Puns Everywhere!!!

While we were driving I received a very pleasant unexpected telephone call. I continue to be amazed as to how well everything is working out. I can vividly remember a few months after my release wondering when things would turn and yes, things have turned in a very positive direction. This telephone call was the antithesis of a telephone call I had over 6 months ago and all I can say is the law of attraction really works wonders. I am a big believer in the Power of Intention and it seemed like my intentions took longer than I wanted but as usual these intentions worked out as intended (yes, pun intended!). I was very happy with the outcome of the telephone call and it appears that there shouldn’t be any issues with my running in the Arizona Rock n’ Roll marathon next month; now I just need my calf to heal properly and I will be good to go.

There was another piece of good news I received last night. The “wheels” of justice do grind very slowly but patience does pay off. My wife and I were waiting on this piece of news for awhile and yes, the outcome was very good. The details aren’t very important and I have to say that I thought everything would turn out this way and again things took a little longer than anticipated. The bottom line was all that matter and this bottom line were very well received.

This morning my intentions were to endure a very long run of 24 miles. Of course this was dependent on how well my calf was feeling. The pain had diminished and I was feeling good. I could still feel something but my mind was in a good place which helps to overcome the mind of matter principle. My mind was working very well for the first 13 miles; however; at 13 miles I have no choice but to stop running since the treadmill has to be reset. (Yes, I ran on a treadmill and continue to run on a treadmill as my preferred method of training; additionally the weather was very suspect outside.) I reset the treadmill which isn’t a big deal because I have to always reset the treadmill and continue on my way.

I have run 20 miles already on the treadmill and today was supposed to be 24 miles. I say “supposed” to be since I had such difficulty getting restarted as my calf starting to act up. My mind wasn’t in a very good place and the matter overtook my mind. It mattered and I minded so I had to stop running. However; I wasn’t going to be denied a long workout so I hopped on the exercise cycle and preceded to cycle for another hour and twenty minutes. This brought my total aerobic time to 3 hours which is how long it should have taken me to run the 24 miles. Incidentally I was feeling a little run down at the 2 ½ hour mark just like in my previous marathons. I need to get my endurance level passed this wall and with only 5 weeks to go before the marathon I am running (yes, pun intended again!) out of time. I was happy to get in the three hour workout time and I was a huge sweaty mess. I think my workout clothes weighed 10 pounds from the sweat.

I returned home and immediately iced my calf which seemed to help. My wife had already taken our son to his flag football game because it was picture day before the game. I thought it would be better if I joined them closer to game time and this gave me a little time to spend with our daughter prior to departing. My daughter and I just hung out talking and I noticed that the Ironman Triathlon was airing on television. I have written about this insane endeavor before so to refresh the Ironman is a 2.4 mile swim followed by a 112 mile bicycle ride and concluded with a 26.2 mile run; yes, those are all consecutive and performed on the same day. The winner of the race on the men’s side usually comes in at a little under 8 hours while the winner on the women’s side comes in at 9 hours. Now that is a full day of work.

My daughter even seemed interested in watching this and was amazed 1,700 people would put their bodies through this very rigorous test. I watched in awe and did think that it would be great to actual finish one of these insane endeavors. My plan is to start competing in triathlons next year and maybe in a few years I would be fortunate to qualify for this race. There are people of all ages who compete and the oldest competitor was a 72 year old woman who actually completed the race. Yes, the winners take much less time than the “regular” people who finish well into the hours of the evening but the key is to finish. This is one heck of fete and I was very inspired watching these people cross the finish line knowing they had accomplished something most people cannot. Of course I will continue taking life one day at a time and know this leads my in the proper positive direction.

We made our way to the flag football game and unlike last week where the temperature was in the 80’s today the temperature barely hit 50 degrees with blustery winds. This did not deter my son or the children on the fields. My son played a much better game than last week and so did his team. The coach made some adjustments and moved my son to wide receiver instead of quarterback where he had four great catches. One of those catches appeared to result in a very long touchdown but upon further review my son must have stepped out of bounds at around the 20 yard line.

His team did win the game 18-12 in a very good game. The kids on the team bounced back from their horrendous lost last week and everyone had a blast. My son was the only player to play every down on both offense and defense which is great by him. The more he is involved the better and I know he had no intentions of coming off that field. It was a great Saturday afternoon.