Running Home

Getting High For The Holidays

2009-12-30T12:35:00.000-08:00

"Running is your pulse, your heartbeat, your breathing. It's the rhythm of your life. It's an expression of love in time and movement, in the ups and the downs."
Recent Twitter post (Follow me at RunningDeeper)

As I write, the clouds are rolling in and I have just emerged from the jacuzzi, where I had been soaking with my family as we watched the fresh snow fall. Heaven.

Squirreled away in the mountain paradise of Idyllwild, our cabin sits at just over 6,000 feet. It's been a perfect spot to ease into my running again after an annual three-week hiatus to give my body a chance to recover from the last year's running, the half-dozen marathons and the beginning of prep for a year of ultra events. It has taken a fair degree of discipline to stay off my running feet, but now I am enjoying the fruits of my labor—or lack of it!

Originally, I'd planned to use my two weeks in the mountains to kick start my training for the Miwok 100k in May 2010. Having entered the lottery, there was little more for me to do than pray to the gods of running that my name would come out of the hat. The results were published a week before we were due to head up into the mountains.

My name wasn't drawn.

Disappointed as I was, I decided to initiate my training as if my name had been pulled. Then, a week later, I received an e-mail that 40+ people who had entered the lottery never followed up when their name was pulled, and so I had been added to the race list as one of the first 40 on the waiting list. Christmas came early this year. I swear, you could have heard my whoop of joy down on the desert floor, 6,000 feet below.

It's been a week of ups and downs. Literally. There's no flat running to be found here. My runs have entailed either 1,500 to 2,000 feet of descent, turning around, and climbing back up, or doing it the other way around—up and then down.

Feeling the crunch of crisp snow, hearing the sound of the wind rushing through the trees, smelling the fresh wood fires from deserted cabins, and carrying my pepper spray in case of hungry mountain lions, lungs burning for oxygen at the higher elevations, I have rarely felt so alive.

The ups and downs of these training runs are of my making—I choose into this mountainous terrain willingly and enthusiastically. I know it will grow me as a runner and prepare me for Miwok.

I could have used the initial news of my missed draw from the lottery as a reason to be down. And stay there. I chose to adjust, and live into my vision—and to act accordingly. I chose to make my down into an up. Hill training for the mind, for consciousness itself. Not only focusing on the law of attraction, which so often I see dissolving into empty wishing, but also engaging a greater law—the law of creation. Spirit, it is said, meets us at our point of action.

Time and again, if we choose it to be, running in the outer world can acts as an illuminating metaphor for what is possible as we traverse the inner terrain of our being.

Next time you encounter a "down" in your outer world, remember the value of hill training in your running life—and engage with your "down" form that perspective. Give thanks for the opportunity to build strength—developing your evolution into a true spiritual warrior.

PTSD: Post Trail Stress Disorder!

2009-10-26T12:48:00.001-07:00

"If must doubt yourself, be consistent. Doubt everything. Doubt your fear, your perceived inability, your assumptions about what's impossible. Doubt the doubt."
A recent Tweet from RunningDeeper.

Just over a year ago, I lay on the ground, writing in pain. About 1.5 miles from the end of the Bulldog 50k, my body had shut down. My biggest fear, if I am honest, is that I would soil myself. Right there on the trail.

As other runners stopped on their way past, asking if they could help, I was mixed in my response. I was terrified by the intensity of pain and longed for support in getting through it. But if I was going to lose control of my bowels, I'd rather do it on my own. (You can read my race report for that event here.)

Since then, I had definitely been suffering from what I call the trail runner's version of PTSD: Post Trail Stress Disorder. In my work as a therapist, I work regularly with clients who suffer from the clinical diagnosis of PTSD (Posttraumatic Stress Disorder). Either recently, or in their past, these individuals have suffered significant trauma—events when they had feared for their own safety, even their lives. Often, these events are blocked out, memories are hazy, as a way of avoiding the physical and psychological pain that went with the experience.

Over time, we revisit the memories of those events. Slowly, patiently, lovingly, we journey together into the cauldron of their emotional memory. It is deep, healing work that requires courage. To return to a place in time, in consciousness, that we have hidden from because of overwhelming experiences takes great trust in oneself, and a willingess to accept support.

My 2008 Bulldog experience was traumatic. No doubt about it. With the help of my running partner that day, some nutritional help from fellow runners, and an amazing event crew to spur me on, I managed to hobble, shuffle, and eventually run across the finish line. And then, for the next year, I avoided the trail like the plague!

When the event came around again this year, in August, I ran one loop about two weeks beforehand, to see how it felt. I was doing OK until I came to the place I had gone down the previous year. To this day, I am not sure if it was physical or psychosomatic, or both. As I got to the same place on the trail, my legs locked up again. I was terrified of the same level of pain as last year. I avoided it. Narrowly. I inched my way up the trail. A few lighter spasms, but nothing that threw me to the ground. The trail got the better of me again. I skipped the event. She had me beat.

Last weekend, after a couple of month's of more intense training, I decided to take another run at the Bulldog trail. I had fine-tuned my fueling strategy. I had completed a 40-mile run two weeks previously. I arrived at dawn and set off into the morning dusk. Alone.

In the morning half-light, I found myself worrying about mountain lions, snakes, about running off the edge of the trail. Then I realized, here was my fear again, being projected onto these other concerns. I stopped and said a prayer.

I let go my goal of beating the trail, of overcoming it. Instead, I invited it into a dance. I thanked her for the constant challenges and the opportunities they contained. I let her be my coach, my inspiration, and my mentor. And dance we did.

I came to that final two-mile stretch (the Backbone section) and felt my heart race a little. Well-fueled with Hammer's Perpeteum and gels, well-hydrated, and well-paced, I felt ready. I moved through the section confidently and still with humility. As I ran, I imagined leaving a trail of Light in my wake, Light that reached all the way back to me as I lay screaming on the trail 16 months ago.

As I passed the spot where I had gone down, I imagined picking myself up, and the two of us, past and present, ran in to the trail end together. With practice, perseverance, patience, and pacing, we had made it.

Now, a trail that had once been a demon to me, is becoming one of my favorite runs—for its beauty, its challenges, its strengthening and humbling qualities, and our shared history. When we risk fully unwrapping any fear, any doubt that plagues us, we stand to receive some amazing gifts.

Happy trails—inside and out!

From 40 oz to 40 miles

2009-10-09T09:28:00.000-07:00

"40 oz to freedom is the only chance I have to feel good, even though I feel bad."
Sublime, 40 oz To Freedom

I've crossed a couple of important finish lines in the last several weeks.

This last month, I walked across the stage at Royce Hall and collected a Master's Degree in Counseling Psychology from the University of Santa Monica. 5 years in the making, it has been truly earned. (That's me with my lovely wife and Drs. Ron and Mary Hulnick, founding faculty of the University.) Five weeks later, I received my formal registration with the Board of Behavioral Sciences in California as a Marriage and Family Therapist Intern. Next week, I will begin seeing clients in private practice. All of a sudden, my life is transformed and my long-awaited career in counseling has formally begun.

Of course, that's a bit like saying, "all of a sudden I crossed the finish line in a marathon." Sometimes it feels like that for sure. But the truth is there was a lot of training, commitment, and time to get to that finish line. There's an inverse relationship between preparation and how easy something looks. As the quote goes, the will to succeed is the will to prepare.

Over the last 15 years, underneath everything I have accomplished, inside and out, has been supported by two incredible blessings: the love of my wife and family, and the foundation of my running practice. Whatever task I have on my plate, the patience, perseverance, and pacing required to get it done has been born it, amplified by, and maintained by my running.

As I deepen in my work as a psychotherapist, I cast my mind back to the days when 40 oz of alcohol really did seem my only chance of freedom, of feeling good. To be drunk, high, often both, was to feel powerful, free, even at peace. Of course, as any addict knows, when the chemicals wore off, the mirage of those fantasy experiences quickly vanished.

This Sunday, I will run the Long Beach Marathon. When I get to the start line at around 7 a.m., I will already have run 14 miles. When I reach the finish line of the marathon, I will have completed 40 miles. It will have been my longest run yet, and a significant step in my training for my first 50-mile event.

When I get there, sure, I will be tired. I will also certainly feel powerful, free, and at peace. When the glow of the run fades, when the feelings pass, those qualities will still be alive in me. That's the essential difference between my 40 oz and 40 mile experiences.

With the drugs and alcohol, I sought to create the sensation of what I imagined those qualities to be like. With the running, through the running and all it requires to maintain an ongoing running practice, I connect with the place inside of me where those qualities reside. I experience them authentically.

As runners, in the qualities required to commit to, train for, and complete any event, we're connected. I firmly believe that every runner benefits from every other runners' dedication and practice. We are runners. We are a family. We are a tribe. We are one and we are greater than the sum of our individual achievements. We ARE running. Without us, there would be no running. By that, I mean that without runners to give life to running, there would be no running. We are the vessel through which the transformative energy of running becomes apparent.

Thank you for all that YOU do to keep that energy alive.

Of Bridges

2009-06-24T12:25:00.000-07:00

"What kind of crazy nut would spend two or three hours a day just running?"
Steve Prefontaine's comment in Junior High when he saw the High School Cross country team running.

"Bridges!!"
My daughter's (age 4) response to the recent question, "What's your favorite thing about summer?"

In a few weeks, my running buddy, Todd, and I will be driving up to San Francisco to enjoy the unique setting of the city's marathon course. Naturally, one of the sections of the course I am most looking forward to is a first time run across the beautiful Golden Gate Bridge.

As regular readers of this blog know, I am a big fan of the spiritual metaphor to be found in the everyday. Bridges have to be one of the big five metaphors. How, for example, did Steve Prefontaine get from laughing at the thought of running and—what a ridiculous an idea that was to him—to becoming one of the running world's greatest practitioners, ambassadors, and legendary icons?

