Channeling my inner grocery cashier.

A belated happy holidays, readers! I know that you are all eagerly anticipating my "2011: year in review" post. One of the bigger events of my 2011- starting a new job- has taken a major chunk of out my blogging time. Fear not, though- I promise to get it done before 2012!

In the meantime, I want to take a minute to tell you about a cool new app from Weight Watchers: the "WW Scanner" app. This app is free and available for Android and Iphone (and maybe some other smartphones too), but you have to be a WW online or E-tools subscriber in order to use it.  It turns your phone into a barcode scanner for grocery items. You pick up something in your grocery store or pantry, use your phone's camera to scan the barcode, and then the app calculates the WW points for that item. Then, you can save the item to a list of favorites, or zap the points total right into your daily tracker (on the website or the WW Mobile app). Amazing!

I downloaded this app a couple nights ago and then spent a good half-hour going through my refrigerator and pantry zapping things. The app did not recognize about 25% of the items I scanned, but I imagine that it will get better over time. Even with a 25% failure rate, this app still has the potential to save serious time. Calculating the Points for a new food can happen in a second, and the process of putting that food in your tracker is faster too. Just one or two clicks and you're done. (Of course, you still have to pay attention to the serving size of the food to avoid low-or-highballing the points.)

I am excited about this app because tracking has always been the key to my success or failure on Weight Watchers. When I track, I lose or maintain. When I don't track, I gain. Case in point: I tracked religiously last winter and lost close to 15 pounds. Then, over the summer, I stopped tracking and gained it all back. My reasons for not tracking are always the same: I'm busy and it feels like too much work. Fortunately, the combo of the old WW Mobile app and the new WW Scanner app elminate a lot of the effort involved in tracking. So long, excuses!

#20 of 2011!

Sometime between now and the end of the year, I will write up my 2011 running year in review. In the meantime, I offer a quick recap of my 20th and final race of this year: the Celtic Solstice 5-miler.

I'll admit, I ran this race for the shirt. Every winter, I see a ton of local runners in great running jackets or vests or half-zip shirts, all featuring a cool Celtic Solstice logo (see below), and I wish I had one.

The Celtic Solstice race is put on by Falls Road Running Store in Baltimore, which is known for great race premiums. They were the sponsors of the Dreaded Druid Hills 10K, which I ran in June. That race lived up to its name in terms of difficulty, but it was worth it for this awesome shirt that I wore for the rest of the summer:

In addition to the promise of the great shirt, I also heard from tons of local runners that Celtic Solstice is a great race and a nice way to end the running year. So, I had high hopes all around.

I'm sorry to say that I was a bit disappointed. For starters, this year's shirt is nothing special. The logo is cool, but (based on previous premiums) I was expecting a jacket or half-zip and got just a plain long-sleeve shirt. So, the premium was just okay, and I think I would say the same about the race itself. The atmosphere was fun and festive, but the course was nothing exciting. It was just a basic loop around the park. In several places, it was too narrow to accommodate the 3,000+ runners, leading to frustrating bottlenecks. As masochistic as it sounds, I preferred the Dreaded Druid Hills course. Those hills were intense, but at least they kept things interesting and took us through the most scenic areas of the park.

My final motivation for doing this race was the opportunity to attempt an official 5-mile PR. I ran this year's Down's Park 5-miler in 48:35, but I ran that race as a worker's run, so my time is unofficial. Prior to Saturday's race, my fastest official 5-mile time was about 52 minutes. I was sure I could beat that official time, and I hoped I might be able to beat the unofficial time too.

As it turned out, I underestimated the Baltimore hills, the crowded course, and the accumulated fatigue of 19 previous races. This was a tough race. I ran mile 1 in about 10:29, which was well off my goal of sub 10-minute miles. I made up a little time in mile 2, coming in about 10:15. So, an improvement, but still off my goal pace. At that point, I started to doubt that I could beat even my 52-minute time. In mile 3, I really picked up the pace and finished in about 9:30. Going into mile 4, I knew that I could not beat 48:35, but that I could come in under 50 minutes if I really pushed it. The last two miles were painful, but I ran them in just over 9 minutes each and finished the race in 49:28. So, not my fastest 5-miler ever, but still an official PR.

In all fairness to the Celtic Solstice organizers, I should mention that the post-race food was excellent, including hot mulled wine and some delicious Christmas cookies. Those treats were made even sweeter when I thought over my race year and realized that I set official PRs in every race distance I ran in 2011!

I look forward to sharing my victorious year-end review soon!

The 3rd time for the 1st time.

Today was a first for me: I ran a race for the third time. I ran the Annapolis Striders' Anniversary 15K in 2009, 2010, and 2011. Going into this morning's race, my expectations were fairly low, as I'm still recovering from some pain in my upper right quad. Had this race not been part of the Champ Series, I probably would not have run at all. To my surprise though, it went pretty well.

My first stroke of good fortune was the weather. I expected it to be brutally cold, but the temps were a bit higher than the forecast predicted and there was a lot of sun to warm things up. My second stroke of good fortune was falling into pace with a very friendly fellow runner. She introduced herself early in the race and kept me entertained and on-pace for almost 6 miles.

My new friend and I separated in mile 6, when I had only 5K to go. My quad was hurting a little, but I remembered to bring some Advil, which kept most of the pain at bay. I definitely had to push myself for the final three miles (and especially for the hilly final mile), but I kept up the pace and finished in 1:37. That's 7 minutes faster than 2010 (1:44) and a full 16 minutes faster than 2009 (1:53)! Even better, I finished 218 of 277 runners. They doesn't sound all that great, until you consider that I finished 240/246 in 2009. So, 2009: 6 people behind me. 2011: 59 people behind me.

Speaking of improvements, I can now officially say that I improved in every single race of the Champ Series compared to 2010. I'll tally exactly how much after my last race of the year (next weekend) when I write my 2011 year in review. Today's race also earned me my second Ironman award!  At least when it comes to this race, the third time is the charm!

Its that time of year...

I am not great at sending Christmas cards. Much like the Olympics, it tends to happen once every four years. This year, though, I had a photo opportunity too good to pass up:

Happy Holidays!

Turkey trotting.

Hello and happy belated Thanksgiving! Today is the first day of my last week at my current job, and today also marks one week until I start my new job. So, this is a busy week, but I want to take a minute to post some promised updates:

The Annapolis Half-Marathon: On November 19th, I ran the inaugural Annapolis Half-Marathon. Much like the first iteration of a new electronic gadget, the first iteration of a race tends to be a bit bug-y. This race was no exception. The date had to change from September to November, and there were a number of other problems, most of which I won't list here.

