It’s time to dance!

Everyone let’s do the ChaCha!  Before you run for the hills let me tell you what I am talking about and why you might want to give it try.  Have you ever been somewhere and needed a piece of information and could not recall the answer?  I am not talking about “Where are the car keys?” but something far more important like “Who was the quarterback of the New England Patriots before Tom Brady?”  This was stumping a few of us at lunch during Superbowl season and we just could not remember.  I started typing away on my Palm Centro and gave up after clicking on a few wrong links and left it to when I got home later.

Had I known about ChaCha then it would have changed everything.  ChaCha is an information service that lets you call a number (800-224-2242) or send a text (242242) with a question to a group of people they have recruited as researchers who then look up the question and text you back the answer.  Now granted you are trusting someone else’s research but in a jam or just for fun it can get you an answer to that hard (or easy) to answer question without much effort.  The best part is that it costs nothing (for now).  Give it a try and let me know what you think – one thing for sure, it makes Trivial Pursuit and Jeopardy a whole new kind of game.

By the way, if you are one of those people that just know everything or how to find the answer, you can join their research team and get paid to provide answers to the questions other people ask, might be the part time job you were looking for all along.

Keane

PS – In case you were wondering, Drew Bledsoe was the quarterback before Tom Brady of the Patriots.

 

Taking time to Heal

Oh no, another blogger that posts more rarely than some of the scenery in Planet Earth.  I could appologize and give any number of reasons but it is just a combination of the busyness of life and other priorities winning out. 

I guess the other reason for not posting so much is my view of running for the first part of this year.  I found out early this year that I had a bone spur on top of my foot and tried to decided how serious an issue it was and if I should deal with it or not.  I have an incredible doctor that knows about running, knows about feet and tells me like it is; if I choose to listen, well that is another story.  This time I did and in an effort to save my year from not having any races, I had my foot cut open on Tuesday of this week and had the “extra bone removed”.  This should give me enough time to heal, train and run a late October or November race – it is when most of the great races happen anyway.

So running has fallen by the side and I struggled to even read Running World because I knew I was going to have to stop and heal.   I would look at other runners and look at my growing weight issue and long to correct it but had lost the motivation because I knew this operation was coming.  In hindsight it was the wrong approach but I realized it too late.  With the operation luming this past weekend I searched for a time to fit a run in but my life had shifted and now there seemed to be no time to run – it had lost its place in my life. 

Now, post surgery, I cannot run at all and struggle to even remain upright for any extened period of time (per doctor’s orders) I now have an even clearer picture of what I have forsaken and the enjoyment that running provides for my life and body.  This break will pass and my body will heal and I will run again but with a new perspective.  It is something I labor and push through pain for but now I will appreciate both of those so much more!  I will return to running for all sorts of reasons.

It actually reminds me of a verse in Revelation 2:4 where God says through John that the people have lost their first love!  I am in no way equating my love for the Lord with the joy I get from running but this verse does help us to understand when our perspective is off it has far reaching impact on our life.  In this verse it shows as something God holds against us but when other things in our life are out of balance it also will have impact.  I am going to seek to restablish that balance as my body heals so that it will help keep the rest of my life in check – running is one part of that equation that I lost sight of and will return to again as soon as my awesome God creator finishes healing my body.

 

Coroebus 2007

Ok so who is Coroebus?  He is the first Olympic Champion that won the sole event at the first Olympics, the stade – a run of approximately 192 meters (210 yards)*.  I would love to say I am a great student of history but really it is the power of Google.

The Olympics have gone through all sorts of changes since then and obviously lots of new sports have been added.  I would have to say a big improvement since the first games has been the addition of clothes!    In 2008 at we will be celebrating the Olympics again with the Summer Olympics in Beijing and one of the events I will be watching closely is the Marathon.

On November 3rd of this year we had the US Olympic Time Trials in New York and it was expected to be one of the greatest trials in quite some time and the event did not disappoint.  As a marathoner with a PR (stands for Personal Record if you are a non-runner) of 3:55:25 I am no were near these guys but am constantly amazed by the gifts God gives different people. 

It was also sad day as a racer by the name of Ryan Shay died shortly after he started the race.  I will not go into the details but you can read about it here if you were not aware.  I would like to extend my symathy to Ryan’s family and friends and let them know many people have been praying for them during this difficult time.

In the end there were 3 slots to be filled from the field of runners and they were taken by Ryan Hall, Dathan Ritzenhein and Brian Sell – Great Job Guys!  I was intrigued as I read more about Ryan Hall, the winner with a time of 2:09:02 (WOW!) and his attitude towards running. 

 

Photographs by Victah Sailer
 

Without a doubt he sees it as a gift from God and something he can use to serve and glorify Him – cool stuff.  So as I was searching the web (that Google thing again)  came across some videos on the web that a number of the guys pulled together that shows how they prepped for the Time Trials.  I really enjoyed watching them and hope you can too.

Episode 1 – Olympic Trials Training Camp – Silver Medalist Meb Keflezighi, Dan Browne, Josh Cox

Episode 2 – Olympic Trials Training Camp – A National TItle

Episode 3 – Olympic Trials Training Camp – Josh Qualifies

Episode 4 – Olympic Trials Training Camp – Freezing Creek

Episode 5 – Olympic Trials Training Camp – Radio Show

This is another cool one that Ryan Hall put out as well – The Ryan Hall Story – 2008 Olympian

 Keane

* – Source is from About.com 

It has to start somewhere…

At least that is what I keep telling myself.  Change is something that has never been much of an issue for me and something on the whole I am very comfortable with going through.  For some reason though, I have dragged my feet in changing how I communicate.  Not that the old fashioned way of face-to-face or the land-line is going away but increasing my electronic communication is a must and thus this blog!

No doubt that there is already a forest of blogs and people sharing but each one is unique in its own special way.  So what is the point of this one?  Quite simply to share with others that have the same interest as myself.  If you are looking for a complete list to compare with your interests it might be a bit difficult because mine are rather eclectic but some of the topics include:

• running
• faith
• technology
• sales
• music
• books
• much more

All those come together to make up the title.  I love to run but there is only so much time to do that so lets talk about that and the other stuff too!

I look forward to us sharing thoughts together and getting to know one another!

Keane