• Taught a week long class in San Jose last week
• Ran a PR half marathon on Sunday
• Ran one of my last hard workouts yesterday: 8 miles followed by 6x200m @ :59s.
  
• Catching up from last week's class by working 60+ hours this week
• Additional stress of finding out my current contract won't be renewed at the end of the quarter so I need to find a new contract.
• Having to suffer through AmIdol audition hell while waiting for the real fun to begin.
• Wishing Heroes would move on a little faster instead of leaving me hanging every week.

I really, really can't wait for the marathon to be behind me so I can go back to exercising just for fun for a while. I remember feeling similarly at the end of last year's marathon season. Being on a long, disciplined schedule has its own satisfactions and rewards, but it can also turn into a grind and take the normal pleasure out of an activity.

Fortunately, I'm now tapering for the marathon which means shorter runs and progressively less mileage. I have a 14 mile run on Sunday, one more tough lactate interval workout next week, and a 10 miler the week before the marathon. The other runs are slow and easy and less than 4 miles each. If it goes like my taper before the Dallas Marathon I should be feeling pretty fresh in a couple of weeks. Or at least I hope so.

The God Delusion

I can't remember if I mentioned that I finished The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins. Believer or not, I think that this is a must read. Or if you prefer then you can do what I did and download if from Audible and listen to it. It took me less than a week to listen to the book while running and commuting. The experience is brilliant because instead of just listening to music I can listen to a very stimulating book and finish it in much less time than otherwise. I'm not a terribly fast reader and I have to fit my reading into my limited spare time which often causes me to stay up too late.

Back to the book. Do you think homosexuals are stigmatized? According to Dawkins a gay candidate for public office is much, much more electable than an atheist. I remember think that way. Atheists are branded as horrible, immoral people. Someone who doesn't believe in God in some way or another is fundamentally flawed. In our society faith is considered a high, noble, and necessary trait.

Dawkins effectively discusses the basis of morality. The truth seems to be that morality seems to be pretty univeral across all belief systems including atheism which would seem to rule out a religious basis. In fact, he gives some startling examples that illustrate that religion often makes people accept as moral things that would otherwise be abhorrent. One that I remember is the story of Joshua conquering Jericho and killing every living thing with a few exceptions. Most Israeli school children considered Joshua and the Israelites morally justified for various reasons and some of those that thought they were immoral was because they shouldn't have destroyed valuables that would have enriched them. When told the same story, but with the names changed to the Chinese and another place, something like 97% found the conquerors completely unjustified. It sorts of confirms the statement that it takes religion to make good people do bad things. Maybe, just maybe, atheists are more moral than their religious counterparts because they have to think about right and wrong based on rational thought instead of having right and wrong defined dogmatically.

A comment over on Simeon's Peep Stone made some comment to the effect that it's too bad people lose their belief. Why? Do we bemoan children's loss in belief in Santa Claus? I mean, it's sort of cute for a while, but at some point it becomes pathetic and causes you to question the intelligence and maturity of kids who haven't figured it out for themselves yet. I'm embarrassed that I held on to Mormonism for as long as I did since it has little more justification than a belief in Santa Claus. Okay, maybe it's more like believing in Pat Robertson and the 700 club types.

Religious apologists like to trot out their pet scientists. But Dawkins points out that they do it because they are so rare. He also gives examples that illustrate that many of the "believing" scientists don't believe in any way that would be recognizable to most religious people. Many believe in little more than a sense of wonder and not in a anthropomorphic, personal God that answers individual prayers and meddles in our affairs. This month's National Geographic includes an interview with the head of the Human Genome Project who claims that he finds no conflict between religion and science and yets articulates a belief in a God that performs miracles so rarely that he might as well be non-existent. In other words, he claims faith, but really puts his faith in science and reason and doesn't expect his God to interfere in human affairs. I think most Christians would find that a strange cread. I personally don't see much comfort in such a belief, although it probably isn't very harmful either.

Anyway, read or listen to the book. Whether you agree or not it will broaden your horizons and perhaps battle the popular misconceptions and prejudices against atheists.

Almost There

Today I successfully completed the sixth of the seven races in the Austin Distance Challenge. I had a good, uneventful, unspectacular race and finished the 3M Half Marathon in 1:58:39.4 at an average pace of 9:03 minutes per mile. I'd hoped to run maybe 10 or 15 seconds per mile faster, but my body just wouldn't respond.

I got back home from Santa Clara, California late Friday night and slept in on Saturday. After wasting time on the computer I picked up my race packet and had a nice large Freebirds burrito full of rice and beans for lunch. After wasting some more time in the afternoon I took the family to see Eragon and then stayed up too late watching the latest episode of my favorite show, Heroes.

The race started at 7:00 am so my day started at 5:15 am. The temperature was a crisp 33 degrees according to our patio thermometer, but it was clear and it was supposed to warm up quickly once the sun came up. I wore my typical clothes, spandex shorts and a long sleeve under armour shirt with a light skull cap and running gloves.

The turnout for the race was pretty large; the results listed a total of 3438 finishers. Along with the half marathon they were also simultaneously running a half marathon relay which probably added a few more participants. I stayed in the car as long as possible and I lined up at the back of the crowd. When the horn sounded it took almost 5 minutes before I was able to cross the starting line but they had all four lanes of the street open so it was pretty easy to work through the crowd of slower runners.

The first couple of miles are up hill, as you can see in the linked elevation profile, and I wasn't warmed up yet so the first mile took 9:22.7 (161 avg HR) and the second in 9:23.5 (158 avg HR). At that point I had a good sweat rolling even though it was in the 30s and the hat came off. Mile 3 had a steep downhill followed by a steep uphill but I was able to get on my target pace and finished in 8:58.2 (160 avg HR). The gloves came off and I stuffed them and the hat into my fanny pack as I slurped an energy gel. I finished the fourth mile in 8:53.2 (159 avg HR) but it was tough because the road had a slight incline.

At this point I was a little worried because my heart rate was under 160 and I wanted it to be around 163 or 165 for the first half of the race. I wondered if the low temperature was keeping my heart rate down in a similar way that high temperatures elevate it. Whatever the reason, I just couldn't sustain a faster pace.

Starting at mile 4 the course steadily dropped nearly 200 feet over the next two miles and I was able to complete miles 5 and 6 in 8:39.8 (157 avg HR) and 8:54.1 (162 avg HR). Miles 7 was slightly uphill and felt hard after the extended downhill, but it was a bit of a wakeup call when I passed the mile marker in 9:27.9 (158 avg HR). As the course flattened out a bit I picked up the pace and finished mile 8 in 9:03 (161 avg HR). This was a difficult part of the race. I was starting to feel stressed and was having a tough time maintaining a steady pace on the roller coaster course. My heart rate seemed to indicate that I was running too slow, but I was already getting fatigued and having a tough time with my cadence even though my heart wasn't racing.

The rest of the race was up and down with a net drop but there were no more flat spots. This part was interesting to me because it is basically the same as the last six miles of next month's Austin marathon. Even though it is a net descent the hills are going to be very tough with legs that have already run 20 miles. I only had 4 miles left and I tried to push a little harder. I finished mile 9 in 9:05.5 (161 avg HR). With only 5 km left I tried to push hard but mile 10 took 9:26.7 (159 avg HR). I kept pushing and finished mile 11 in 8:51.2 (162 avg HR), and mile 12 in 8:53.3 (160 avg HR). The final 1.1 miles took 9:48.0 (163 avg HR).

My average HR for the race was only 160, but as I walked through Waterloo park and drank water and listened to the live band that was playing I was periodically doubled over with hoarse coughing that didn't produce anything other than pain. I've continued to experience wheezing and coughing through the day so either I'm coming down with something or else some allergen in the air was affecting my lungs.