For me, the most significant issue was a lack of mile markers. This was my first race after the NYC marathon, so I wasn't sure how it would go. Still, I felt good in the week or so leading up to the race and decided to try again for my goal of a 2:15 half. I started the race at what felt like a comfortable, slightly fast pace. After 9 or 10 minutes, I started looking for a mile marker to figure out my exact pace. I didn't see one, so I thought I might be going slower than I thought. After a few more minutes with no mile markers, I looked up and saw my boot camp instructor Kate about 100 yards ahead of me. That was a surprise. Kate had told me that she didn't train much for this race, but Kate is faster without training than I am with training. I should never see her during a race. Finally, I passed a volunteer who yelled, "You're almost at mile 3!," which confirmed two things: (1) There were indeed no mile markers, and (2) I had gone out way too fast.

For the next few miles, I worked on slowing down and adjusting to the lack of mile markers. In some ways, it was nice. I think it made the race pass faster. On the few occasions where a volunteer or runner with a GPS watch told me where we were, we were always further along than I thought. Still, for someone without a GPS watch (aka: me), it made pacing very difficult. When I look at the data gathered on my phone's GPS during the race (which I can't see while I run), it shows that I ran almost all of miles 1-10 faster than my goal pace, and then slowed WAY down in mile 10 when fatigue caught up with me. Those last 3 miles were agony. I was super-tired and experiencing my usual hip and knee pains, along with a brand-new pain in my upper right quad. I was SO happy to reach the finish line, even though I didn't get there until 2:19:25.

One thing that DID go well with this race was the medal- beautiful!

  
A Pain in the Neck: I experienced so much pain during the Annapolis half that I expected to wake up the next day in agony. Miraculously, that did not happen. I felt okay for the rest of the weekend and went to Group Power as usual on Monday. I was worried about the squat routine because of my legs. It turned out that my legs felt fine. The trouble happened when I took the weight off my back after the squats. I think I moved my neck while I was lifting up the weight, because I suddenly felt a little "snap," and then the neck pain started. By the time I got home after class, it was so intense that I took a few sick hours in order to ice it and lie down. So, that was the end of weightlifting for last week. I am happy to say that Advil, ice, and some massages from my lovely and patient boyfriend finally made that pain go away and I went back to GP this morning with no problems.

Turkey Trotting: Thursday morning (aka: Thanksgiving), I attempted my first run since the Annapolis half: the Fleet Feet Sports Turkey Trot. This wasn't a race- just a group run in downtown Annapolis with 3 and 5-mile options. It was a beautiful day, and I was looking forward to running the 5-miler with some friends.
Almost as soon as we set out, the pain from the Annapolis Half- the one in my upper quad- came back with a vengeance. By the 1.5-mile turnaround, I knew that the wise course of action would be to take the 3-mile loop instead of pushing through to 5 miles. But what did I do? I pushed through.

Miles 4 and 5 were absolute misery, as was the walk home. By the time I got there, I knew I needed to lay off running for a little while. So, my current plan is to take it easy for the next couple weeks and hope that I can finish out my last two races of the year (which are on 12/11 and 12/17) without agony.

Ironman!: Finally, I have to give a HUGE shout-out to my friend Scott, who completed his first Ironman yesterday. For those who don't know, an Ironman triathlon is a 2.4-mile swim, a 112-mile bike ride, and a full marathon (26.2-mile run). Even attemping an Ironman takes incredible fitness and determination. I looked at some IM training plans when I was reading up on triathlons, and most involved 30-40 hours per week of training. Its like a second job! I, along with many of Scott's friends and admirers, tracked him online yesterday as he raced for an awesome total of 12 hours and 5 minutes. It was so exciting! When he finally posted video of himself crossing the finish line, I think he had at least a dozen people crying into our laptops. Way to go, Scott! You are an inspiration!    

Marathon photos and quick updates.

Hello, readers! Apologies for my lengthy absence. In the weeks after NYC, I had volumes of writing to produce for various projects and I had nothing left for anything else. Fortunately, almost everything is done now and I can get back to important things like blogging!

This past Saturday, I ran the Inagural Annapolis Half Marathon. I will give that race its own entry later this week. For now, I'll just note that my post-marathon recovery remains smooth, as evidenced by the fact that I could run a half less than two weeks later!

In other news, I finally have a start date for my new job: December 5th! Unfortunately, I also have a final date for my current job: December 2nd. That's right- I am quitting one job on Friday and starting the next one on Monday. I really hoped I would be able to take some time off in between, but things simply didn't work out that way. Oh well. I'm trying to think of the upcoming Thanksgiving holiday as my between-jobs break.

Finally, as promised in the title, I have a few more NYC marathon photos to share. These are the professional ones:

I'm not sure where this is, but obviously its fairly close to the North Pole. Note Santa in the background.

Not sure about location here, either, though the leaves in the background make me suspect Central Park.

I'm pretty sure this is on the Queensboro Bridge.

Victory! I was so happy at this moment!

That's all for now! Stay tuned for my report on last weekend's race.

NYC Marathon weekend part two: milestones.

Striking a Superman pose with my space blanket and medal.

In my last post, I told the story of my NYC Marathon Eve 5-mile race. In the post before that, I gave a quick rundown of the marathon itself. Now, I offer a little more about the marathon and about what happened afterward.

I was fortunate enough to spend Saturday night with two veteran NYC runners: Lara and Jen. Lara was running on Sunday and Jen was spectating. So, Saturday night, Jen helped Andrew map out his spectator route. Then, Sunday morning, Lara helped me find my way to the start. I was grateful for the help, because it was a bit complicated: subway to Staten Island ferry, the ferry to a (packed) bus, and then the bus to the race start. Even the start itself was intimidating: with 47,000 runners to organize, it was massive and crowded.

Despite the big crowd, I managed to check my baggage, grab some breakfast, and meet up with my friend Kim.

Kim and I. The sun was intense!

A few minutes before we entered the corrals, I grabbed a second bagel. I was nervous about getting hungry during the race (this can be a major problem for me), but I was also just stress-eating at that point. I wonder if bagel #2 was the culprit in the intesinal distress I experienced later.

As I mentioned in my first race post, I made a last-minute decision to move back two start corrals in order to start with Kim. I thought it would help me avoid going out too fast, I wanted to support Kim in her first marathon, and, most importantly, I just wanted to share the experience with someone. I am so glad I did! The start was both exciting and surreal. Kim and I just kept looking at each other and saying "I can't believe this is happening." It would not have been the same on my own.

Kim and I separated after mile 2, just as we entered Brooklyn. During the third mile, the race turned onto 4th Avenue and I got my first taste of the amazing NYC crowds. They were like nothing I have experienced in any other race: huge crowds of people (3 and 4 deep in places) lining both sides of the streets, screaming and waving signs. Amazing. Plenty of people noticed my shirt and yelled "Dinner Church!" at me, to which I eagerly responded "St. Lydia's! Right here in Brooklyn!"

