Another Marathon

Well I did it. I booked myself another marathon to run. On October 21st I'll be running the Detroit Free Press/Flagstar Marathon. It's a pretty cool race as it takes place in the USA and Canada. Here's a map of the course. It crosses the Ambassador Bridge then crosses back through the Detroit-Windsor Tunnel.



Anyway, all that said, I was planning on trying to do a 30 mile run before my next marathon to see how that would affect my race performance. So I mapped out my training schedule that would be necessary for me to reach that goal and it's a little tight. Last week I ran 15 miles and today I ran 18 miles. The crummy thing is that I just checked my schedule and realized it should have been 19. Ooops. Oh well. It was a good 18 with a killer hill at the end. Check out the elevation chart.


Today's run was beautiful. Really the whole day was pretty much perfect for a long run. I ran it here in the middle of Washington state through a small town called Winthrop. The air was cool, the scenery was great and the roads weren't busy. I ran the whole thing with my The North Face, Dogfish hydration backpack. Having enough water and energy sources makes all the difference. There wasn't once when I felt like quitting or felt too tired. I attribute that to replenishing my energy needs well. Here's how I started. Before the run, 1.5 pieces of toast with natural peanut butter and a glass of apple juice. 49 minutes in I started a Clif Shot Raspberry energy gel. I finished that by 1:09:00. Then at 1:39:00 I started my Clif Bar energy bar, Crunchy Peanut Butter flavor. I took two bites nearly every 9 minutes till I was done. I drank at least 2 or 3 sips of water every 9 minutes too. When I got back I drank about a full litre of Gatorade rather quickly. I then had the privilege of having a 1 hour massage courtesy of our record label. After that, it was nap time. It doesn't get much better than that on a long run day. Here are the run stats!


Distance - 18 miles
Time - 2:39:35
Average Pace - 8:52
Approx Calories - 3811 (I never believe this number)

Read more...

Welcome Back Fika!!

So it's been a while but it sounds like one of my best mates is blogging again and I think it's one worth reading often. Dave is the production manager for downhere and travels with us just about everywhere we go. He is a man who can beat the entire band in a game of trivial pursuit. That's him against all four of us. He's intelligent and witty. So here is the link. Subscribe, visit often and comment. To see the other blogs I think you should check out visit the ones on my side bar.

http://fikatime.blogspot.com/

Glenn

Read more...

Quote from Lord Foulgrin.

In my last post I talked about a book I read called Lord Foulgrin's Letters by Randy Alcorn. Here's a short excerpt from it that shows how these demons are conspiring to make the humans fail.

This is Lord Foulgrin, the senior demon, writing a letter to his subordinate demon, Squaltaint. Fletcher is the name of the human that Squaltaint has been assigned to.

"One of your greatest opportunities to keep Fletcher from becoming a radical Christian is in the area of money and possessions. The carpenter claimed, "A man's life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions." Hold a mirror to those words and you have our perfect strategy.

It's a matter of physics Squaltaint. The more things the maggot-feeders accumulate, the greater their total mass. The greater the mass, the greater its gravitational pull. This sets the vermin in orbit around their things. Finally, like a black hole, their money and possessions suck them in. The vermin become indistinguishable from the things that hold them."

Interesting to think that a demon assigned to you may be getting these instructions . . .

Glenn

Read more...

Two books to read.

Well I’ve finished a couple of books in the past week or two that I’d like to tell you about.

I’ll start with the one that I think is a must read, especially if you are a guy. It’s quite sad (yes, I did cry) but full of hope at the same time. It’s called Samson and the Pirate Monks and it’s by Nate Larkin. Here’s an excerpt from the back:

“Samson, that hairy, rugged individualist, that charismatic biblical leader and ladies’ man with a pirate’s nature, was a real man. But all of that couldn’t save him from his own temptations. His story is something Nate Larkin knows all about: the mistakes, the detours, and the wrong choices that bring lots of men – good men - to their knees.”