My previous fastest half marathon was 2:08:05.3 at last year's 3M. My time was even faster than the 1:59:00.0 that I ran the first half of Dallas last month. I should be happy, but I'm disappointed because I know I could have run faster. I'd have felt better if my time had been slower and my heart rate higher, but the low average heart rate means that I left something on the table.

So, I'm pleased but not thrilled. Another bright spot is that I didn't have any injuries. I finally peeled the dead skin off my pinky toe yesterday and the combination of new shoes and 3M bandages kept it from blistering again. My sore right foot is still sore, but it's not any worse. I'm a little sore and stiff, but I should be able to train well over the next 3 weeks as I taper and do final training for the Austin Marathon on February 18.

A big thanks to my lovely wife who took care of my sweats at the starting area and picked me up at the finish.

I Recant

I take it all back. It is with deep regret that I have come to the sudden realization that I've been led astray and confused by the enemies of Mormondom. Their arguments and evidence seemed to make sense, but I've recently been confronted with arguments that I can't refute. Therefore I'm sorry to have to tell you that I'll be starting the long path back into full fellowship in the church. Please expect a change in tone to this blog. I will from now on try to help you rebuild your faith and discover the truth as revealed by God directly to Joseph Smith.

I share now with you an article that my father recently sent me. It touched my soul, as I'm sure it will touch yours:

From The Ensign, June 2006:

Then we proceeded to prepare what I may call a “profile of a prophet.” … We agreed, between us, that the following characteristics should distinguish a man who claims to be a prophet.

A. He will boldly claim that God [has] spoken to him.

B. Any man so claiming would be a dignified man with a dignified message; no table-jumping, no whisperings from the dead, no clairvoyance, but an intelligent statement of truth.

C. Any man claiming to be a prophet of God would declare his message without any fear and without making any weak concessions to public opinion.

D. If he were speaking for God, he could not make concessions although what he taught would be new and contrary to the accepted teachings of the day. A prophet bears witness to what he has seen and heard and seldom tries to make a case by argument. His message and not himself is important.

E. Such a man would speak in the name of the Lord, saying, “Thus saith the Lord,” as did Moses, Joshua, and others.

F. Such a man would predict future events in the name of the Lord, and they would come to pass, as did Isaiah and Ezekiel.

G. He would have not only an important message for his time but often a message for all future time, such as Daniel, Jeremiah, and others had.

H. He would have courage and faith enough to endure persecution and to give his life, if need be, for the cause he espoused, such as Peter, Paul, and others did.

I. Such a man would denounce wickedness fearlessly. He would generally be rejected or persecuted by the people of his time, but later generations, the descendants of his persecutors, would build monuments in his honor.

J. He would be able to do superhuman things, things that no man could do without God’s help. The consequence or result of his message and work would be convincing evidence of his prophetic calling. “By their fruits ye shall know them” [Matt. 7:20].

K. His teachings would be in strict conformity with scripture, and his words and his writings would become scripture. “For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man: but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost” (2 Pet. 1:21).

Now, I have given but an outline which you can fill in and amplify and then measure and judge the Prophet Joseph Smith by the work and stature of other prophets.

As a student of the life of the Prophet Joseph Smith for more than 50 years, I say to you … , by these standards Joseph Smith qualifies as a prophet of God.

I believe that Joseph Smith was a prophet of God because he talked like a prophet. He was the first man since the Apostles of Jesus Christ were slain to make the claim which prophets have always made, [namely,] that God had spoken to him. He lived and died like a prophet. I believe he was a prophet of God because he gave to this world some of the greatest of all revelations. I believe that he was a prophet of God because he predicted many things which have come to pass, things which only God could bring to pass.

John, the beloved disciple of Jesus, declared, “The testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy” [Rev. 19:10]. If Joseph Smith had the testimony of Jesus, he had the spirit of prophecy, and if he had the spirit of prophecy, he was a prophet. I submit to you, and I submitted to my friend, that as much as any man who ever lived he had a testimony of Jesus, for, like the Apostles of old, he saw Him and heard Him speak. He gave his life for that testimony. I challenge any man to name one who has given more evidence of the divine calling of Jesus Christ than did the Prophet Joseph Smith.

I believe the Prophet Joseph Smith was a prophet because he did many superhuman things. One was translating the Book of Mormon. Some people will not agree, but I submit to you that the Prophet Joseph Smith in translating the Book of Mormon did a superhuman work. I ask you … to undertake to write a story on the ancient inhabitants of America. Write as he did without any source of material. Include in your story 54 chapters dealing with wars, 21 historical chapters, 55 chapters on visions and prophecies, and, remember, when you begin to write on visions and prophecies you must have your record agree meticulously with the Bible. You write 71 chapters on doctrine and exhortation, and, here too, you must check every statement with the scriptures or you will be proven to be a fraud. You must write 21 chapters on the ministry of Christ, and everything you claim He said and did and every testimony you write in your book about Him must agree absolutely with the New Testament.

I ask you, would you like to undertake such a task? I would suggest to you too that you must employ figures of speech, similes, metaphors, narrations, exposition, description, oratory, epic, lyric, logic, and parables. Undertake that, will you? I ask you to remember that the man that translated the Book of Mormon was a young man who hadn’t had the opportunity of schooling that you have had, and yet he dictated that book in just over two months and made very few, if any, corrections. For over 100 years, some of the best students and scholars of the world have been trying to prove from the Bible that the Book of Mormon is false, but not one of them has been able to prove that anything he wrote was not in strict harmony with the scriptures. …

Joseph Smith undertook and accomplished other superhuman tasks; among them I list the following: He organized the Church. (I call attention to the fact that no constitution effected by human agency has survived 100 years without modification or amendment, even the Constitution of the United States. The basic law or constitution of the Church has never been altered.) He undertook to carry the gospel message to all nations, which is a superhuman task still in progress. He undertook, by divine command, to gather thousands of people to Zion. He instituted vicarious work for the dead and built temples for that purpose. He promised that certain signs should follow the believers, and there are thousands of witnesses who certify that this promise has been fulfilled.

I said to my friend, “… I cannot understand your saying to me that my claims are fantastic. Nor can I understand why Christians who claim to believe in Christ would persecute and put to death a man whose whole purpose was to prove the truth of the things they themselves were declaring, namely, that Jesus was the Christ. I could understand them for persecuting Joseph if he had said, “I am Christ,” or if he had said, “There is no Christ,” or if he had said someone else is Christ. Then Christians believing in Christ would be justified in opposing him. But what he said was, “He whom ye claim to serve, declare I unto you. … I testify that I saw Him and talked with Him. He is the Son of God. Why persecute me for that?” …

Perhaps some of you are wondering how the judge reacted to our discussion. He sat and listened intently; he then asked some very pointed and searching questions, and at the end of the period he said: “Mr. Brown, I wonder if your people appreciate the import of your message. Do you?” He said, “If what you have told me is true, it is the greatest message that has come to this earth since the angels announced the birth of Christ.”

This was a judge speaking, a great statesman, an intelligent man. He threw out the challenge: “Do you appreciate the import of what you say?” He added: “I wish it were true. I hope it may be true. God knows it ought to be true. I would to God,” he said, and he wept as he said it, “that some man could appear on earth and authoritatively say, ‘Thus saith the Lord.’ ”

As I intimated, we did not meet again. I have brought to you very briefly some of the reasons why I believe that Joseph Smith was a prophet of God. But undergirding and overarching all that, I say to you from the very center of my heart that by the revelations of the Holy Ghost I know that Joseph Smith was a prophet of God. While these evidences and many others that could be cited may have the effect of giving one an intellectual conviction, only by the whisperings of the Holy Spirit can one come to know the things of God. By those whisperings I say I know that Joseph Smith is a prophet of God. I thank God for that knowledge.

I'm sure that you can see, as I have, the impecable reason and logic. It's simply impossible to deny that the only possible explanation is that Joseph Smith is a prophet.