He crossed a few bridges—in his own mind, in his heart, and in his spirit. And he used his body as a means to effect and manifest those crossings.

And that's the beauty of running—by committing to a physical practice, each runner also commits to a program of emotional, mental, and spiritual transformation. You simply can't sustain one without the other. And then the cycle continues, with the multi-level changes being expressed through the change in physical level experience.

It takes courage and commitment to cross any bridge. I remember crossing some shaky looking bridges when hiking in Nepal, like the one on the left. It requires a sure foot, a lot of trust, and a clear focus on reaching the other side. Our "internal bridges" are just the same. There are, for example, a good number of shaky bridges crossed along the path from addiction to the land of sobriety.

It has been said that we are never given anything in life that is beyond our ability to handle. When life feels overwhelming, we can cross the canyon of doubt by using the bridge of faith. Whenever you hold a picture in your mind and heart of how you would like things to be in the future, the goal you are working towards, imagine a bridge connecting where you are with where you wish to be.

Imagine this bridge as an arc of golden light. This bridge is your faith, your willingness to hold a vision and move in its direction—even when the way may not appear clear. It is only when you are on the other side of the bridge that you will be able to look back and understand how you made the journey to your new life.

This is the very nature of faith. As you go through your day and beyond, keep this vision of the golden bridge of faith in your mind and heart. In times when your goals seem out of reach, recognize that these are the priceless opportunities for building firm foundations for the next bridge that will take you closer to home.

In my own life, it is a time of many different bridges. In three weeks, I will complete a Master's in Counseling Psychology form the University of Santa Monica and begin an Internship as a Marriage and Family Therapist. A bridge into a new career and out of what had seemed an endless path of schooling!

I have crossed a number of long and sometimes darkened bridges with my longtime running buddy, Todd, this year. He has been recalibrating his life after the unexpected end of an important relationship. We have run hundreds of profound and sometimes humorous miles together, wondering about the workings of relationship.

We have explored the nature of love, of integrity and honesty, and about the journey of the heart. It is a journey rich in beauty, and one that also has some rocky trails. Todd is a barefoot runner, so those sharper rocks can sometimes dig deep.

Even in the midst of the sadness, loss, and search for understanding, he and I have created something new and filled with hope: a deepening friendship that has become a strong and reliable bridge for us both—and one that has carried us both further into the beautiful landscape of trusted friendship. What a blessing!

The Hardest Part of Running

2009-01-15T10:01:00.000-08:00

"Injury is a master teacher. Heed its lessons well and you need take the class only once. Remember—the goal is to graduate, not change the school." iRunInspired.com

For myself—and many runners I talk with—the hardest part of running has always been not running. However hard the long runs may be, the weeks of increased mileage, the mind-bending, quad-busting hill training, the marathons, the ultra distances, it is rarely the running that presents the biggest challenge. It's the NOT running.

Not running from choice is one thing. Developing the muscle of self-supportive discipline to build in rest days as a regular part of your running schedule is a foundational skill. You may not think you need it in your twenties of even thirties. But if you intend to still be running at 40, 50, 70, even 80+, you must develop it. Must.

Not running because you can't is quite another. There's really only ever one reason why I CAN'T run and that is because of injury. All the other can'ts that I might create are just that—creations, better known as choices. Work, time, busy-ness, etc, etc, these are all reflections of the things I might choose to prioritize over my running. But injury is different.

I've had my share of injuries over the years, the latest of which has been a bout of Achilles tendinitis. As I saw the swelling on my left tendon grow over the period of a couple of weeks, I watched my habitual mind jump in: "It'll go away on its own; You just need to run it out; it's nothing serious."

Now I've run "through" a couple of injuries in the past. The first was a hip strain and the second was plantar fascitis. I kept going as I sought to smother the wisdom my own body was seeking to share with me. In the end, my body had the final word in both situations. The hip thing sidelined me for 9 months. The plantar fascitis for 18 months.

I thought I knew better than my body. No longer is that deception running in my mind. Nevertheless, to take the recommended 10-12 weeks off for the tendinitis is a tall stretch for any runner. 3 months. Geez. After completing the Long Beach Marathon last October, I committed to do just that. I did not run again until December 23rd, for a total of just over 11 weeks.

There's only so much fun I can derive from stationery biking and I find swimming crushingly boring. I lifted some weights and worked on my core strength and slowly moved into rehab exercises, balance, stability, and the like. But all the time, whatever I was doing, I was NOT running.

For eight weeks, there were the mood swings, even depression, dark thoughts, introversion, an overall weight gain of about ten pounds. I was hating life. Myself. My world. No writing here either. Then I got the inspirational text message at the start of this entry and everything shifted. The funniest part about that was that I wrote it! I subscribe to my own service and it had sent me a message I had not remembered writing as part of a database of many hundreds of messages.

Some other, wiser part of me was reminding me that not running is always a part of running. And that injury, for almost every runner, is a part of our landscape. Hopefully, it is one that we do not visit too often. But the more prepared we are to find our way around in that landscape, and to listen to the professional guide of our body as we do, the less time we have to spend there. A sensitive, mature, patient approach to injury rehab is an integral part of the runner's toolbox.

I missed the rhythmic cadence of my foot fall over those 11+ weeks. I've missed the early morning sounds of my regular routes: the water birds along the LA River and the lapping waves along the beach. But there is also one sound I have not heard during that time that I do not miss—the sudden, shotgun snap of a tendon pushed too far. A sound that would have announced a minimum of six to nine months recovery.

I eased out on my first run, December 23, in the deep snow up in Idyllwild. What a way to return! Out in the wild, in the snow, at over 6,000 feet. Moving slowly, tingling with joy. I felt alive once again—and even more so as I came across the fresh mountain lion tracks in the snow. That wondrous blend of aliveness and fear that comes from recognizing that I am part of the food chain!

I'll be running the Surf City Marathon in 3 weeks— a wonderfully flat course, perfect for my evolving recovery and strength building. It has been a delicate balance to build up my mileage a little quickly, while still listening to the feedback from my body. So far, so good.

With continued care and the ongoing willingness to listen to what my body has to tell me, I will complete Surf City and graduate from injury school with honors!

Bulldog has Quite a Bite!

2008-09-22T12:16:00.000-07:00

With 29 miles completed and just two miles to go, my calves cramped with such force that I was thrown to the ground. Writhing in the dust of the trail, muscles locked shut, I screamed with pain and frustration. So near and yet so far . . .

My day had started at 3 a.m. and preparation for the Bulldog Ultra went well. By the time Todd and Tiffany arrived to pick me up at 4:30 a.m. for the drive to Malibu, I was buzzing with excitement and apprehension. Six months of training were about to be put to the test.

There were plenty of nervous giggles on the way up, but predominantly we traveled in silence, each of us acclimatizing to the magnitude of the adventure we were committed to. "It's not too late to pull out," I joked. "Yes it is," came a unified reply from the front of the car. We were, clearly, in this together. It felt good to know we would journey our first ultra together.

All too soon we were gathered with a couple of hundred other 50k entrants, stretched, fueled, and lubed. I said a prayer of gratitude for the early morning mist that would keep us cool for the first 10 miles or so. After the first calf-crunching 7-mile climb, the trail broke through the marine layer. The view was spectacular, reminding me of trekking in the Himalayas, with numerous mini peaks jutting through the low cloud. Here, there were just a few hundred feet below the clouds, but it might as well have been several thousand. The trail was quiet, wildlife still waking.

A quad-busting decent took me back down to sea-level, and by the time I arrived at the half-way point at a little over fifteen miles, about three hours out from the start, I was ready for a major refueling stop. Fresh clothes, peanut butter and honey sandwich, fluids. I emerged from the aid station refreshed and ready for the real challenge of the second half.

First time around the two-loop course, I had run through the first aid station at four miles, chatting idly with other runners as we moved past. This time, temperatures now in the 90s, I stopped willingly. Ice was poured into my hat, freezing cold water sprayed on my body, my bottles refilled, and encouraging words thrown at me . . . "Just another 3 miles of unforgiving, calf-busting climbing to go!" they joked as three of us headed up the slope.

Although my legs had started to feel painful at about mile 22, making each step of the final descent uncomfortable, I kept taking in plenty of fluid and what I though was enough nutrients. As I came out of the last aid station with two miles to go, it was going to be hard, but not, seemingly impossible. And then it happened.

To be thrown to the ground by my own body was a new experience. And as I sat up to stretch my calves, my thighs cramped in response. I had never know cramps this intense, strong, or long lasting. When another runner stopped to praise open the muscles in my legs, I could see him sweating with the effort. As he pulled me to my feet, my body weight on my legs was enough to fire my calves into cramping again. For a moment, I thought the pain was going to be enough that I would soil myself. Right there on the trail in front of my fellow runners. This was going to be a day of many firsts!

That moment passed, thankfully, without becoming a first. But I was still just a mile and a half from the finish with not even the ability to crawl. I lay on my back and started to laugh. I started to think of all the stories I'd read in the last month of long distance runners in moments of bodily breakdown. Each one had survived by invoking the same ritual: focus on one step. Take just the next one step.

My running buddy Tiffany arrived up the trail and volunteered to gently massage my legs. When they cramped, I swore at her out of pain, imploring her to pull on my muscles harder to unlock them. Eventually, they stayed looser for several minutes. Another runner gave me some Endurotabs to swallow. After sitting for 15 minutes, I stood up. Ouch. Horribly painful yes. Throwing me to the ground. No. This was progress.

