It's Saturday morning. Laying in my bed, I look out my window to see grey clouds filling up the sky. I pull my warm comforter a little tighter to me as I notice the pine tree swaying from the wind.
It looks like a cold morning.
The last few weeks I've been trying to run every morning...but this morning I'm feeling tired and it looks too cold to run outside anyways. In my mind I question myself: "How long am I going to keep this daily running routine up anyways?", Am I going to run during the winter?" , "Won't I get sick if I run out in the freezing cold weather?". These are just a few of the things going through my head. Meanwhile, I turn on my side pulling the comforter with me.
This feels good where I'm at.
Eventually I did pull myself out of bed, put on my basketball shorts, red stinky shirt, socks, and my makeshift running shoes (Hiking boots). Yeah, I know hiking shoes are probably the worst shoes a person could run in....but it happens that these are more comfortable than any of my other shoes that I own. Just as I step outside my apartment door a gust of ice cold air nearly blows me right back into my apartment. Literally. Not only was it cold, it was strong.
I've been timing myself lately to trying to add a little excitement to my run. I do this by taking along my cell phone. It has a nifty stopwatch on it that once you start the time the screen stays lighted until you stop the time.
When I got down to the street I started the stopwatch and started my run. Not even a minute into my run I felt raindrops on my head.
Great.
Not only is it freezing cold outside, it has to rain on top of that. "Can't you get hypothermia running in the rain?" I thought. Oh well. Let's just get this over with.
Wait.
Did I just say: "Let's"? It's official. I'm going mad. Look what running does to the mental mind. I should just stop running altogether. Sure I'll get a big fat beer belly from not exercising, but at least I'll have my sanity. Let's see.....doh! There I go again.
Maybe I'm not insane. Let's....no....I'm going to analyze this myself. I have my mental self (Who would be in bed right now instead of running) and my physical self (who is running right now). So technically I can say "Let's". (I smile) So I'm not insane. Cool. Back to my run.
It doesn't take long to forget that it's raining. I'm running at a medium tempo which gets my heart pounding fairly fast. I start counting my strides as I run: "One, Two, Three, Four, One, Two, Three, Four". As I'm counting this song pops into my head: "Party like a rock star, Party like a rock star"....so I sing this over and over for a little bit. I just happens to have the same beat as counting so it works pretty good. My sister (Liz) kept playing it on her phone this summer...and that's where I originally heard it. I think about my sister for a minute wondering if she's going to do the Lake Powell Triathlon that we'd talked about doing. "I wonder if she's running or riding her bike to train. My nephew Steven mentioned he'd like to do the tri too if Liz and I were. About this time, I begin to push myself a little harder to run a little faster. Steven took first place in his age division at the Rush Tri up in Rexburg, ID.
I need to push myself a little harder.
I focus on the mountains in front of me. I notice there is a little snow in the mountains already. "That's awesome. I can't wait for winter" I think as I start thinking about snowboarding this winter.
If I haven't already lost you....this is a similar patter of thoughts that go through my head when I'm running in the mornings. Yes. They are random. But that's just the edge of the iceberg. Running is a great time to think. Not necessarily think about coherent things...but just a chance to think to myself.
Try it for yourself.
You may discover that your crazy. ;o)
Saturday, September 29, 2007
Wednesday, September 5, 2007
The NOT so adventurous adventures of James
O.k....so I was getting ready to write a little entry into my blog here and noticed that all my blogs go under the Title "Adventures of James". This blog isn't really an adventure....more of a rambling...or Journal entry. So here we go.
I woke up this morning at 5 am to get ready to go down to Salt Lake City. A friend of mine invited me to sing a song that he arranged called "Praise To the Man" down at a morning fireside at the Church history building. I think that was the building. (It's the one with a big picture of the earth on the front of it) Over the last couple weeks we've gotten together a few times and rehearsed the song and then performed it this morning at 8:00 am.
There were about 12 people (6 guys, 6 girls) that sang the song. The overall performance of the group was great. Vaughn (the one that arranged the piece) asked people that he knew could sing, so everyone there had great voices. It was a nice experience....I love singing Sacred music. There always seems to be a spiritual strength that is drawn from participating in small things like this.
