Blog
As To Win the Prize
Category: Running
I ran my first Half Marathon this past Sunday with a time of 1:37:00 (chip time was 1:36:47). I was about 10 seconds per mile slower than the Boston qualifying pace (for the full), but I was extremely happy with how I did. Within the first mile of the race, this guy (George) made a comment to the effect of "Now I don't have anyone to talk to." So I caught up with him and started chatting about the Austin Marathon and how he did in his Boston Marathon back in 2001. His goal for the race was to finish in under 1:40:00 (he did it in 1:38). I decided to try to stick with him throughout the race, which turned out to be a good idea. He kept me entertained through most of the race and helped me keep a faster pace than I would have if I had been running on my own. He was very friendly to the other runners and even to the people that were standing on the side of the road cheering people on. It was a great experience and reminded me of how much I love running in races. I'm not sure what I'm going to do next, but it will be soon.
We bought a new front-loading washer and dryer this week. It's kind of ridiculous how excited we are about it. It makes me feel old or uncool or something. :P But we are very excited about them. We chose to finance them so we wouldn't have to dip into savings, which I think will be a good thing in the long run. God bless Dave Ramsey, but in order to get a house, we're gonna need a mortgage, and in order to get a mortgage, we're going to need good credit. Hopefully this will help us out with that.
Foundations is going fantastically. ginni and I gave our Life Maps last time and we're looking forward to hearing the Calloways go this weekend. Since we started going, I've gone to a Stars game with Jonathan, had dinner and dessert with the Calloways, and had BWW with all the guys. It's nice to have a social life again, not to mention being surrounded by other young married couples that are trying to grow in their faith and marriage. I'm pretty stinkin' happy about how all of that has played out.
We've also been going to Celebrate Recovery for the past 3 weeks. I originally intended to go just to support gin, but before the first session was over I decided that God had some good work He could do in me there. At worst, it's another day during the week besides Sunday to remind me how important God needs to be in my life. At best, God is going to do some amazing things in my life. I'm leaning towards "at best."
Lots of fun web stuff going on with me right now. I'm learning Python - finally. I've been meaning to get into it for months now. I absolutely love Python and Django. It's really easy to use (especially the Django admin) and very structured. A nice change of scenery from the mess that is PHP. I'm currently redoing ginni's website in Python and am having a blast doing it. I also just found out that I may have another potential paying client. If I can determine that their web server supports Python/Django, I'm absolutely going to do it that way. If not, well, I just may have to convince them to change web hosts.
I can't make any promises that I'll post more often, but I can promise that I will try. (Note that that wasn't actually a promise...)
Run In Such A Way
Category: Running
I didn't really do New Years Resolutions this year, but ginni and I did decide to run a marathon in April. I'm also giving up sodas for the duration of the training (although that is mostly out of necessity, if I actually want to finish with a half-decent time - which I do). My original goal with this race was to qualify for the Boston Marathon. For those of you that do not know, I ran my last marathon in 2004 and finished with a time of around 4 hrs 16 min. To qualify for the Boston, being in the age group of 18-34, I must finish in under 3 hrs 10 min. That means I must cut off over an hour from my last marathon and average 7:15 per mile. We're in our third week of training and I'm struggled to run 8 miles on Saturday at around 10 min/mile. If my body doesn't start shaping up, I'm gonna have to try to run another marathon in December (with my dad) to qualify for the Boston. We'll see how it goes.
I went online the other day to look at my credit score, just out of curiosity. It reminded me of how far I've come with financial responsibility. I'm not sure why God gave me the job I have now, making the money I'm making and having a family to take care of like I do. When He gave me little ($7 / hr at PetSmart, all the way through $12 / hr at Frankenstein), I squandered it. I maxed out credit cards, paid rent late on a regular basis, and saved absolutely nothing. I took the one coin He gave me and gambled it away. Luckily for me, He entrusted me with more - and I learned. I'm still learning, in fact. I recently discovered www.Mint.com; it's a great (and free!) budgeting tool. ginni and I are able to make sure we are saving plenty, and giving plenty, without getting behind on bills or going hungry. And even with all that, I still get to play XBox or spontaneously buy Imma a new toy or whatever else, pretty much whenever I want to. The sun is shining down on me so far in 2010, so I say "Blessed be Your name."