If you disagree, please let me know which points you find questionable. Or, perhaps it would be easier for you to point out which items you find most convincing.

God, I'm so embarrassed that I could have let reason and evidence cloud my thoughts and destroy my faith.

The Glory of God is Intelligence

The glory of God is intelligence, or, in other words, light and truth.

D&C 93:36

I'm proud of the fact that my Mormon upbringing included this and other doctrines that extolled the virtues of education, reading good books, accepting all good things no matter their source, and having the humility to discard beliefs that prove to be incorrect. On a certain level I was raised in an environment of intellectual enquiry and tolerance. After all, when you have the restored truth then you don't need to fear any learning because all evidence and reason will inexorably lead you to that truth and sustain and vindicate the pure knowledge revealed to humanity through God's prophets.

I didn't realize that I lived in a culturally and intellectually isolated environment that claimed openess and surety in its teachings and beliefs but that carefully filtered the information that the faithful were exposed to. I was distrustful of anti-Mormon attackers and was periodically fed examples of their dishonest tactics and ill-conceived attacks on my beloved beliefs. During my formative years I was given many reasons to distrust the motives and integrity of the enemies of the church and felt as much interest in listening to them or reading their tracts as I would be of studying Judaism in an Arabian mosque. My occasional perusal of anti-Mormon tracts and books further reinforced my distrust as I read their obvious misrepresentations of Mormon beliefs and history and their lack of anything better to offer.

And yet here I sit. A disbeliever not only in Mormonism, but also in the existence of a personal God.

If the Mormon church now betrays doctrines such as I quote above by denigrating, marginalizing, and even excommunicating its "so-called" intellectuals, not because they are wrong but because they challenge the status quo and authority of the church, then it is understandable. Look where it has gotten me and many others like me. If loss of belief and loss of faith are bad, then so is anything that inevitably leads to those things. And thought, reason, and evidence clearly don't lead one to believe in the church. One can only maintain belief as once receives further light and knowledge by subjugating reason to a blind credulity that exalts subjective feelings and experience and calls them the faint whisperings of the Spirit.

The best, and only real defense, offered by the church in the face of the increasing tide of evidence against its claims is that the whisperings of the Spirit are a superior source of light and knowledge than our frail minds. Reasoning can fail and knowledge can be incomplete or incorrect, but the Spirit will never lead you astray.

But what is the Spirit and how do we recognize it. Boyd K. Packer triumphantly declares that it is like the taste of salt. It is impossible to describe to someone who has never experienced the taste. Salt tastes salty. I guess that by analogy the Spirit feel "spirity." I think that the ultimate test is that any feeling that convinces you of the truth of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is from the Spirit. On the other hand any similar feelings that do otherwise aren't from the Spirit. The differences are subtle, but with experience you can learn to tell the difference. Apparently we aren't supposed to notice the circular definition.

But my feelings convince me quite thoroughly that the church isn't true. In fact it is difficult for me to even consider that it might be true because I have so much information that tells me otherwise. David Whitmer, one of the three witnesses of the Book of Mormon, never renounced his testimony that it was revealed by God through Joseph Smith. He also categorically stated that he knew just as strongly that Joseph Smith was a fallen prophet and that the church led by Brigham Young was in apostasy. The church is quite proud of how proud of his strength of conviction of the first item but isn't exactly eager to trumpet the second. I'm prone to think that Mr. Whitmer was prone to certainty on things about which he had no reasonable justification. I'm chagrined to remember that I spent nearly two years sharing my equally unfounded but equally certain convictions with anyone that would listen.

As I was listening to Richard Dawkins during my evening run I was struck by how theologians and believers in God delight in ignorance. They look for things for which science lacks explanation and then jubilantly claim, "See, you can't explain it. The only possible explanation is God, the Grand Creator!" Dawkins calls it, I think, looking for God in the gaps. In other words, God explains the gaps in knowledge that science can't currently fill. Unfortunately, those gaps are steadily being filled and science continues a steady advance that explains things that were once considered beyond mysterious and only explicable by appeal to a divine creator.

In fact, as he clearly explains, scientists relish ignorance; they readily admit their lack of knowledge. They are infused with a humility that prevents them from claiming certainty about things for which they lack evidence. Rather than doing as the theologians and proclaim, "The only explanation is God," they instead say, "Wow, that would make an awesome PhD thesis!" If the world were run by the intelligent design crowd then intellectual advance would slowly grind to a halt as everyone took the easy way out and simply explained any inexplicable observation as the will or mystery of God. Not unlike a child who says, "The devil made me do it," our universities would be publishing papers on the mysteries of the universe and how their infertile imaginations can only explain it by appealing to an all powerful super being whose existence is overwhelmingly confirmed by the multitude of things that we can't explain. Fortunately, universities such as BYU and its FARMS "scholars" are the exception rather than the rule in academia.

So, maybe Joseph Smith got it wrong. It appears that the glory of God is ignorance. Or at least that seems to be the best proof that he exists.

Sorry for rambling. Too much port.

Good night from chilly Santa Clara.

Technology Can Be Wonderful

I was at the gym last week and my 30GB MP3 player fell out of my locker and died. It has a hard drive and I'm guessing that it got damaged because after the fall it would freeze while booting up and I could hear the hard drive repeatedly thunking as it was trying to read data. Oh well...

So Saturday I headed off to Fry's to see if I could get an inexpensive Flash based player. Since Apple's IPod owns more than 70% of the market that was out of the question. Plus, the IPod locks me into one solution, ITunes, and I don't like it. I ended up walking out of the store with a pretty simple looking 2GB Creative Zen V Plus. I've since been pretty surprised at how capable such a small device can be.

It's small enough that I can hang it around my neck on a lanyard and forget that it is there. About half of the front is a nice color OLED display that can display photos and videos. It also has an FM radio built in that works really well. It has a miniature joy stick for navigating the menus and fast forwarding and skipping tracks. It has two buttons for pause/play and getting to the menus. The volume buttons are on the side. I haven't had to crack the owner's manual because it is all very intuitive and easy to figure out. Once I installed the software Napster immediately recognized it and I was able to download my music without problems.

Now for the best part. I decided to give Audible a try. Audible is a web site that sells recorded books. For $15 a month you get one book a month plus pretty steep discounts on additional books. I signed up for a 3 month half off trial period. The first title that caught my eye was Richard Dawkin's "The God Delusion" so I cashed in my credit and downloaded it. I was easily able to put it on my Zen and I listened to it on my three hour run yesterday.

I have to admit I'm hooked. Listening to a book sounded like a better way of passing the time than listening music. After a while I start hearing the same songs over and over again even with over 6000 in my library and they stop distracting me. But the time flew as I listened to Dawkins and some other woman read the book. The time passes quite quickly when you are enjoying a very engaging and thought provoking book.

Others have recommended Dawkin's book and now I know why. The book is just brilliantly written and it seems like hardly a paragraph goes by that doesn't have something that is very quotable. One of the nice features of the Zen is that is has book marks. The book is split into two large files, but when you're ready to stop you just save a bookmark and you can later resume listening right where you left off. So I'm looking forward to catching up on my reading while I train and commute back and forth to work.

Triumph

I ran 14 miles on Sunday without agravating my blister. What was the key? For one, it was a training run and I wasn't running very fast. But I also bought some new shoes that I'm quickly falling in love with.

On Saturday I went to RunTex and tried on shoes looking for one that had a wider toebox, fit my foot, had good cushioning, and had minimal medial support. A situation like this simply requires a specialty running store. I dare you to go into your local Foot Locker with that list of requirements and get anything more than a dumb look followed by, "We have some really cool looking Nikes."