As I shuffled up the trail like a robot, wincing with each step, an EMT came running up the trail. "You guys seen a runner down? We have reports of a runner down." I think that's me. But I'm up, I'm OK. Behind him came the race director. I was getting the full experience.

She looked at me with concern. I could tell she was considering pulling me from the event. A little more than a mile to go and I was about to be pulled. "Who's running for President?" she asked. "Obama and McCain," I answered. "And who's going to win?" Obama of course. "Wrong answer!" she replied. And then laughed. "I don't think I can pull you for that though. OK, I want you to go in to the finish with these guys," she said pointing at a race volunteer who had been at the previous aid station.

I hobbled off the trail and into the last mile-long section of covered road that lead to the finish. On the flat, I was able to break into a slow run with Tiffany one one side and Deb, a longtime ultra runner at my side. When she heard this was my first ultra, she beamed. "Awesome! You're gonna make it, I promise you."

And I did. Eight and a half hours after starting, I cruised over the finish line, where my wife and daughter were waiting. Their homemade sign said, "Ultra dad. Ultra husband. Ultra marathoner." That moment was one of the sweetest in my 15 years of running.

Now Sheehan's quote had become more than inspirational. It had become a lived experience . . .

“If you want to win anything—a race, yourself, your life—you have to go a little berserk.”

8,000 — 32 — 100+

2008-08-20T16:21:00.000-07:00

“Success means having the courage, the determination, and the will to become the person you believe you were meant to be.”
Dr. George Sheehan, Author, Running & Being

8,000 feet in elevation gain; 32 miles; heat in triple digits . . .

This year, one of my goals was to move beyond marathoning and into ultra-running. This Saturday, August 23, that goal will be realized as I, along with my training buddies Tiffany Forster and bare-foot running stud Todd Byers, will complete the Bulldog 50 kilometer event in Malibu State Park. (Todd will be wearing shoes for this event, the first time I will have seen him run in shoes in almost 18 months!)

While finishing the event will be a big accomplishment, it is the six months of training that are the real win. As a result of that success, this event will mark a new beginning as well as an end. Bulldog now also heralds the start of my year-long training for the Goretex Trans-Rockies Run, a 6-day, 125 mile event in August 2009.

My run at this new level also requires some thank-you's:

To my family: Teresa and Hayden, who have adapted to my training schedule, long weekend runs, and occasional (?) crankiness, while showering me with encouragement every step of the way;

To Tiffany: training buddy extraodinaire, for the joy, humor, and mutual support we have shared over hundreds of miles—and for reminding me that youth is a state of mind and heart;

To Todd: for an bottomless stream of tips, training guidance, and wonderfully bad jokes that have made the miles fly by;

To Drs. Ron and Mary Hulnick and the staff, faculty, and fellow students at the University of Santa Monica: after many years away from running due to injury, in 2000, it was what I learned in the M.A. Program in Spiritual Psychology that showed me how to get running again in a sustainable, enjoyable, and self-caring way.

To Spirit: I have shed so many tears of joy, gratitude, and humility on my runs. The gift of my running experience continues to grow, inspire, and open me to deepening levels of beauty in my life.

So, starting at 6:30 a.m. on Saturday morning, your prayers, blessings, Light, and/or general groovy vibes of your chosen persuasion are welcome for all the runners in the Bulldog events.

I'll close with words from the master, George Sheehan, once more, “If you want to win anything—a race, yourself, your life—you have to go a little berserk.”

PS: I'll be celebrating with two of my very favorite things:

A weekend at Disneyland, (including several repeat rides on Space Mountain!)
Attending the guaranteed-to-inspire Graduation ceremonies at the University of Santa Monica. These are held this Sunday, August 24, at 2 p.m. at Royce Hall on the UCLA campus. This year's speaker is the remarkable Roberto Assagioli.

PPS: Want an insight into the mental attitude that keeps me on track for six months of high-intensity training? Click here to find out. �

What Does $250,000 Look Like?

2008-07-01T16:01:00.000-07:00

You've seen those movies too, right? Ransoms, pay-offs, robberies, safety deposit stashes, that kind of thing. I'm always intrigued as to how much space that amount of money takes up. What does a hundred grand look like? In singles? In twenties? In hundreds? A duffel bag? A suitcase? What does a large sum of money really look like?

Well, this past weekend, I got to look a quarter of a million dollars, right in the eye. Literally. And I have to say, there are few things more beautiful.

$250,000.00. That's the goal of a group of almost 100 Team in Training members in Long Beach alone. And they'll do it to. 100 extraordinary people with shared, extraordinary goals. And this 250 grand comes is all denominations. Shorter, taller; older, younger; heavier, lighter; blond, brunette, and dark hair; all races, creeds, and abilities. $250k never looked so good!

I was facilitating a short clinic for them on the mental aspects of running. We talked about what it takes to keep the mind focused and clear—in short, how to use it as a tool to empower marathon level running as opposed to being used by it and experiencing fear and negativity. Thanks to the generosity of Robert Foster at I Live Inspired, I was able to plug them into my inspirational channels for runners and walkers for free—they'll get individual, daily motivational messages to their phones as part of their training at no charge.

100 people, the vast majority or whom will be running or walking their first marathon. Are they doing it for weight loss? Increased fitness? Bragging rights? To test themselves? Partly, for sure. But that is not what will keep them on track with their training and fundraising goals. Not when the going gets tough, which, somewhere along the line, it will. It's part of the journey.

Time and again, people ask me, "How can I stay on track with my fitness goals more consistently?" I ask, "Imagine you have already attained your goal. You are that fit, right now. Do you see that? OK. Now—what will you do with that level of fitness?"

The answers vary, but they all get pretty personal pretty quickly:

I'd be able to run with my son a little. He's training for college track. I'd love to run with him occasionally and share in that.
I'd pick up my granddaughter and swing her around in circles and hear her giggle.
I'd feel strong enough to take my grandfather out in his wheelchair and we'd spend the day at Huntington Gardens.
I'd be able to hold my head high, knowing I was caring for myself.
I'd have the energy to really spend time with my family/volunteer/start my dream business
I'd raise money for . . .

THESE are the things that will keep you on track. Commitments that involve serving others. That are founded in giving, sharing, and caring. That's where the fuel is to feed the engine of commitment.

The Team in Training organization knows that. And 360,000 participants have raised $850 million dollars doing it while completing marathons, 100-mile bike rides, and triathlons. It's a system that is proven over and over again.

Neale Donald Walsch once said, "Discover that your life has nothing to do with you, and it will becomes your more than ever." Team in Training is that vision made manifest.

Create a vision and live into it. If you want to learn more practical ways to do that, read the step by step approaches in my book.

Create a vision. Use your run to build it, energize it, and make it real.

Happy trails!

What You Get is What You See

2008-06-24T12:11:00.000-07:00

"What do you see?"

I turned to the group of runners peering into a large, mile-long, 100-foot deep gash in the earth adjacent to our running route along the Los Angeles River in Long Beach. Silence. I prompted them to throw out their answers.

"A big *#@!ing hole." Good start. Anything else? "A scar. Nothing. A grave."

"Anything else?" I did not want to answer my own question unless I had to.

The youngest runner (why was I so surprised by that?) gave me what I was looking for . . . "An Egyptian Queen, floating on a gold colored barge, slowly floating down the Nile."

I watched the other runners as he spoke up, and saw all their faces soften, open, and the group started nodding. They did not have to say it, the youngster had given them all a valuable lesson.

It took about two, maybe three years, but that "big *#@!ing hole" is now one of my favorite two miles that I run. When I get there, I'm three miles into my run, or have three to five miles to go on my way home. I'm in full flow.

I run the narrow dirt path alongside the tranquil water-filled channel and drink in the energy of life—an explosion of wild flowers, tall reeds, elegant Cranes, Blue Herons, Snowy Egrets, and, each week, more and more birds whose names I don't know. Rabbits, butterflies, and in the early, misty mornings, coyotes.

What is it that transformed that "scar" into a burst of wilderness that replenishes, invigorates, and inspires me each time I run in it (in it, not through it)? Vision—the ability to look at what is, to see what can be, and then living into that. Action—the ability to create the transition from the one to the other. Commitment—the willingness to embrace and reconfigure challenges that come up. Whatever they are. Accountability—the fearless and consistent tracking of action through to successful completion.

One person's "big *#@!ing hole" is another's wilderness-refuge-in-waiting. Whether it's in relationship, at work, your initial training run in preparation for a first ever 5k, or at the base of a steep hill at mile 23, I promise you this: It's never a case of "What you see is what you get."

What you get, rather, is what you choose to see.

Happy trails!

For Crying Out Loud

2008-06-17T22:48:00.001-07:00

It's not unusual to see tears at the finish line of a marathon. Tears of joy, pain, relief, laughter. However many shades of tears there are, they have probably all been spilled at 26.2. I've certainly shed my fair share of finish line tears.

But starting line tears? For me, this was a new experience—and one I recently had at the San Diego Rock N Roll Marathon.

Don't tell anyone, but I had purchased a last-minute bib from a friend of mine who was not able to run. Not having run the even t before, I surfed around the web and read intimidating posts about difficulty accessing the start line, challenges with parking, and a course with numerous challenges: freeway surfaces, big camber for several miles, noise of the every-mile bands.

I had no concerns about what my run would be like—I know I get to choose that for the most part. But I was concerned about getting to the start line in time, so I left wonderfully early and arrived two hours before the race was due to begin. In fact, I left Del Mar (about ten miles away) an hour earlier than my running partners Todd and Tiffany left Long Beach (about 120 miles away!).

It proved to be the best choice I've made in a long time.

What I experienced was akin to the night my daughter was born. Sure, when I arrived, I had my pick of the bananas, electrolyte drinks, and unused portapotties. But I'm talking about something else.

