If I Die In My 1st Marathon...

1. I should back track. If I'm to survive my 1st marathon, please note that I promise to purchase a watch in preparation for my 2nd. I will also study a pace chart, thoroughly get to know the course and do long runs that span longer than 7 miles.

2. Big Sur to Monterrey isn't a bad location to keel over. Amongst the redwoods and with an ocean view.

3. I want to be cremated, my ashes tossed in the Pacific. I want a memorial service with many friends and family, a post-party with Marty doing something stupid (probably a female), and a picture of me shirtless and a caption reading, "The Incredible Hul-labaloo"

4. A picture of me doing stand-up with a caption reading, "please don't laugh."

5. For some of the meaningful things I've tried to say to take on some sort of meaning, and furthermore, application in others' lives.

6. To know that jokes and goofing around have a meaning far beyond the exultation a punchline exudes.

7. If you want something, do it now. Don't wait. Don't rationalize it until later. Do it now. Hence 26.2.

8. The Simpsons is a great education.

9. Why I could die happy at 23 and why I'm running a marathon:

"...Hans felt...at peace with himself and what he was doing. He had always been terrified of plane turbulence, as if he might die with the best inside of him, but now he could fly through a violent storm sleeping like a baby. Strange indeed." - The 4-Hour Workweek, page 39.

and... "you don't need to prove nothin' to nobody except yourself." - guess the apropo movie title

Yellow: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qI8I6qcxWyU

Running and News Converge

I was scanning PBS.com today and found an article on their home page about "environmentally conscious kids." A major point within the article, written by Alan Fortescue -- the Director of Education for the Earthwatch Institute, was how parents educate their children on the environment. The answer: "...one thing does more to foster environmental consciousness than anything else; this is simply the act of getting children outdoors." (to read the whole article: http://www.pbs.org/parents/experts/)

Experiential learning or learning by doing.

Good for PBS, but visit any classroom and I'll bet you'll find a solid percentage of students who are bored from sitting in a classroom. My last year of college I worked at a non-profit organization called Florida Campus Compact. Our job was to serve, enhance and promote service-learning in colleges and universities in Florida. What is service-learning? Basically, its getting a grade based on actually going out in the community and performing service for an organization affiliated with the subject you're learning about.

I'm a solid believer in this type of learning. When you get out of school, there's no road map. No course schedule. No block scheduling. Its all an elective. Inventors and innovators don't sit back and follow every instruction. They get to know the rules and they try to break them to see if they can make the system better.

(Picture of where my first marathon will be in Big Sur, CA)

On a personal level, running has brought me closer to the environment. My love for trails, for the smell of freshly mowed grass, for fields and pines, all comes from my experience running. Some find this same love through cycling, through hiking, through science and discovery. Thus this proves one more point. Health, science and the environment are all related. When we throw money at these things, creating jobs and drawing many more to the outdoors, the economy becomes deeply ingratiated, too.

Admittingly, I stopped reading the whole article as I've written to this point. Before publishing the post, however, I went back one more time to look over the PBS article. Turns out, there's a pretty interesting fact that sort of relates to my prior points.

"A recent study of 300 of the world's most innovative thinkers and leaders showed clear links between childhood immersion in nature and an out-of-the-box creativity and tireless commitment to society."

Matt Costa: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LgSHVf_DftU

78 Degrees and Sunny

Today was a fartlek day. That means I run fast and then slow and fast and slow, but just keep running. It's a fun workout for me because I can control when and how much I change my pace, while getting the aerobic benefits of a moderately-distanced run as well as the speed of a light interval workout.

It was nice because I wasn't bored, my mind wasn't spinning around in circles as it often does on regular runs, nor was I gasping for breath the whole time. In the end I was gasping, but throughout it was fairly smooth. California cherry blossoms in full bloom and summer on the horizon, my mind flash backed to the neighborhoods in Tampa where I began my running. Similar smells, similar feels.

In the movie, "Happy Gilmore," Adam Sandler is told by his golf coach to go to his "Happy Place." My apologies for sounding so corny, but this was sort of mine. Kind of like singing in the shower, running through quiet neighborhoods on clear afternoons has a unique solitude that I've appreciated since I began doing this thing. It's when you do something so much for a period of time, back off from it, and then go back to it and have the same positive feeling that you know you truly appreciate it.