A Variety of Topics
Category: Random Updates
I ran 5km this morning and it felt amazing. The weather was beautiful - warm, cloudy (the sun wasn't beating down on me), and a cool breeze. My goal was to run a little slower than my run on Monday, but to be more consistent from mile to mile. I think I did a pretty good job, as I finished out at 7:45/mi and ran fairly consistently. I have a 4 mile run to do on Saturday, so I'm going to try to maintain the consistency and pick up the pace a bit. We'll see how it goes.
ginni and I had lunch with Joel Halpin, pastor of The Springs Church, yesterday. It was cool to be able to get to know him better and share some about us with him. ginni and I are really excited about how we are going to be involved in the future of The Springs. More details to come on this soon.
Lately I've been pondering what it means to be "on fire" for God. What does it look like? How does one go from desiring to be in this state to actually desiring God enough to achieve it? As Aaron once said, I want to want God, but I don't want God. It's tough to get past that invisible barrier.
Back on (the) Track
Category: Random Updates
Once again I have gotten out of the habit of posting on here. Sorry about that.
Life has been pretty dang good lately. Work is going well, as are wedding plans. ginni and I love our new church. Christopher did awesome at the Regional Gymnastics meet (tying for 2nd on Pommel Horse and getting 17th overall). Finances are looking better and better every payday (one of these days I'll be out of debt!). My car is running great, Stronghold is as good as ever, and I finally broke down and bought the new map pack for Call of Duty. I'm keeping busy in the evenings with side-work - I'll post links in the near future. I joined Miguel's Fantasy Baseball league and I'm hoping it will keep me interested in baseball longer than usual. So yeah, that's my life in a nutshell right now.
I went running this morning - 2 miles. Despite my really good time (especially considering I haven't run since September), it absolutely killed me. I ran the first half mile or so way too fast. By the end of the run, I couldn't breathe (my lungs don't take well to cold air) and I had frost-bitten hands (well, maybe not, but it felt that way). Still, I'm really happy with my 7:31/mi pace. I'm supposed to run 3 miles on Thursday, then 4 miles on Saturday. It is supposed to be in the low-80s on Thursday and the mid-70s on Saturday, so there is some consolation there.
So why the sudden motivation to start running? I'll be running the Mayfest 5k on my birthday. It's nice to have a race coming up again. My goal is to finish in less than 22:30, putting me at a pace of around 7:15/mi. We'll see how that actually goes. At least I have 4 full weeks to train.
In other news, I'm actually trying to use my Twitter account. We'll see how long it lasts.
What I Really Want
Category: Spirituality
A small excerpt from my life goals list:
- Get married (to ginni)
- Have kids
- Run the Boston Marathon
- Finish my degree from The University of Texas at Austin
You just have to take a look at my life to see that this is true. I desire to run the Earth, watch the sky, but I am really just looking at all the cool rocks that I am approaching. Since the beginning of time, over 125,000,000,000 people have lived. I am no more noteworthy than the other 124,999,999,999 people, yet I live as though my life is the most important thing. I have another 60-80 years left to do whatever I want. Shouldn't I be devoting it to something that will last longer than the memory of those around me?
Regardless of what I have going on in my life, whatever I do, I should be praising Him and giving Him glory. It is arrogant of me to think that my circumstances merit disobeying Him. If this should be the last day that I have before I breathe the air of Heaven, let me live it with abandon to the only One that remains after my last day here on Earth.
The point of your life is to point to Him.
~Francis Chan, Crazy Love
