I am currently re-reading three books, in addition to reading at least 2 others. I would recommend every one of these books to anyone interested in their topics.
The first is The Book of Mormon. It is building block for my religion, and until you have made a point of reading and pondering over the gospels written on its pages, you will have a difficult time fully understanding my faith.
The second book was given to my father by by eldest brother in an attempt to get our dad to get back in shape. The book is titled 'Born to Run' and is written by Christopher McDougall. The book is an inspiration for anyone who has had a desire to run. It tells an in depth story of how one man compiles a host of running secrets in an effort uncover why the heck his foot hurt. It is the sort of book that goes beyond simply running, and has helped to encourage and inspire me in my preparation for serving a mission as well as for the rest of my life.
The third book was given to me directly from my brother for Christmas. 'Four Hour Body' attempts to break down all the norms and popular thought of weight loss, muscle gain, endurance running, fat burn, and sleep, and help you to become the person you want to be. These three books are entertaining, intriguing, thought provoking, and inspirational.
After finishing each of these books, I found myself looking at how to change the way I live my life to fit within the logical and simple teachings in each book. By putting them together, I have complied my very own version of a 'How to live a healthy, uplifting life that will bring you friends and eternal happiness and exaltation for Dummies.'
This post will focus mostly on 'Born to Run' because it is the one I am trying to finish reading the fastest at the moment.
As my previous postings may have hinted at, I enjoy running. In the mornings, I lace up my shoes, run to Planet Fitness, and work out before showering and suiting up for work four doors away. At night, i change into my running clothes and head back home. I haven't run a race since quitting track 2 and a half years ago, but I have helped supervise Runners Club two years in a row, bought three new pairs of running shoes, looked for new paths around De Pere and Sheboygan, and spent countless hours hitting the pavement. Because I was no longer racing, I was no longer forcing myself to train. I left half a dozen watches to gather dust on my desk as I ran farther and faster than when I was a second semester collegiate track athlete. All because I still loved to run.
That love had since faded slightly, and this summer, I even decided that I was no longer a runner, and would focus on putting on muscle mass to play football or rugby. Then I started reading 'Born to Run.' Before even finishing the book the first time, I found myself with an irrepressable urge to put on my 800 meter racing flats and just start running. Now, anyone with 0-10 years of running experience will tell you that for running you need to buy shoes that protect and pad your foot and heel, support your arch, and prevent the sway and rock or your foot. These shoes did absolutely NONE of those things. I made it 18 miles, and when I got home, I put the veggies in the pot roast that had been on the stove the last 2 1/2 hours, took off my shoes, and ran another 20 minutes barefoot while the meaty juices soaked into the carrots, onions, and potatoes. It was the best tasting meal I had ever had. The next day, I could barely walk (but in my defense, I had no muscle soreness, no joint pain, and no mental fatigue). A doctor informed me that I had royally messed up my cuboid bone, the EXACT same injury that led Douglas McDougall to fall to the ground screaming that a nail had pierced his foot only to find that there was nothing he could see at all. He went to two doctors who offered cortisone shots, told to buy custom made orthotics, and was advised to stop running. Thus, the book came to be.
I did none of these things, and ran another 15 miles at midnight on Sunday/Monday (so that I wouldn't be working out on Sunday) just three days after crippling myself, and followed that with a 16 mile effort Tuesday afternoon. I had become hooked on running again. There is a simple joy at being able to just throw on some shoes and run away from the world for hours at a time.
I have tell all of my friends that have ever run about this book when the opportunity arises. Anyone that is training for marathons, I advise to read this book. If someone wants to get into running for the first time, this is a great book to read. In other words, if you have run your whole life, recreationally, for your first marathon, or never even worn running shoes before, you can learn so much specific and broad information in this book that would take years extremely difficult and boring research attempting to find it anywhere else.
I am trying to balance my time right now between working, reading the BoM, Born to Run, perusing Four Hour Body, and now blogging/journaling. It leaves very little time for doing other things, so if you run into me and you notice I smell funky, then I was reading instead of doing my laundry or showering, or if I begin losing weight, I am blogging instead of eating (which reminds me... i haven't had dinner yet!).
In all honesty, I have found that running can hurt me more than most anything else I do, but it can make me feel amazing, even while wanting to cry. So i challenge each reader (that means YOU!!!) to make an effort to, at some point in the next two weeks, put on a pair of old, broken in shoes, and just start jogging. If you can sing Josh Gorban's rendition of 'Oh Holy Night,' you are going too slow. If you can't carry on a simplified conversation, you are going too fast. But go out, find a course that you can find natural beauty in, and find your running zone. If you do it right, you won't even know that you were gone for 60, 90, or even 185 minutes. Heck, you may even run a marathon before you get back. Our bodies were made to run, and we each have an impulse to become a runner. Find peace in running, and you will be on your way to finding yourself.
Friday, September 30, 2011
Thursday, September 29, 2011
What in my world is going on?