The conclusion of a run and a day like this is the best. When it is all done with, you've cooled down, maybe done some stretching, grab a huge Gatorade, and then sit or lay or drive slow and play some good music. Sort of zen-like.

Tomorrow, maybe my agitated mind will use tomorrow's run to try to grapple with the AIG mess or Obama's selling of the economic bailout (he's in So Cal doing a town hall today and on Leno tomorrow). For now though, I'll use the ignorance-is-bliss card and go for a drive.

Serenity: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U-i_AcTz0UU Jack Johnson, Breakdown

Justin

Running for Perspective - Madoff, Cramer, Stewart

In a week featuring swindler Bernie Madoff, a somewhat sane Jim Cramer, and a sobering and serious Jon Stewart, I found my running a good place to discover my own reality. My runs, well not all but some, had this sort of guy-standing-sedately-as-a-tornado-chaotically-swirled-around-him feel to it. Kind of like some of those Zack Braff scenes from the movie "Garden State"--like when the airplane experiences turbulence, people go crazy, and he sits mildly, staring blankly.

Some of the runs I do are boring, a struggle to just keep performing the act. These didn't have that feel. No performance and no act. Instead, they felt like an escape to normalcy, where the legs just move and the arms sway and the last thing I'm thinking about is what I'm doing.

My decisions to run this week were instinctive and the time spent was alone, as if I am someone famous and had to have my "Justin Time." On a side note, whenever someone places their name followed by the word "Time," there is a decent chance he or she may take themselves way too serious (or at the very least, publish a blog).

Occasionally, my mind slipped into the week's top news events. On Friday's run, I recalled the Stewart-Cramer interview. I'm usually not defensive of people who screw others for personal gain, which was Stewart's overt inference to Cramer. Still, I couldn't help but feel a little remorse for Cramer. My feelings dissipated, both at the time I watched the berating and in retrospect at effortless mile 4 when I thought about one line, "This is not a fucking game."
http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Stewart_to_Cramer_Its_not_fking_0313.html

Immediately, my mind recalled the American traditionalists who I know. My grandfather--the long-time Ford employee; two of my friends--Merrill Lynch employees; my dad--a banker...people who put much of their stock, both personally and financially, in security. All of them suffering in one way or another from a massive financial storm that occurred in a blink, and without warning. Like the aforementioned tornado.

"So what now," I thought, as a light sweat maintained itself somewhere around mile 6. The truth of the matter is I don't feel like someone who truly knows much about the economy or the collapse itself. I'm just now starting to figure out how to manage my own money (albeit, I am a bit of an entrepreneur).

On Saturday's run, a relatively short 4.7 miler (that's a pretty good estimate) with nearly perfect Santa Monica weather, the running conversation (pun intended) arose yet again in my head. This time I came to, not an answer, but a resolution. Having not looked up the actual definition of an answer or a resolution, I decided an answer means that one feels absolutely right when they come up with an "answer." When one "resolves," however, the absolutism isn't there. In my head, when I resolve, it's like this is what I'm choosing to believe or this is what I'm going to do, whether it is right or wrong this is the best I can come up with.

I resolved in the "value of work." Another phrase brought up by Stewart, I resolved that "the value of work" trumps it all. With all the visions of vanity that lead us to fast money, quick cars, the country club life, and whatever else that may be over the rainbow, the value of work in the least, seems to just make sense. Find something you have passion for, then you'll work really hard at it, and the money will come because you're producing a high-quality product that people will pay good money for. And when the money comes, and it will, you'll have a better idea of what to do with it since you knew what you had to do to get it. Pretty simple.

The sport of running itself is simple. But it's not easy. What gets you furthest in running? Running. Not breathing techniques, stretch routines, plyometrics, training techniques. Those things make a difference, and sometimes a significant difference. But simply running. That's what gets you the furthest in running. Logging miles. Putting in the time and effort. Working. And so to it is our job, our relationships, our passions.

Off to run to a clear day and a clearer mind.

Good Song Coming to Mind: "Keep It Loose, Keep It Light," Amos Lee
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TmQFwIKsU1U

Justin