I carpooled down with 2 of the girls (Kerabeth and Nikki). That was fun by itself because they're both hilarious. On the way back we stopped and grabbed a Jamba juice for breakfast....mmmmm....I liked it. I had a mango somthin somthin (I can't remember what it was) with Orange Juice. Nikki recommended it so I gave it a try and it was delicious.
After getting back, I headed over to a flooring store to try and catch the manager. I dropped a resume off last week and I was trying to do a little follow up...but he wasn't in. I'll try this afternoon again to see if I can catch him.
More later...........
I woke up this morning at 5 am to get ready to go down to Salt Lake City. A friend of mine invited me to sing a song that he arranged called "Praise To the Man" down at a morning fireside at the Church history building. I think that was the building. (It's the one with a big picture of the earth on the front of it) Over the last couple weeks we've gotten together a few times and rehearsed the song and then performed it this morning at 8:00 am.
There were about 12 people (6 guys, 6 girls) that sang the song. The overall performance of the group was great. Vaughn (the one that arranged the piece) asked people that he knew could sing, so everyone there had great voices. It was a nice experience....I love singing Sacred music. There always seems to be a spiritual strength that is drawn from participating in small things like this.
I carpooled down with 2 of the girls (Kerabeth and Nikki). That was fun by itself because they're both hilarious. On the way back we stopped and grabbed a Jamba juice for breakfast....mmmmm....I liked it. I had a mango somthin somthin (I can't remember what it was) with Orange Juice. Nikki recommended it so I gave it a try and it was delicious.
After getting back, I headed over to a flooring store to try and catch the manager. I dropped a resume off last week and I was trying to do a little follow up...but he wasn't in. I'll try this afternoon again to see if I can catch him.
More later...........
Saturday, September 1, 2007
24 Mile Bike Ride....on a Friday night.
I was going to go on a small 2 mile bike ride with my friend Jake after he got off work. He called and had to cancel because his wife wasn't feeling good. I decided that I'd still go on a little ride so I filled my camel back with water, put on my shoes and headed out the door. From Washington Terrace I rode down into Riverdale to the weber river trail. This was a nice paved trail that follows the Weber river...very relaxing.
This didn't take long and I looked at the pedometer on my bike and it read 6 miles. I was still feeling good so I decided to ride from Riverdale up 40th street to Harrison Blvd. and down to 27th. Once I got to 27th I headed east toward the mountain. That's where I jumped on the BST (Bonneville Shoreline Trail) and started heading south. 1 mile up is an great view of the Ogden Valley. (This was the place I was originally going to take my friend to.) The trail up to this lookout is a pretty good workout....but it doesn't take very long to get up. (between 15-20 minutes) So it's a good night ride. After looking out over Ogden for a while I got back on my bike and continued to ride south. Eventually, the trail took me to a section where I could have ridden up to Beaus canyone, or start to go down the trail. I headed down because it was starting to get dark....and I was feeling pretty tired. The trail popped me out just above the weber state football field. I rode up to 4600 and headed back to River Heights.
That was my ride. :0)
This didn't take long and I looked at the pedometer on my bike and it read 6 miles. I was still feeling good so I decided to ride from Riverdale up 40th street to Harrison Blvd. and down to 27th. Once I got to 27th I headed east toward the mountain. That's where I jumped on the BST (Bonneville Shoreline Trail) and started heading south. 1 mile up is an great view of the Ogden Valley. (This was the place I was originally going to take my friend to.) The trail up to this lookout is a pretty good workout....but it doesn't take very long to get up. (between 15-20 minutes) So it's a good night ride. After looking out over Ogden for a while I got back on my bike and continued to ride south. Eventually, the trail took me to a section where I could have ridden up to Beaus canyone, or start to go down the trail. I headed down because it was starting to get dark....and I was feeling pretty tired. The trail popped me out just above the weber state football field. I rode up to 4600 and headed back to River Heights.
That was my ride. :0)
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