Sunday, February 15, 2009

Tara’s mom just picked her up and they’re off to church. I am going to run 6.2 miles and I’m thinking I’ll be as spiritually up-lifted as they will be at church. Running has become my new hobby and when I’m in the middle of a tough run I love to push myself and find out what I’m really made of. I know that I’m going to suffer one of two things; the pain and discipline of the run or the pain of regret, which will last all day, if I stop. Running is solidarity without loneliness and there’s nothing better than completing a long run and feeling the good hurt in my muscles.
I read a book by Dean Karnazes who is a leader to me and I’ve never met him. Dean is someone who leads by example and he is called the Ultra-Marathon Man. He started running in high school and when a coach laughed at him for saying he ran with his heart Dean walked off and didn’t run for many years.
One night Dean was at a bar in San Francisco without his wife. There was a cute girl flirting with him and when he told her he was married she said “I know; I have a place down the street we can go. He was pretty drunk and the girl was really cute and Dean did think about going with her. He told her he need to use the restroom and headed to the back of the club. He saw a door leading to the kitchen and walked through it and out the back door. He only lived a few miles away and walked home to his wife, except he never made it through the front door. He saw an old pair of his sneakers and decided to put them on and go for a run, drunk, at midnight. He ran all night and when he called his wife for a ride she had to drive 30 miles to pick him up. He told her to bring water, food, and their insurance card incase they had to stop by the hospital.
Dean started running a great deal and ended up becoming an ultra-marathon man. He is known for running 50 marathons in 50 states in 50 days. He has finished the Bad Water ultra marathon race nine times. Bad Water is a 135 mile race through Death Valley. His longest run is 300 miles and he just recently ran on a treadmill for 48 hours straight. All that running seams crazy but he is able to handle the pain. He says “Just let the pain settle in and get going” (Ultra Marathon Man). Dean is a leader to me, he motivates me to run and when I want to stop I think of him and keep going.

After my run today I’m going to go take some Valentines flowers to Grandma. We bought flowers for Mel (Tara’s mom), my mom, and Grandma. Tara’s brother, Nathan, is having a birthday party tonight so we are going to eat dinner and have a party and Mel’s house. We bought Nate a blanket and some candy, hope he likes it. I hope we don’t stay too long because they have a bunch of cats and a dog and my asthma kicks in bad when I’m over there. My asthma usually hits when I’m exercising but things I’m allergic to, like cats, make it nearly impossible to breathe. It’s weird because I never had asthma until this year. I went to the doctor and he gave me some Albuterol which is amazing.
I’ve been doing so many reports lately in school and writing in my journal (which I just started today) reminds me of doing my school work. I was going to Weber State University but I transferred last year to University of Phoenix. It’s about double the cost but I like it a lot more. Smaller classes, 5 week courses (which is still full time), and it’s easier to get to from my work than Weber was. I’m going to school with my buddy Carter Dunn. We are both going for our accounting degree, MBA, and CPA. All the school will be hard work but it will be worth it some day. I do like my job now as a calibration technician for Simco Electronics but I don’t want to be a cal tech for the rest of my life.