It was in Brooklyn that my stomach trouble started. Its hard to describe what was going on without giving too much information, so I'll just say that I developed a very painful cramp somewhere below my stomach. The longer I ran, the worse it got. As much as I did not want to lose the time, I realized that I had to make a bathroom stop to try to ease the pain and to prevent anything worse from happening. (When you run marathons, you hear plenty of horror stories about what happens when you try to run through stomach issues!)

After passing long restroom lines for several miles, I finally gave up on finding a shorter line and made my first stop in mile 7. I naively thought this might be my only stop. Instead, my mile 7 stop was the first of 7 stops. I lost count during the race itself, but based on my GPS data, I think I stopped in miles 7, 9, 12, 15, 20, and 22. My goal for the race was a sub 5-hour finish, which would have required a pace of just under 11:30/mile. Based on the GPS data, I ran at that pace or below- when I was runnning. Once you factor in the stops, though, my pace drops down to 12:38/mile. Oh well. At least I know I can run a marathon at my goal pace, even if I didn't get credit for it this time.

The good news is that neither the pain nor the frustration of needing so many stops kept me from enjoying the race. The crowd support continued to be amazing for the entire 26.2 miles. Also, this was my first race where I had friends meeting me at multiple points along the course. When things got harder, I pushed myself by thinking "I'll see Andrew and Matt in 40 blocks... 35 blocks... 30 blocks..."

My YDS friend Matt, who met me twice in Manhattan.

The other good news is that the intestinal distress I suffered during this race was the only distress I suffered during this race. Normally, when I race over about 10 miles, I struggle with pain my left hip and stiffness in my right knee. These were the pains that did me in during MCM 2010. For some reason, my usual pains decided not to accompany me to NYC. Maybe it was the frequent stops. Maybe it was the crowd support. Maybe it was the Advil I took at mile 16. Whatever it was, I was grateful! Starting around mile 13, I greeted every mile marker amazed at how strong I was feeling. I can honestly say that this was not the hardest race I ran this year- both the Baltimore Half and the Metric Marathon felt harder.

Sprinting across the finish line was a milestone in several ways. I had finished my second marathon and knocked almost 40 minutes off my previous time (from 6:10:03 to 5:31:05). More importantly, I really felt like a marathoner this time. I was truly unprepared for my first marathon and finished it feeling like some kind of imposter. When I crossed the NYC finish line, having run the entire race and still feeling strong, I proved to myself that I really can do this. I'm actually excited for the next one!

After the finish and the mayhem of exiting Central Park, I ate a quick meal with Andrew and Matt before heading over to St. Lydia's. I arrived a bit late, but just in time to witness a St. Lydia's milestone: their first baptism! The baptismal candidate was none other than my YDS classmate and Emily's partner in ministry, Rachel. I felt so privileged to witness this event, and even more to hear the testimony Rachel offered over dinner. You can (and should!) read it for yourself here. I was only with the St. Lydia's congregation for a couple of hours, but even that brief visit affirmed why I dedicated my marathon to them. They are building something truly special together and they deserve to know that people believe in them and support them- even runners from several states away!

When I left St. Lydia's, I rode the subway for a few stops with a member of the congregation, who shared  her excitement about the baptism.  She said "This feels really important. It just makes St. Lydia's feel more..."
"Official?," I suggested. She agreed. Having their first baptism felt like a big step in the growth of St. Lydia's as a church. After she left the train, I thought about how St. Lydia's celebrated their milestone as a church on the same day I celebrated mine as a runner. I can't think of better people to celebrate with!

Everyone at St. Lydia's signed my shirt!

NYC Marathon weekend part one: the pre-race.

Andrew and I in front of the Manhattan skyline, minutes after our arrival in NYC!


I am finally back from NYC and back to semi-normal. Fortunately, my physical recovery has been amazingly fast. I felt very stiff Monday, less stiff Tuesday, and I feel fine today. I even went to the gym this morning! Unfortunately, I came home to two very busy weeks in terms of work and other commitments. Still, I want to take a few minutes to tell a bit more of my NYC marathon story. Its a long story, so I am breaking it up into two parts. First up: my marathon pre-race, which happened on Saturday morning.

As I have mentioned before, Saturday was both the day of the Annapolis Striders' Down's Park 5-miler and the last day of the NYC marathon expo. Because Down's Park is part of the Champ Series, I really did not want to miss it. Because the expo is where you must pick up your race number in order to run the marathon, I really did not want to miss that! Thankfully, the Down's Park race director (Don) and my lovely boyfriend (Andrew) helped me find a solution: Andrew agreed to volunteer on my behalf as a parking attendant Saturday morning while I ran the race early as part of the worker's run. Thus, I got credit for the race in the Champ Series and I got to leave for NYC with plenty of time to spare. I could not be more thankful to Don and Andrew!

When I ran Down's Park in 2010, I had a great experience but not a great finishing time. I went into the 2010 race hoping to finish under 50 minutes. Then, I spent the first mile or so chatting with friends and not paying attention to my pace. I picked it up in miles 2-4 and really pushed it in mile 5, but it wasn't enough. My 2010 time was 51:58.

This year, I knew my time for the race would not matter (worker's run times are not official), so I planned to take it easy and practice my marathon goal pace of 11-11:30 minute miles. My biggest fear going into the marathon was going out too fast, so I thought of Down's Park as a final chance to practice slowing down. For the first mile, I ran what felt like an easy pace and focused on not getting lost (easy to do without other runners!). When I saw the first mile marker, I checked my watch: just over 10 minutes. Oops.

For the second mile, I gave myself a new mantra: "Slow down. Take it easy. Slow down. Take it easy."  At the 2-mile mark, I checked my watch again and learned that I had run mile 2 in less than 10 minutes. The part of me that was worried about the marathon got frustrated, but the competitve part of me started thinking "You could do this in under 50 minutes easily." I decided to stop looking at my watch.

Miles 3 and 4 were fairly relaxed and fun. I passed some beautiful scenery. I also got to run through a crowd of Striders gathering before the real race, including several who yelled "Good luck in NY!" At mile 5, I decided that a tiny push to the finish wouldn't hurt and stepped it up just a little. In the end, I crossed the finish line with an unofficial time of 48:35. Not bad for taking it easy! Now, I just need to find another 5-mile race so I can set an official PR.

