3K Indoor Track--a fun January Saturday

Videos - Mens 3000m Heat 2 - Liberty Open 2012
Alex Varner wins
Patrick Reaves 5th
George Linney 23rd out of 33 finishers.
All three of us set personal bests.
RESULTS

Running is so fun

It has been an excellent week of training and I have not even begun my Boston build in earnest.  That starts tomorrow. On Tuesday I did this to my spikes with 25 power line hills in Woodcroft.  Sorry Saucony Shay's, yet that's what you were made for. On Thursday I easily completed 15 x 400m in 80 seconds each.  Last one was 72 seconds.  George IV accompanied me to the Duke track and set his personal best in the mile--7:33.

Today I will run my first ever indoor track meet at Liberty University.  200 meter flat track for 3000 meters.  15 laps for less than two miles.  Should be fun.  Looking forward to a quick Virginia trip with my son, George IV, and teammates, Patrick and Alex.

Tomorrow begins a 10 week training program for the Boston Marathon on 4/16/12.  Each date refers to the week's end and each number in K's refers to the distance goal for the week.

1.     2/4 115K
2.     2/11 125K
3.     2/18 135K
4.     2/25 145K
5.     3/3 160K
6.     3/10 170K
7.     3/17 120K (3/18 is Wrightsville Half Marathon—goal 1:15)
8.     3/24 140K
9.     3/31 155K
10.    4/7 170-175K I think it is going to be a great Winter turning to Spring.  The church is thriving, ready to hear promises, covenants, commitments.  Lent is a long journey from February 22-April 8, yet I am in a resurrection mood and plan to carry it on til summer.

Morning Yearning

The 30th Psalm expresses the long night: weeping may remain for a night, but rejoicing comes in the morning.
It is difficult when the mind stirs in the dark hours and we rise rather than rest.  I sleep much better than I once did, but last night lacks the supporting evidence.  Somewhere later in the day, I will run out of energy, yet I can almost guarantee a restful slumber when I put my head down again.  So that's something.

There is just so much to do.  So much to think about.  So much to be happy about and celebrate.  So much to prepare for.  It is very quiet in the middle of the night for a father with young children.  Night is protected time and the brain knows this and sometimes takes advantage of waking quiet rather than sleeping.

Ben Harper yearns for morning in this excellent song that has always moved me.



An icon I pray with depicts the prophet Isaiah:
With a word, the Lord stirs me in the morning, he stirs my ear to hear like a disciple.

Let this be the prayer to begin the day.

Sunrise

http://www.tomlussierphotography.com/

My art in the New Year

My new computer has this cool app, Art of Touch.  It's a welcome break from so many letters.

My first piece:

 Signed:

 I am thankful for this day.  Epiphany marks the formal end of Christmas and celebrates the revelation of God the Son as a human being in Jesus Christ.  This is not just something we say and move on to other things in the world.  God the Son...a human being.  That's a lot to take.  I'm trying to wrap my mind around bright light.  A light bright enough to lead the way, make straight a path in the darkness.

This Sunday marks the first baptism for the Tobacco Trail Church.  When we participate in baptism we are sealed by the Holy Spirit and marked as Christ's own forever. Millions of baptisms have come before this one.  Many, I presume, will come after.  And yet even with so many before and after, I expect to experience a kind of apocalyptic joy like I always do at baptisms.  A kind of in-breaking of the Kingdom that leaves me standing in awe.  One definition of apocalyptic is that it prophetically forecasts the ultimate destiny of the world.  In the Christian world, contrary to what you might have thought or heard, Apocalypse is when God sets everything right.  That happened in large part at the Cross of Christ.  That will happen again at that Omega time or End time.

 One of the prayers we will chant to make ready for the newly baptized:

There is one Body and one Spirit;

There is one hope in God's call to us;

One Lord, One Faith, One Baptism:

One God and Father of all

 That sounds like getting it right.

Come and see.

Sunday, January 8, 2012

10 o'clock in the morning 

 New Hope Camp and Conference Center 

4805 Highway 86 Chapel Hill, NC 27514

Headwaters recirculated for 1/1/12

Looking back at what I first posted on this blog on March 4, 2008...

I'm just beginning in the world of leisure blogging, though I have started a blog for work http://georgelinney.edublogs.org/ in case you want to visit me as my students visit me.

While At Water's Edge will be mostly about running, I am also remembering fondly my prior outdoor life as a whitewater canoeist and kayaker which might have some overlap to this blog title. Every once in a while I sneak into the water skirted and surrounded by a plastic whitewater kayak, if only at an artificial site http://www.usnwc.org/. Perhaps this blog will inspire me to kayak a few more times this season.

Still the blog title, At Water's Edge, comes not primarily from images of trail running nor whitewater kayaking, but from Hebrew Scripture. The Word of God is my first love and no better place to start than in the language of the 42nd Psalm--As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When can I go and meet with God?

When crossing a stream as a runner, one must make a series of quick decisions. How much does it matter to keep my shoes dry? Would I even want to keep them dry if I could? What are the pitfalls of trying to pinball off each of those rocks? Will I slip? How is my triple jump these days? Can I pronounce groin should I strain mine in this leap, leap of faith, if you will?

None of these questions seem to address the question of thirst, since the psalmists' image is of a panting deer who longs for a drink from the stream. But I will stretch the metaphor to include the thirst of my shoes. Sometimes a trail shoe just wants to get wet. Here are two of my favorite races to water one's shoes:

http://www.raceuwharrie.com/

http://www.mitchellraces.com/springmaidsplash/race.html

...Now it is the first day of 2012. I don't kayak as often as I would like or write about the sport much. I'd like to remedy that someday. I do tend to thread running and the Word together. What does 2012 hold for me? I can't wait to see.