Running on Faith

First of all, thank you to David Rogers and to Lorien & Kevin Johnson for their donations to St. Jude through Team Running on Faith.  I think Lorien & Kevin have donated to every single charity I have raised money for since 2005.

Awesome!  Thanks to all of you!

Now for the and…….  I just posted on my Timbeaux site that it appears we have all become too busy to post.  And maybe we have.  But since we only have 2 months from today before the race, I figured I better step it up a notch.

So one way or another, I plan on writing a post on this site or my other one every single day until the race.  Some posts may be exciting like the time I was chased by a pack of dogs on the levee.  Some may be boring like…….like……like……….Sorry, I don’t remember the boring stories.

Anyway, the time is now.  The time to train.  The time to spread the word.  The time to donate to St. Jude.  So get your butts moving!

I am a little behind on keeping the website up to date, but I hope to remedy that this weekend.  But just to inform our loyal readers, the team is now “officially” up to 12 people now and “unofficially” 14!

Our latest additions are Nancy Padial, Lara Hutchinson, Sara Cornejo, Mason Hutchinson & Connor Futch.  We are also waiting for last years teammate, Dara Bartee, to show up on the team page.  She has already signed up for the race!

To see our team page, visit this link.

Just to show how diversified we are, we have 6 doing the marathon, 3 doing the half-marathon, and 4 doing the 5K.  And I think we will add to that before we are done.

Hopefully the team can keep all the Thank You messages coming in (which means donations to St. Jude!)  And maybe we can all start writing a little more on the blog to let everyone know how we are doing.

By the way, I am tired, sore and aching.  But other than that, things are great!  Thank you God for this little bit of cool weather as a carrot for the months of training ahead.

I had a tough workout last night.  Actually, I had a really tough workout Monday night which left me in a pile on the floor of my truck hovering on the edge of a heat stroke.  No heat stroke.  Anyway, it wasn’t a pleasant workout.

So yesterday I had another tough one scheduled.  And 5 minutes after waking up yesterday (4:00 AM), I started thinking about how tough it would be.  “Man, it’s going to hurt.  Last time you crashed and burned on this workout.  What do you think you are, 17 again?  Or even 27 or 37 again?  Nobody cares if you just bail on the workout.”  And those thoughts jumped in and out of my head at various times during the day.

In the attempt to actually use my brain a little, I delayed my workout until about 6:30 pm in the hopes for a little cooler weather.  Or at least no sun frying me.  And after bringing Mason to drums, eating dinner, and sitting on the couch for a while, I was ready!  Ready to crawl in bed and go to sleep that is.  But I didn’t.  I got up, put on my running clothes and went outside.  And then I walked around for 5 minutes pretending to “stretch.”  Actually, I just did not want to hit the start button.  Because once you hit start, you can’t hit stop until you are done.

Eventually, I hit start.  I made it through the 15 minute warm up in pretty good shape.  The legs felt surprisingly good.  The breathing was even.  And the sun was easing lower in the sky.  Not bad.  And then I started the hard part: 30 minutes of steady state pain.  It took a couple of minutes to get into the narrow pace range my plan called for.  And when I did, it was not a comfortable “conversational” pace.  I was lucky to smile and grunt “ugghh” at other people on the road as I ran by.  This was going to be a long 30 minutes.

And then I found my mind over matter condition.  My body was hurting but not in dire straits.  And every time my focus would wander and my pace would drop a bit, I just had to think “faster” and I got back on track.  It was mentally exhausting to keep concentrating, but I started realizing that I could do this.  And once that happened, everything was just peachy.

It still hurt.  But along with the pain I found something positive.  This can be done.

During many of my extremely long races or training, I have found that on the other side of the pain is a level of joy that is hard to describe.  It is not the jumping up and down and screaming joy, but that quiet deep inside your chest warmth that is like a gentle pat on the back.  It is almost as if you can feel the words, “Well done my good and faithful servant.”  And then you realize that He was guiding you through the pain all along.

Every time I get a email with the subject line, “A sponsor had donated to St. Jude on your behalf,”  I get that same feeling of warmth.  And once again, He was guiding me along.

I don’t have AADD (Adult Attention Deficit Disorder).  I am usually pretty good at putting my full attention to a project or task until it is at least 90% finished.  I am a man so the last 10% usually drags out for several months or years.  Actually, there are many times when Christine says I have a one track mind, so how’s that for being focused?

Anyway, with all that seems to happen in life these days it is hard to stay focused on just one thing.  It is really impossible.  At work the other day, my boss and I were talking about projects in the shop.  He said we needed to concentrate on this one project.  When I brought up another project, he said we need to concentrate on it too.  I told him that was like trying to look forwards and backwards at the same time.  The only result will be whiplash.

That is how I feel about work, family, training, fundraising and everything else going on in the world.  I have constant whiplash.  And then I thought of the Bible passage from Ecclesiastes 3:

There is a time for everything,
and a season for every activity under heaven:

a time to be born and a time to die,
a time to plant and a time to uproot,

a time to kill and a time to heal,
a time to tear down and a time to build,

a time to weep and a time to laugh,
a time to mourn and a time to dance,

a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them,
a time to embrace and a time to refrain,

a time to search and a time to give up,
a time to keep and a time to throw away,

a time to tear and a time to mend,
a time to be silent and a time to speak,

a time to love and a time to hate,
a time for war and a time for peace.

It may never seem like there are enough hours in the day to do all that needs to be done.  There are.  The hard part is deciding what actually “needs” to be done.

I think that we need to use some of those hours helping the children of St. Jude find  “a time to heal, a time to laugh, a time to dance…“ And we need to be doing those things as well.

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

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.