Instead the young salesman nodded knowingly, disappeared into the store room, and returned with about 5 different shoes. Running has made me pretty picky about my running shoes. If I run in the store with them and can feel anything then forget about it. If they slip on the heel at all or put even a little pressure somewhere in the store then they'll be torture devices on a long run. This ruled out most of the shoes. I eventually found a Mizuno Wave Rider that felt pretty good, but it was a 12.5 and was a little too long and they didn't have a 12. A couple of quick calls to other RunTex stores in town located the correct size and off I went. The Mizunos in size 12 didn't quite feel right so I asked for another shoe that I'd also liked. It was a little short in size 12 but they had a nice toe box so I asked for a 12.5. The salesman thought they'd be too big, but they turned out to be just right. So I headed off to the gym to try out my new Saucony Pro Grid Triump 4s. That's a mouthful.

The Triumphs are great. They have a wider, squarer toe box and have a very soft, responsive ride. Probably their best feature for me is the shape and design of the heel cup that fits my heel snugly without being too tight. On my Asics I have to lace to the last hole to pull the shoe tighter around my ankle and prevent slipping. No such problem on the Triumph. I'd heard of Saucony, but had never even tried one on by them. Since Asics has revised the venerable Nimbus in a way that doesn't work for me, the Triumph has now replaced it as my preferred neutral cushioned shoe.

It's a big risk breaking in a new pair of shoes this late in the season, but my blister problems required a change and I think this one is working out well.

I almost forgot one other thing I did for the blister. I bought some 3M NexCare waterproof bandanges and bandaged my pinky toe and the toe next to it. I discovered the 3M bandages a couple of years ago and swear by them. They are made of some wonder membrane that is very thin and stretchy, waterproof, and yet breathable. So, when you wear them they don't have any ridges and they don't make your skin prune up.

A Hermit? Like a Crab?

OK, I don't know what to make of this result. I instinctively thought it was totally off base, but maybe not. I can be pretty outgoing and outspoken, but I'm not really one for socializing.

You are The Hermit

Prudence, Caution, Deliberation.

The Hermit points to all things hidden, such as knowledge and inspiration,hidden enemies. The illumination is from within, and retirement from participation in current events.

The Hermit is a card of introspection, analysis and, well, virginity. You do not desire to socialize; the card indicates, instead, a desire for peace and solitude. You prefer to take the time to think, organize, ruminate, take stock. There may be feelings of frustration and discontent but these feelings eventually lead to enlightenment, illumination, clarity.

The Hermit represents a wise, inspirational person, friend, teacher, therapist. This a person who can shine a light on things that were previously mysterious and confusing.

What Tarot Card are You?
Take the Test to Find Out.

Switched To New Blogger

Since I work with computers for a living I'm very sensitive to the idea that new isn't always better. But the old Blogger has been pretty crappy the last couple of days so I bit the bullet and upgraded to the new one. One of the reasons I'd been hesitating is that the new version groups your blogs by Google account which uses an email address as your Google account id. Unfortunately, I don't want this blog grouped with my In Real Life blog so I needed a new email account. Anyway, Gmail doesn't seem to like me so I created a Hotmail email address which is now listed in my profile so you can comment or you can email me. No promises that I'll regularly monitor the hotmail address.

Let me know if anything is broken.

Now That's a Blister

The pictures speak for themselves. The swelling has gone down, but it puffs back up when I run.

Does Mormonism Encourage Honesty?

I secretly struggled with my doubts about Mormonism for many, many years. The only people I ever discussed them with were my parents and my bishop. My father seemed completely perplexed about my concerns. In his mind the church can pretty much do whatever it wants since God guides its prophet who will know if teachings and practices need to change over time to best meet the church's needs. So he didn't have a problem with the fact that the church decided to change temple ordinances that were supposedly revealed by God to his prophet who subsequently declared that they were a perfect restoration of lost ordinances. He felt that the changes were good and didn't see any problem.

I later expressed my lack of faith and doubts to my bishop. His response was a little disconcerting in a different way. He'd had doubts too in the past and told me that he didn't know whether it was really true or not, but that he believed it was true and that it made him feel good to believe. This was quite a contrast to the solid testimony that I'd heard him declare from the pulpit where he unambiguously declared that he "knew" that the church was true. He never gave a hint of uncertainty or doubt. He publicly professed a confidence that he didn't really have inside. I guess it depends on what your definition of "know" is.

Other than that I kept my doubts to myself. I had been taught at BYU in a religion class that Satan can't read your thoughts so if you don't vocalize something then he won't know. Part of me was afraid that vocalizing my doubts would put me in Satan's power who would then work on me even harder. But the bigger reason was that I was afraid of damaging other people's testimonies. What if I discussed my doubts with another member and I caused them to lose their belief? What if I subsequently overcame my doubts? How would I feel if I led one of the Lord's sheep astray? While I still had a shred of belief or even a hope of belief I just couldn't risk it. I definitely couldn't talk to a non-member for the same reasons. If it turned out to be true then I couldn't risk destroying the possibility of that person converting in the future. It was even more perilous for my family. I didn't dare damage their testimony while I held hope that it might be true.

It was all very strange. I was outwardly active in the church although I couldn't bring myself to attend the temple or pay my tithing. I taught classes. I was able to say all of the right things. I knew what the church taught and could regurgitate it and could even do so with conviction. My mind was split and I could go in and out of a believing mindset.

It led to some strange episodes. I remember being confronted by my elder's quorum president in the hallway of church between meetings. It seems he had discovered that I didn't hold a temple recommend. Actually, I'm sure that the clerk generated a list of members without current temple recommends (yes, they keep that information on the computer) for the bishop and my quorum president was instructed to get people to come in for temple recommend interviews. He challenged me to get one and start attending the temple. I told him no thanks and that I wasn't interested. He was irate. All this in a crowded church hallway mind you. The little guy has absolutely no idea how close he came to being the first and only person I've ever punched in the face.

What I feel worst about is that I never discussed any of this with my wife. She is rightfully hurt about this. But I believed that I was doing the right thing. I was doing what the church had taught me to do. There is a scripture somewhere (in the New Testament, I think) that says that it would be better to have a millstone tied around your neck and be thrown in the sea than to lead someone astray. It was partly a matter of pride. I'd had what I thought was a bullet proof testimony. If the issues I had could cause ME to doubt, then what would they do someone with a weaker testimony? If I was barely able to hold on it seemed likely that it would easily destroy a weaker testimony.

It wasn't until I finally got up the nerve to look my doubts in the face and confront my issues with the church that I finally reached a solid conclusion and then I wanted to share with her, But at that point I was afraid. All of my reading told me that these situations end in divorce more often than not. I was ecstatic to have reached my realization and desparately wanted to share it but didn't know how to and was terrified of the potential consequences. Then I was desparately crushed to realize that my wife didn't seem to be at all interested and didn't seem to even care about the truth and refused to discuss it with me. It turns out that she is far more valiant in holding onto her testimony of the Mormon church than I was.

In so so many ways I think that the church destroys our integrity and our ability to honestly face facts. It starts by telling people that have doubts to declare that the "know" the truth. It pressures youth to bear a testimony that they don't have with the promise that it doing so they will feel the Spirit and gain one. It puts extreme pressure on young men to dedicate two years of their life to proclaiming a gospel which they may have doubts about or which they may not believe. It makes temple attendance an important public performance from the age of 12, but conditions it on worthiness interviews. Not going to the temple becomes a very public sign of unworthiness which puts pressure on people to lie about their "worthiness" to enter the Lord's house. The social aspects of church encourages people to pretend to be people who they really aren't. The punitive actions of the church against intellectuals supresses honest expression of thoughts and beliefs among active members including challenging distortions and lies about church history and doctrine in church meetings and literature. It all conspires to cause a member to subtlely betray their integrity in order to be a worthy, active member.

Somehow that doesn't seem right.

Survival

What a weekend. I completely rearranged my bedroom and ran a 20 mile race. It's difficult to decide which was harder.

