second Post from Ping.fm

first post from Ping.fm..

Death Race Eve

After a wicked case of nerves for the better part of the day ( starting around 5am ) I am finally at peace again about what ever is going to happen tomorrow. I'm not worried about being in a race - I'm just going for an ultra long hike in the mountains. I'm not concerned about my time, I'm preparing for a 24 hour journey. If it takes less time than that , bonus!!

The only way to finish this event is if finishing is more important than the pain,, which it is.

Also, now that I've been to the mandatory pre-race meeting and seen the 36% finish rate prospects, I really do believe I will be in that number.

GO DEATH RACERS!!!! Via con Dios.

Gone Mental - Now Spiritual

Previously I've looked at some basic mental attitudes and strategies to get you through the relatively easy portion. ( hopefully at least half!!! )

Now, how do you hold on to your sanity as you attempt to push your body WAY beyond what it is agreeing to??

1) You need a higher purpose.
2) That purpose has to mean more to you than temporary physical pain.

DISCLAIMER: I do not endorse doing permanent injury for the sake of any sport. You take all responsibility for pushing past temporary pain and causing permanent injury to yourself.

Many runners, simply love to run. And that love of running turns into a talent for long distance running. But, in order to continue on despite even temporary agony, you need more than a love of running; you need to believe there is a higher purpose for finishing the race. Something that continues and even grows stronger in the face of pain, when love of running has become a string of profanity in your memory.

For some that higher purpose may be strictly glory and fame, but honestly I have never met anyone like that. For some it may be a simple exercise in determination or self affirmation. Some people do see a metaphorical higher purpose like the race representing life's struggle that we are all faced with together on our collective journeys.

For myself it has elements of the above, but more importantly to me it is an expectation - an expectation that as I become weak, God becomes stronger in me.

Let me try to explain.

As I become physically, mentally, emotionally and yes even spiritually weakened, ( by 6, 12, or 24 hours of running) God is there in a way that is not possible when my defenses are at full strength and all my favourite comforts and distractions are freely available. I hear Him speaking to me, causing me to reassess my priorities in life and appreciate all the little things.

Just as Isaac Penington advises in "Letters on Spiritual Virtues" I subscribe to the philosophy that when and if you are seeking God, you should "Keep yourself where you have felt the Lord visit you in the past." and that has been good advice in my experience.

I recognize that this is still not a complete answer to "why bother?" or "what makes that sufficient motivation?" but the reality is it gets much more difficult to convey beyond this point. I continue on....

The main motivation beyond this initial simple answer is a desire to be changed - changed by God, not by myself. It is my expectation and experience that this becomes increasingly more likely as my physical strengths are sapped completely away from me over the hours and miles.

My character flaws become more obvious to me and are easily scrutinized and let go. The things I have that I need to be more thankful for also become that much more obvious and important to me. The result is that as I let myself be torn down, God is able to put me back together is a way that is not perfect but is a bit closer to His intention of how I should be.

With only 4 full days to go before the death race, I think I have finally been able to turn some of the key driving elements into words. As I do so I realize that just like in appreciating a sensitive physical phenomena, setting up a measurement construct to monitor or measure that phenomena will negatively affect the thing being measured.

I expect to be changed by this experience. Please don't try to measure that.

Going Mental (Part 2)

Back to running for a few moments..

It is hard to convey the mental difficulty presented in running an ultra. As with the physical challenge, the mental effort increases exponentially with time. It is not a linear increase or simple matter of "keeping it together" till the end.

As early as the training runs right up till the finish line, the mental obstacles appear non-stop and it is a constant struggle to deal with them.

There are so many other things I could be doing right now.
That was far enough.
I don't belong here with these people.
I didn't train enough.
I didn't recover enough.
I didn't drink/eat/sleep enough.
Maybe today is just not my day
My feet hurt.
My legs feel like cement.
My stomach hurts.
I think there's something wrong with my knee.
I don't need this in my life right now.

First of all, when things are good this is all furthest from the mind; which is exactly the way it should stay as long as possible. How do you do that? Simple - run your own race. Run your pace not someone else's. Stick with your strategy and listen to your body for making adjustments to that strategy. Remember that part of listening to your body is what your body has told you in the past as well. (what works and what doesn't work; what happens when you've gone out too hard, gotten dehydrated, etc.. )

Staving off mental obstacles by feeling good should get you approximately half way if you've put in the physical preparation, but inevitably things will get tough and those first few realizations also need to be accepted and embraced and not allowed to turn into doubts. At this point it is a simple matter to think about how great it is to be healthy and strong and able bodied when there are so many people who are not so fortunate. Maybe you are even running specifically for a cause (large or small) Maybe you have thought about dedicating a run to someone battling cancer or other debilitating disease. Think about how they struggle through weeks of treatment or therapy which are MUCH more grueling than any ultra-marathon.

