stat line

Saturday morning, a couple of friends and I ran the 10K at the Cowtown in Fort Worth, TX.

The above picture is a snapshot of my race summary. My Nike+ said that I ran 45:16, but I’m happy with 45:41. It was a cool experience. The multiple races at the Cowtown end up totaling around 15,000 runners, so the energy in downtown was absurd and exciting. Keith Peeler joined us and decided to Twit the entire experience. It was quite humorous to get my phone in the car after the race and see a string of Twitter messages from Keith, including pictures! What a great idea!

I’ve been meaning to write about my running journey over the past few months, but haven’t found time to. It’s become a valuable part of my day/week and losing 40lbs has been an encouragement in pretty much all areas of life. I would post before and after pictures, but then I’d be jumping in the deep end of the narcissism pool…. because running and losing weight wasn’t about looking better or impressing people, but something deep down inside of me knew that eating a bunch of junk 24/7 and sitting on my rear watching TV wasn’t good for my soul. 

And I’m not pretentious enough to write dumb stuff like “we were meant to run” or “running puts us in touch with God,” because that’s not really true at all. I guess running could be a “spiritual” activity for some, but it’s not for everyone. Don’t do it because it’s trendy, or because someone else is doing it, or even just to lose weight. There are lots of ways to lose weight. Run because you want to, because you enjoy it, and because you’ll think about it until you do.

re: 10K to love on Homeless People

On February 28th, I’m going to be running the Cowtown 10K in Fort Worth. I’ve decided to run for Back on My Feet, an organization in Philadelphia that helps homeless people get their lives back on track by training them in the art & discipline of running. 

To represent B.O.M.F. in the 10k, I’m fundraising for them. 100% of the proceeds goes towards funding their operation. To help, you can click here to donate. Thanks for loving on the homeless in Philly and, hopefully soon, other areas of the country. Along with the people of Back On My Feet, I believe that running can teach the necessary life skills to help facilitate a person’s recovery into a functioning member of society. 

first race!

This past Saturday I got to run in my first race, the Tal Morrison Classic (hosted by the Dallas Running Club). Later I’ll post more about the experience of racing for the first time. I ran in the 5K out of the 5k/15k, and thanks to my friend Kevin I found a race day pic of myself crossing the finish line at 21 minutes/33 seconds (official race time):