Running on Faith

Thank you to Janet Meyer for her donation to St. Jude and helping Team Running on Faith!

I would like to thank Tab & Jennifer Core for their donation to St. Jude.  But I was not surprised after sitting with them through 42 swim meets this summer.  Thanks again!

Sometimes you have to stop and smell the roses.  Or in my case, stop and figure out why I am doing what I am doing.

In the past month I have been to several 3-day swim meets, had my daughter turn 16 and get her license, started a new training plan, and nearly broken a toe.  And that is on top of work and my “normal” family obligations.  Add to that the constant drama of political scandals, senseless crimes, financial woes and useless static on the airwaves and it is easy to get overwhelmed by it all.  So why have I added the additional burden of training for this marathon and trying to raise money for St. Jude?

A couple of days ago I stopped the world (the one spinning around my head) and spent a few hours reading the patient stories on the St. Jude website.  Now those were stories of having your world stopped and being overwhelmed by it all.  And they reminded me of something: this isn’t about me, my pains or fighting to finish a workout.  It is about children, families and doctors who are struggling with real pain and fighting for their lives.

What I am doing may not mean much in the grand scheme of things, but if I can help one child it will be worth it.

Please follow this link and donate to St. Jude if you are able, donation page or just leave a comment and I will get in touch with you.

Thank you and God Bless.

Tim Hutchinson
Team Running on Faith

If you are just joining our irregularly scheduled blog post, please go to my Timbeaux site for the first part of this story.

Okay, so you now know that I sprained/fractured/broke my little toe a mere two days before my 20 week marathon plan is about to start.  For those without a calendar, I hurt my toe on Saturday and my plan starts on Monday.

I had left off my story with the question, “What does this mean in the grand scheme of things?”  So what does it mean?  It means I am in exactly where I want to be:  In Pain.

Not a lot of logic in that statement is there?  Let me see if I can explain further.  I have noticed a component of my personality that comes out when I am raising money for charity.  I usually feel very unworthy of every dollar donated unless I have in turn given a pound of sweat, blood or tears.  If it comes too easy, then I am not doing everything I can.

Somehow I want to put myself in the shoes of those children I am attempting to help by suffering as much as I can.  Of course, I would never assume to understand the depths of their and their family’s mental and physical anguish.  I have been through the living and dying of adult family members with cancer.  But as with all things, children are a different story.  It just never seems fair.  And it never will.  I may never understand why some children get cancer, and that is not my job.  My job is to help the ones that do have cancer in anyway that I can.

And that is why it seems every year I find a new mountain to climb.  The peak of the mountain is always the same: raising money for a charity.  It is the terrain that I try to continually change.  And the more obstacles the better.  Have you ever seen the show, “Wipeout”, where they run an obstacle course at the end?  One part has a long uphill ramp with barrels rolling at them which they must jump.  Without the barrels, it would be boring to watch with no challenge or reward in it.

My little toe is the latest barrel on my ramp.  It wasn’t the first and I hope it is not the last.  Because when I reach the peak, it will be the barrels that I jumped that made me feel like I had done something to deserve the donations.  And the donations to St. Jude are what it is all about.

Thank you to Sandra Collard for her donation to St. Jude through team Running on Faith!

Happy Birthday to our Captain, Christine ‘Hardcore’ Hutchinson!  I hope you have a nice relaxing day today to celebrate your birthday.  Oh, and while you are relaxing, bring Mason to swim, swim 1500 yards yourself, bring Mason home, bring Lara to work, bring Mason to the Orthodontist, bring Mason to drums, bring Mason to the Crawfish Aquatics meeting, bring Mason back home.  But since I love you so much, I will pick up Lara from work tonight!  (For some reason, that doesn’t sound very relaxing.)

I hope you have wonderful day!

I think I am going backwards.  Between work, the heat, and about 7 swim meets in the last 11 days, my running has gone down hill.  And not in the fun “Wheeeeeeee!” way.  My mileage has dropped off significantly and my long runs have ceased to exist.  But I have a plan……literally.

For Father’s day, Christine and the kids bought me a custom training plan from McMillan Running.  This will be a 20 week training plan written just for me and my goal to qualify for the Boston Marathon.  And using my engineering ingenuity, I have deducted that the 20 weeks will start on July 19th.   Wow.  That is a mere 3 weeks from now!

Most of the people reading this site will find it hard to relate to what I am talking about.  Unless you have had a super aggressive personal trainer who pushed you on a daily basis or you have trained for a long distance endurance event with a structured training plan, you probably won’t see my fear.  Right now, I am training using the 1960′s “free love” method.  Wherever the wind blows me and whatever turns me on that day, I do.  And that works fine as long as you have no set goal or deadline.

With a structured plan, you wake up each day and read the plan.  And then after crying for a short while, you get to it.  Okay, in my usual fashion I am exaggerating a bit.  But not by much.  Most of the workouts, even the painful ones, I find a way to enjoy.  Some workouts I hate when I read them, hate when I start them, and usually hate the way I finish them.  But I always know I am working in the right direction.  And that is what I need right now.

So now I am ready to reverse course….again.  And hopefully this time it will be in the correct direction.