Nate is part of a group of guys that meet together weekly and call themselves the Samson Society. This “society” is a place where chains are released and freedom is found. Even when we decide to give control of our lives to Jesus we still very much want to control some of it ourselves. Yes, people the world call Christians, don’t always follow what Jesus said. Nate makes himself quite vulnerable and shares how his life unfolded and how he didn’t give full control to Jesus. Even though he was a pastor’s son and eventually became a pastor himself he still had the same difficulty any human has battling sin. His story is a good reminder that any of us could get to the brutal place he did. One poor choice after another and, to use a too often used saying, we’re down that slippery slope.

Nate promises on the back cover that the story inside isn’t boring. I couldn’t agree more. Men’s ministries are finally starting to pop up at churches everywhere and this book provides a great way for men to have authentic and honest brotherhood with each other which will help them be stronger followers of Jesus. Highly recommended!

The second book I read is called Lord Foulgrin’s Letters and it’s by Randy Alcorn. There’s another book out there by C.S. Lewis called The Screwtape Letters which Randy used as a basis for his book. (By the was, I just found out that C.S. Lewis was born about 20 minutes from where I sit here in Northern Ireland.) The idea is a senior demon is writing letters to a subordinate demon about how he can best tempt his human and keep him from giving his life away to Jesus. This book gives us a good look at some of the possible strategies the devil uses to keep us from God. It also reminded me of the very real spiritual battle that is always going on that we have forgotten about or just choose to ignore.

I thought I might be spooked out a little reading this book as it is about demons but that didn’t seem to be an issue at all. I was even reading it before sleeping! So don’t let that deter you. God is in charge of the universe and He’s living in me so I have nothing to fear. If He's in you too than neither do you! Pretty amazing!

GL

Read more...

Incarnation and The Urban Halo

Incarnation. I’ve known this word for a long time. I’ve heard it many times in church and in Christian circles but I’m not sure I’ve ever fully understood it. Some suggest that we will never fully understand it.

I looked up incarnation in a few places but found this great explanation in a program I have called Quickverse. A book that is contained in Quickverse called The Handbook of Bible Application, came up with this when I searched incarnation.

Sacrificial giving imitates Christ. There is no evidence that Jesus was any poorer than most first-century Palestinians; rather, Jesus became poor by giving up his rights as God and becoming human. In his incarnation God voluntarily became man—the wholly human person, Jesus of Nazareth. As a man, Jesus was subject to place, time, and other human limitations. He did not give up his eternal power when he became human, but he did set aside his glory and his rights. In response to the Father’s will, he limited his power and knowledge. Christ became “poor” when he became human, because he set aside so much. Yet by doing so, he made us “rich” because we received salvation and eternal life.

One of the books I’ve recently read is by an author named Craig Greenfield and is titled The Urban Halo. This book has helped me to understand what incarnation means to a better degree. Craig and his wife voluntarily gave up their rights and position as people who live quite comfortably in Western culture and moved into the slums of Cambodia. While there, they worked with an organization called Servants to Asia’s Urban Poor. One of the five Biblical principals that “Servants” workers are motivated by is incarnation. Here is what they say about it.

Incarnation: We live with the urban poor, learning from them, building genuine relationships, participating in their lives and struggles, learning their language and their culture, and working out how Jesus’ love can best be shown in their context.

I also have family members who are working in the downtown east side of Vancouver, British Columbia doing a similar ministry except with the Salvation Army. I’ll never forget walking down the streets of downtown Vancouver with my brother-in-law Jon. We passed a lot of “street people”. Some were scary but most were just people that I normally would not want to get involved with. And Jon seemed to know them all! By name! (Yes I felt a little guilty and convicted.)

My family members and Craig (the author of The Urban Halo) have both done what Jesus did. Even though they are not poor, they willingly gave up what they could normally have, and became poor. Poor financially, sure, but also poor in where they live and the friends they keep. At least that is what it looks like to the world.

