Ups and downs

I saw this picture several days ago and had to laugh given my experience with lines like this. Unfortunately, until this morning I don't think that I truly understood its meaning. It made me think of what we do throughout our entire lives and what keeps us going. Life is one long journey, and there are many ups and downs. The great thing about the "ups" is that when you are on top you can see where you are going, where you have been, and what your goals are. When you are climbing up, however, you can't see the top, nor anything around you. If you've ever climbed to the top of a really high hill or mountain you know what I mean. The view at the top is not just breathtaking but awe-inspiring. However, we don't stay up there long, or we never get to our final destination.

Right now I'm climbing. The problem with that is not so much the effort, but that I forgot what I had seen and lost the vision of where I was going. It's not that it's a steep climb, but that more has been put in my bag and the weight is getting me down.

That was, at least, until I remembered where I was going and why I was climbing in the first place. Faith is so powerful. It helps me to believe in the path I am taking, even though I can't see the end. Some experiences throughout my life strengthen my faith, like being at the top of the hill and being able to see so much. During the "downs" and the climb I have to rely on that faith to get me through the journey.

I don't know why I felt like sharing this thought, but I hope that it helps someone. Just remember: when in doubt, keep the faith.

I am on fire!

At least my legs feel like they are burning. Today was the start of week 3 of the 8 week training and, as part of it, I had two-three minute runs I had to complete. This was basically twice as long as any previous segment. My legs were crying for oxygen, but I made it through. As a matter of fact, I finally felt the "runner's high" that I was missing from the last time I did this training. The ironic thing was that I felt it while I was walking, not running, during my cool down. I'm glad I finally had that feeling of euphoria, because the last two weeks of training have felt like torture.

Miles to go before I sleep

The first week of the "Cross Country" is done. I did 36.02 miles this week. Not quite up to where I'd like, but it was a start. I wouldn't have gotten even this far without Alyssa pushing me to go.

So here's where I am:

Not exactly sure where this is, but it says it's just outside of Tanner, Washington. I'm sure my sister knows the place. Hey, at least I got out of the city!

As for the memory I will share this week, I must confess that it didn't happen in Tanner, Washington. I wasn't planning on memories from each town I'm "in", just the state. I believe it was the same time as the last memory I shared. I went with my friend, Ben, to one of his friend's house to watch a movie. Now, when you go to a friends house and pop in a DVD, that's not really watching a movie, that's just watching moving pictures on your TV. This friend of Ben's had a downstairs movie theatre, not an entertainment room. There was a little lobby area decked out with movie posters in those lit-up frames. They had a concession stand complete with a full size popcorn machine. They even had a ticket booth! You go through the double swinging doors (with little round windows) into a slanted room with a projector and screen. The only difference here was that instead of those uncomfortable movie seats they had Lay-Z-Boy leather chairs. What made it even better was that this was a time before DVD's, you know we still popped in those rectangular plastic nuisances to watch a show. But even here they one-upped anything I had done: they had laser-disc! Of course this must have been within the 6 months that laser-discs were considered cool. For those who don't know what those are they look like DVD's but are the size of old records (like 12 inches across). They even had the illuminated lines on the ground so you knew how to get to the exit. Now that was a theater experience.

As you can see I still have a ways before I'm out of Washington, but don't worry, there are plenty more memories to come. As for the big picture, well, here it is:

Still a ways to go...but one step at a time.

With a little help from my friend

I was laying in bed dreading the run when I heard this voice coming from the doorway: "Daddy, are we going running today?" The girl is a machine, I swear!

We tried out the Junior High track today, which went pretty well. I forgot to start the app on my phone, so we ended up going a little longer than planned. Oh well, more exercise.

I have to confess that I went over budget on my calories today. Not by much, but it was the first time in two weeks. Luckily my wife really wanted to go walking so we went for a couple of miles down our road. That made all the difference!

One step ahead

I really thought that I would be up and ready before Alyssa this time. But, just as I open my bedroom door, there she was about to put her shoes on!
Today's run was hard for me, my lower legs are really hurting and the outside of my right knee feels overstretched. I'm not sure how to fix that, but it sure is slowing me down.
I was foolish enough to give Alyssa more than one choice of venue, I didn't realize that track tag can only be played at the indoor track!

The first day of a long journey

As promised I have restarted my "trek" from coast to coast. I know that the location tag for this post lists Seattle, WA, but I just did that for "poetic license". I will geo-tag each update for this part of the blog based on where I am along with the updated picture above.

I did make a few changes to this route since I wanted to "spend more time" in Idaho given that so many important things in my life have happened there (don't worry my New Mexico friends, when I am done with this "journey" I will do another one in the southwest states). This did make the overall trip a little longer and is now a total of 3,137 miles. That is a ton. Again, my goal is to make it there in a year, maybe a little less.

Alyssa and I did start off the week well with a trip to the park. It's the first of three runs in our second week of the Couch to 5K program. My legs were still pretty sore from a weekend of hiking, but it went pretty well. It was nice to have a change of venue; I think Alyssa did much better. She said she wants to warm up a little more before we start by doing pushups! That girl is amazing. She even wanted to do "track tag" again; I don't know where she gets her energy.

I also promised to share a memory each week based on the location I am in for the Cross Country "Run". I have only visited Washington a handful of times, but it has almost always been for some big event. The main one I remember was when my older sister, Heidi, got married; I was 15. I had seen the Pacific Ocean before, but that was in San Diego. The ocean water in Seattle is just a little bit colder. What was so memorable about this particular event was when we were on a ferry ride to one of the main islands in the bay. It was very windy and our wind-breakers filled up with air giving us the illusion of being Mr. Universe. Down in the water, though, we saw something that I had never seen before in real life: dolphins! They were amazing. I didn't have my own camera, otherwise the picture below would have been of the dolphins we saw. Instead you get to see the amazing buffness brought on by raging wind power! (I'm the one in the maroon and navy blue jacket, sorry you can't see my face)

A new view on the world

This weekend we had a family reunion for my mom's side of the family. The last time I went to this reunion was 13 years ago just after I had graduated from high school. Interestingly my wife also went to that reunion with me and we had basically decided then that we were going to get married. Now, 13 years later I went on a mission to Peru, we got married in the Idaho Falls temple, we have 4 kids, three degrees between the two of us, a house fire and a flood, various surgeries, house ownership, and six years of our life spent in New Mexico. So much has happened in such a short time.

Saturday was supposed to he the day I did the third part of my run for the week. Instead I climbed to the top of this hill, twice. The first time we went up from the right side along a game trail to the lower hill and then up to the upper hill. That was nuts. After searching more to the left of the hill we found a real trail that took us back to camp. Needless to say the second time we went up and down that trail.

It's a mile to the top with about a 1200 foot rise in elevation. It was quite a tough climb, but the view was worth it.