Passed by a Christmas Tree

I was proud to bring my marathon time back under five hours on Sunday, yet a few things from the race kept me humble.

Like getting passed by a Christmas tree on Mile 7.

I typically get passed by a couple runners pushing strollers. That only happened twice on Sunday, right around the 5K point, and those runners may have been running the 5K or half marathon.

Then, shortly after I had passed the Mile 6 marker, I heard a jingling sound behind me, and in my peripheral vision came a Christmas tree, chugging up next to me. As soon as she passed me, I commented aloud, “I think I just got passed by a Christmas tree.” The ornamented stunt runner, and those nearby, chuckled. I passed her back a minute or two later.

A few minutes after that, she passed me for good, and I didn’t see her Christmas lights again until I reached the finish line, where she apparently arrived about six minutes before I did. However, for roughly twenty miles, I saw the occasional shred of tinsel along the course, where she had just run.

I had also run the Jacksonville Marathon in December 2005. One of my memories from that race is being somewhere near Mile 4, one week before Christmas, and having to endure Kenny G.’s Christmas hits from police motorcycles patrolling the course. I had hoped for something a bit more “Eye of the Tiger”-esque while running.

The 2012 race, my seventh full marathon (see recap from my sixth marathon here), came on a gorgeous day. We had fog at the start. Overcast weather is nice for a distance race, and it’s tough to get much more overcast than fog. By the time I reached the point where the Kenny G. Christmas music was – mercifully – not playing, the fog had lifted, and it was a comfortable, sunny day. Most of the course had shade, so we had a pretty day, without a ton of direct sunlight.

This race completed my race circuit of two half marathons and three full marathons in 2012. My main reason for adding this race was to keep me on track, physically, for climbing Mount Kilimanjaro in January 2013.

Boom Goes the Napoleon

I subbed for a French teacher. She had students complete a packet on Napoleon Bonaparte. A middle school student, being completely serious, said, “I thought it was Napoleon Dynamite.”

Upon hearing this, my brother, who used to maintain a blog, commented, “That would have been Napoleon Blown-apart.”

“We need your prayers.”

I lived in a predominantly Muslim nation in North Africa for half a decade. Each Sunday, I went to one of the nation’s few registered Protestant churches, where the government allowed foreigners (like myself) to gather. We willingly and intentionally prayed each Sunday for our host nation’s head of state, asking God: to bless him; to give him and his advisors wisdom to lead well; and to help him lead in a way that brought God glory. At one point, leaders from our church even met with the head of state and communicated the church’s commitment to praying for him weekly. I wasn’t there when the church leaders met with him, but I remember hearing that the head of state replied, “We need your prayers.” That sort of solidified our commitment and built in a bit of accountability to follow through with what we said we’d do.

Over the past few years of living in the United States, where I’ve regularly attended one church and freely visited several others, I’ve found this sort of intentional, public, weekly prayer rare, if it has happened at all. Admittedly, I haven’t made it a priority for myself, even though I intentionally spend daily time in prayer.

For followers of Christ, prayer for our leadership isn’t optional. It doesn’t depend on a leader’s walk of life or whether an election is coming up soon. It’s simply something the Bible urges us to do.

Ciderman

After church this morning, we decided to avail ourselves of the apple cider at the church café. My nephew, just days removed from trick-or-treating, still had Spiderman on his mind. Look at his hat. For real...Spiderman was on his mind.

I think it was difficult for him to understand that we were drinking cider, not spiders. “Warm spider?” he asked. I decided not to fight it. “Yes, it’s warm spider. Please just drink it.”

To the Rooftop

Both of my readers have probably noticed a paucity of W&O posts lately. To each of you: I’m sorry.

Over the next few months, you may have more success getting regular posts from Journey to the Rooftop of Africa, which highlights a trek up Mount Kilimanjaro I plan to join, while helping raise funds to help eMi: East Africa. (I could probably write the name of that organization a different way, but I like the nod toward a popular crime show that writing it as I did affords.)