I'm talking about not just seeing, but feeling the day build. Individuals and groups arriving. Some in silence as they stretched, some laughing. Nervous laughter, bold laughter, playful laughter. I positioned myself by the Elite Runners corral, and watched as the wheel chair athlete's arrived. I saw rigorous independence as each one moved out of their day use chairs and into their competition machines."

The Marine band arrived, including two musicians who would be running the event. I saw strong young men and women with gleaming eyes and uniforms. I felt the vibrant energy of the marathon building, an affirmation of life, and thought of war, an affirmation of death. To have both feelings inside of me at once stretched my heart further.

And then the elite runners arrived, led by a group of tiny African men. They were small in physical stature, but that was all. These men are lions. I could feel it, see it, sense it. I thought of the history of Africa. As an Englishman, now living in the United States, I am doubly aware of the impact of imperialism, centuries of ruthless exploitation, and slavery on the entire continent of Africa.

And as I looked at these men, I had a visceral sense of their power. The power that would carry them across the finish line when I was only half-way done. The authentic power that lives in any being who is doing what he loves the most. That gives himself and his god the clearest form of expression through devoted action.

And in that moment, as I stand in the wake of the quiet, fierce, powerful humility of these men, I realized that whatever it was that my ancestors had sought to plunder from Africa and its people, they never found it. It is not something that can ever be taken; it is something that can only be given.

And I cried. For Africa, for its people, for the errors of its subjugators, and for the rivers of blood that have flowed across the centuries. For forgiveness.

And then I cried for joy. For running; for runners; for the way that our sport can transcend history and brings us together into the now. This event. This stride. This breath.

Apparently I ran the slowest marathon I have ever run that day, four hours and fifty minutes. I did not know at the time, because I had no watch. And every timeless step of the way, even the ones that hurt, I continued to bask in the simple beauty of our shared humanity as runners.

That day I truly experienced my own dream come alive. Much sweeter than running longer, or stronger, my answered prayer is to run deeper. Can I get an "Amen"?

Happy trails.

Running is Creative

2008-05-27T09:01:00.000-07:00

"The amazing distances that a healthy individual may be able to run after only a few months of training can lead to an increased sense of one's ability to master challenges and to attain goals that seemed remote only months earlier. One's entire belief system about the degree to which one's life is self-determined, or internal (versus other- or fate-determined, or external), may be influenced by such successes."
Sachs & Buffone, Running as Therapy

This weekend, I'll be running in the San Diego Marathon and look forward to meeting other running Souls there. Every one of us tens of thousands of runners will have something in common — there was a time when we had never run a marathon. For a good number, that will still be true as we all line up at the start on Sunday morning. A few hours later, that will no longer be true. There will be no arguing with that. Something entirely new will be true.

Sure, they can say they have run a (first!) marathon and that's an enormous achievement. But something much bigger will also be true — that they have the power to create their own truth, their own experience, their own possibilities, their own reality.

I know no other sport that can spotlight this truth as quickly. Year after year, I have seen myself and others challenge their thoughts about how far, or even IF, they could run, and let go of the stories that have limited them. All the reasons why not (time, place to do it, not being good enough, fast enough, etc, etc) fall away under the powerful focus of intention, action, and, especially, shared commitment.

This year, at least once, challenge what is true for you about your running. Run a new distance, whether it's a first 5k, 10k, half or full marathon, or an ultra distance. Discover anew that what is true for you is what you tell yourself is true for you—and will continue to be so until you challenge it.

••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

The folks at SofSole recently sent me some of their products to try out. As my mileage is increasing from 35 up to 45-50 miles a week in preparation for the Bulldog 50k in a couple of months, I am listening carefully to my body, especially my feet. Having been sidelined with plantar fascitis a couple of times in the last fifteen years, I am always on the look out for products that will prevent a reoccurrence.

I started out with the SofSole inserts at the Palos Verdes Half-Marathon a week ago with my Running buddy Tiffany. We were joined by her friend Patrick, who was running his first ever Half Marathon. Patrick finished strong and redefined for himself what was possible! That was a joy to see.

The PV event is held along the Pacific Coast, a beautiful location with a lot of hill climbs and descents—the kind of topography that puts added strain on my calves and plantar muscles and can also lead to blisters. I came home in bliss, feelings strong, not the hint of a blister. I will confess to having a second secret weapon: the folks at SofSole had also included some cushion performance socks. The next sentence may not be G-rated — my feet felt as though they were being made love to for all thirteen miles. These socks are incredible. They are orgasmic. Coupled with the inserts, I experienced the highest levels of support to stay strong, healthy, and injury-free.

Well enough talk of foot orgasms—I'm off for a light run to prep for this weekend. Wishing you all happy trails and happy feet!

Prove Yourself a Liar

2008-05-15T16:00:00.000-07:00

In just a few weeks, the Team in Training organization will launch its next season of training groups for runners who are interested in achieving a new goal while raising money for Leukemia and Lymphoma research and patient support. Many of the people in those groups—in fact the majority of them—will never have completed a marathon before. Right now, it seems about as possible as flying to the moon.

Amazingly, in three months time, those same people will be crossing their first marathon finishing line. And while the camaraderie, training, and shared experience will have provided them with many answers along the way, there will be one big question there to meet them at the finish line. That question is this:

What else can't you do?

Once you have looked at one impossible thing and achieved it, the neat line that has separated the idea (for it is only that, and idea, a thought) of what is possible and what is impossible is forever erased.

What is it that carries something from the impossible to the possible column? Four essential elements: Desire, Preparation, Accountability, Fun.

As my friend and master life coach Steve Chandler points out, too many of us look for the "how to" when we are presented with new challenges: "Oh, I could never run a marathon, I don't know how to." That's looking through the wrong end of the telescope. First comes the want to. And I coach my running clients the same way—find a reason to run other than yourself. What will you do with the greater health, mobility, sense of achievement? That will create your want to. Perhaps you'll be able to keep up with your kids or grand kids. Perhaps you'll be able to inspire or support someone else making a life-affirming decision—if you think your spouse needs to exercise more, model that, share that, live that with them. Perhaps you can raise money for those in a less fortunate position that yourself. The possibilities are endless. Find your "want to."

Indiana Basketball coach, Bobby Knight was right on the money when he said that, "Most people have the will to win, few have the will to prepare to win." Lack of preparation has become so endemic in our society that it has now actually become an acceptable excuse, "I'm sorry, I'm not prepared to do that." Exactly. Practice, practice, practice. Preparation brings the "how to" into being, brings it alive in you, brings you into contact with support.

As an addict of many shades, I know the power of accountability. There have been many times in my life when I was not willing to do something for myself, but I was willing to do it for someone else. Sounds crazy. Then again, addiction is crazy. I started each journey of sobriety by knowing that I'd walk into a room each week and report whether or not I had kept my agreement with them. I did it for them long enough, I learned to do it for myself. It's a lot harder to miss those 6 a.m. training runs when you know there's someone else waiting for you on the street corner. (Shameless plug: you can also get daily inspiration delivered to your phone now at www.IRunInspired.com).

First law of lasting change? In my view it's this: If you are going to succeed at anything, you have to find a way to make it fun. Train with buddies; stock up on the gear that you like; visit those you are raising money for; run events that involve swimming through trenches of mud; whatever it is for you, find it.

I've heard it said both that, "The impossible is where God likes to play," and "Joy is the proof of the presence of Spirit." Stand at any marathon finishing line and you'll see that both are wonderfully, powerfully, and undeniably true.

So . . . what can't you do? Now, prove yourself a liar.

For me, registering for the Bulldog 50k later this year has put me back in "impossibility." 100+ degree temperatures; 8,000ft overall elevation; 50k of hot, dusty, August trails in Southern California. Perhaps I'll see you there! Living with the impossible has already lifted my training, running, and joy to new levels. It can do the same for you.

Run INSPIRED: Now Get the Daily Inspiration to Keep You on Track!

2008-05-07T12:25:00.000-07:00

Don't simply run through your environment, run IN it. Search for, find, & fill yourself with the beauty of your surroundings; it's a reflection of who you are.” Toby Estler, from the new site: www.IRunInspired.com

Whether you are a newcomer or a veteran runner, the foundational support that you need is the support that first and foremost gets you out there-to keep you inspired, motivated, injury-free, committed, and fresh in your running.

Running buddies, coaches, inspiring magazines and articles all help. And they are fallible. Every now and then the running buddy (or you) is out of town. Coaches get sick. Magazines come round but once a month.

Now you can get regular, daily inspiration for your runner, wherever you are! You can even try them out for a 45-day free trial.

I have written these daily messages to inspire all aspects of your running: the doing, thinking, feeling, and evolving aspects of your running.

Evolving?? YES—because running is not only a tool for relaxing and strengthening the body. It can also ease the mind and free the soul.

These messages will support you in bringing more into your running, by consciously preparing not just physically, but also mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. By bringing this focused awareness to your runs, you can connect with an enhanced experience of who you truly are: not merely a human being with a soul, but rather a soul-a spiritual being-having a human (running!) experience.

This multidimensional approach to running will mean you get more miles to the gallon and recover quicker. You'll not only run faster, stronger, and longer, you'll also run deeper.

For those of you who are existing runners, you'll find ways for building upon the levels of freedom, peace, and expansiveness that you already enjoy in your running. You'll be able to carry those qualities deeper into your life-into your relationships with yourself, those closest to you, and your running buddies; into your workplace; and into your wider world so that all are infused with the joy and possibility you experience when running.

I extend an especially heartfelt welcome to those of you that are new to running! Here you'll find enthusiastic and encouraging daily words to support you as you ease into your new running practice. I invite you to do so recognizing that it also has much to offer beyond the already significant physical benefits.

