Two Half Marathons

This is the closest together I've ever done two races, and both of them out-of-town.  I ran the Surf City Half Marathon in Huntington Beach on Superbowl Sunday, and I ran the inaugural Rock 'n' Roll Pasadena Half Marathon this past Sunday.  It made for two great weekends in Orange County and some great therapy to get my mind off the mess at work right now.  The downside is that both races were on Sunday morning, so that ruled out going to church down there.

I did the HB race with Amy M. and Kristin L.  We went to the expo together on Saturday to get our race bibs and swag.  I signed up for the Pasadena race on a whim at the HB race expo.
Race 1 was rough.  I didn't sleep well the two nights prior to the race, and I mentally couldn't perform well during the race.  I also neglected to notice my iPod shuffle needed a battery charge, so I had no music to keep me pumped through the race.  The spectators were pretty pathetic, too--very few cheering, holding signs or ringing cowbells--must be an OC-image thing.  I was on a great pace for 10 miles, but then had to run/walk the end of it.  I came in at 2h03m.  Then the medics grabbed me when I sat down on the curb after the finish and were concerned because I was shaky and not sweating.  I was ultimately fine.

Race 2 was great!  I expected it to be rough because I still wasn't fully recovered from Race 1, and looking at the elevation chart the night prior to the race, I saw some foreboding hills and inclines.  I started not thinking I'd be able to run the whole way, but I just kept putting one foot in front of the other.  The spectators were awesome: cheering, yelling, encouraging, holding funny signs.  In a wry nod to the elevation, Lonestar's Mountains came into my music queue as I was in my last mile of the race.  I came in at 1h59m, just a minute shy of my personal best time.  I was ecstatic.  Then I went out to Riverside and sang in a wedding that afternoon, but that's another blog for another day.

Not being with anyone for race 2, I talked to a lot more people at the expo and at the race.  I love being a part of this community of runners.  It helps me feel more at home wherever I am.  I remember having that same feeling in Denver back in 2010.

One person I met at the expo was Aurora.  She shared with me her goal of running 52 half marathons in 52 weeks.  She actually ran the same HB one I did two weeks prior...on crutches.  She had sprained her ankle and isn't letting that deter her.  I was amazed.  She shared her blog with me and I look forward to following her future races this year.
I don't know how many more races I'll do this year.  I'm signed up for the Portland, Oregon Rock n Roll Half in May with Amy M. and my sister Joy, but that's it so far.  I really want to do one or two full marathons this year, probably Fresno in November and I'm not sure what other one.

Christmas 2011

I've been in quite the funk this December, dreading Christmas and just wanting to sleep through it.  Work isn't going well, and I'm having my tonsils out on Wednesday to treat my sleep apnea.  I've been trying everything to seek out joy: lots of Christmas activities, spending as much time as possible with friends, trying to give more, spending time in the Word.  But none of it was "sticking."

I didn't even decorate my house or put up a tree this year.  I'm normally a tree-goes-up-day-after-Thanksgiving kind of guy, and keeping it up until middle of January.

I was reminded of John Grisham's book Skipping Christmas. I definitely sought out Christmas outside my home, engaging as much Christmas as time allowed. But I've realized I wanted a year off here at home. My Christmas decorations are nice, but fairly simple, most of them inherited from my grandmother.
When I step back and count my blessings, I have a lot of them.  Especially when I look at how I no longer travel for work and have more time at home and for ministry and hobbies.  But I wasn't feeling grateful for those blessings.

I couldn't decide how to spend this Christmas.  Mostly, I just wanted to sleep through it and pretend it wasn't happening.  But part of me wanted to be in Orange County to see friends and family since I had been sick the week prior when I had really wanted to make it down for the Christmas service at VBC.  I was half packed for a couple days leading up to Christmas, and there just kept being one more thing to stick around for here in Fresno: work, running, dr appt, giving Amy's kids their Christmas presents, living nativity, karaoke with the guys...the list kept growing.  Christmas Eve dinner at Mom and Dad's was at 6p, but Mom said they'd hold it a little if needed.  So at noon on Christmas Eve, I called it.  I wasn't going down, even though I was salivating over the thought of Mom's ham.