The last time I did something athletic to raise money for something significant was a couple years ago, when I ran in Wisconsin with my friend, Ben. This time, I am working with my friend, Jeff.

See you on the Rooftop!

New Pirate-y Version

Today is International Talk Like a Pirate Day, a subject of at least one previous post. Interestingly enough, one of my favorite sites featured the verse below, which I have taken the liberty to translate into Pirate. Seemed fitting.

“Let nay corruptin’ talk come ou’ o’ yer mouths, but only such as be good fer buildin’ up, as fits th’ occasion, that ‘t may give grace t’ them who hear.” – Ephesians 4:29 (New Pirate-y Version)

Notes on Number Six

I finished. After essentially not training for my sixth marathon, I crossed the line roughly six minutes slower than I did in my fifth full marathon, fifteen weeks earlier, in June.

This race featured a few firsts for me:

• Running a full marathon that I had run previously (last time: 2009, click here for recap).
• Eating a Krispy Kreme doughnut during a race. While I had previously eaten a Krispy Kreme doughnut a couple days before a race, this was the first time I downed a doughnut mid-race – or while running, in general, for that matter. In 2009, when I ran the Air Force Marathon, Mile 17 traversed a runway. At first, I thought, “Cool, I’m running on a runway!” Then, with the sun beating down on the hot, asphalt surface of the runway, it quickly became less cool. This year, the course did not include the runway, but included volunteers offering Krispy Kreme doughnuts, instead. Much improved, race organizers!
• Quite possibly too much information, but...this was the first race, of any distance, during which I availed myself of those little green booths along the course.

A few notes on what I wore:

• The shirt and shorts have now completed fourteen half marathons and six full marathons with me. They kind of feel like friends.
• I wore the socks through a Peruvian mudslide in April.
• The shoes still have African dirt on them from August.

Two more notes:

• My favorite spectator sign, which I saw in downtown Fairborn during Mile Ten, read: “WWHHD: What would Hal Higdon do?” Made me smile.
• As I crossed the finish line, the announcer said, “We’re at five hours and twenty-eight minutes, so David just crushed the five-thirty!” Take off a few more minutes for my chip time, and yes...I suppose I did.

Chocolate Olympics

Victory Celebration!

 

Not pictured: The chocolate that aped.


And the events...

Rowing

Volleyball

 

Archery

Weightlifting

King Solomon and the Olympics

A few days ago, I was reading the Old Testament and came across 2 Chronicles 9:21, which occurs in the context of a passage detailing King Solomon’s wealth, power and splendor.

With the 2012 Summer Olympics set to get underway, I couldn’t help but notice a few things:

• First, the ships came from Tarshish once every three years – not quite quadrennial, but close enough to get me thinking of the Olympic rings.
• Second, I saw the progression of “gold, silver...” and ivory, rather than bronze. It was a different era. Perhaps ivory worked for third place.
• The next part really got me thinking. The fourth item on the list was “apes.” It’s hard for me to comprehend why a shipment of apes would be interpreted as a gesture of goodwill. Odds are, if a courier arrives at my doorstep today with a shipment of apes from you, a courier will not be arriving at your doorstep in December with a Christmas card from me. Seriously, what am I supposed to do with a boatload of apes?
• Back to the Olympic theme... What if athletes who finished fourth – just barely missing the bronze medal – were given apes to commemorate their almost-medal-worthy Olympic accomplishments? Imagine the conversations with the grandkids. “You competed in the Olympics? Did you medal?” “Nope, I aped.”
• Finally, among different translations of the Bible, there seems to be some discrepancy about what the fifth item on the list actually was. Some versions list the fifth item as “monkeys” or “baboons.” Both of these are primates, and while differences among species are important, at least these two species have opposable thumbs in common. Other versions list “peacocks” fifth. I don’t understand how anyone could confuse a baboon with a peacock.
• It’s interesting, though, that NBC, whose logo includes a peacock, is broadcasting the 2012 Summer Olympics.