With I Run Inspired you can:

Choose which days of the week you receive the message.
Select the time of day that works best for you—get maximum support for your scheduled workouts!
Even mix and match selections from different contributors, so you can include different topics on your non-running days.
Your inspiration goes wherever you do. Traveling out of town? No problem.
Messages focus on both the inner and outer aspects of running: how to run stronger, longer, and deeper.
You can also give a gift subscription to a friend.
Sign up for a no-risk FREE 45 day trial.
You can also switch authors anytime you want by logging in to your account.
Run inspired for as little as 13¢ a day�

Happy trails!

Crossing the Finish Line

2008-04-09T16:03:00.001-07:00

"Just as I always dreamed in secret. I raised my arms, I smiled, and I crossed the finish line." — Josy Barthel of Luxembourg describing his 1500 meter win in 1952.

I have just returned from a sacred journey to England initiated by the death of my father. As someone who runs with a spiritual focus, the metaphor of the run as a mirror of life's journey is one I explore almost daily. Now, my father's race, at least in this lifetime, is run. He has crossed the finish line. I have the greatest respect for all that my father accomplished in his life. And at 94, he certainly qualifies as a "long-distance runner."

But, more than anything, it is the qualitative nature of my father's life that is alive in my heart now as I run with him each day, communing with his spirit, sharing my deep gratitude and loving with him for how he lived his life.

When I was born in 1965, my father Jacques was 52 years old — he had already lived half a lifetime. A life that had included racing cars at famous Brooklands race track, service in the Royal Air Force, and business travels behind the Iron Curtain are just a few highlights. Many might have seen our difference in age as presenting a problem, I know there were times when I did. If my father did, he never let it show.

In the best possible way, Jacques was never a great one for acting his age. Indeed, I wonder perhaps if one of the hardest things about the experience of advanced age for him in the last several years was that it forced upon him something that he never really believed in: the concept of age.

When I was eight or so, during one of the wonderful annual vacations he would take me on, I remember him rising like Poseidon behind a rubber dinghy and outboard far out in the Mediterranean, water-skiing for the first time at age sixty.

He was well into his eighties and continuing to visit me and my new life and family in America, traveling solo, and astonishing us all with his daily bicycle trips along the sea front for a lunch time aperitif with the new friends that he seemed to make so easily throughout his life, wherever he went.

During one of those trips to California, he courageously accepted my invitation to join me in a counseling session with a psychotherapist I was seeing at the time. Once again, he walked into the unknown. Again, as always, he was willing to try something new. As we sat and talked, we both discovered we had the same important and urgent message to deliver to each other. That message was the simplest and most powerful one there is: I love you.

When at eighty-five, he insisted that I take him for a ride on my then newly acquired motorcycle, I could not turn down the gleam in his eye as he asked. Sure enough, he perched on the back of my Honda 750 Shadow and we motored up the curving coast road together, roaring with laughter as we bottomed out occasionally at the base of the bigger hills.

He shared with me once that after becoming a father at 52, he wondered if he would see me turn 21. He certainly did. And 31. And 41. While the last several months in particular, and in some way the last several years were uncomfortable for him, I thank God that he lived as long as he did, because I have needed every minute of that time to discover what a remarkable man my father is.

The constancy of his love was a sun around which my young life orbited. After my parents separated when I was very young, Jacques made sure that we spent time with each other regularly each week. During my recent trip to England, I put in my daily morning runs in London's beautiful Hyde Park, and paid homage to the days we spent walking around the Serpentine, playing hide and seek, and sailing model boats in the boating pond.

During my years at boarding school from the age of seven, week after week, month after month, year after year, he made the two-hour drive from London to watch me play in various school teams. In the summer months, watching the cricket matches, he would befriend and chat with the dozens of other parents who came to watch the games.

He was always the consummate conversationalist, ready to engage with anyone on any subject, whether he knew about it or not, because he was interested to know more. He was as comfortable talking with the barman at his favorite pub as he was with the shipping magnate in Monte Carlo, and each loved him the more for that, as we all did. As we all do.

With a beautiful, genuine, childlike curiosity, he was fascinated with the world and its people. He loved to talk, and anyone who had the blessing of conversation with him would usually get the treat of a good story: a gem from the golden age of motor racing; a peek into one of the many European cities and peoples from his many and varied travels; or perhaps a mouthful by mouthful retelling of the wonderful (and often bizarre) foods he had eaten around the globe. I don't think there was any part of any animal that my father had not eaten. Twice!

And boy could he laugh. When he laughed, he would give himself to it entirely, a loud, full-bodied laugh that could shake a room.

Back on the touchline in the rugby season, there was also many a cold, rainy winter afternoon when he would be the only parent on the touchline. I learned that I could count on him and his love.

To imply that our relationship was one of just fun and games would be to deceiving, and also do my father a disservice. Through ten years of drug and alcohol addiction in my tens and twenties, I did everything I could to push him away. And yet, he still kept coming back. Through the insults, the harsh words, the cruelty, his love for me remained constant.

When I finally found myself choosing between addiction and my sanity, it was to my father’s house that I ran for shelter. He welcomed me in with open arms and an open heart.

In many ways, I see his love for me as a foundation upon which I was then able to build myself a new life, the one that now includes my wife and daughter, a successful business, and a creative life. These are the enduring gifts that my father has bequeathed me. They are of course the greatest gifts any man could ask for.

More than anything, my father taught me, and is still teaching me, how to love. How to live from the heart, how to give, how to cherish those who are important to me, and how to be genuinely interested in the world. How to stay aware of the finish line and focus on enjoying the journey moment to moment.

While my father has crossed the ultimate finish line of our human experience, he is more alive in me now than ever. My challenge now is to live a life that honors the precious, timeless gifts and qualities that he has given me. And I relish that challenge.

Meister Eckhart said, “If the only prayer you said was, ‘Thank You’ that would suffice.” I lean heavily on that prayer these days.

Thank you dearest Daddy, for all the many ways you have shared with us the wonderful Soul that you are. Bon Voyage and Happy Trails.

Only the Disciplined are Free

2008-03-11T14:30:00.000-07:00

You see, there is simply no way to 'fake' your way through running a marathon. You have to pay your dues. Without tremendous discipline, commitment, and dedication, you won’t make it." Dean Karnazes

Dean's blog entry goes on: "When you do make it, you forever prove to yourself that with focus and gritty doggedness, you have what it takes to accomplish great things. And you recognize that it all started with a single baby step, with having the courage to try, with having the bravery to keep putting one foot in front of the other and not stopping until you’ve reached your goal."

Having just recently completed another LA Marathon, this time along with the wondrous Long Beach Team in Training group, I know that Dean's words are grounded in truth—and lots of experience.

Runner-philosopher George Sheehan once wrote, “There are those of us who are always about to live. We are waiting until things change, until there is more time, until we are less tired, until we get a promotion, until we settle down . . . until, until, until. It always seems as if there is some major event that must occur in our lives before we begin living.”

Sheehan was right on the money. Most of us are waiting. Standing at the starting line, tapping our toe impatiently. Waiting for someone—or something—to make us do what we secretly know we can do. What we yearn to do: to live beyond taking “risks.” To participate in the game of life at the level we know, deep inside, we can. To live in taking “trusts.” To live fully, creatively, and heroically.

What carries a dream in reality? Action. Consistent action over time. One step in front of the other. Just like a marathon. But to earn the right to participate in the marathon in and of itself takes discipline and preparation. As many an athlete and coach has noted, the will to win is nothing more than the will to prepare.

"The meek shall inherit the earth," is one of the better known Biblical quotations. Countless lives have been lived in the shadows as a result. But in a recent gathering of Master Coach Steve Chandler's Mastermind group , he shared a nugget of information that turns this quote on its head. Scholars are now taking a new look at the word translated as 'meek' and saying that it might more accurately be translated as 'disciplined.'"

"The disciplined shall inherit the earth," has a whole different feel to it, doesn't it. Small steps consistently taken over time can produce enormous results. Ask any marathoner. And you can't fake that.

More importantly, once you cross the finish line, you realize that you'd never want to fake it or cut corners. Because the sweetness celebration that comes with crossing any finish line—in running or in life—is built not just from the mileage of the race, but from the very first step of preparation. Before that even, it is built in the willingness to say "Yes!" to the idea, to life itself.

Happy trails!

Four Celebrations in One

2008-02-26T16:12:00.000-08:00

In a few days, this Sunday, March 2, I’ll be running in the L.A. Marathon—my first in a while.

I feel strong, prepared, and enthused about this event. It was just 18 months ago that it seemed that I might never run again — a lingering foot injury had flared up for the third time and I was side-lined. Just as I was launching my book on running, I was unable to run. How cool is that? Yeah, not much.

All the doctors and specialists that looked at my foot said my options were muscle surgery, nerve surgery, or a milder alternative of drug therapy. The drugs were anti-seizure medications that were supposed to work on the nerves in my foot and quell the inflammation. When I looked up the drugs in the Physicians Desk Reference, there were 3 pages of side-effects. And I’m not talking about an upset stomach.

“You’ll want to be sure that you take these meds before bedtime, because you might fall over if you take them in the daytime,” the doctor said. Honestly!

A year later, with careful, patient rehabilitation, stretching, and a whole heap of visualization and mental imaging, I have built my mileage back to marathon level — with a lot of wonderful support from wonderful runners, coaches, and trainers that Spirit has sent my way. No drugs. No surgery. No pain either. It has been an experience of what I know to be true in may areas of life, from my running to my life and business coaching clients: small steps, taken consistently over time, can create huge results.

It has taken a great deal of discipline to build back slowly. To listen to my body, to the coaching of others, to the wisdom of my own heart, and to stay with the mental commitment to create my own reality in the face of so much medical “certainty.”