I went to visit my neighbors Haig and Valerie on Friday night.  I lived with them the summer before I graduated, when I had an accounting internship here in town.  Then I ended up buying a house five doors down from them three years later.  I went over to catch up and helped wash some dishes as Valerie baked.  Haig told me how they were spending Christmas Day, by taking Christmas dinner to Children's Hospital where Valerie works, to the rehab dept.  The kids there can't leave, and so it's a chance for them to have Christmas dinner with their families, as well as for the doctors and nurses working to have a Christmas dinner as well.  They invited me to come along.

Once I decided to stay in Fresno, I knew that's what I needed to do.  A lot of the reading I've been doing this year is around how God has a specific call for singles in the church to use their extra time to serve.  I could tell when I woke up this morning that I had a purpose in doing this today.  I would have otherwise flitted away the day watching Christmas movies.  It was a wonderful day!  Haig, Valerie, her sister Robin and I showed up at 8:30 to start prepping everything, and then put the food out around noon.  People then just cycled through informally.  I got to meet a few patients, a few nurses, but mostly doctors.  I got to hear some of their stories and share mine.  Everyone was so grateful to us for coming.

That finally got me joyful about Christmas.  God always comes through.

Mom seemed okay about me missing Christmas, but was a little sad when we talked afterward saying, "You're probably going to want to start doing this every year, huh?"  I'm not sure yet, but probably.

Another highlight was our Christmas Eve service at CBC.  Jim gave a wonderful message about the history and significance of giving gifts, turning GIFTS into an acronym of gifts we can give each other: Grace, Improvement, Forgiveness, Time and Salvation.  Got to see several families, but seeing Steve and Kathi was the highlight.  Former missionaries to Japan, they now train future missionaries while living in Fullerton, but were visiting Fresno to seeing their kids whom I went to FPU with.  Megan came with her fiance Yenisaw from Ethiopia.  Megan is like a little sister to me, and it was nice to finally meet Yenisaw and feel reassured that she picked a good guy.

All (that I currently recall of) the wonderful Christmas stuff I did this year with friends:
-Messiah Sing-along with Hanna and her parents Harold & Linda
-Tuba Christmas at Manchester Mall with CBC families
-visiting model train aficionados open houses with CBC families
-walking Christmas Tree Lane with Amy and her kids, with a fire, hot chocolate & cider at my house afterward
-baking for 10-year-old Rebecca's Compassion International bake sale with Katie M.
-Christmas caroling in the church neighborhood with CBC families
-Awana's "Trim Your Leader" Night
-Second Harvest and Project Touch with VBC, getting to spend the morning with Nicholas, a kid I had in my 4-year-olds' Sunday School class 10 years ago
-visiting with as many VBC families as possible on my one weekend down there when I really thought I'd have three weekends down there
-making 150 lbs of Almond Roca
-Karate class Christmas Party & White Elephant gift exchange
-Spades night & $5 gift card exchange
-adult Christmas Choir concert at CBC
-walking Candy Cane Lane with my Sunday School class, borrowing three of friends' kids whose parents were up to going, and spending the evening with the SS class for cookies at Garry & Jenny's open house
-Christmas cookie exchange with coworkers (and being declared better than Quinn because of my almond roca and forgotten cookies)
-visiting the living nativity in Riverdale with Haig, Valerie and Drew
-singing "O Come All Ye Faithful" (first verse in Latin, which drew much applause) at karaoke with the guys
-Christmas Eve Service at CBC
-serving Christmas dinner with Haig, Valerie & Robin at Children's Hospital
-eating Christmas dinner with Haig, Valerie & family at their house afterward
-watching lots of Christmas movies throughout the month

Time Down South

I am so grateful to still get to spend time down in Orange County.  That was something I always appreciated about my summers at D&T.  Things usually slowed down that I could take my vacation in June and get some concentrated time down there with family and friends.  I gave up a lot of vacation time transitioning to NRC (from five weeks to two) and was worried about losing flexibility to make weekend trips out of town, too.