If focusing on the dedication of others does not get you through to the end, chances are you are going to turn to a self-motivated approach for the final stage of the mental battle....

The Reason for God - Timothy Keller (Part 2 The Reason for Faith)

After a short intermission explaining exactly what he is referring to with terms such as Christianity and Rationality, a key step which is often skipped by those doing the opposite, Keller concludes the book with the remaining chapters grouped together as "The Reason for Faith"

In the remaining chapters, Keller shows that Christianity actually provides a better explanation for people's inherent moral beliefs and ideas about the universe.

"The story of the gospel makes sense of moral obligation and our belief in the reality of justice, so Christians do restorative and redistributive justice wherever they can. The story of the gospel makes sense of our indelible religiousness, so Christians do evangelism, pointing the way to forgiveness and reconciliation with God through Jesus. The gospel makes sense of our profoundly relational character so Christians work sacrificially to strengthen human communities around them as well as the Christian community, the church. The gospel story also makes sense of our delight in the presence of beauty, so Christians become stewards of the material world, from those who cultivate the natural creation through science and gardening to those who give themselves to artistic endeavours, all knowing why these things are necessary for human flourishing. "

In the first chapter of part 2, Keller gives the most significant "Clues of God"; The mysterious bang from which everything is contingent, yet must have some supernatural, non-contingent explanation; That the odds of a life supporting world like ours being produced are infinitessmal; That science can not prove the continued regularity of nature, it can only take it on faith; That the hunger for beauty and truth point to their existance in the same way that physical hunger points to the existence of food; That evolutionary biology can not invoke the power of reason even as it destroys it, or explain aspects of human nature that do not conform to survival of the species.

Basically the fact that this debate exists at all, that people have thoughts and concepts of good and bad, and beauty and truth, moral obligation, of human rights, of God - is best explained if God actually exists.

For example, if you believe there are some universal human rights, that belong to your friends as well as your enemies, this is not supported by a world view that says they are a random collection of atoms.

Keller's challenge: If a premise ("There is no God") leads to a conclusion you know isn't true, then why not change the premise? We do this when we live as though our lives and the choices we make have meaning, or when we believe that some things are always wrong yet we fail to acknowledge that meaning and universal morality can not be found in naturalism or evolution.

It is dishonest to live as if he is there (giving us meaning and morality) and yet fail to acknowledge him.

The Reason for God - Timothy Keller (Part 1 The Leap of Doubt)

The first half of Keller's book is an engagement to dialog about the most common and typical barriers people have towards Christianity. He has had many years of dialoguing with people face to face and now extends that dialog into book form. Here are the main points raised raised in the first seven chapters. Obviously to get the full treatment of each topic, you need to read the book. Essentially the first half is a challenge to those who doubt (do not half faith) to see that their doubt is based on a leap of faith or ignores significant evidence that is readily available. The first half is titled "The Leap of Doubt".

If you think: There can't be one true religion.
Consider: Which fundamental beliefs will lead their believers to be the most loving and receptive to those with whom they differ?

If you think: How could a good God allow suffering?
Consider: Is suffering bad? Where do concepts of "good" and "bad" come from?

If you think: Claiming "truth" is restrictive and exclusive.
Consider: What is "the thought" that stops thought? Is a community with no boundary still a community?

If you think: The Church is responsible for so much injustice.
Consider: What is better; an ethic of status and self, or an other-regarding ethic?

If you think: How can a loving God send people to hell.
Consider: Separation from God (in hell) is simply one's freely chosen identity apart from God on a trajectory into infinity.

If you think: Science has disproved Christianity because miracles don't exist.
Consider: Must all things science can not prove as fact necessarily not exist?

If you think: You can't take the Bible literally.
Consider: How do you empirically prove that no one should believe something without empirical proof?

Faith by Example

This week in the Winnipeg Free Press we were encouraged by several examples of how one boy's beliefs have turned into a lifelong fight against oppression in the Manitoba school system. Legal victories in both the provincial and federal courts have elevated this man's young and energetic faith above those held since the inception of the institutions he fights. And his on-going religious zeal still drives him and his followers to this day to ensure those court rulings are followed to the letter in each and every school division.

Imagine what could happen if the province's and the country's religious majority would have the same courage to speak out as Chris Tait has for enforcing the beliefs and practices of Atheism in our schools.

Going Mental

For the holistic ultra-runner, there is a lot more involved than just the body, aka the physical realm. The next essential part of the complete runner is the mind - or mental aspect.