After I finished the race and Andrew finished his parking attendant duties, we got in the car and drove straight to NYC. We made it to the expo at a little after 2pm and I picked up my number with hours to spare. Whew! The expo was so crowded that I decided to skip shopping in lieu of getting to my host's apartment and taking a long-overdue shower. After that, we had a lovely dinner with some NYC friends and then I went to bed nervous and excited for race day!

The Quick and Dirty Race Recap, 2011 edition.

At the Expo with my amazing head cheerleader!

Hi everyone! After one of the craziest, best days of my life, I am still in NYC with a few things to do before I head home. Thus, I don't have time now to tell the whole story of my marathon weekend. Instead, I offer a bit of a teaser: some highlights from the race itself.

Start- Mile 2: At the start, I was very happy to meet up with my college friend Kim. Kim and I have been training in close proximity to one another for months, but have never managed to do any of it together. Kim was planning to run a bit slower than me, and was assigned to a corral a bit behind mine, but I decided to go to her corral so we could start together. I think this was a good decision. It made the start even more fun and exciting, and kept me from going out too fast. By midway through mile 2 though, I could tell that I was pushing Kim to go too fast and I was ready to step it up a bit, so we high-fived and separated.

Mile 3-Mile 8: Somewhere in here (I think it was around 4), I started experiencing some, to use my coach's words, "gut issues." I will not go into detail because you do not want to know, but it was unpleasant and I knew I had to make a restroom stop. I kept putting it off because the lines were crazy long. Finally, in mile 7, I decided to just suck it up and wait. Unfortunately, the stop did little to calm the problem. At mile 8, I was met by my boyfriend Andrew and my friend Tracy. It was SO great to see them! By that point, I had not eaten anything because I was worried that my Sport Beans would upset my stomach. Fortunately, I had given Andrew a bag of pretzels to carry, so I took some of those.

Mile 9- Mile 19: My stomach troubles persisted throughout the race, but they were worst through about mile 15. All in all, I think I made at least 6 bathroom stops, most of them during these 10 miles. The bad news was that this put my goal of finishing under 5 hours out of reach pretty early. The good news is that I started finding banks of port-a-johns with shorter lines. By keeping my eyes out for the shortest waits, I avoided losing too much time. All in all, I think the pit stops probably cost me about 30 minutes over the course of the race.

One unexpected advantage of the frequent stops is that they helped me keep my pace down. My biggest fear going into this race was going out too fast and running out of energy mid-way through. Turns out, I didn't need to worry about that at all. By mile 19, I was well off pace for my original goal, but I could not believe how strong I still felt. Around mile 19, I saw Andrew again, along with my friend Matt, which gave me another great boost of energy.

Miles 20-22: At mile 20, we made a very quick trip through the Bronx. This was probably my favorite part of the whole race. The people in the Bronx know how to cheer and how to play great music! If it were up to me, they would get more of the race. We moved into Harlem for miles 21 and 22, and there was great energy there too. Just before mile 23, I saw Andrew and Matt for the last time before the finish. By this point, I had re-set my goal to 5:30 and I was right on pace to get there, so I didn't stop for long!

Miles 23-26.2: Going into mile 23, I still felt okay, but I was ready to be done. Thankfully, we moved into Central Park, where the energy was intense and inspiring. It felt like one long finish line. At mile 25, I sped up, racing for the 5:30 finishing time. When I hit the 26 marker, my watch was somewhere around 5:28. I sprinted for the finish. Sadly, I just missed it- I crossed at 5:31:05. Almost immediately, though, a fellow runner tapped me on the shoulder and said "That was an impressive sprint you just did." If I did not already have an amazing boyfriend, I might have kissed him.

Postrace: The journey through the finish area was absolute mayhem. There were so many people that we quickly formed a huge traffic jam and it took close to an hour to get out of the park. Then, after an unfortunate wrong-turn that resulted in an 8-block detour, I joined Andrew and Matt at a diner for the most delicious plate of pasta I have ever tasted. After that, I went to St. Lydia's and finally met the people I was running for! It was an amazing night and I promise I will say more about it later.

All in all,  I had an amazing day. In 2010, I survived a marathon. In 2011, I ran one, and I actually enjoyed it! Thanks for your many, many kind messages yesterday. I will write more soon!

The Final Countdown.

This is it, everyone! A few more hours of work and then I pick up my boyfriend from the Metro and the crazy marathon weekend begins! Way back when I just had my name in the NYC marathon lottery, I promised my friend Pat that, if I got to run, I would make an entire playlist of just the song above. I don't think I'm going through with that, but I'm sure I will make the aforementioned boyfriend listen to it at least once or twice during the weekend.

Once I leave work today, things will get very hectic and stay that way until about Monday afternoon. So, sadly, I think my blogging about things like the Expo, the race, and the aftermath will have to wait until next week. For my final pre-race blog post, here's a brief review/rundown of what is happening this weekend:

Tonight (Friday): I pack, eat lots of carbs, and go to bed very early.

Saturday: At the crack of dawn, Andrew I will be driving to the site of the Annapolis Striders' Downs Park 5-miler. This is leg 7 of the 8-leg Champ Series. When I learned that I would be running NYC, I thought I would have to skip this race. It starts at 8:30am, and running it on time would put me at risk of not making it to the NYC number pickup. For awhile, I resigned myself to just missing out on the 2011 IronMan award. 

Once I was halfway through the Champ Series races, I changed my mind: I had to try to do Down's Park somehow. I contacted the race director and begged for his assistance. He very generously agreed to allow me to run the course early (at 7am) in exchange for some pre-race volunteering. Then, when our pre-race volunteer plans fell through, Andrew stepped up and agreed to volunteer on my behalf while I am running. So, through the generosity of these two great guys, I will get to earn my second IronMan!

After the race, Andrew and I will drive up to NYC as quick as we can in order to pick up my number. Once I have it in hand, I think I will exhale for the first time in weeks! Then, we are spending the night with my gym/running buddy Jen, her partner Tracy, and a few fellow runners in Brooklyn.

Sunday: Race day! Over the past few days, several people have asked me about runner tracking. If you want to track me during the race, see this blog post  for all of the details. After the race, my friend Matt will be helping me find my way to Brooklyn so I can finally meet the St. Lydia's folks in person! (BTW, its not too late to pay them a visit or give them a donation!) Then, I'll be spending the night with another Brooklyn friend.

Monday: My alarm will go off at 9am so that I can register for IronGirl 2012! If any of my (female) readers are considering doing this race, I have two pieces of advice: (1) DO IT! and (2) Register at 9am! This race will sell out in a few hours at most. By noon, you may be out of luck.

Once I get registered and moving, I will be meeting the last of my lovely Brooklyn friends for lunch and then heading back home to rest and blog!

Thanks so much for all of your support! I look forward to sharing my race with you when I get home!

Impossible projects.