But thankfully, the flexibility is there in spades.  In three months of employment, I've made three trips down there.  Usually I decide to come down with less than 24 hours notice.  I think that spontaneity is the balance to my otherwise very structured life.  Thankfully my family puts up with it.

Last weekend, I left work at noon and got on the road.  I'm listening to The Chronicles of Narnia radio theatre productions from Focus on the Family.  Overall, I love them, but the volume can vary dramatically, so I keep my hand near the volume dial for the not-so-lovely shifts from whispering dialogue to screaming attacks.  I finished up The Horse and His Boy on the trip down, mixed in with some quiet reflection time and so radio time.

Many of my friends were at the VBC college camping trip, and the church softball team was in danger of forfeiture.  So I volunteered my services.  I was terrible, but I had fun, and thankfully I wasn't the sole reason we lost so miserably.  We were playing the best team in the league that night.

The game was called early because of the score disparity, so I dashed over to my parent's church for their Friday night service to hear the end of the Thailand missionary speaker's talk.  Andy and Tina are a really neat couple; I got to talk to them afterward.  Andy is blind, they just had their first child, and they just planted a church in Bangkok.

On Saturday morning, I went to help with Second Harvest at VBC, where we bag and distribute groceries to needy families in the community.  I love being so involved in that church.  I even have a printed name tag since I make about two or three of these monthly service opportunities each year.

My sister Joy is home from college for the summer, so I'm really trying to take some time for us to spend together.  She just got hiking boots and is very excited about it, so we went on a hike on Saturday afternoon.  We were aiming for Crystal Cove, but I missed our turn-off, so I just decided to stop at a trailhead off the road we were on.  It ended up being an awesome 3.5-mile hike.  I can't believe how much Joy is maturing.  It's still hard for me not to see her as 10 sometimes, because that's how old she was when I moved to Fresno.

I showered when we got home, got some admin stuff done on my laptop, and played a quick round of Hand and Foot with Mom and Joy.

I invited myself over to Jacob and Sarah's house for dinner.  I always enjoy getting to see them and talk with them.  Jacob is one of my closer guy friends, and I like what I see in their marriage as they work together.  And now that they have an adorable baby, there's even more reason to spend time with them.  On my last two visits I haven't been able to make much time with them because of the crazy scheduling that my trips here always involves.  Sarah is an amazing cook, serving BBQ'd chicken and fried rice that night.  Afterward they introduced me to a new game "Small World,"  which reminded me of a combination of Risk, Munchkin and Puerto Rico.  I loved it!  After the game, I kept them up way too late as I do with so many of my friends, just talking about life stuff.

Fred gave a sermon on John the Baptist and the prophecies preceding his arrival at VBC on Sunday.  I enjoyed it, but had been disappointed to realize I miscalculated the Guatemala missions team trip report.  But I'm not coming down next weekend with Carmageddon happening (the 405 will be closed).  After church I went to the Transitions Sunday School class.  It was created for the demographic of parents with children leaving or having left the nest, but somehow I fit better there than in the 20-somethings group.  I never did completely gel with peers growing up.  I was almost always with people either younger or older than myself.

Lunch with the dynasty after church, and then back to Mom and Dad's to pack.  This trip I cleaned out almost all the residual stuff I had there (only one file cabinet drawer left).  Mainly books that I'll probably try to sell at our neighborhood garage sale in September, but I did fill five banker boxes.

Then I drove out to Century city to see my friend Daniel.  We seem to be getting a good routine down.  His place is a nice stop on my way out of town; I stopped here on my last trip down on my way home, too.  This time we went for a run.  His pace is a little faster than mine, but I needed a running buddy and resolved to keep up.  Then I learned he'd been slacking off in his running and wasn't prepared for nearly the distance I was hoping for.  We met in the middle at 4 miles.  With the hills I wasn't accustomed to (central Fresno really doesn't have any), and his pace, I got a great workout out of it, and the distance was a push for him.  Then we grabbed dinner, watched a couple episodes of Bones, and I got on the road for home.  Crawled into my bed at 2 a.m.

Another awesome weekend.  I love my life.  Now if I just had time to sleep...