I was sitting here this afternoon searching for a 2009 calendar to make some notes on.  In my quest to qualify for the Boston Marathon, I am going to get a professional coach to make me a custom training plan for the St. Jude Marathon.  This is mainly to prevent me from getting injured and to give me the best shot I can at qualifying.  As I have mentioned before (either here or at my Timbeaux site), if I qualify for Boston I plan on raising money for Habitat for Hope (the charity I raised money for during my 2007 Ironman Triathlon).  In order for this coach to make a plan, he will need to know what races I plan on doing and my rough family schedule to plan work outs around.  A lot of my focus right now is on qualifying for Boston.

So I am searching my office for a calendar, and I found one.  It was a 2009 St. Jude Children’s Hospital calendar that I received at the race last year.  And it was sort of a like a quick slap in the face or a bucket of ice water thrown on me.  I have been looking past the St. Jude Marathon and making plans for the future.  But that is a stupid concept.  You only have right now.  Nothing else is guaranteed.

As I flipped through the calendar, they had patients of St. Jude that ranged from 2 years old to 17 years old.  And every one of them touched my heart.  The worst part is something I learned when working with Habitat for Hope.  More than likely, one or more of the children in the calendar is probably not with us anymore.  They have passed on to a much better place than we live in.

We have less than 6 months before the marathon, and I have barely lifted a finger to start raising money for St. Jude.  Well, that is going to change.  I will continue working on my plan to qualify for Boston, but it will be secondary to my trying to help these children.  If God wants me to do qualify, then I will.

So right now, Christine and I are going to donate to each one of the team members.  And I ask that you do the same.  Just follow this link and click on any team member you wish.  And donate whatever you can.

And remember: you only have right now.  Nothing else is guaranteed.

I am Timbeaux, hear me roar!  Actually I think the song said woman, but I am not a woman so I changed it.  You may have noticed a trend amongst the posters of this blog that are kind of touchy feely: puppy dogs, squirrels playing, birds chirping, pink thongs.  Actually I think there was something else in that post like a birthday or something, but all I remember is the pink thong.  If you are expecting more touchy feely, stop reading.  I am sure I will get into that mode later when I really get into the fundraising for St. Jude.  It is difficult not to break down and cry when reading about those children.  But for now, I have a steep bill to pay.

Through my own choice, I have decided to try to qualify for Boston at the St. Jude Marathon.  And with that choice comes a bill that can only be settled with blood, sweat and tears.  So for the time being, there will be no time to stop and smell the roses.

Now don’t get me wrong, I have seen first hand how hard Christine and Marcelo have worked for their running.  They have each shed plenty of sweat and tears.  And if you had been fortunate enough to be along side Christine like I was last year for the marathon, you know she paid her bill in full.  And then some.

But right now, they can take time to enjoy their runs and the environment around them.  I, on the other hand, am constantly fighting the urge to stop or slow down.  But I can’t.  I have to push and find some speed somewhere even if it hurts.  And that is why I adopted the pain don’t hurt mentality (see my other blog).

I ran a 10K this afternoon at home.  It was warm/hot and I was exhausted from sleeping very little last night.  As usual, I started off a little too slow and then pushed.  Every time I hit a U-turn, I wanted to stop and walk.  Every time I got thirsty, I wanted to stop, walk and take a drink.  Every time I felt like I was pushing too hard, I wanted to ease up and catch my breath.  But I never walked.  I drank while I ran which caused me to bust my lip on the water bottle.  And I finished my 10K at about a 7:47 minutes per mile pace.

What does that pace mean in the grand scheme of things?  It is about 9 seconds slower than the pace I will have to run the entire 26.2 miles in December.  It means I am not even close yet.  But it also means I am getting better.

So send me some motivation.  Click the link on the top right corner of the website that says, “Donate Now St. Jude Children’s Hospital” and make a donation.  The next time I run, your name will pop in my head when I am struggling and that may make a difference in my run.  Just like it would make a difference to the children at St. Judes.

Yep.  This is Timbeaux….again.  I set up this website for the team.  I gave everyone a login name and password to write posts.  And I am still the only one who is writing.  Everyone hold out your hand…..SLAP!

The problem is that when something strikes me, either physically or figuratively, I usually write about it on my Timbeaux blog.  Most of the mayhem and destruction that swirls around my training and racing is over there.  So what am I going to put over here: stories of bunnies and flowers?  Not my style.  I am hoping that the rest of the team steps it up and gets things rolling over here.

And today is the perfect opportunity.  As I write, Paul, Marci and family are riding the Baton Rouge Bike Club Fall Century in St. Francisville.  Now Christine and I were supposed to ride, but we bailed because of the predicted rain and thunderstorms.  It is actually raining as I sit here.  And because we bailed, I have already been called names by not only Marci, but their two sons as well!

So Paul & Marci, here is your chance.  You can write a race report without me being able to say one thing about it (except good things).  There will be no post race after smack coming your way.  Feel free to express yourself in anyway you like.

By the way, while you are dodging lightning bolts in the rain, I am going to sit on my back porch and drink some coffee.  I hope you had a great ride!