These are Moo mini cards (http://us.moo.com/products/minicards.html), really cool tiny business cards. The perfect size to carry and hand out while running a marathon! I will have about 50 of these in my pockets on Sunday to hand out to anyone who asks about my St. Lydia's shirt.

A few years ago, I participated in a Bible study group using the excellent book Creating a Life With God: the Call of the Ancient Prayer Practices by Daniel Wolpert. Each chapter in the book describes a different form of prayer, from walking a labyrinth to writing in a journal, with instructions on how to try them out as an individual or groups. The final chapter is about taking on an "impossible project."

In the impossible project chapter, Wolpert asks readers to dream up a goal that feels worthwhile and exciting. For example, readers from a small church might decide they want to reach out to the hungry in their community. Once readers settle on an idea, Wolpert asks them to think of a way to achieve it. So, our church group might decide to collect money and donate it to the nearest food pantry. The ideas generated at this stage tend to be good, but not particularly ambitious. Our church group certainly can collect money and it would help, but is it the most they can do? This brings Wolpert to the next stage of his process: he asks readers to stretch their idea further, to a place where it feels impossible. Our church group might decide they want to open a food pantry that feeds 50 families every week. The goal is to end on an idea that readers are really excited about- something they would absolutely love to be part of- but which they do not believe they can actually do.

The final stage of the process is to make it happen. Wolpert asks readers to acknowledge that their project seems impossible and then commit to doing it anyway. He shares stories of churches that have successfully taken on impossible projects and highlights some of the things they have in common:

First, the excitement of a shared goal gets people working together in ways they never did before. When churches take on really exciting and ambitious projects, people come out of every part of the community to help and think up really creative ways to get things done.

Second, the churches realize they have more resources than they ever imagined. The church groups Wolpert describes all discover previously unknown talents among their members and untapped resources within all of their networks. They all ultimately realize that they had not been ambitious enough in previous projects.

Finally, impossible projects require embracing some dependency. A truly ambitious project is always risky, and requires a certain amount of help. A single person embarking on an impossible project will quickly become overwhelmed. To take on this kind of project, an individual or group must learn how to ask for help and rely on other people. This is where the project becomes a prayer. Wolpert wants his readers to learn how to say "God, we think we have a great idea for a really worthwhile project, but we can't do it on our own. We're going to need your help for this."

The impossible projects Wolpert describes are successful in two ways. They bring really worthwhile ideas to fruition, and they also teach the people who dreamed up those ideas that they are capable of amazing things. They learn that they can dream even bigger.

When I read this chapter of Wolpert's book, I just thought it was a nice idea. I don't think I really grasped the idea of the impossible project until I learned about  St. Lydia's. Last week, I wrote about a conversation I had with my friend Emily, in which she told me about quitting her day job and making St. Lydia's her work. I remember thinking "Now this is an impossible project." My friend had dreamed up something ambitious that she really believed in, found others who were also excited about her idea, and found the resources to make it happen. She was also accepting (and even embracing) the risk and dependency that were part of moving toward her goal.

I'm also reminded of the impossible project as I watch Emily, Rachel, and the St. Lydia's congregation weather their various challenges. When Emily learned that St. Lydia's would have to vacate their Brooklyn home because of structural issues, she sent a letter to the congregation. This is just a short excerpt, but I think it captures many of these ideas:

We will have a place to gather each Sunday night. We are surrounded by people who love and support us. We will keep being the church. And though this time may not look like what you or I might have imagined, it offers us incredible opportunity to be bold and creative in the midst of all that’s unfolding. Let’s sit in the not-knowing and see what God is up to...

...That’s what I have to tell you today, my nomads. Rachel and I look forward to seeing you on Sunday. A recurring theme in our many discussions over the last little while has been how blessed and grateful we feel to be traveling with all of you on this journey. We have both experienced a surprising sense of calm and curiosity amidst all of this that has reinforced our faith that the Holy Spirit is moving, however swiftly and surprisingly, in the work we are all doing together. And we know that whatever comes next, it will continue to be a gift and a blessing to share this work with all of you.

In many ways, running a marathon feels like an impossible project too. My first marathon pushed me well past what felt possible physically, but it stretched me in other ways too. For me, one of the most challenging things about the marathon is that it really can not be done without help. I am a very independent person who likes to to things on my own. Up to a point, running can be a pretty independent, solitary sport. I spent several years running casually and entering the occasional 5K without really involving other people in my life.

When I started running longer distances, I also started to need help. I needed coaches to teach me how to build my endurance. I needed training partners to help me weather the mental challenges of fatigue and boredom. I needed people to cheer me on. Most of all, I needed the people who rely on me to understand and accept the demands running makes on my time and energy. It has not always been easy for me to ask for the help I need, but I have been amazed at every stage of my journey by the overwhelming generosity of people in my life.

Over the past few days, I have finalized the itinerary for my marathon weekend and the number of people involved is staggering. I have friends letting me sleep on their couches, a friend guiding me to the start line, friends cheering me on along the course, and friends keeping my boyfriend company as he waits hours to see me finish. At the end of the day, I have a friend helping me find my way to Brooklyn so I can finally join the folks at St. Lydia's for dinner church. I can't wait to sit around the table with my new friends and share our amazing impossible projects!

Side trips.

Hello, readers! According to my handy tracking app, the NYC marathon is 3 days, 20 hours, 56 minutes, and 10 seconds away! I will have more to say about that soon, but first I have some miscellaneous updates. I will tell you about these updates via the stories two trips I made this past weekend.

First- I got a new job! This has actually been in the works for several months, but I got an official "yes" about two weeks ago. Things are still in process, so I don't want to give too many details at the moment, but the gist is that I will be part of a small team providing a specific model of family therapy at several sites in the Baltimore area. I won't have an official start date until our whole team is assembled, but I think it will be sometime next month. I am very excited that I will actually be using my degrees soon!

My boyfriend Andrew also started a new job not too long ago, so we decided to celebrate both of our successes by going out to dinner last Saturday. At first, we were going to go the steakhouse route. Then, the temperatures plummeted and the DC metro area got hit with the freak early snowstorm known as #snoctober. Given the nasty weather, I lost all desire to put on a dress and we both decided that a pub would give us a better "first really cold day" atmosphere. The OpenTable app on my Iphone suggested a place called Hunter's Head Tavern. It looked awesome to me, so I suggested it to Andrew.

What I failed to realize is that Hunter's Head is down in VA wine country, a good 45 miles from Andrew's house in Alexandria. A less generous and adventurous guy would have put the brakes on this idea, but Andrew was game for making the drive. So we drove, through the oddly beautiful landscape of fall leaves and snow, until we got to the pub. Only when we pulled up the driveway did we realize that we had both passed Hunter's Head on previous VA wine country trips and really wanted to stop in. For that reason alone, we both agreed it was worth the drive. It didn't hurt that the food was delicious and the atmosphere was really fun.