Water and Light

Splash

Photos below are from the Atlantic Ocean and should not be confused with the photo from this post.

Shades

“Zapped” Art

Letterbox Photos

Something about these photos needed to be in letterbox format.

Five Full

On a mostly overcast day in San Diego, I completed my fifth full marathon. It was easily my slowest 26.2-mile effort, requiring me over five hours to reach the finish line. I accomplished my primary goal of completing the race. It remains unclear whether a certain earlier post-run snack helped or hindered my effort. Regardless, if ever I aim for marathons in all fifty states, that’s three down, forty-seven to go. At my current pace it would take over ten full days of racing alone to complete that goal!

Meanwhile, in another time zone, another friend set a personal best in a full marathon, just four weeks after setting a personal best in a half marathon we ran together. Congrats, Ben!

And then, because I received a free ticket to SeaWorld® from the race, and the race ended in the SeaWorld® parking lot, I visited Shamu.

Numa, Petco, Retro

The marathon kicked in a complimentary Padres ticket. No pierogies raced at the game. However, a certain Numa Numa clip made an appearance. I’m struggling to decide which of these more indicated that the best action at the ballpark wasn’t happening on the field: the “Numa Numa” dance or “The Wave” (which also made an appearance during the game).

Also, I wonder whether the Numa Numa guy ever realized, when he made his famous video, that he’d eventually be featured on MLB scoreboards between innings.

Marathon just two days away, but...

...today is National Doughnut Day in the USA! Krispy Kreme gave me a key lime pie doughnut, no purchase necessary.  I ran for half an hour immediately before visiting their store.  Yes, good has been done here today.

Pierogi Justice

When you go to a baseball game and your team loses, yea, fails even to score until the ninth inning, you have to find something about which to cheer. So you cheer for scampering pierogies.

I decided to cheer for Oliver Onion, the purple pierogi, in the Great Pierogi Race. Unfortunately, whoever was in the Oliver suit ran as though he or she had recently eaten several pierogies. In other words, in this four-pierogi race, it was a bad day to have Oliver in your trifecta.

Then scandal struck. With Oliver Onion and their green-behatted co-competitor, Jalapeño Hannah, left in the dust, Cheese Chester (yellow hat) and Sauerkraut Saul (red hat) surged ahead toward a photo finish. From my perch in the cheap seats behind the first base side of home plate, I snapped one photo of the finish line and determined that Cheese Chester won, quite literally, by a nose. Much to my chagrin, however, the public address announcer awarded the race to Sauerkraut Saul.

A few innings later, the public address announcer made a special announcement, explaining that those in attendance were at the ballpark on a very momentous occasion: the day when they reversed the results of the Great Pierogi Race! After pierogi race officials reviewed the frame-by-frame photos of the finish line, they determined that Cheese Chester had indeed won. I left the ballpark saddened that my baseball team lost, but heartened that pierogi justice had prevailed.

In addition, I was pretty pleased that my single frame of the finish, which I captured from the cheap seats, correctly indicated the result of the race.

Video Highlights of 2012 Wisconsin Half Marathon

Below are video highlights from the 2012 Wisconsin Half Marathon. You can read my recap here, and Ben’s recap here.

Run Faster, Not Cheesier

During last year’s version of the Wisconsin Marathon, the emphasis – ours and the race’s – was on cheesiness. This year the race went a somewhat tackier route (at least on the medal, T-shirt, etc.), and we focused on running faster times. Ben ran his fastest time to date at the half marathon distance. I improved roughly eight minutes over the time I ran in my thirteenth half marathon, just seven weeks earlier.

It’s too bad that race organizers didn’t pick up on the Cinco de Mayo theme this year. The race is slotted for the first Saturday in May, but that only occasionally coincides with May 5. If anyone was wearing a cheesy sombrero, I didn’t see it. I even inquired about cheesy sombreros at the expo. In any case, it would have been fun to see a Wisconsin take on Cinco de Mayo.