One thing you have to understand about me and my wife is that we are not neat people. We have lots of hobbies and love to read. So we have lots of stuff. Our children were raised by us and learned our love of stuff and also learned our disregard for order. As a result our house is characterized by stack and piles on top of every horizontal surface. Once all raised surfaces such as desks, counters, rails, dressers, shelves, couches, chairs, and night stands are covered the piles overflow onto the floors. Occassionally I get tired of it, usually when I can't find something I need, and blow a gasket and start cleaning. So, I knew that rearranging the bedroom would be a task because of the piles.

Several weeks ago I used measured our room and all of the furniture and made a CAD drawing that allowed me to move everything around virtually on the screen. I didn't like our current arrangement because it blocked our access to the windows and felt a little cramped. After several hours of learning the CAD program I had a workable solution that the wife and I agreed on.

But before I could even contemplate the rearranging, I had to run some new satellite and telephone cables to the wall where the entertainment center would be located. We have DirecTV with Tivo so I have to have two satellite cables so that the Tivo can record two shows at the same time. It also needs a telephone line to confirm subscriptions and purchases and whatever.

So Saturday I headed over to Home Depot to get supplies. I purchased a drywall saw to cut a hole for the outlet box. Then I purchased an outlet box, a modular outlet cover with 4 openings, 2 cable outlets, 2 telephone outlets, 50 feet of satellite cable, and 50 feet of telephone cable. Then I started looking around for something to help me fish the cables down into the wall from the attic. When the DirecTV installers originally put in the Tivo box they used some fiberglass poles to fish the wires so I was looking for something like that but had no idea where to look. I headed over to landscaping think maybe they'd have something that'd work. A salesperson saw my puzzled, lost look and asked if she could help. I described what I needed and she said, "Oh, you want a fish tape." A fish tape. Of course. Everybody knows what a fish tape is. Back to electrical and it turns out they had a whole rack of various implements for fishing wires through walls or under carpets or wherever they needed to go. A fish tape, by the way, is sort of like a tape measure on steroids where the tape is about 1/4" wide and maybe 1.5 mm thick. So it is stout enough that it can be pushed, but it is still flexible.

So, I go up in the attic and find where I need to put the wires in. I push the cable tape down into the wall and go back down stairs. Simple hitting the wall with my fist make the cable tape rattle in the wall so I knew where to cut. I used a stud finder to locate the studs and cut a hole in the dry wall next to an electrical outlet that I knew was next to a stud. Wonder of wonders, I pull out the drywall and am staring at an AC duct of the flexible variety that the outlet box would pinch. So I cut another hole a foot over that misses pinching the duct. Then I safety wired all of my cables to the cable tape and went back up into the attic to pull them up. They pull up 8 feet and stop. After diving headfirst through a couple of feet of blown insulation and fishing my arm into the wall I discover that my fish tape had gone between a 2x4 and the drywall. So we pulled the cables back out and I rethreaded the cable tape on the other side of the 2x4 and along the AC duct that I could now see buried by insulation. After a few more contortions I threaded the cables back down into the master bedroom closet where all of the cables in the house go into a structured wiring box.

By now it was early evening and I really needed to eat because I had a 20 miler early the next morning. My wife also informed me that there was a party that we wanted to go to. So it was off to Quizno's for supper and Home Depot to get a wall patch before running to the party. I'd only planned on staying for an hour or so I could get a good night's sleep, but we were having so much fun that we didn't wind up getting home until nearly midnight. I had to get my racing gear together and it was after 1:00 before I got to sleep.

Sunday started at 4:30 am because the race was 1.5 hours away in San Marcos and started at 8:00 am. The weather was a crisp 43 degrees which warmed up to 60 by noon. I got there a little more than an hour early and read a book and listened to music while I waited for the start. The course was a beautiful country run through rolling hills, some of which turned out to be pretty steep and long. Around mile 7 I started getting a blister on my right little toe just like in the previous two races. I loosened my shoe and kept going and the pain didn't get any worse and it actually got kind of numb toward the end. More on that later.

My intent was to go out slow and then run marathon pace for about ten miles before slowing down and just finishing. I don't know if it was the 3 hours of sleep or that my legs haven't completely recovered from the Dallas Marathon or whether my conditioning has dropped since then or if the hills killed me, but running at the same pace I did at Dallas turned out to be really hard. My heart rate was pretty high at 9:30 pace and climbed to over 170 when I pushed to a 9:00 pace. By mile 11 I was ready to slow down. I could have kept going, but this was just a training run and I didn't want to punish my legs to the point where I'd need a lot of recovery. So I jogged and walked at a very slow pace. It was majorly sucky because I just wanted the race to be over and I was pretty tired from the hard initial pace. I wound up walking the last two miles, grateful to have put the run behind me.

When I got back to the car and took off my shoes and socks I was sickened by my little toe. Saying that I have a blister doesn't really do justice to the damage. It's more accurate to say that my little toe is a blister. The entire toe top and bottom is one big blister that is full of fluid and blood. Yuck. But it doesn't hurt. I don't think that is good. Time for a trip to the running store to look for a different pair of shoes before the next race.

Not that it matters much, but I finished in 3:45:25 with an average pace of 11:16. That's actually slower than last year's time of 3:43:11, but last year's course was pretty flat compared to this year's hilly course and I ran it differently and walked a lot more. I finished the first 10k in 1:01:34 (9:55 pace), 15k in 1:31:09 (9:57 pace) , 20k in 2:04:57 (10:11 pace), 25k in 2:42:45 (10:35 pace), and mostly walked from there. Not too stellar and pretty disappointing but a good reality check.

Anyway, I spent the rest of the day moving piles and pushing furniture around the carpet. All of the furniture is moved but our bathroom floor is still covered with piles of books and magazines. It turned out nice and I slept like a dead man.

Yesterday's race was very hard and afterwards I really, really didn't want to run the Austin Marathon. Today I feel pretty good and am a little more up beat. But I've significantly scaled back my target pace from 9:12 to 9:45. That would still give me a PR and won't risk overreaching my current fitness level. My hips are a little sore, but my legs are fine so I'll be able to resume running tomorrow and I'll be ready to finish the season strong.

My next race is the 3M Half Marathon in three weeks and I AM looking forward to that.

Happy New Year

The New Year started with a bang which I won't go into right now, but let's just say it's been a rough week.

I have two main focuses right now. First I need to work as many hours as possible to try to pay some bills. Christmas was no surprise, although it always puts a pinch in the wallet. But we had to spend nearly $2000 in unexpected car repairs ($900 to replace a fuel take?! Give me a fucking break GM. You wonder why you're losing money?) and the wife broke a tooth that's going to cost almost $1000. Then we had the lovely annual property tax payment which I'd saved for, but still.

The second focus is staying healthy and finishing the Austin Endurance Challenge. If you've been playing along at home I've finished 4 races: a 10k (6.2 miles), 10 miler, half marathon (13.1 miles), and 20k (12.4 miles). That along with an extra marathon thrown in adds up to 67.9 miles of racing. The remaining races are the ARA 20 Miler tomorrow in San Marcos, the 3M Half Marathon three weeks later, and the AT&T Austin Marathon on February 18.

Since the Dallas Marathon on December 10 I took a week off and then had an easy week of about 10 miles and then I jumped back in with a 41 mile week that included a 20 miler on Christmas Eve. After that my legs had a number of aches and pain and I had a worrisome sore spot in my right foot so I didn't run last Sunday and only did a 10k time trial on Monday and a light run this morning. At this point I've reconciled myself to the fact that I'm not going to improve my conditioning any more this season and that it's just a matter of maintaining my fitness level and avoiding injury. So I'm probably going to focus more on lots of shorter runs and avoid anything over 16 miles after the race tomorrow.

Tomorrow is actually a key race. I don't plan to run it all out, but I need to run it pretty hard to try to dial in my marathon race pace. My plan is to start out at a 10 min/mile pace and then speed up 10 seconds/mile until I get down to a 9 min/mile pace on mile 7. At that point I'm going to try to finish the race at a 9:00 min/mile pace which is what I want to run in the marathon. I'll run at least 10 miles at that pace and if I need to let up the last few miles it will be okay. This is more of a training run than a race. If I can do that then I'll be in good shape for the last two races of the season.