The weather was awful for photos, so you will have to trust me when I tell you that we were standing in front of one of those old-fashioned red London phone booths.

  

Foxes featured prominently in the Hunter's Head decor.

The morning after our pub-travel adventure, Andrew and I woke up to find that the snow was gone and the sun had returned. This was excellent news, because Sunday was Marine Corps Marathon day! Late in the morning, Andrew and I went to Crystal City and joined my marathon coaches at mile 22 for the Annapolis Striders water stop. We were handing out several things, but the most popular turned out to be pretzels. They were so popular, in fact, that we were running out just a few minutes after Andrew and I arrived. Knowing the area, Andrew suggested that we make a 10-minute walk to a nearby Costco to get more. Thus began the Great Pretzel Trek.

The walk to Costco was complicated by the fact that we had to cross through the marathon itself twice. Once we pulled that off, Andrew realized that he had lost his Costco card. So, we waited about 30 mins in a crazy Saturday line so he could get a new one. Then, once we got into the actual store, we were told that they do not carry pretzels. I refused to believe it. What Costco doesn't have pretzels??? We walked through the entire store just to verify- indeed, no pretzels. We left in stunned disbelief and started walking toward a grocery store. About 10 minutes into that walk, we came across a Rite Aid and cleaned out their entire pretzel stock- 7 pounds! Then, we made the trek back to mile 22, crossed over the marathon again, and resumed our stations... only to learn that most of my friends from the training group had passed while we were gone. D'oh!

So, I had missed most of my friends, but the immediate gratitude from pretzel-hungry, exhausted marathoners made it all worthwhile. We had a great time handing out goodies and cheering people on. I was happy that Andrew had a chance to see what mile 22 of a marathon looks like- or, more importantly, what a middle-to-back-of-the-pack runner looks like at mile 22 of a marathon. Now, he is all ready for NYC!

As we drove home after the race, I checked FB and learned that all of my friends had amazing races. The first-timers finished strong and the veterans, Val and Noreen among them, all set new PR's. Congratulations, runners!

Watch me.

Looking for me at the marathon? I'll be wearing this.

At noon today (10/28), the NYC marathon people are releasing this year's runner tracking apps. So, today feels like a good day to write about all the ways you can watch and/or track me on race day!

First, the apps. Info about them can be found here. It looks like there's a free web-based tracking system, and and also an app that costs $2.99. The NY Times did a write-up about both options yesterday, which you can read here. To use these services, you need to know my bib number, which is 64582. Also, an important note about tracker apps/software: While they almost always work just fine, things can go wrong with the system. Just a couple weekends ago, the Baltimore Marathon experienced some kind of major malfunction with its tracking system and then got deluged with calls from panicked people who could not find their runners. So, if you can't find me on the trackers for some reason, please do not assume that I have dropped out or died. 

The apps will help you find me along the course, which you can view here. Take a look at the first 8 miles. I will be in the green wave, starting at 10:40am. So, at certain times in miles 1-8, I will be on a different side of the street from the other waves. Pay attention to the colors on the map so you know where to find me.

In terms of time, my wave starts at 10:40am and the race organizers expect us all to cross the start line by 10:50am. My goal for this race is to run a pace of 11:00-11:30 minute miles and come in under 5 hours. So, that would put me at the finish a little before 4pm. However, it is very hard to predict times for a long event like this, so don't rely too much on my projections. This is where the tracker apps can come in handy.

Where should you go to watch, and what should you do there? The marathon organizers offer some great advice here. I will add that you should yell my name very loudly if you see me, and please do not be offended if I still miss you. I am very easily distracted by the combination of sights, other people, and pain. Also, please do not feel like you need to bring me snacks (some spectators do that). I'm going to carry my own fluids and food. If you simply feel you must bring something, I am partial to lemon-lime Gatorade and pretzels.

Thank you so much for your interest in my race and I can't wait to see some of you along the course!

It was then that I carried you.

One of the many "Footprints" mementos I have acquired over the years.

In my last blog post, I told the story of how and why my friend Katie gave me a "Footprints" coin to carry as I ran the 2010 Marine Corps Marathon. If you know that story (or really, if you know Katie and I at all), you realize that this was a joke gift. At least is started out that way.

As you may recall, my training for MCM 2010 was full of challenges. Basically, anything that could have gone wrong, did. I got tendonitis. Then, I got appendicitis. Just as I was recovering from that, I came down with a bad cold. All in all, my training took some major hits and I was nowhere near where I needed to be, training-wise, when I stood at the MCM start line last October.

Any sane person would have postponed the race until the next year. I definitely thought about it. The thing that kept me from dropping out was all the people who had supported me throughout my training. I had dozens of donors to consider, as well as all the people who read this blog, and all of the people who had promised me their thoughts and prayers during the race. Heck, my pastor was dedicating that morning's Eucharist to me! I felt like I could not let those people down. So, I pushed ahead.

I have detailed my sufferings on that day here and here. Basically, my trouble started at mile 14. After doing pretty well for the first half of the race, my body just gave out on me. By mile 15, I was in major pain and I started using a run/walk system just to keep moving forward. "Run" and "walk" are strong words, though. Essentially, I was staggering. I started to get better around mile 20, but I hit some dark moments between 15 and 20. At that point, I really was not sure I could do it.

As I staggered forward, with tears in my eyes, I thought about the "Footprints" coin that Katie had given me. It was getting less and less ironic with every step I took. I said a little prayer, in which I basically told God "Look, you and I both know by now that I can't do this. If you want me to cross that finish line, I'm going to need your help." After that, I thought about all of the people supporting me again. I looked at my watch and realized that my church was in session at that precise moment. I thought about everyone at church praying for me and literally tried to feel them lifting me up. It didn't take all of the pain away, but it definitely helped.

I think about all of this when I talk to my friend Emily about St. Lydia's. Emily and Rachel started St. Lydia's as an experiment in a friend's home. At that point, and for many months to come, they both had full-time day jobs. St. Lydia's was their passion, but it was also a hobby. Then, over time, St. Lydia's grew enough that Emily and Rachel were able to cut back their day jobs and allow St. Lydia's to be their work.

I remember talking to Emily right before she made this transition. The same weekend, I also talked to a writer friend who was in the process of quitting her day job and devoting herself full-time to her passion. I was in awe of the courage of both of these friends- the sheer nerve and confidence it took them to say "This is what I want to do and I believe it can be my living." In the course of our conversation, Emily told me that she and Rachel had established a "prayer team" for St. Lydia's: a group of non-members who simply agreed to pray for their ministry. Emily said that, whenever she started to worry about St. Lydia's and her future, her awareness of this prayer team gave her courage and comfort.

