Karate Purple Belt Test and Two Cities Half-Marathon – Part 2

Friday Flashback: I left work at 3:30 to get to the expo by 4p when it opened.  I had to get in and out before karate class at 6p, which is always a struggle for me to leave because the expos are so much fun, and I usually see a lot of people I know at the Fresno race expos.  I picked up my full marathon race bib and then got in the race changes line.

Getting sick after the Exeter half marathon in August and then just generally being lazy after I finally got well really messed up my plan to build distance in my training.  By the end of September, I realized it wouldn’t be safe to do the full marathon.  I always say that I want to be able to run until I die, and trying to run a marathon with too little training unfortunately wouldn’t kill me, but might injury me to the point where I’d have to give up running.

So I was dropping down to the Clovis half marathon.  Thankfully Fresno was offering two half-marathon courses this year instead of just one.  The recurring half course is miserable.  I think some people run the full marathon just to avoid that half course.  Some very loud and deep pockets have protested the course going by their homes one day per year, so it has severely limited the options for the race directors to outline a better course.  So when they offered a course going out to old town Clovis, I was excited for the change.

The rest of the expo was great.  I saw a few people I knew.  My chiropractor was there with a booth, and he popped and cracked me again.  There seems to be this one spot in my upper back that isn’t unlocking.  He got some good pops Thursday night, and again Friday at the expo, but even that didn’t seem to get all of it.  Hopefully it just needs time to settle out.

Then I went over to karate class, and we were doing ducking exercises, killing my quads.  And then we learned a new form, very overwhelming the day before the test.  But oh well, here goes nothing.

Back to Sunday

I woke up with plenty of time and dressed quickly to get out the door for the race.  I was in such a hurry that as I parked I realized I had forgotten my cell phone on the living room table.  I actually had enough time to go back and get it, but decided it wasn’t worth the stress.  I had a great parking spot close to the start line.  I was very early, so I popped in an Adventures in Odyssey cassette and stayed in my car to keep warm.

When I got out and started walking around, I started running into countless people I knew.  This is my favorite part of Fresno races: reunions.  Seeing friends from other churches, from FPU, from karate, from my old job and clients is a real boost for me.

Since I had a new race bib from switching races, I didn’t have an assigned start corral, so was free to start wherever I liked.  I decided to start with Olga, Katie and Olga’s sister Mira.  Olga and Katie go to church with me.  They pace a little slower than I do, but we’ve been excitedly talking about this race together for the last few months.

Our first mile was a 10:12.  Starting out, I was feeling tight but not too sore from the test the day prior, but after that first mile all the pain was gone.  So I decided to pull ahead and see what I had in me.  I started flying.  I hadn’t had this kind of speed since before the Exeter race.  I don’t know what happened, but I finally unlocked it all.  It was awesome!  I had been in the mid-10’s this whole 2-month training period, so frustrated to have lost my speed, where normally I’m in the low 9’s.

Dave & Cheryl were cheering for us outside their house just before mile 2.  Then I saw Amy, Christine and their collective broods of 7 children, and they had signs and a line of high fives waiting for me, Olga & Katie.  I love it when strangers are out there cheering, ringing cowbells and holding signs, too.  My favorite sign from this race was “Run like you stole something!”  Amy, Christine and their kids relocated to another spot around miles 5 and 7 (same spot due to the loop), so I got to see them three times during the run.  Around mile 8, I saw Jolene and gave her a high five as I flew past.  And then Garry brought his girls out to cheer us on at mile 9.  I was able to chat with a few of the other runners around me when we were pacing with each other.

I flew across the finish line in 2 hours, 2 minutes, and 8 seconds!  Average pace of 9:12/mile, with some laps in the high 8's!  I was so excited to have done that well after being nervous about wear-down from the test yesterday.  I was just four minutes shy of my personal best time.

I always take a lot of time in cool down, unwinding from a race.  And this race feeds us so well, so there’s no motivation to leave.  Ice creams sundaes; full breakfast of eggs, hash browns, bagels and orange slices; frozen fruit cups; water & Fluid (a less-pleasant, but not disgusting version of Gatorade).

They offer massages, but I never bother because the wait is so long.  I always end up sticking around long enough, but I don’t want to be tied to watching my watch.  I stretched, ate and talked with friends as they finished.

Katie and I walked over to get our free beer from the pavilion area.  Our race bibs said a free beer or glass of wine, but we couldn’t find the wine, so we settled.  Still a refreshing reward.  Then I gave Katie a ride home since she had walked over to the start of the race.

I cleaned up, rested a bit, and then headed out again to a fundraiser dinner for Young Life, a youth outreach that my friend Tiffany supports.  Sadly a very boring and poorly structured presentation, but the food and company was good.

An awesome whirlwind weekend.  I was a little stiff through Monday, particularly my quads, but I was pretty much back to normal by Tuesday.