Since the beginning of the season my real target race is the 3M half marathon. I'll be shooting for about an 8:45 min/mile pace which would give me about a 1:55 finishing time. The course is a point to point course that is mostly downhill so I think that I should be able to comfortably meet or beat that goal.

At Austin I'd like to break 4 hours, but the course is a tough loop course with lots of hills so if I can just improve over my Dallas time of 4:17 I'll be happy.

Got to go and do chores now.

A Mormon For President?

I'm not sure how, but I somehow found Slate.com and enjoy reading their decidedly liberal slant on current events and culture as a countpoint to my decidedly conservative leanings. The following quote from the article linked above is an example of why I enjoy the site.

Romney would not be the first member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to run for the nation's highest office. He follows Orrin Hatch (2000); Mo Udall (1976); his father, George Romney (1968); and not least of all Joseph Smith, who ran in 1844 on a platform of "theodemocracy," abolition, and cutting congressional pay. Despite a strong showing in the Nauvoo straw poll, Smith didn't play much better nationally than Hatch did, and had to settle for the Mormon-elected post of King of the Kingdom of Heaven.

I about fell out of my chair when I got to the last line. How many Mormons would be shocked by that statement? How many would realize that it is true? I wouldn't have until I started reading non-church sources.

I continue to cackle whenever the church's apologists claim that Smith didn't gain anything from his role as prophet other than hardship and persecution. You know, other than never having to hold down a real job, being able to command people in the name of God to build him houses and support him, being able to get loans for the church (and not coincidentally himself as leader of the church), having divinely sanctioned marriages to whoever he wanted, a divinely commanded mansion, a riverboat, power, fame, being King of the World, etc. Other than that there was nothing in it for him.

I sincerely hope that Romney is a front-runner for the presidency because it will force the Mormon church to center stage and bring it the journalistic scrutiny that it so deserves.

Here's another great excerpt addressing whether refusing to consider voting for a devout Mormon represent religious bigotry.

Others, myself included, would not, under most imaginable circumstances, vote for a fanatic or fundamentalist—a Hassidic Jew who regards Rabbi Menachem Schneerson as the Messiah, a Christian literalist who thinks that the Earth is less than 7,000 years old, or a Scientologist who thinks it is haunted by the souls of space aliens sent by the evil lord Xenu. Such views are disqualifying because they're dogmatic, irrational, and absurd. By holding them, someone indicates a basic failure to think for himself or see the world as it is.

Here's the author's take on Joseph Smith and people who believe in him.

If you don't know the story, it's worth spending some time with Fawn Brodie's wonderful biography No Man Knows My History. Smith was able to dictate his "translation" of the Book of Mormon first by looking through diamond-encrusted decoder glasses and then by burying his face in a hat with a brown rock at the bottom of it. He was an obvious con man. Romney has every right to believe in con men, but I want to know if he does, and if so, I don't want him running the country.

She didn't get it quite right. No one saw the magic glasses and I've never seen them described as diamond-encrusted. In fact, I've never read anything indicating that anyone saw him using the "interpreters," as the Book of Mormon calls them, to translate the book. Everyone who witnessed the translation described the rock in a hat method that most Mormons know nothing about. If you buy into miracles and revelation then I can forgive believing in the Urim and Thummim. But as soon as I found out he was using his treaure hunting seer stone it was an immediate deal breaker. There's a good reason the church doesn't tell the correct version of the translation in Sunday school or seminary. Only members sufficiently enmeshed in the belief system would be able to swallow that story. I wonder if Romney is as ignorant of the church's real story as most Mormons are. It goes a long way toward explaining why an otherwise knowledgeable man can believe in such an obvious fraud when you realize that the evidence of the fraud has been carefully concealed from him. However, it still leaves the question of whether you'd vote for a man who'd be willing to avoid looking at contradictory evidence because it conflicts with his personal beliefs. That kind of dogmatism would be decidedly bad for the leader of the free world.

Here's a little more.

One may object that all religious beliefs are irrational—what's the difference between Smith's "seer stone" and the virgin birth or the parting of the Red Sea? But Mormonism is different because it is based on such a transparent and recent fraud. It's Scientology plus 125 years. Perhaps Christianity and Judaism are merely more venerable and poetic versions of the same. But a few eons makes a big difference. The world's greater religions have had time to splinter, moderate, and turn their myths into metaphor. The Church of Latter-day Saints is expanding rapidly and liberalizing in various ways, but it remains fundamentally an orthodox creed with no visible reform wing.

A transparent fraud. I couldn't have said it any better. Why is it so easy to see now and was so difficult to consider for most of my life? This is a question that the nation will have to consider because Mitt Romney and many like him are true believers in this transparent fraud.

Men in Tights, Part II

As promised, here I am chugging along at a comfortable pace in my tights at the Decker 20k.

I joke about my thunder thighs, but they are one area of my physique that I'm actually proud of. I have freakishly big legs. When I reached my peak weight of 165 my waist was 36 inches and my thighs were 32 inches. I'd do 3 sets of 8-12 repetitions on the leg press with 700+ pounds and then do leg extensions and leg curls with about 250. And I wasn't really working my legs very hard at the time. Unlike my upper body, my legs respond to weight work very quickly.

One downside to all of this was that I had to wear Levis 560 loose fit jeans and they were snug on my thighs. Lately the 560s have been getting baggy so last week I bought some 550s which are relaxed fit and my legs actually fit into them with a little room to spare. I tried some 501s for laughs and couldn't get them more than halfway up my thighs. So, all of the running has slimmed my legs down some, but I think my legs respond to running all the hills around hear as strength training and so they still stay pretty big.

BTW, I ran 5 easy miles on Sunday and my legs felt pretty good. Tonight I ran 6 miles pretty hard and I felt great. Really great. I can't believe it's only been a little more than a week since Dallas. I looked at my training plan and I only have a couple more really long runs before the 3M Half Marathon and the Austin Marathon. Everything else will be just putting the finishing touches on my conditioning and avoiding injuries. Oh, and losing some more weight. I reset DietPower this morning and it thinks I should be able to get down to 210 by the marathon. At this point, every pound makes a big difference so anything less than my current 225 will be a blessing.

Just Relaxing

It's hard to believe it's only been five days since the marathon because my body feels remarkably good. Mind you, I haven't even tried to run, but I feel pretty good except for a cold and my lower back going out for the umpteenth time. The cold might actually be allergies since cedar fever cedar has started here in Austin. The back is probably because I haven't stretched since before the marathon and all of the tightness has put unwanted stress on my on my defective lumbar region. No big deal really. But all of the muscle soreness has gone and all my little wounds seem to be healing quickly.

Life is pretty boring at the moment. I've only bought one Christmas present for the most important person in my life and still have get stuff for everyone else. Other than that I'm eating, sleeping, and working.

Anyone know how to configure Windows networks and Linux Samba and make them play nicely? My Linux workstation wouldn't print on the Windows printer last night and I proceeded to waste several late hours last night and more this morning to get it working again. No success and the Windows computers don't even seem to be able to talk to each other correctly. I think I've actually made the problem worse now since the Window machines don't seem to even be able to see the Linux shared directories any more either. I hate Microsoft and their cludgy networking. Why can't they just adhere to standards instead of foisting their crappy bandaids on the world?

The Aftermath

Warning: You might find that the following contains too much information. If you continue reading and get grossed out then all I can say is, "You've been warned."

After I crossed the finish line at the marathon I was physically spent. Emotionally I was on cloud nine because I was so happy about how far I'd been able to run at my goal pace but I had no energy left and my body already hurt.