I am currently deeply immersed in the football season. I spend much more time than I should reading every article that sparks my interest, whether it be about the Packers (repeats, me thinks!), a team by team outlook of the lowly NFC West, how the Bills are going to play the Lions in the Super Bowl (as one NFL writer put it, 'One of them has to win, right?'), how Vince Young's Dream Team has become a nightmare, or how Cam Newton is the most impressive rookie quarterback ever (but let's face it. He isn't really a rookie. He played pro football for Auburn).
I have always loved football.The fall has always been a favorite time of the year for me. The Packers have been one of the most successful teams since 1992, the Badgers have emerged again as a powerful program, St. Norbert fought the fifth ranked Tommies tooth and nail, and BYU is doing it's darndest to to succeed as an independent, no thanks to Utah (for anyone who was humiliated by the defeat, take some time to read D&C 54:10, the final score of the game). I grab a ball, and just toss it up and down to myself as I fall asleep, and try and get anyone I can to play a pickup game of tackle, and played on four different SNC intramural flag football teams last year. I dream of working out to the point where I ripple with muscle, run a 4.5 forty yard dash, and can catch a ball one handed with my eyes closed while eating a pizza standing on my head. But instead, I am still a guy people look at and say that I weigh 106 pounds.
I ran. I still run at my leisure. I want to run a 50 mile race when I get back from my mission, and follow that up with a 100 mile race before I'm 30. I want to qualify for Boston in my first marathon. I want to run in the Scottish Highlands, along the sea, and do the Mountain Marathon in Alaska. I want to get a sponsor for a credit card Gump my way across the US. And I want to do it all while wearing TOMs shoes. I will never excel as a football player, and it tears me apart inside. Every fall finds me cheering my heart heart for whichever of my teams is playing at the time, and feeling sorry for myself that I have never known what it was like to be out on the field. But God gave me the willingness to zone myself out, and plod mile after mile.
People always ask me how I can run. They think of it as boring. I make it a game... literally. Hang out with me for a while, and you will find that I am still very child like. When I run, my favorite games are that I am a Scottish warrior running from an English patrol, or a Roman soldier that needs to desperately find reinforcements. I still, at 22 years of age, pretend I am riding a horse as a Mongolian archer, or piloting an X-wing while biking to work. Wanna run 20 miles, or bike to Green Bay and back? Give yourself a reason to do it. Or even better; give yourself a reason to WANT to go the distance.
I found myself wanting to serve a mission when I found a reason to go. I had lived my life just going through the steps. I had never truly thought about a life path. I had never made a five year plan. I was a senior in high school and thought 'oh yeah, I am supposed to go to college.' But my Junior year of college found me thinking, pondering, and trying to figure out what I really wanted.I found that I was not actually happy. The mission hung over my head every time I came and mothers would ask 'so have you decided to go on a mission yet?' And I had finally started telling people I wasn't going, when I found myself finding out just what a mission could do for me.
Days after I told A that we should prepare to serve a mission together, I began to delve into why I made this choice, and I discovered the reason why. I realized that I would never be as happy without a mission as I would be with having served. The blessings would be without count, but even the temporal lessons would be enough. I would learn time management, how to break out of my comfort zone, financial management, how to interact with a plethora of different personality types, a willingness to sacrifice instant gratification for a belief that what I give up now will be far better in the future. These things alone are well worth the money and time I will invest in a mission.
I may not ever wow thousands of spectators with a tremendous touchdown, but if I can help touch the heart of a single individual and bring them true, everlasting happiness by putting myself in the hands of God for two years, then I have done a great thing. I have found my gridiron, and I intend to do everything I can to be fully prepared when the time comes, and I take the field.
I have always loved football.The fall has always been a favorite time of the year for me. The Packers have been one of the most successful teams since 1992, the Badgers have emerged again as a powerful program, St. Norbert fought the fifth ranked Tommies tooth and nail, and BYU is doing it's darndest to to succeed as an independent, no thanks to Utah (for anyone who was humiliated by the defeat, take some time to read D&C 54:10, the final score of the game). I grab a ball, and just toss it up and down to myself as I fall asleep, and try and get anyone I can to play a pickup game of tackle, and played on four different SNC intramural flag football teams last year. I dream of working out to the point where I ripple with muscle, run a 4.5 forty yard dash, and can catch a ball one handed with my eyes closed while eating a pizza standing on my head. But instead, I am still a guy people look at and say that I weigh 106 pounds.
I ran. I still run at my leisure. I want to run a 50 mile race when I get back from my mission, and follow that up with a 100 mile race before I'm 30. I want to qualify for Boston in my first marathon. I want to run in the Scottish Highlands, along the sea, and do the Mountain Marathon in Alaska. I want to get a sponsor for a credit card Gump my way across the US. And I want to do it all while wearing TOMs shoes. I will never excel as a football player, and it tears me apart inside. Every fall finds me cheering my heart heart for whichever of my teams is playing at the time, and feeling sorry for myself that I have never known what it was like to be out on the field. But God gave me the willingness to zone myself out, and plod mile after mile.