I'll pause a moment to allow all the mental jokes to subside.....

Maybe the element of truth here, like any joke that is truly funny, is that there is a part of ultra running that could be categorized as somewhat crazy. But maybe recognition is an important part of managing that craziness.

Obviously what I'm really trying to get at here is what are the mental qualities, mental exercises, and mental abilities that make up a successful ultra runner. Maybe lunacy is in there somewhere, but I'm not convinced.

Going the Distance

After pain management and nutrition strategies are fairly well developed the question turns to distance. How far should I go on my training runs?

And just like your pain handling and nutritional needs, so too will your training be very unique as it is custom tailored to your body and your schedule.

Many people do ultras after training no further than half to two-thirds of the overall race distance. I would say that just half is probably the bare minimum to think about doing the ultra. If you've run a marathon, you know that only running up to 13 miles in advance is not sufficient training. Sure, you might be able to tough it out a few extra hours on race day, but the odds of success are not in your favour. You simply don't know what is going to hit you when you add another 13 (or 40) miles to your already worn out body.

Heading into unknown territory on race day is the thing you want to keep to a minimum - not the training.

I will feel comfortable once I know I can comfortably handle something a lot closer to the distance I will face on race day. Part of that is due to the fact that I am not training in the same mountainous conditions that I will face on race day, so it is my way of making sure I at least hit half to two-thirds of EFFORT.

I am anticipating my ultra marathon race will take me about 22 hours, give or take a couple hours. So I would like to train up to 11-15 hour long runs. My current longest run in this year's training cycle is 10.5 hours, and 12 hours is my longest single run ever. In both cases I felt great at the end and know that I could have kept going.

But that is a lot different than knowing I could have kept going another 10 to 12 hours!!!

The Physical - The end of Pain and the start of Nutrition

Enough has been said about pain. Let's admit it, we just include it to look tough. Really, we're not getting any sympathy for self inflicted pain. If it was really so bad, we'd back off on the ultra-running. Right?

Ok, maybe it's not that simple, but the point is you're going to have some well developed pain management techniques by the time you're done your first ultra-marathon. (The less it relies on pharmaceuticals, the better.)

Now that we've got that out of the way, we can get to the important stuff.

Physically speaking, regardless of training and pain management, your body is not going anywhere without the proper nutrition. And I'm talking about the nutrition you bring on your run, not whether you have snacks in your cupboard with refined flour or you're a little light on your fruits and vegetables.

Sure you might be able to run for a while with little thought to in-flight nutrition, but at what cost? And what about the rest of your training plan when you inevitably burn out? That burn out is your body telling you to smarten up. Better listen to it.

Unfortunately it's not quite as simple as just replacing lost calories and water. Just like pain management, when it comes to nutrition, there is no one size fits all, magic bullet. Gatorade will not keep you moving for more than a couple hours.

Yes, its true that your body will switch from burning glycogen (ready store of carbs) somewhere around 20-22 miles of flatland running. But this is not necessarily a smooth transition. Especially at first. When you hit the wall on a long run and you are not dehydrated, chances are you are feeling the effect of this switch. Better get used to it. Make it your friend. It's going to become an important milestone in each of your long runs 'cause after that point in your run you are training your body to run on the nearly endless supply of fat stores currently keeping your six-pack warm. That is what is going to carry you beyond about the 22 mile mark.

To regularly get out to these distances and beyond you need to figure out 2 things:
1) how much and what type of calories can you stomach while running?
2) how much water and electrolytes do you need while running?

For number one, the typical range for most runners seems to be 275 calories per hour give or take 25. And the default method for calorie intake seems to be the "Gel" aka "Gu" This is to food as GatorAde is to Hydration... Try it, and see how much you can handle, but be prepared for the fact that it may not be the complete solution for you. Most people I know have a tolerance of maybe a half dozen of these before they stop going down so use them sparingly. To me they are like spraying a squeaky wheel with WD-40. Works great, and it works right away - but lasts for a really short time.

Fathoming 68,000 Fathoms

When most people try to imagine the challenge of running an ultra-marathon, especially any of the more extreme events such as the Canadian Death Race, they understandably equate the difficulty to the distance. I say understandably because the extended distance is certainly the reason that ultra-marathons are difficult in the first place.

Zooming in on some perspective:
1 day
24 hours
80 miles
125 kilometers
17,000 feet of elevation gain
20,000 calories burned
68,350 fathoms
125,000 meters
250,000 steps
410,104 feet
12,500,000 centimeters which are often gained and lost 10 centimeters at a time.