Fairly early in the race, maybe 6 miles in, I felt some chafing in the back of my crotch under my right butt cheek. I think they call that area the gluteal fold. I tried pulling the crotch of my shorts up to make sure that skin wasn't rubbing on skin but it really didn't help. On the downhill to the lake between miles 7 and 10 I started getting blisters on the bottoms of both of my little toes. As the race progressed both of these areas continued to hurt with the toes causing me the most concern. It wasn't a case of lacing my shoes too tight like in the previous race; I'd very carefully laced them this time to avoid that problem. The toes felt quite sore and it felt like I had grape sized blisters in the fold between the toe and the foot. By the end I felt pretty sure that I'd find blood in my socks.

They had a party with a good band in the American Airlines Center along with some food and refreshments for the runners. The stadium is awesome, but all the tables and food were on the stadium floor which meant going down stairs. The steps were shallow, but I was barely able to hobble down. I was walking like a 70 year old man with arthritis in his hips and lower back. My legs had no strength left at all. About all my stomach could handle was a small bowl of pasta salad, a banana, and a frozen orange/banana smoothie. We ate a bit and then we had to get back to the hotel and check out.

When I looked at my face in the bathroom my eyes were surrounded by a mask of salt crystals. As I took off my shorts I was a little dismayed to see the crotch of my underwear red with blood (I warned you). The leg opening of my underwear had worn a series of holes through my skin in several places starting with the middle of my groin around to my buttock. When I got in the shower the salt from the sweat washed into the open sores and burned like pouring salt water into open wounds.

Surprisingly, the toes didn't look too bad. The inside edge of the pads on my little toes had a thin blister along the edge, but no blood and no big blister.

I then put the stopper in the tub and sat down as the tub filled with straight cold water and my wife shuttled back and forth to the hotel ice machine. After several trips with the room's ice bucket hadn't gotten the water cold enough she got an entire waste basket full of ice and dumped that in. I wrapped my shoulders in a towel and shivered as I soaked for 20 or 30 minutes with my legs completely covered in ice water. This is a trick I read about in Runner's World and tried after long runs while training for the marathon last year. Now it has become standard practice for me after any long run. It helps reduce inflammation in the joints and the muscles.

The worst part of the day was the drive home to Austin from Dallas. My hips ached and hurt as I sat there and we had to stop periodically for me to get out and move around. It was a major effort to get in and out of the car and I still had the old man shuffle when walking. I was taking ibuprofen to help with the pain and swelling, but if it was helping it was hard to tell. When I got home I went upstairs and went to bed. Going up the stairs was no fun.

Monday wasn't too bad. The muscle soreness had set in and was getting worse, but none of my joints hurt and my feet felt fine except for a little soreness from the blisters. Sitting down at work didn't hurt but I'd be really stiff when I'd get up from my chair. I could walk somewhat normally except that my hamstrings were incredibly tight and sore and so I had to take really short steps.

I had scheduled an appointment with my massage therapist ahead of time and after work on Monday I headed in for an hour of body work. The massage was more of a flushing massage instead of the usual deep tissue massage that I get. My feet weren't sore at all. My calves were a little sore, but my lower legs felt pretty good. My hamstrings and quads were incredibly tender and my ITBs (bands of ligament tissue that run from the hip to the knee on the outside of the leg) were tight and sore. My hips were unexpectedly fine.

The massage must have worked because Tuesday morning I got out of bed and could walk normally. This is a little unusual because delayed onset muscle soreness usually hits the hardest 2 days after a hard run. My legs are still sore, which I mostly notice on the stairs, but I'm getting around pretty comfortably. The most bothersome things are the sores in my crotch which I have to sit on at work and which get rubbed by my jeans when I walk. I've also discovered some friction burns on the inside of my upper arms from the sleeve of my shirt and a sore on the outside of my left bicep from my MP3 player, but other than that I'm feeling pretty good today. Actually, I'm feeling much better than I expected because I'm only dealing with muscle soreness and not joint or bone pain.

I'll probably go to the gym tomorrow but I don't plan to do any running until next week. After that I'll have to work back into a training routine and get ready for my next race, a 20 miler, on January 7. I don't plan to run that one hard so my last two real races for the season are the 3M Half Maraton on January 28 and the Austin Marathon on February 22. I'll now be shooting for a sub 4:00 time in the marathon and think that I can do it.

Blood, Sweat, and Tears

In order to run a marathon, first you have to forget your last one.

I stood there frozen in pain and disbelief. My left hamstring was locked into a solid cramp from my knee to my buttock. People jogged by and encouraged me to continue. Only one more mile to go. But the cramp wouldn't release. I couldn't walk, much less run. Heck, I couldn't move without the muscle erupting in waves of pain. I couldn't possibly come this far and have to stop. Could I?

The previous month has been a bit of a trial since I pulled my calf at the Motive Bison Stamped half marathon. I've had to limit my running and let the muscle recover, but everything felt good going into the Dallas White Rock Marathon yesterday. I had done a proper taper so my legs were well rested. I'd gone off my diet for the last couple of weeks so I was well fed and nourished. I'd completed a 20k run the previous Sunday with no issues and my marathon pace felt very, very easy so it seemed like I'd been able to maintain my conditioning through the injury. Based on previous race results my predicted marathon pace was about 8:57 so I felt that trying to run 9:10 and finish in just under four hours was reasonable as long as the conditions were good.

Anna and I drove up to Dallas Saturday afternoon because I had to pick up my race packet. I thought that the race Expo was at the American Airlines Center because that is where the race starts, but we got there to see Mavericks fans arriving early for the NBA game. After asking the parking attendant we found out we needed to go to the Dallas Convention Center. After wandering all over we finally found the it, but the place was huge and we had to hunt and ask directions again to find out where in the complex it was located. Then it was off to check into the hotel and go to the pre-race pasta party at the Hyatt. Another bit of drama when we arrived because my packet didn't include the tickets that I had purchased for the dinner. A nice lady had mercy on us and let us in anyway and we got to eat some carbs and listen to some speakers. I was still hungry when it was done and since I wouldn't be eating breakfast the morning of the race I decided to stop at Denny's. For the first time ever at a Denny's we had good service and good food. I laid out my gear for the race and settled down for a good night's sleep.

I had a restless night because I kept waking up worrying that I'd sleep in, but soon it was 6 am and time to head out. I was at a loss for a moment because I couldn't find my PowerAde so I had to rush out and buy some Gatorade at a gas station while Anna finished getting ready. With that problem solved I swallowed a couple of gel packets, a large coffee, and a quart of gatorade and I was ready to go. The weather was perfect a 44 degrees with an overcast sky and light winds. The traffic getting into the AA center was good and we arrived with time to spare. I took my last bathroom break and headed to the huge crowd at the starting line.

I gave Anna one last kiss and hug and slipped into the mass of nervous energy to find my pace group. A couple of fighter jets seemed to be shooting through a canyon of skyscrapers as they roared close overhead overhead and then confetti flew and the horn blew and I started the slow shuffle to the starting mats. The balloons carried by the 4:00 pace group leader moved ahead of me and by the time I crossed the starting line I could barely see them bobbing up ahead.

I settled into a comfortable pace and tried to find my marathon pace rhythm, but it was difficult in the crowd and because the road had a slight upward incline. My heart rate was nearly 170 so I slowed down a little and was a little concerned to see the balloons continue their retreat. I checked my watch and ten minutes had already passed and I hoped that I'd missed the first mile marker. After a couple of minutes I knew I had and started looking for the second mile marker without knowing what pace I was running.

When I saw the second mile marker I realized why I missed the first one. They were pretty blue banners mounted on poles and they rotated with the wind. Depending on the direction of the wind they could be pointing straight toward or away from you making them invisible. Despite my heart rate, my pace was about 9:40 or about 30 seconds per mile too slow. I couldn't even see the balloons now as I corrected my pace and tried to get down to a 9:00 pace. This was difficult because the course had a gentle upward slope for the first seven miles as it climbed first through downtown Dallas and then into upscale suburban estates.

