Saturday, August 29, 2009

A New Normal

This past week has been one of adjusting back to life in the States and with my family. My running, when I've been out has been great, but with all the little things going on around my life it’s been difficult to get them in. Part of that is because my youngest daughter (Daughter #3) is off in college. I missed her graduation from High School and the great trip to take her to college. So I'm trying to discover a new normal around the house with just my wife and son. It is vastly different then I imagined.

I think I'm getting to the point in my life that normal means things change...and I have to get to the point that it’s okay for things to change. I'm a planner by nature. I plan everything in my life, even my home-coming from Kuwait...but as others have pointed out...life is what happens while you are making plans. So change is a constant...my goal is to learn to ride out the changes and learn to adapt as quickly as I can to this new norm...while it last. And if all else fails...I can go get a run in.

Friday, August 28, 2009

Back to the Fires


I have to be honest...running with camels isn't fun at all. They are always stopping to scratch themselves on the street signs. Here is one of my running buddies...scratching himself on the post...I just ran off and left him.

Well, I'm home now. Back to southern California and our wild fires. We have a fire right here in Palos Verdes today, so I had to alter my course, but still got a nice 7 mile run in this afternoon. Also the weather here is so much nicer then what I had to deal with in Kuwait. So I'm not going to complain about anything.

This past 6 months I was working with the US Army at Camp Buehring in Kuwait as the senior ranking chaplain. Being an Air Force Chaplain embedded with the Army had some very interesting twist to getting the job done, but in the end it was and always has been the same job...taking care of Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen and Marines. I had the chance to meet and work with incredible people and we as a nation should be very proud of our service men and women. Also this was the first time I worked with our National Guard. I had the pleasure of working with units from Oklahoma, Alabama, Minnesota, and Wyoming National Guard. Their professionalism and heart to serve was second to none. My prayers are with them daily as they go about their duties and responsibilities.

My goal for this year was to run 12 marathons in 12 months…so that one when down the drain really fast. Before I deployed to Kuwait, I twisted my left knee during the Surf City Marathon which caused me to drop out at the 18 mile point…then the following Friday I re-injured the same knee running my Air Force Fitness test. I then flew to Kuwait the following week. So I arrived in Kuwait with a bum knee and feeling very out of shape despite having just finished 7 marathons in the past year. I set two goals for myself. The first was to lose 30 pounds in my 6 month deployment and the second was to prepare myself for a marathon on my return from Kuwait.

One of the advantages of being deployed is that the food is the same day after day. Selecting low fat diet really wasn’t hard…staying away from the Ice Cream was…. So over the 180 day, I went from about 194 to 163. Talk about the difference the weight makes…I feel so much better losing that weight.

My second goal was to run a Marathon…well I’m signed up to run the Marine Corp Marathon in Washington in October. This year I’ll be running the race with my oldest daughter who lives in the DC area. It will be her first marathon and I’m looking forward to enjoying the adventure of running around DC with her. Another side note to this is the fact that I’m moving to DC as well at the end of September. I have an assignment working there starting in October. I will miss California and Los Angeles, but this move gets us closer to family back east…so it is a good move for us at this time in life.

Who knows since I’m back east there, I may even try to do the JFK 50 miler in November.

Friday, August 21, 2009

Home

I'm back. I returned home today after 6 months working with the Army in Northern Kuwait. Give me a couple of days to get back on schedule around here and I'll be back to blogging soon. Just to keep you up to speed on my running...I did run about 600 miles while I was gone, that included about twenty-one 5K fun runs and one Half Marathon.