People grasp that running further than a marathon is physically demanding, but other than trying to put the magnitude into perspective, the description of the physical demands really just boils down to a litany of the pain.

If running further was simply a matter of "just keep going" , like 125km is simply a matter of being out there 3 times longer than a marathon then a lot more people would be entering and most of them finishing these events.

As it stands, very few people run ultras compared to marathons, and the drop out rate of the extreme events is approximately 50% for many of them. This should be the first indication that it is not a simple matter of scale, but rather exponentially increasing difficulty with every additional mile.

Working through the pain is the first and foremost challenge of any long distance runner, so lets make it the first topic in this guide.

Much like child birth, no one who hasn't done it themselves can begin to imagine the pain, the discomfort and the shear agony involved in running mountain trails for 24 hours straight. There is the typical "wall" that any distance runner is familiar with that attacks around 22 miles where the body depletes all glycogen stores and drags the body through the slump of switching to using fat for fuel.

There is the fire raging in the quads as they are used for hours on end to summit three separate mountain peeks, fighting to claim and often reclaim elevation inch by inch on the way up and bracing to keep the whole body from simply rolling down the other side.

There is the feeling of soft synthetic performance fabrics slowly but surely removing skin from your nipples one skin cell at a time.

Holistic Guide to the Ultra-Marathon

With just 64 days left until my second attempt at completing the Canadian Death Race, I find I'm spending a considerable amount of time thinking about the event.

Thinking about my physical training and whether I've done enough and enough of the right stuff. Thinking about what it is going to feel like, the burning quads, the screaming ankles, the retching stomach.

Thinking about what will be running through my mind and whether I will be able to supplant thoughts of quitting long enough to reach the finish line under my own power within the 24 hour time limit.

The third aspect of my thoughts fall into a more metaphysical realm.
Thinking about the role of faith and the spiritual part of my being.
How much of a role does it play, and should I expect the event to have a spiritual element.

I have decided to record my thoughts as best I can during this time as I attempt to unravel the holistic view of the ultra-marathon.

What Would Google Do? Jeff Jarvis

"What would Google Do?" by Jeff Jarvis is a poorly named, but insightful look at how Google really changes everything.  In summary, these are the new requirements for success in business:

 - give the people control, trust the people, then get out of the way
 - be a platform, think distributed ( go to your customers)
 - life is public, be honest and transparent
 - simplify, think elegant organization
 - it is a post-scarcity economy,  think open-source and free
 - middle-men are dead
 - listening is the best marketing

Crap will be ignored.

The Philosophy of Life - Anderson Baten

p67 - what do we find in the pages of history? Nothing but the shipwrecks of nations and empires.
p66 law of the pendulum
p65 History is but one long repetition, and one century, is the plagiarist of another
p258 Are you a lifter or a leaner?
p268 He who knows....  follow him.
p273  The quitter
p277 The useful life
p288 Books
p344 "Man cannot be trusted with the government of himself. How can he be trusted with the governement of others."  Thomas Jefferson
p354 "The man who is great in the eyes of his wife is truly great."  John Ingalls
p443 No slavery except ignoance.  
          "Whoever clims any right that he is unwilling to accord to his fellow-men is dishonest."
p465  Do not think much of a man who is not wiser today than yesterday.  Abe Lincoln
p467  "Nothing makes a man so aventurous as empty pockets."  Victor Hugo - Notre Dame
p495 No man is ridiculous for being what he really is but affecting to be what he is not.

p497 Few things are needed to make a wise ma happy; nothing can make a fool content; that is why most men are miserable.
p500  Nothing can bring you peace but the triumph of principles.
p517 To plow is to pray - to plan is to prophecy, and the harvest answers and fulfills.

Almost Christian - Kendra Creasy Dean

"A person will worship something,  have no doubt about that....  That which dominates our imaginations and our thoughts will determine our lives, and our character. Therefore, it behooves us to be careful what we worship, for what we are worshipping we are becoming."

Ralph Waldo Emerson


Premise (based on 2003 National Study of Youth and Religion )
1) American young people are, theoretically, fine with religious faith but it does not concern them very much and it is not durable enought to survive long after they graduate from high school.  American young people are devotees of nonjugemental openness.

2) We're responsible.  We struggle mightily when it comes to handing on faith to young people. Young people seem to be the barometers of a larger theological shift that appears to be taking place in the United States.  We have recieved from teenagers exactly what we have asked them for: assent, not conviction, compliance , not faith. Young people invest in religion precisely what they think it is worth - and if they think the church is worthy of benign whatever-ism and no more, then the indictment falls not on them, but on us.