At the moment, St. Lydia's is facing a new challenge. Shortly after moving into a new worship space, they have been forced to move out due to structural problems with the building (you can read about it here). Just as they were making a big step forward in their life together as a congregation, they find themselves essentially homeless. Emily, Rachel, and the St. Lydia's congregation are very resilient, and they are finding creative ways around these challenges. Nonetheless, it is a blow to their community.

Given what St. Lydia's is going through, I am happier than ever that I can support them in my own small way, by dedicating my NYC marathon to them. My first marathon taught me that the thoughts and prayers of people who care about you can lift you up at your lowest moments. This time, I hope that my prayer- in the form of thousands of tiny steps- can lift up St. Lydia's.

Footprints.

For the past few days, I've been working on a blog post about my upcoming NYC run and how it connects with my friends' fledgling church, St. Lydia's. I hope to have that post up later today. First, though, I need to offer a little background information, in the form of this story:

Regular readers of this blog have heard plenty about my friend Katie:

Katie and I after the VA Wine Country Half-Marathon, June 2011.

Katie was my classmate in the Pastoral Counseling department at Loyola and my partner in the "Marathon for Murray" fundraiser. Katie is also the daughter of a Presbyterian minister. Like me, she grew up heavily involved in the Christian church. Thus, over the course of our lives, we have both become very familiar with the following "poem":

According to Wikipedia, the true origins and authorship of "Footprints" is unclear, but it may date back as far as the 1870's. Since then, enterprising Christians have found ways to slap this text on just about every kind of  product imaginable: framed plaques, quilts, pillows, jewelry, tote bags, mouse pads, mugs- the list goes on and on. I'm sure I've received at least 5 "Footprints"-themed gifts in my life, and I would wager that the majority of Christians (and plenty of non-Christians) can say the same thing. Whether they liked it or not, pretty much all of my Pastoral Counseling classmates knew this poem by heart.

Case in point:

Last Fall, a few weeks before our marathon, Katie and I were sitting in adjacent seats in Psychological Testing class. The topic of class that day was intelligence tests, and our professor was showing us sample items from a number of different tests. One of the tests featured a series of "spot the difference" puzzles. For example:

Got it? Look at the legs.

The whole class was having a great time studying the pictures and calling out the answers. The puzzles got progressively harder, until we got to one that stumped us all for a minute or two. Both sides of the picture showed two people- a man and a woman- walking along a beach. When none of us could spot the difference, the professor gave us a hint: "Look at the footprints." We looked. Sure enough, in the second picture, the man's footprints had disappeared. As soon as I got the answer, I yelled out "It was then that He carried her!" Immediately, the class split between people laughing hysterically and people who looked angry because I got to the joke first.

The week before the marathon, Katie and I exchanged little gifts as good luck charms. What did she get me? See below:

Look closely at the coin on the bottom left: On one side, it has a picture of footprints; on the other, it says "It was then that I carried you."

Nothing like a good "Footprints" joke to carry you through a hard class or a hard race!

We meet again, Baltimore.

The past two weeks have not been great in terms of training (or blogging). After the Metric Marathon on October 2, I came down with a pretty bad cold that made it hard to run or get to the gym. Then, while still dealing with the cold, I took a trip to CT for my seminary reunion and RI for work. I am usually good about exercising while travelling, but between the cold and a packed schedule, I did not work out at all. I got back to MD in the wee hours of last Thursday morning having not worked out in 7 days or run in 11. By that point, I was in starting to panic about my upcoming races: the Baltimore Half-Marathon on 10/15 and NYC on 11/6.

Thursday evening, I decided to ease back into working out by going to yoga. That felt great and reminded me that I love going to the gym. Still when I finished, I thought "I am running a half-marathon in 2 days and a full marathon in 3 weeks. Just doing yoga will not get me there." Fortunately, my gym buddy (and recent marathon survivor!) Jen was available for an easy Friday morning run to help me get further back into my routine. After that, I went to my first Group Power class in over a week. Knowing I had a race the next morning, I took it semi-easy on the weights. I would have been fine, had the instructor not swapped out our regular squat routine for a different (and much harder) one. The weight I had on my bar was light for our normal routine, but way too heavy for the new one. I should have paused and scaled back, but I chose to push through... and paid for it the next day.

I woke up Saturday morning (aka: race day) to serious soreness in my quads and glutes. I felt like I had run a half-marathon before I ever got to the starting line! I took some Tylenol and hoped that I would feel better once I got moving. My ambitious goal for the race was a 2:15 finish. I had doubts about achieving that, as Baltimore is a hard and hilly race. Even if I couldn't achieve 2:15, I felt fairly confident that I could beat my previous half-marathon PR of 2:17.

Fortunately, my legs did feel better once I got going, though the soreness never went away entirely. Baltimore was both as fun and as hard as I remembered from 2010. I knew quite a few people running the race, but nobody running my pace, so I was on my own most of the morning. I found it challenging to keep pushing myself without any motivation or distraction from a running buddy. Thankfully, the crowds were great and I ran into two different sets of friends at two particularly difficult moments. In mile 8, I had a brief but pleasantly distracting chat with two friends from the Striders' marathon training. Then, just before mile 10, I spotted my good friends Nancy and Jessie in the crowd of spectators. I didn't have time to stop and chat, but they were kind enough to accept my sweaty hugs.

I hit mile 10, which is where the hills finally relent, at almost exactly 1 hour and 45 minutes. Thus, I knew I would need to speed up from 10:15-10:30 minute miles to 10-minute miles or less in order to hit 2:15. I had my doubts, but I knew I would regret it if I didn't try. According to Nike+, I ran mile 11 in 9:35, but then slowed back to 10:39 for mile 12. I remember that being a tough moment. Thankfully, the last mile of Baltimore goes downhill through a crowd of cheering spectators. I don't care how tired you are, its hard to slow down when you have a 3-deep throng of people yelling "Almost there!" and "Do it for Baltimore!" I ran the last mile in 9:15 and crossed the finish line with an official time of 2:16:31. Not the 2:15 I hoped for, but still a PR and a full 10:01 faster than last year's time of 2:26:32. I was very pleased.

Not pictured: my huge smile. 

Pretty much the second I stopped running, the soreness came back with a vengeance. Within an hour, walking was a challenge and doing things like standing up and taking stairs was excruciating. For the remainder of Saturday and all of Sunday, Advil and stretching were my new best friends. Today, though, I feel almost back to normal. By taking it easy on the weights, I was able to get back to my Monday morning Group Power and I'm looking forward to my Tuesday morning run with Jen tomorrow. 20 days to NYC!