Having once thought that I’d never run again, every single mile I cover is now infused with a deep level of gratitude, joy, and humility. There have been many awesome runs in my life, exciting events, and exotic locations. But now, this mile here is the best mile. The one I’m running right now. And it always will be. One mile at a time.

My thanks to Todd, Chuck, and Tiffany of the Long Beach Team in Training group, who have each played foundational roles in my return to running health. Sunday will certainly be a personal celebration—it will also be a celebration of their willingness to give of their time, knowledge, hearts, and wisdom. Bless you all.

And as I run, I’ll be running with great pride as I wear the purple singlet of the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society, who I have been raising funds for as part of my training. As is sometimes heard on our trainings runs, “If you think running a marathon is tough, try chemo.” Now there’s some perspective.

And as I have met and talked with a number of honored team mates and other folks fighting blood cancers, I have been deeply inspired to return to full health in my own small way. Boy, if they can handle that, I can sure as hell handle this.

By about 10 on Sunday morning, the challenge of the marathon will be over. Their fight will go on. Sunday will also be a celebration of them, and their great courage, persistence, and strength of heart.

Sunday will also be a celebration of a fourth group — the scores of people who have supported me through making donations to my fundraising. My goal of raising $2,200 is all but complete and will be by event day. As I run the marathon, I will carry a list of their names with me. My prayer is that all the grace, healing, inspiration, joy, humor, and good ol’ fashioned loving that has been a part of my training will find it’s way to them. Filling them, inspiring them, lifting them, as it has me.

Whether you are contemplating a first 5k, running your 100th marathon, seeking to make a major shift in your life, or facing the reality of an uphill challenge of fighting life-threatening disease, you CAN make it. One step at a time. As Jim Shapiro reminds us in his remarkable book, Running Across America, “even snails can cross continents.”

Wherever they may take you, may your trails be joyful ones.

Adapt and Adopt: Redefining 100%

2008-01-24T12:47:00.000-08:00

My training for the LA Marathon coming up in six weeks continues to go really well. Deep joy of joys, this week also brings new shoes: a pair of Adidas Supernova 10’s that feel like the equivalent to Mercury’s wings! These will be the shoes that carry me for my next marathon ☺.

This last weekend, our long run in the Team in Training group was 16 miles—it’s a good distance. However, what really illustrated to me that my commitment level is at a new high was the seven extremely wet and glorious miles I ran yesterday. I was laughing out loud as I splashed along the banks of the LA river in Long Beach, feeling exhilarated, strong, and very much in love with life.

When my running lifts me even higher than I could have imagined, I sometimes think back to my pre-running days. I used to be a 60-a-day smoker and the only running I was doing was seeking to avoid the police during some of the more colorful periods of my life.

The human body amazes me in the way it can adapt to the destructive things we can subject it to. Smoking, fast food, drugs, and excessive alcohol use, for example (I’ve done them all). Of course, as it seeks to function with all this toxicity, it needs to reassign energy resources. Functioning with a severely compromised liver, smoke-filled lungs, and/or clogged arteries, takes more energy—picture the additional pressure required to push the same amount of water through a clogged pipe, than a clear one.

Certainly, this means there is less energy for physical exertion. But there are also fewer available “energetic funds” to be allocated for creative thinking and problem solving or deep feelings of joy and inspiration. Our spirit becomes muffled.

The body—and we as individuals—adapt to this new way of being. It’s really an amazing process, a safety valve even. The body will no longer let you run up the stairs, because this is now a life-threatening option. You’ll get out of breath and be stopped. The body adapts and we adopt this new way of life. What was previously perhaps 80% of our capacity for living becomes the new 100%—the new maximum capacity. We lose 20% of what we were able to do previously. I suggest that this happens not just physically, but emotionally, mentally, and spiritually too.

If our health continues to diminish, the level of our maximum capacity continues to diminish. Next 80% of the new (already diminished) 100% becomes the next new, even lower maximum capacity. Now we are 40% down. The body adapts again and we adopt a lifestyle that matches it. It becomes a downward spiral.

The good news is that the process works in reverse too. Make changes in the way you care for your body, and you can make what was 100% the new 80%. As you strengthen your body, its muscles, organs, and tissue with healthier living, your capacity for living now expands to what would have been 120%, but is now 100%. Fewer resources need to be allocated to emergency systems and more resources become available for building, maintaining, and creating you and your body. More for creativity, joy, and inspired living. You then adopt this as a new way of being.

You get to choose whether you use this “adapt and adopt” process to spiral up or spiral down. It’s a matter of choice. Of course, it raises an exciting question, one that I encourage you to run with today:

If I’m currently living at a 10, what would it mean to now think of that level as an 8? What, then, would my new 10 look like? And what would I need to do to adapt in that way—to adopt a new 10?

Happy trails!

The Power of Conscious "Shoe" Choices

2008-01-16T15:19:00.000-08:00

“You don’t have to believe everything you think.” Bumper sticker.

Imagine going into your closet, closing your eyes, and pulling out the first pair of shoes you touch—these will be the ones you put on for your workout. Could be steel-toed work boots, four-inch heels, patent leather brogues, or flip flops. There is, of course, a chance that you’ll pick your running shoes, but the odds are against you.

You wouldn’t dream of running any distance in high heels or any other shoe than your running shoes. In fact, as runners we are very particular about our physical preparation: our shoes tied just right, our favorite snacks and nutrients, preferences for hydration liquids, and so on. (Naturally, there are always some who are willing to do anything, especially for money. Read about the annual Berlin Stiletto Run.)

Yet, all too often, we pay little attention to our mental preparation. We do not choose what we hold in our mind as we head out on our run. Quite regularly, we “put on” something in our mind that is as equally uncomfortable, painful, and potentially damaging as high heels would be for our feet.

In fact, for my analogy to be more accurate, it would not even be you choosing at random from the closet full of shoes. It might be a two-year-old doing it for you. Perhaps even a blindfolded two-year-old.

So what are these “mental stilettos” you are running in?

The endless chatter, worry, review, and internal gossip that we call “thinking.” Actually, this is not thinking. Thinking is an active process, involving choice, discernment, introspection, and many other elements.

This mental white noise that I refer to (When is my credit card due? I really hate my boss! When am I going to get laid next? Oh God, I’m going to lose it all in the recession.) is not thinking. It’s much more of a spectator sport. The internal version of television, and not the educational kind. Mental channel surfing.

Consciously choosing what plays on your mental channel will impact your running and your wider life in profound ways. I encourage you to ask yourself the following questions on a regular basis, before, during, and after running:

• Did I deliberately choose to think about this?
• Do I really want to think about this?
• Will thinking about this inspire me or depress me?
• What do I want to think about?
• How do I want to think about it?

My experience is that often what I am “thinking” about is, at best, holding me back from a much more pleasurable running and living experience. At worst, this regurgitated mental masturbation is truly making me blind! Blind to the beauty, inspiration, and possibility of life.

As you run this week, check in with yourself on the mental level as part of your preparation. Choose what you want to think about. Actively choose. Choose to focus on things that inspire you, deepen your connection with your higher self, and that encourage a positive outlook on life. If you are going to have fantasies, you may as well make them positive ones—and remember to win in your own fantasies too!

If you find that you are regularly focused on more negative thoughts, worry, or gossip, you’ll discover it is hard to simply banish it. It is far easier to replace a habit than just to stop one. So actively replace your worry habit (for that is all it is), with a different, creative one.

Here are some options that I choose from, and I’m sure you’ll come up with others:

Prayer
Gratitude is a great place to start. For your ability to run and the inspiration and other qualities it brings you; for all the ways in which your family or friends support your running. For the precious people and cherished relationships in your life. You get the idea.

Visualization
Replace discouraging thoughts with uplifting ones. Indulge a positive fantasy, and make it PG. The brain is unable to distinguish between reality and a carefully crafted fantasy. Visualization truly brings your dreams to life inside you. You get to experience them now, even as you work towards them. My current fantasies are focused on the Goretex Trans Rockies Run (video here), which I’d like to run in the next couple of years. As I run, I see myself safe, strong, and soaring as I complete the 6-day, 125-mile course—the dream of a lifetime. When I get there in reality, I know that my positive visualizations will impact my performance and ability in positive ways.

Mantra
This is great for all lengths of run, and especially longer ones—particularly when tiredness sets in and can open the door to negative thinking. Pick four adjectives, and repeat them to yourself in time with your stride. Two syllable words work well, with a syllable for each foot strike. These can be run-focused, such as “Fitter, faster, stronger, longer.” Or they can be qualities that you’d like to be experiencing elsewhere in life too, such as, “Patient, honest, loving, caring,” or “Wiser, calmer, richer, clearer.”

What you choose to put into the engine of your mind will determine how the vehicle of your emotional body runs. When these too are running on hi-quality fuel, your run and your life can shift into the highest gear! Both in the run and after it, you'll move more smoothly, efficiently, and gracefully.

Happy trails!

Running—and Living—on Purpose

2008-01-11T14:34:00.000-08:00

Over the last several months, as I have been meeting runners (current, former, and aspiring) at book signings and events, I have been amazed to discover how many people want to run and don’t. Or who used to and no longer do. There always seems to be something in the way. Time challenges, other commitments, niggling injuries; these are some of the “reasons” I hear.

Interestingly, when I ask them why they want to run, there’s a good deal of unclarity. Health and fitness for sure. But after that? Not much, at least not yet. They don't have event goals, such as running a 10k, half or full marathon, or anything like that. No time goals either.

Nor do they have any goals as to what they’d do with their enhanced fitness. What would fitness give you? If you had that fitness NOW, what would you do?” I ask them. A quizzical look comes back to me as if to say, “Isn’t that the goal itself.”