People always ask me how I can run. They think of it as boring. I make it a game... literally. Hang out with me for a while, and you will find that I am still very child like. When I run, my favorite games are that I am a Scottish warrior running from an English patrol, or a Roman soldier that needs to desperately find reinforcements. I still, at 22 years of age, pretend I am riding a horse as a Mongolian archer, or piloting an X-wing while biking to work. Wanna run 20 miles, or bike to Green Bay and back? Give yourself a reason to do it. Or even better; give yourself a reason to WANT to go the distance.
I found myself wanting to serve a mission when I found a reason to go. I had lived my life just going through the steps. I had never truly thought about a life path. I had never made a five year plan. I was a senior in high school and thought 'oh yeah, I am supposed to go to college.' But my Junior year of college found me thinking, pondering, and trying to figure out what I really wanted.I found that I was not actually happy. The mission hung over my head every time I came and mothers would ask 'so have you decided to go on a mission yet?' And I had finally started telling people I wasn't going, when I found myself finding out just what a mission could do for me.
Days after I told A that we should prepare to serve a mission together, I began to delve into why I made this choice, and I discovered the reason why. I realized that I would never be as happy without a mission as I would be with having served. The blessings would be without count, but even the temporal lessons would be enough. I would learn time management, how to break out of my comfort zone, financial management, how to interact with a plethora of different personality types, a willingness to sacrifice instant gratification for a belief that what I give up now will be far better in the future. These things alone are well worth the money and time I will invest in a mission.
I may not ever wow thousands of spectators with a tremendous touchdown, but if I can help touch the heart of a single individual and bring them true, everlasting happiness by putting myself in the hands of God for two years, then I have done a great thing. I have found my gridiron, and I intend to do everything I can to be fully prepared when the time comes, and I take the field.
Wednesday, September 28, 2011
The Beginning
I have been told that the best place to start is the beginning, so here it goes.
I was born in Beloit, WI, to parents of colorful histories. We moved to Sheboygan in 1994, where I began to go to school, and over the years I grew up, and then filled in my lanky frame.
I was raised in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, a religion commonly known as Mormons, so called for the scriptural text titled the "Book of Mormon, Another Testament of Jesus Christ." Members are commonly portrayed as polygamists that are solely intent on baptizing dead people and wear 'magic' underwear. None of these things are accurate.
We no longer practice polygamy (it has been well over a hundred years), we do not baptize dead people, and we have special garments we wear, but for what exact purpose I have yet to know, having not received special blessings and ordinances.
But this is not a story of my Church, but of my faith. My life. My metamorphosis.
I had planned my life around NOT serving a mission for my Church. To a point, I still have not decided to serve a mission for my Church, but for myself.(how SELFISH, you must be thinking. study economics, and you'll learn that all our actions are, technically, selfish.)
In January of 2011, on a snowy and blustery night, I was on my way to Plymouth for a night of video games and Johnsonville products with my friends 'A' and 'S.' A was getting ready to serve a mission, and I asked how it was going. He responded with a non-whining, but slightly downtrodden statement of the difficulties of preparation, at which point I suggested it would be easier if we worked on it together. And that was it. I realized that somewhere between my going to high school and that cold, white night, I had changed drastically.
This blog will not only be a (hopefully entertaining) narrative for you on how I came to be where, and who, I am today, but also a way for me to figure out how I decided to leave all my friends behind, and pay nearly 10 thousand dollar and volunteer to live with men for the next two years. (who the heck am i going to talk about ryan reynolds and gerard butler with?!?!?!?!)
So sit back enjoy, and maybe even throw on some Ke$ha for background music.
I was born in Beloit, WI, to parents of colorful histories. We moved to Sheboygan in 1994, where I began to go to school, and over the years I grew up, and then filled in my lanky frame.
I was raised in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, a religion commonly known as Mormons, so called for the scriptural text titled the "Book of Mormon, Another Testament of Jesus Christ." Members are commonly portrayed as polygamists that are solely intent on baptizing dead people and wear 'magic' underwear. None of these things are accurate.
We no longer practice polygamy (it has been well over a hundred years), we do not baptize dead people, and we have special garments we wear, but for what exact purpose I have yet to know, having not received special blessings and ordinances.
But this is not a story of my Church, but of my faith. My life. My metamorphosis.
I had planned my life around NOT serving a mission for my Church. To a point, I still have not decided to serve a mission for my Church, but for myself.(how SELFISH, you must be thinking. study economics, and you'll learn that all our actions are, technically, selfish.)
In January of 2011, on a snowy and blustery night, I was on my way to Plymouth for a night of video games and Johnsonville products with my friends 'A' and 'S.' A was getting ready to serve a mission, and I asked how it was going. He responded with a non-whining, but slightly downtrodden statement of the difficulties of preparation, at which point I suggested it would be easier if we worked on it together. And that was it. I realized that somewhere between my going to high school and that cold, white night, I had changed drastically.
This blog will not only be a (hopefully entertaining) narrative for you on how I came to be where, and who, I am today, but also a way for me to figure out how I decided to leave all my friends behind, and pay nearly 10 thousand dollar and volunteer to live with men for the next two years. (who the heck am i going to talk about ryan reynolds and gerard butler with?!?!?!?!)
So sit back enjoy, and maybe even throw on some Ke$ha for background music.
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