I think this is part of what incarnation is all about. Except that what we have to give up on this Earth can’t be compared to what Jesus gave up leaving God’s side in Heaven.

I love my brother and sister in law and am very proud of them and what they are doing. I’m also thankful to them for helping me better understand what incarnational ministry is all about. I don’t know Craig at all but I would suggest picking up a copy of his book. His book covers a lot of great things including a new model of how to look after orphans and what daily life is like living in the slums of Cambodia. Plus it will give you a first hand view of what incarnational living is all about!

GL

Read more...

A New Idea!

More to come on this later but I'm excited about this so I'm mentioning it right away. We have been planning on putting together a Team Downhere running club. Here's the beginning stages of what it will be about.

The purpose of Team Downhere is to Condition, Connect and Contribute. We want to Condition ourselves physically, mentally and spiritually to be in the best shape possible. We want to Connect with each other so that we can encourage one another and help each other along in this journey. We want to Contribute by having others benefit from all that we do as Team Downhere.

So as we travel around with downhere we'll let people know where we are and hopefully be able to get a run in with some team members. Beyond that we'll have marathons and half marathons that we'll participate in where we will try to help others in need through the organization World Vision. For instance, the goal chosen ahead of time for the team could be to help a community that is in need of clean water by raising enough money to dig a deep well for them. Or the goal may be to help some families by providing specific farm animals or even enough animals to start a farm for themselves. As a team working towards this we believe we'll be able to accomplish much.

We also want to help people get started running and give people who are already running motivation to keep going. Things like developing training programs, and creating regional running groups are some of the things that we think would be beneficial.

Now what I'm extra excited about is that we are planning our inaugural run to be in Nashville April 2008 and we just secured a Team Downhere $10 discount for the run. So now it really feels like the wheels are in motion.

I'll write more as we get the main web site up and developed. We're still working on how everything will work but I was bursting and thought some of you would like to know about it!!

If this interests any of you drop me a comment or tell me in person and I'd love to tell you more about it.

GL

Read more...

My son the artist!

Thanks Randy for a post with some great pictures. We visited our friends Randy and Chris yesterday while in Franklin. Randy is the one who is really responsible for starting my running career. Randy is a painter and had his easel and paints set up. Since Jonah loves to paint he asked pretty quick if he could paint. He made some pretty cool creations. We'll have to scan a couple and put them up. Anyway, check out Randy's blog to see Jonah in action.

GL

Read more...

Good old Peanut Butter

Well I haven't been in Sweden for a couple of weeks now so I guess it's time to update ye olde blog. I wish I was still running like I did in Sweden though. I had my fastest 8 miles ever while there. I ran 8 miles in 59:30 and that's with taking all of my walk breaks except for one. I take a 1 minute walk break after every 9 minutes of running.

Anyway, I've been on a bit of a peanut butter kick for the last few months and it turns out it was a smart move. Check out this article I found on Runnersworld.com.

PEANUT BUTTER A GREAT RUNNER'S FOOD
It sticks to your mouth-and to your muscles

We all know that peanut butter sticks to the roof of your mouth. But do you know that peanut butter might also help you "stick it out" during a hard workout or an intense race? It's true. In fact, peanut butter-yes, that sticky companion to jelly on all those sandwiches your mom made-just might be the best runner's food on the planet.

"When it comes to the food choices runners can make, you can't do much better than peanut butter," says sports dietitian Nancy Clark, author of Nancy Clark's Sports Nutrition Guidebook.

To read the full article go here.

As an aside, while I was in Northern Ireland a couple of years ago we were having sandwiches at a friends house. I decided to have a peanut butter and jam sandwich. The mention of this combination was too much for our host. She couldn't believe I would possibly put those two things together. Funny how a staple sandwich here doesn't even exist there. Then again we don't often have an Ulster Fry here do we? To find out what an Ulster Fry is you may have to ask our resident Northern Ireland blogger Supersimbo.

Glenn

Read more...