If you are running for the sake of running, you may as well be a rat on a tread wheel. Ultimately, you are getting fitter so that you can run on that tread wheel faster. Nothing wrong with that, but I think you might be missing the point.

Running can be a hi-temperature crucible in which to fire your greatest success and fulfillment. What transforms running from a “have-to” to a “want-to”? Mission.

Mission will bring a purpose into your running (and this applies to any exercise you care to choose) and you will transform your experience. Whether it’s performance goals for the running itself, or goals that build upon what your running gives you, a purpose to your running will elevate your commitment and lock it in.

Sure, I’ve had running focused goals such as first marathons, quicker times, and so on. And those goals have certainly inspired me. This year, my intention is to move into ultrarunning.

But there have been many deeper purposes that have lit a fire in me and that have my running front and center in the face of even the stiffest challenges. All of them answer the question, how can I pass on the benefits of my running. Regaining the ability to throw my daughter in the air and catch her as I bathe in the glee of their laughter; raising funds for an important cause; reclaiming and amplifying the power of intentional living.

These and other missions have ensured that my running comes first. And when I put it first, there always seems to be time for everything else. When I put all the other stuff first, I never quite seem to have enough time for my running.

Purpose will give you a reason to make time, prioritize your running, and balance your approach so that you can run injury free. These are all within your dominion. A mission will boost your morale so that you can springboard off of the things that challenge your running and deepen your experience. It works in running and it works everywhere in life. Here’s a great example of the power of purpose that I read only today.

On a flight to Phoenix this morning for my monthly roll-in-the-creative-mud with my fellow Steve Chandler Mastermind members, I was flipping through the in-flight magazine and caught a profile of Dr. Bennett Deboisblanc, a physician who was on duty for five straight days the front line of the emergency response after Hurricane Katrina.

With the two emergency generators flooded and all the lights out, the doctor and his staff knew this was not going be like any drill they’d practiced.

The heat was stifling. With 300 already sick patients, 50 of them in critical condition, the hospital in waist deep water, no electricity, and supplies dwindling. You can see a scene that was quickly developing into secondary disaster waiting to happen.

They waited 36 hours to be rescued, but none came. First responders were stretched way beyond capacity. Under such pressures, tempers can fray and morale can dwindle rapidly. It’s understandable.

Then something shifted. The group decided they would have to create their own rescue. “Morale in the hospital rapidly improved once we had a mission,” Deboisblanc said.

He, some 600 nurses, physicians, and security guards decided that they’d have to create their own rescue plan. One of the nurses used her cell phone and got a live feed into CNN. A helicopter operator in St. Louis saw the feed and took to the sky to help. The hospital and the surrounding area was too flooded for him to land, so using small boats from the fire department, the hospital staff floated patients one at a time through the waist-deep water to a parking structure three blocks away. The helicopter airlifted the patients to safety from there.

Your running can airlift you to safety—and higher—any day you let it. It will relax your body, ease your mind, and free your soul.

If your commitment is intermittent try this: make a list of what you get out of your running, a list of how you benefit. Then, make a list of what you can do with those benefits—what you can give as a result of those benefits, whose lives can you touch? That second list is the doorway to your consistent, joy-filled, and highly successful running.

Whose Graffiti are You Reading?

2008-01-04T15:11:00.000-08:00

Training for the LA marathon continues to go really well, with the addition now of a regular hill workout with Team in Training mentor Tiffany. In Long Beach, there are no more challenging hills than at Signal Hill. The one-mile loop that Tiffany has mapped out is a great balance between the work of the steep climb, and the grace of the long, winding descent.

As challenging as the hill climb is, the view and perspective from the top is so worth the journey. The broad ocean gilded in the morning sun; Catalina floating effortlessly in the sea; Palos Verdes reaching unapologetically for the heavens. All is right in the world.

I have to say that I take a certain amount of pride in being able to almost keep up with someone approaching half my age. Almost. With the quiet confidence of the powerful runner, she pushed out ahead at the peak of the last climb. With the “wisdom” of my greater years, I knew better than to push myself as hard as it would take to keep up. Another day!

I wondered how my Thursday morning run would be after those steep hills, and was delighted to find that my calves and quads were both still strong and moving easily. My Thursday runs along the L.A. river have a unique quality about them, for at about 5 a.m. in the morning, the city crews are driving the length of the river and spray painting over all the graffiti that has collected over the previous week—and that can be a lot, believe me.

There’s plenty to be said about graffiti, and I’m not going to repeat it. As I see it, we’ve been at it since pre-history. In my day, it consisted mostly of carving names in trees. Toby loves Chiara (a high school crush). That kind of thing.

I will be bold and say this, in and of itself, as a medium, I am not entirely against graffiti.

Recently, Marie Deary held an evening at Long Beach’s premier independent bookstore, Shore Books, on the theme of graffiti, to highlight a new book, Graffiti L.A. As I browsed the book a few days later, I noticed that the vast majority of North American graffiti is simply tags—individuals painting their chosen name in a variety of different styles, colors, and designs. Many of them are quite striking. But just names. Back to carving on trees in a sense.

Now there is a kind of graffiti that adds to the conversation. You think not? I encourage you to explore the work of my fellow Brit, Banksy. That’s a piece of his work at the start of the article (I bet you wondered what that was doing there!). I’ll be talking more about him on another day. I’m wiling to go toe to toe with anyone and advocate that this guy is an artist.

Anyway, on my L.A. river run, it’s all name tagging that I see. Tags for individuals and gangs. When the city crews come by, they photograph the tags to pass on to those tracking gang activity in the LBC, and then spray over them. The taggers come back; the city comes back. Ad infinitum, it seems. They keep each other employed.

This kind of graffiti does annoy me. It seems so purposeless. So ego-centric. So “I am here.” I call it “cock waving;” nothing more, nothing less. As I ran yesterday morning, I used a powerful tool of exploration as part of my running meditation. The practice almost always energizes me, and I noticed that I was clocking miles in just under seven minutes, quick for me.

The tool is a question I learned in the University of Santa Monica’s Graduate Programs in Spiritual Psychology, and it goes like this: If my outer experience is a reflection of my inner reality, what could this experience be showing me?

Gently, birthed in the rhythm of my seven-minute miles, the answer appeared.

I realized that the graffiti is just like the negative thinking that I can subject myself to. Or the negativity of others that I buy into. News stories for example. The gangsters of fear, worry, and doubt that run amok in my mind sometimes, especially when I am not paying attention. I throw self-defeating graffiti up on the screen of my own consciousness and stare at it. I can’t . . .; Life is unfair; I’ll never be able to . . . Etc, etc.

Only a conscious choice to intervene can make a difference—and I paint over it with a more positive focus. The fear returns, my choice paints over it. They, too, keep each other employed.

One of my New Year intentions is to get out of this game of back and forward. To transform the landscape of my own consciousness so that graffiti no longer features in it. I will no longer battle against fear. That game is done. I simply look for, create, and see the beauty of life inside me and outside of me. I will be master of my own domain!

Time and again, I meet runners who say to me, “I wish I could feel during the rest of my day the way I do when I am running. You can. In fact, you must! It is the responsibility that comes with the joy of running. How is this done? Approach the rest of your day in the same way that you approach your run.

Prepare. Decide where you are going. Plot a course for your day. Pace yourself. Feed yourself along the way, physically, emotionally, mentally, and spiritually. Create for yourself the time you need. Return home in gratitude. Running doesn’t stop with the end of your workout. You just change clothes and course.

Happy trails!

Quality and Quantity

2007-12-28T10:20:00.000-08:00

"I don’t think the total mileage is very important. To me, it was the way in which I ran those miles which was important." Derek Clayton, Australian marathoner.

When Derek Clayton set the marathon record in a classic race at the Fukuoka Marathon in Japan on December 3, 1967 in 2:09:36.4, it was the first marathon race ever run in less than two hours and ten minutes. Two years later, he set a new record of 2:08:33 in Antwerp—a record that stood for an astounding 12 years, in a sport where a record that stands for a year or two is pretty remarkable. In fact, Derek Clayton's record still is the record that stood the longest in marathon record history

The current record, held by enigmatic Ethiopian Haile Gebrselassie stands at 2:04:26 — four minutes have been shaved off the record time in 40 years. And this record, too, of course, will be surpassed. And the next. And so on. Each empire will fall.

"Everything we do," inspirational career coach Rick Jarow has said, "will be forgotten. How we do it will remain for all time." Or put another way, it's not the miles we run, or even how fast we run them, but how we run—who we are as we run them—that really counts.

As the New Year moves upon us, there will be a flurry of activity. Resolutions, new commitments, inspirational goals, plans for fresh accomplishments. Many of us will be seeking to do life differently. Many professionals in my line of work, life coaching, capitalize upon this time of year to encourage prospective clients to get out and do more — create the life they want, to finally do what it is that they long to do. To create a "new you." You version 3.0 perhaps?

In my experience, this frenetic activity is counter productive in the long term. I have already met, as an estimate, twenty people who have shared that there Christmas day was the best they ever had. What was so wonderful about it? These are some of the words that come in the reply: slower pace; time with family; mellow; connected; joy; rest; peace; introspection. You get the idea.

It is definitely the experience of being that seems to touch so many people at this time of year. And with so many of us immersed in our being at one time, there are real global consequences. In fact, on Christmas day, the average global temperature drops about five degrees as a huge proportion of the globe steps out of busy work.

Of course, it is not a question of choosing between doing and being. That would be like choosing between running 70 miles a week or not running at all. As Derek Clayton says, it's the way in which we run the miles that counts. He shows us the way—not doing or being, but doing from being.

Too "woo woo" for the real world? Remember that Clayton's 12-year record was achieved by giving an important focus on his inner experience—his beingness—as he was competing at the highest levels.