Karate Purple Belt Test and Two Cities Half-Marathon – Part 1

This was an intense weekend: purple belt test in karate on Saturday and then a half marathon on Sunday.

I had known my purple belt test was coming up.  I just didn’t know exactly when it would be.  If I had still been planning to run the full marathon, I would have asked ahead of the announcement that it not be scheduled within two weeks of the test.  I did my orange belt test in February a week and a half after one half marathon and two days prior to another, and that was hard.

The biggest thing I was worried about was how long we’d have to stand in square horse stance.  For my orange belt test, I had to hold the stand for two sets of probably 10 minutes and 15 minutes.  But to my surprise, he refocused the testing.  We only had three sets of two minutes, two minutes and five minutes.

I was also nervous about the sparring element of the test.  Sparring is difficult for me.  I just don’t seem to have great instincts in defending, or finding an open shot.  I took about six punches to the side of my head from Bryan S. in our one-minute round.  In all of our practice sparring, we had never been allowed to hit the head, so while I was used to keeping my guards up, I wasn’t used to having to block shots up there.  My ears were ringing by the end of it.

But Bryan S. was testing for his blue belt (the next level up).  His test involved stripping an attacker of a weapon.  Three of us went in there (one at a time) with a two-foot padded training stick.  First, he took it away from Bryan L. in 17 seconds.  Third, he got it away from Dan W. in 24 seconds.  But I went second, and I beat him front and back nonstop.  He couldn’t get it away from me!  Finally he knocked me over and braced my striking wrist with his knee.  I was trying to twist around and use my left leg to slide him off of me (because he weighs nothing), when our Sensei called it a truce at 31 seconds!

The rest of the test wasn’t easy, but was pretty doable.  We were on the mat for three hours, and there was about an hour of dead time within that from all the individual testing vs. group testing.  Everyone earned their next belt.  Three were promoted to yellow belt, about six to orange, seven of us to purple, and one to blue.

I then hobbled out to my car, stopped at Arby’s for some sustenance, and then went home to prep for the race.  I had never tried it, but I heard an ice bath works wonders for rapid recovery from intense workouts.  I didn’t want to lug a bag of ice home, so I just ran a cold water bath.  I was able to survive that for about 15 minutes, and I do think it helped.  I had some pasta at Amy’s to carb up for the race, and chilled out the rest of the evening at home.

I also had to set all my clocks back.  I was nervous about this.  Last year I had a new phone and I wasn’t sure how it handled DST.  My prior phone didn’t turn back/forward until you slid it open to reveal the keypad, so I always had to set my alarm assuming it wouldn’t reset.  So last year, deciding not to trust the phone’s ability to handle this complex time change, I turned off the “auto update item” option and manually changed the time back.  Not a good move.  It still rolled the time back an hour at two a.m. (but didn’t “auto-update” to the correct time) and I was an hour late getting ready for the race.  Thankfully I give myself a lot of lead time for races.  I recall that I had even set a clock alarm but I don't remember why that didn't help.  So this year, I knew I could trust my phone to handle DST.

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

Karate and Falling

I earned the first stripe on my yellow belt a couple weeks ago.  I've been working pretty hard toward it.  The belt progression is even my exponential and nonlinear than I expected.  I can't imagine all I'll need to do and know to get to my orange belt.

But I digress.  One of my biggest fears is falling.  From any height.  I despise the feeling of free-falling, either from tripping, or from jumping off the Screamer at Hume Lake.  We had to practice falling in kenpo class several weeks back.  The idea is that if ever in a fight, we very likely may fall and need to be prepared for it so that it doesn't shock us to where we stop defending ourselves.  A key point of it is kee-aye'ing (sp?) as we make contact with the ground, forcefully exhaling all our air so it doesn't get knocked out of us and leave us dazed.  The exercises were very low-level falls, like from a crouching position almost jumping backward onto our backs.  It was still a pretty tough one for me.

But last Thursday we were doing a circle-attack exercise, where we'd one-at-a-time enter a circle of everyone else in the class and have to defend against any attack a class member would throw, emphasizing both control and speedy reaction time.  When our sensei went into the circle, I grabbed him in a bear hug, the technique he'd just taught me on Tuesday.  Obviously, he had no trouble throwing me to the ground.  He even complimented me later on my kee-aye as I landed.  Granted, it wasn't intentional like it should have been.  But I didn't have the panicky feeling that normally comes from falling.  That was a pretty cool revelation.  Progress.

Karate

I attended a karate class tonight, and I really enjoyed it!  It's something I've wanted to try for a long time.  I took a self-defense class in college, but really didn't feel like I came away with a lot.  My new friend Javad (Persian descent) is a black belt, and he recently moved to the area with his family (wife and three young sons) and they started attending my church.  He started a class with some of the people in our church, and I decided to go check it out.  I love exploring the potential of new hobbies, and having the mere time to do so.