3) Shacking up with "the American dream" has eroded our ability to recognize that Jesus' life of self-giving love directly challenges the american gospel of self-fullfillment and self acutalization. Like Esau, American Christians tend to think with our stomachs, devouring whatever smells good.

4) The problem will not be solved by youth ministry or by persuading teenagers to commit more wholeheartedly to lackluster faith.    "Isn't being "good enough", good enough?"

5) At issue is our ability and our willingness to remember our identity as the Body of Christ, and to heed Christ's call to love him and love others as his representatives in the world.

6) The faith that most teenagers exhibit is a loveless version that the NSYR calls Christianity's "misbegotten stepcousin" Moralistic Therapeutic Deism.   God is more object than subject, an Idea but not acompanion.  Perhaps most young peoplepractice Moralistic Therapeutic Deism not because they reject Christianity, but because it is the only Chrsitianity they know.  It is a self-emolliating spirituality; its thrust is personal happines and helping people treat each other nicely.

7)Moralistic Therapeutic Deism cannot exist on its own.It requires a host, and American Christianity has proven to be an exceptionally gracious one.

Question:  Can we do something about it?

Solution:
1) It is in following Jesus that we learn to love him; it is in participating in the mission of God that God decisively changes us into disciples. Parents are by far the most important predictors of teenagers' religious lives. Consequential faith can not be reduced to the work of cultural tools.  The missionary nature of the church rules out Moralistic Therapeutic Deism as a substitute for Chistian Faith.

2) A Pronounced teenage faith has four characteristics  i) a creed to believe,  ii) a community to belong to iii) a call to live out  iv) a hope to hold onto.  They are more likely to say that their parents love, accept, understand and closely monitor them.  In addition they ae more likely to make healthy lifestyle choices.

3) Teanagers need to know that God is responsive and dependable.  a) God wants to save us and b) God can save us.  Hand on the story that God loves us too much to lose us.

4) Conversation is the most imortant vehichle we have for maintaining a reality.  Wihout reflection, action becomes simply activism.  Knowing more is never the point.  Knowing God is the point.

Conclusion:
1) It can be done.

2) Religious formation does not happen by accident.

3)  the cultural tools associated with consequential faith are availble in every Christian faith community.

4) Consequential faith has risks - however neither rigid nor diffuse religios identities can survive a mission where love is the primary cargo.

5)  We are called to participate in the imagination of a sending God. We need to reclaim our call to follow Chist into the world as envoys of God's self-giving love.

6) What Christian adults know that teenagers are still discovering is that every one of them is an amazing child of God. Christ has claimed them and secured the future for them.   If we lived alongside ANYBODY as though this were true - that would be more than enough.

Moral Man and Immoral Society - Reinhold Niebuhr - Chapter 10

Chapter 10 - Conflict between individual and social morality

"The peace of the world must be gained by strife."   Augustine
The individual must strive to realize his life by finding himself in something greater.
Compare:
unselfishness vs justice,    love vs utilitarianism    or   non-violence vs coercion

Some conflict between even the purest individual morality and adequate political policy must always remain.

It is the responsibility of individuals to maintain the illusion that the collective life of mankind can achieve perfect justice.


My thoughts:
Obviously strife is a part of life but getting caught up focusing ONLY on specific cases of inequality and injustice causes us to develop very specific solutions and lose sight of the preferable over-riding principles like unselfishness, and love.  

Some may read Niebuhr's closing comments about maintaining an illusion as unrealistic "wishful thinking"  but those people would miss the point.  If each individual does their part the illusion will become reality, and furthermore all an individual can do is their own part.

Moral Man and Immoral Society - Reinhold Niebuhr - Chapter 9

Chapter 9 - Moral Values in Politics

Powerful classes dominate politics

The moralist fails to see the injustice, coercion and inequalities which history sanctifies and tradition justifies.

Marxian philosophy is more true than pacifism in that it allows for discrimination between the purpose and ends for which coercion is used.

pacifism = non-cooperation = violence  (not convincing)

Non-violent resistance, as distinct from pacifism, offers best harmony between moral and rational and greatest area of political participation for religion.

Moral Man and Immoral Society - Reinhold Niebuhr - Chapter 8

Chapter 8 - Justice Through Political Force

The main tool for equality (taxation) has diminishing returns.


Puts a "qualified trust" in democracy. However, it is influenced by the special interest groups that control them and it always claims loyalties.

Moral Man and Immoral Society - Reinhold Niebuhr - Chapter 7

Chapter 7 - Justice Through Revolution


aka "What political possibilities exist through violence?"
Violence is not immoral if used with goodwill.
Hunger produces revolution.
Does the end justify the means?
Individual fanaticism turns merciless when made into political policy.