So as you consider your goals for 2008, make room for "being goals." In your running, rather than just adding on more miles as a way to improve, find ways to add more to the qualitative experience of your running. My book can certainly help you to do that, and my website also has a list of inspirational running books and films for you to energize the tone of your running too. To see those lists, click here.

Instead of seeking to redesign, reinvent, or improve yourself, perhaps it is time to rediscover yourSelf. The inherent perfection of who you are, and then create from that place. Work and creativity are not about earning the right to life but about giving voice to the unique expression of life that is you. You do not need to justify your existence. You are here—there's your proof that you ought to be here!

In your wider life, in work, in relationship, in your communities, perhaps the greater goal for the year to come would be to be a better person to those around you, not just a better person than those around you. Now that's a goal worth training for!

Happy Trails!

Addition by Subtraction

2007-12-20T09:40:00.000-08:00

"Any idiot can train himself into the ground; the trick is working in training to get gradually stronger." Keith Brantly, U.S. road racer and marathoner.

You, too, probably have those experiences from time to time when the same message seems to come from a zillion different areas in your life. For me, over the last several weeks, I have been hearing a similar message in my running, my professional life and business coaching work, and even in my spiritual practice.

Last week, the wonderfully enthusiastic Todd, who is one of the coaches for the Team in Training group in Long Beach, paused with me at a fuel station on our longer Saturday training run as we all continue our preparation for the L.A. marathon in March. (I'd be remiss if I did not offer you the chance to support the fundraising for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society, so here it is!)

Todd gently inquired about a light strain I have been carrying in my right calf—I think it is the soleus muscle. And he did so with the exceptional caring and humility that belongs to truly experienced (Todd has run hundreds of marathons and many, many of them barefoot. That's Todd with barefoot running maestro Ken Bob. Visit the barefoot running site.).

When he asked how many mid-week miles I was running, I told him 8-8-12 for my Tu/Wed/Thur runs, and then there was our 10+ on Saturday.

"You might consider running less. See, your real goal now is completing L.A. Your other running needs to support that goal, not hinder it. You can go back to your regular schedule after L.A."

You want me to run less?! I replied like an addict asked to give up his favorite high. OK, then. Give me some numbers. He offered me 5-5-5.

So that is exactly what I have done. And my experience? Fabulous! While my runs have been quantitatively less, they have been qualitatively so much more. I have been more open-hearted, more at peace, and more in joy—even in the pouring rain. And, importantly, that strain has not shown up at all. I come in from my runs strong, with plenty more to give. Elated.

By doing less, I am clearly accomplishing more.

As a part of my professional work (though in reality this is an experience that is touching every area of my life), I am a member of a wonderful mastermind group facilitated by master coach Steve Chandler. So just over a week ago, I got this from Steve:

Desires, when they are strong, can be converted into clear commitments. And then pure enthusiasm causes the creation of time. Soon there's lots of time. All the time in the world. When the desire is strong, we have all the time in the world.

Not too many years ago, I simply tried to think of too many things every day. And by thinking of too many things every day, I never gave anything enough time or enough real thought to develop it. I was always on the mental run. I didn't realize that the real career strength in life came from slowing down and slowly choosing what to focus on. Until I saw how strong that idea could be, I was taking every phone call and pondering every hit of email with equal energy and that is definitely weak. That is not a strong way to live.

I wish I had known to tell myself this: Slow down. Do less. Accomplish more. Once someone asked Sir Isaac Newton, "How did you discover the theory of gravity?" He said, "You would have discovered it too if that's all you had thought about every day."

So there is was again. And then, in my mastermind group meeting in Phoenix last month, I was talking with coaching powerhouse Justin Rohner during a break. Justin is very knowledgeable about Byron Katie, and I was asking about her thoughts on debt.

Justin explained that in many ways, living by creating debt is living in the future — becoming attached to the future money that will be needed to feed the debt payments. Debt is like arguing with reality, according to Byron Katie, who encourages to understand that we have all the money we are supposed to at any given moment. "If you don't believe me," she writes, "Go check you bank account!" Justin added, "It's like pulling on your arm, saying 'You're supposed to be longer!'"

As if this was not enough, I was listening to some inspirational tapes as part of my spiritual practice, my teacher was sharing about how many times people will come to him and ask, "How do I progress on my spiritual path quicker? I want to evolve quicker!" When I heard the response (and I paraphrase here), I felt goose bumps all over my body. For me that's a sure sign that I need to sit up and listen. If you want to evolve faster, slow down.

OK already!

As I slow down in all areas of my life, I am finding I am more focused, less easily distracted, less anxious, more available to my Self, my family, and my fellow human beings. As a result I experience more joy, more inspiration, and more clarity and fulfillment.

As you run (or whatever your chosen form of exercise might be) today, let yourself do it in a softer way. Less distance, less push. Less willfulness and more willingness. Willingness to experience yourself not just as a human doing but as a human being. And beyond that, perhaps, no longer just as a human being searching for spiritual experience, but as a spiritual being having a human experience.

Happy trails!

Four Seasons

2007-12-20T09:31:00.000-08:00

"Running is my meditation, mind flush, cosmic telephone, mood elevator and spiritual communion." Lorraine Moller.

It's been a wonderful, wet week of running. Wonderful you say? Absolutely! For me, as a British export, there are times when I miss the more marked definition of the seasons—especially at the end of a long California summer.

Yesterday morning, I was out at about 9 a.m. when a heavy downpour transformed the L.A. river into a raging torrent that would have put Newport Beach's Wedge to the test. Waves of churning water cascading downstream with some pretty nice looking faces in places! As I passed a solitary oncoming runner, the only other person out on the bike path, I extended my hand and we shared an exuberant and enthusiastic high five. The joy of our commitment to ourselves and our running glistened in the rain.

As I peered through the waterfall pouring from the peak of my hat, I thought more about the seasons. In my men's group last night, a number of us shared how differently we experience ourselves in the winter. More introspective, willing to slow down, softer.

And as I ran into now clearing skies, I recognized that the outer world of the seasons offers a wonderful mirror to different places in my own consciousness. As I looked inside myself, I found all four seasons available.

There is a spring, comprised of my steadily increasing training as I prepare for March's L.A. Marathon, and the new friendships that are blossoming as a result of my participating in the Long Beach Team in Training group. New connections that are feeding me with new ideas, different perspectives, and fresh goals.

There is a summer, the joy of my marriage and family; my daughter completing her first school semester, and the way she is filled with the all the joy, creativity, and freedom of being two-and-a-half and immersing herself in the holiday season. Such playfulness!

There is a fall, too. As many of you know, I am a recovering addict of many different shades: alcohol, drugs, cigarettes, and sex. Sometimes being in recovery is easy. Then there are times when I can feel as though I have lost dear friends. Surely looking them up one more time can't hurt. The last couple of months, those years of addiction have again looked bare to me. This too shall pass.

And there is a winter—places in my consciousness that are dark, largely inaccessible as yet, and rightly so. In that darkness, something is being seeded. The miracle of creation is at work and it requires that darkness for germination to take place effectively. Spirit is wise to keep it's plans for me veiled at times. Perhaps, if I could see them now, I'd either scare myself to death or seek to take them over and make a mess of the wonder of divine creation and inspiration.

As you run today, connect with the season you are running in and explore it as a reflection of your own way of being in the world, of your own experience. And then, as you run, journey deeper into the landscape of your awareness to find all your seasons, your spring, summer, fall, and winter. Appreciate each one of them for the many blessings, both seen and unseen that they bring.

Running Partners, Part 4

2007-12-19T14:08:00.000-08:00

Last week, I laid out an invitation that was, in reality, a thinly-veiled challenge: Either join me as a runner/fundraiser participating with Team in Training (there's a TNT group near you!) or as a sponsor. Or even both!

The donations continue to roll in, and I have been joined in training and fundraising out on the roads by my friend Marie. Welcome Marie! Marie owns the locally world famous Shore Books in Long Beach, a fiercely independent bookstore that also showcases some of the leading artists, writers, and designers in the Long Beach and South Bay area.

She'll be opening a second location in Long Beach in January 2008, such is the demand for her unique blend of good old-fashioned attentive service, knowledgeable staff, and leading edge titles and events. Local, national, and international authors are frequent visitors to her store.

So, if you are buying inspirational books for your running (and other?!) friends this holiday season, you can order online through her website, and have any title shipped to you direct. When you speak to her, give her a "Go Team!" from me (that's our Team in Training mantra :-)

Giving is a Lie

2007-12-19T14:05:00.000-08:00

OK! So a line in yesterday's blog entry seems to have created quite a response. I had said, This is one of the best kept secrets around: giving is a lie!

I stand by that and here's why. All the times that I have truly, fully, unconditionally given—whether from my heart, my wallet, my time, or my dinner plate (Hey, I'm an only child. I still don;t share my food well :-), it seems that I get more in return. Apparently, it's unavoidable.

When I tithe 10% percent of my income, my business seems to thrive in unexpected an wonderful ways. (For more information and ideas on tithing, click here.) During the years of service I was privileged to be able to give at the University of Santa Monica, assisting the remarkable graduate students studying for their degrees in Spiritual Psychology, I came away from each weekend with my heart overflowing with gratitude—wiser, clearer, and more deeply aware of my connection to Spirit. Such experiences are priceless. And no credit card required.

The joy, humor, inspiration, and service consciousness that I enjoy and share with my Team in Training group in Long Beach is a profoundly life-affirming experience—amplifying the inherent gifts i receive through my running. I had sought to give back through my running by joining team in training, but, yet again, I seem to be receiving more than I am giving.

In the end, I realize, I can not outgive Spirit. For giving is not what the Spirit does. It is what Spirit is.