My heart rate stayed around 168 throughout the climb but my legs felt ok. I finally crested the hills and the view opened up onto White Rock Lake. I was now grateful for about three miles of downhill running that let me drop down to about an 8:40 pace and finally see the bobbing balloons of the pace leader again. The next ten miles were flat. Bowling alley flat. Flat as an iron. Flat as a pancake. Carpenter's dream flat road for ten miles.

Now I settled into a 9:00 pace and tried to close with my pace group. At the water stops each mile they got closer and closer. As mile 13 went by I'd almost caught up and just a tenth of a mile later I passed the halfway point at 1:59:00, exactly one minute ahead of pace. Now I was running just a few steps behind the pace leader but my legs were getting uncomfortable. Now I was happy to be running with a group because otherwise I might have slowed down. But every time I'd start to drop off the pace I was able to concentrate on smoothing out and relaxing and I was able to keep going. But it was definitely becoming a struggle. Around mile 15 I remember commenting to a fellow sufferer that my legs hurt.

But what could I do at that point? The heart rate I was sustaining was ridiculous. In February my lactate threshold had tested at 163 in a lab setting and I was well above that. But I didn't have the familiar lactic acid burn of fast running. After 15 miles of running I was just sore and tired and I told myself that I'd be just as sore and tired if I slowed down. I told myself that if I walked then I just tighten up and get more sore and have difficulty running again. I told myself I'd keep going for one more mile. And then another. And another as we turned back toward Dallas and could see the skyline and our final destination with less than ten miles to go. That was encouraging and the last few miles around the lake went quickly even as my discomfort grew.

Just before mile 20 I traded the 4:00 goal for survival. The course climbed 180 feet in the first 7 miles. Now it climbed the same amount in less than a mile and my already struggling legs could no longer stay in contact with the pace group. I know that doesn't sound like a very big hill, but after 20 miles the legs feel the additional effort of even a modest rise and this was a pretty good hill. I didn't even consider trying to stay with the group and shortened my stride and kept running at a reduced pace up the hill while my heart rate climbed above 170. By the top of the hill 21 miles had passed and my legs were burning with lactic acid in addition to their previous soreness and fatigue. So I walked and hoped that the muscles would be able to flush out the lactic acid.

The last five miles were down hill, but with the 4:00 goal now out of reach I settled into a more reasonable pace and my heart rate hovered around 160 as I slowed to around a 10:00 pace. Los Lonely Boys started playing Onda and I closed my eyes and ran with the music for a while at a slightly quicker pace. I played air guitar and must have looked funny, but it got me a few hundred meters further down the road. But when the music was done I needed to walk again and shuffled along for almost five minutes.

I started running again around mile 23. Now I had less than 5 km to go and suddenly I was moving past walkers and slow joggers and the crowd which had thinned out was suddenly thick again. I was confused until I realized that they started the half marathon an hour later than the full marathon and that the courses had merged. I almost collided with half marathoners and my legs protested as I had to swerve and change pace to weave through the maze of bodies. I could now hear the contest white noise of the downtown freeways as I entered the urban canyons of the city and my spirits rose in anticipation of the finish. I passed mile 25 and picked up my pace to finish strong. My legs were tired, but knowing that the finish line was so close I could live with the discomfort and pain and knew that my legs had just enough energy to put on one more burst.

And that is how I wound up with a cramped hamstring that refused to uncramp. I flexed my quadraceps as forcefully as I could and raised my toes but everytime I relaxed the hamstring immediately cramped into a rocky knot of pain. So I held my pose and relaxed and waited and bent a little at the waist to gently stretch the overtaxed muscle. I finally tentatively relaxed a little and this time nothing happened. I took a step. Still good. No pain as I began walking and still no pain as I resumed my jog to the finish. Now I rounded the last corner and the finish line was in sight. I couldn't stop smiling as I ran through the cheering crowds that were gathered to greet the finishers and I was overcome with emotion as I crossed the red timing maps that recorded each finisher with an audible electronic beep. My eyes filled with tears as I was welcomed by volunteers who hung a medal around my neck, wrapped me in a space blanket, and gave me my finishers shirt. I stumbled with fatigue and a concerned worker asked if I need medical assistance. I smiled and said no and headed toward the exit to find my wife waiting for me to guide me into the arena as drizzle began to fall.

I stupidly deleted my mile splits before I could record them, but I was with my pace group up until mile 20 so I know I averaged 9:10 pace for the first 20 miles. The last 6.2 miles were slow and I really don't care. I set a personal record (PR) in the half marathon (1:59:00) and a huge PR in the marathon with a final time of 4:17:34 which is an average pace of 9:50. That is an improvement of 43 minutes over my first marathon 10 months ago. I was 56th out of 184 males in the Clydesdale division (over 200 pounds) and 1790 out of 3507 marathon runners.

I was happy when I finished my first marathon, but I'm really over the moon because I felt like I raced this one and really pushed my personal limits. I was nervous going into the race on a number of different levels. Perhaps my biggest concern was whether I could really reach the potential suggested by previous races, books, and pace calculators. A 9:10 pace would have seemed farfetched 3 months ago. While I didn't finish at that pace, I made it 20 miles and I have a new confidence that I can reasonably aim for a sub four hour time in a couple of months at the Austin Marathon.

This post is already long so I'll post about the aftermath tomorrow. I hope this wasn't too boring for you, but it is a big deal to me and I wanted to capture my feelings before the memories begin to fade.

Men in Tights

Winter has descended out of the great white north and assaulted my peaceful Texas town. On Wednesday it was 82 degrees. The next night it got down to 29 and each night since then has gotten down to the upper 20s or low 30s. Tonight it's supposed to get down to 25.

I had a 20k race this morning and it was a brisk 36 degrees this morning at the beginning of the race and only warmed to 42 by the end. This was accompanied by a pleasant 15 mph wind out of the north that in addition to cutting through all of my clothing also made the hills harder than they already were. I actually had to break out my tights for the first time this year. My spandex shorts might not be anything to look at, but I'm hot in black tights; if they were fashionable I'd wear them all the time. I also had on a long sleeve underarmor (prevents bloody nipples, don't you know), a long sleeve technical shirt, a half-zip light weight pullover, running gloves and a hat.

I'd heard about bloody nipples, but never experienced a problem until last race when I wore just a technical shirt instead of my normal spandex shirt. After 13.1 miles the nice smooth fabric had rubbed my nipples raw. They weren't bleeding yet, but they hurt for a couple of days. Some guys put bandaids on them, others use vaseline, I'll just stick to spandex.

I know at least one reader was worried about my obsessive need to continue to run despite my calf injury. I partially took his advice and didn't run after my test run last Tuesday until today. I actually went in and got a massage on Friday which really helped relax the muscles and work out some knots in my recovering calf.

I used today's race as a training run since I'm signed up for the Dallas marathon next Sunday. I was trying to run a pretty even 10:00 pace and wound up averaging 9:52. I picked it up to 9:00 for a couple of miles in the middle to simulate my planned marathon pace and it felt okay. The calf was completely a non-issue despite the fact that the course was nothing but constant hills. The only real issue was a blister on my little toe caused by lacing my shoe up too tight. I had to stop, untie the shoe, and loosen it up after about 10 miles because it was getting really painful. After that, not a problem. The calf was macanudo; not even sore.

I've been tapering down for the Dallas marathon next week and this week will be really light with just a 5 mile run on Tuesday, 2 miles on Wednesday, 4 on Thursday, and 1 on Saturday. The weather next week is predicted to be clear and low 40s which will be perfect. The course if flat and fast and unless something changes I'll be trying to run about 9:10 pace and break under 4 hours. That would knock a full hour off of my previous time of 5:00.

Anyway, I'm at close to full health and I think with another light week I'll be ready to put in a good run.