Special deliveries.

I am currently run-down with a cold and an intense job hunt, which are hampering both my training and my blogging. I have been trying to calm my anxiety by reminding myself that I still have nearly a month (29 days, to be precise) before the marathon- plenty of time to bounce back! My mail, however, is not cooperating with this anxiety reduction plan.

Yesterday, I came home and found this in my mail pile:

That's the official NYC marathon runner's handbook, complete with this terror-inducing map:

See what that is? Its all of NYC. I probably wouldn't try to drive that in one day, but apparently I am going to run it.

Today, I got more marathon-related mail:

This is my one-of-a-kind, extra-special marathon shirt, designed by the lovely and talented Rachel Pollack of St. Lydia's. The front is awesome, but the back is even better:

How great is that? I hope and expect that any runner who sees that after about mile 15 will think "These St. Lydia's people know exactly what I need right now!"

While these special deliveries are a little scary, they are also very exciting. Once I kick this cold, I hope they will give me the boost I need to finish my training strong. This is going to be an amazing experience, and I want to be able to enjoy it!

Remember to visit St. Lydia's at http://www.stlydias.org/ and offer your support through a visit, a prayer, and/or a donation!

1 bad race + 1 great race= 1 big improvement: the 2011 Metric Marathon

The 2010 Annapolis Striders Ironmen and women (I'm in the back, wearing green). Photo by Jon Valentine.

This past Sunday, I did my second running of the Annapolis Striders Metric Marathon (26.2K or 16.3 miles). The Metric Marathon is leg 6 of the 8-leg Champ Series. These races are spread out throughout the year and feature a wide range of distances: 5K, 10 miles, 10K, 1 mile, XC 8K, 26.2K, 5 miles, and 15K. If you run all of them in a given year, you win the Striders' Ironman award.

I picked up my first Ironman award in 2010. This was a big accomplishment for me, but it paled in comparison to the accomplishments of some of the other recipients. At the Striders' awards banquet, I was amazed to see a handful of people pick up awards for their 5th, 10th, 15th, 20th and even 25th consectuive years of running the whole champ series. Its remarkable that these people have stayed in shape to run everything from 1 to 16.3 miles for that many years. Even more amazing is the pure logistics. In 25 years, there is no way that these people were never sick for a race, or injured, or juggling other commitments. The reality is that they ran races while sick or injured, and they have moved heaven and earth to get to their races every year. I think that's the real challenge of the Champ Series- just getting yourself to the start line eight times every year.

The 2010 Metric Marathon was the race that almost cost me my first IronMan award. I woke up that morning with a horrible cold, and it was only the prospect of losing the IronMan award that got me to the start line. I had one of my most miserable races to date, battling waves of nausea in the first half and major hip pain in the second half. Not fun.

This year, I was fortunate to be healthy on race day. I was less fortunate in terms of weather: I woke on Sunday morning to a 45-degree drizzle that did not make me feel like getting up and going outside. Once again, it was the IronMan award that got me to the start. One of the later Champ Series races is happening the day before the NYC marathon and the organizer is doing me a HUGE favor so I won't have to miss it (more about that later). With that in mind, I couldn't let a little cold and rain keep me from this race.

Once again, this proved to be a tough race, but it was so much better than my TheraFlu- powered shuffle of 2010. Early on, I found myself in a small pack with some friends from the Striders' marathon training group. Talking to them definitely made the time pass, but it also made me go out a bit too fast. I didn't notice how fast we were going until mile 4, when I looked at my watch and saw that less than 40 minutes had elapsed since the start. A sub 10-minute pace is what I do in a 10K on a good day, not in a longer race. Still, I felt good, so I stayed with my friends until the turnaround a little past mile 8.

At that point, I started to fall behind and I really started to feel the accumulated fatigue from the previous weekend's trail run. Everything that had been sore from the trail race- especially my hip and my shins- started to hurt. To make matters worse, I left the house in a hurry and forgot the Advil I usually bring for late-in-race aches and pains. By mile 10, I was really struggling. At that point, I started a near-constant mental mantra of "The faster you run, the sooner you'll be done." I definitely slowed a bit, but I kept moving. 

My goal for the race had been to finish in under 3 hours. When I crossed the finish line at 2:55, I was pleased, but I didn't realize just how well I had done until I went back and checked last year's time: 3:10. A 15-minute improvement! I haven't done the math, but I'm pretty sure this is my biggest improvement in a year of improvements.

Now, I am 6/8 of the way to my 2nd and much faster IronMan!

Introducing Lydia.

If you read this blog with any regularity, you know that I am running the NYC marathon on November 6th. What you may not know- because I haven't mentioned it yet- is that I am dedicating my NYC run to a cause very close to my heart.

I had the privilege of going to Yale Divinity School with many bright and talented people, full of passion and creativity. Two of those people, Emily Scott and Rachel Pollack, have spent the past three years building a church in Brooklyn called St. Lydia's. According to their website, "St. Lydia’s is a Dinner Church. We gather every Sunday evening to cook and share a sacred meal, just as the first followers of Jesus did. We eat, explore scripture, offer prayers, and sing together...St. Lydia’s is an experiment in what the Church might be when the meal we share is at the center of our life together."

I have never been to St. Lydia's, but I have diligently followed their website and blogs from the very beginning. What my friends are building helps me think more creatively about what church can and should be. I think they are bringing something exciting and vital to the table of Christianity, and I want to support their ministry in two important ways: First, I want to spread the word about St. Lydia's to those who might find a home there. Second, I want to help St. Lydia's raise the funds they need to survive and grow.

With those goals in mind, I'll be writing more about St. Lydia's from time to time in the weeks ahead. I encourage you to visit their website to learn more about who they are and what they do. Then, if you feel so moved, pay them a visit and/or offer a donation. I will also be running the marathon in a St. Lydia's t-shirt, designed by Rachel, and hoping that some fellow runners follow me to their table!

To begin, I want to offer some background on St. Lydia herself. Below is a sermon I preached at my church, St. Andrew's UMC in Edgewater, MD on Mother's Day 2010. The text is Acts 16:9-15, which tells the story of Lydia and her role in the early church. I do not mention St. Lydia's explictly, but they were definitely on my mind as I wrote about Christian hospitality. Within this sermon, I mention two great books: Making Room: Recovering Hospitality as a Christian Tradition by Christine Pohl, and The Boneshaker by my friend Kate Milford. Follow the links to learn more about those books.

Thanks for your support!

Acts 16:9-15

9During the night Paul had a vision: there stood a man of Macedonia pleading with him and saying, “Come over to Macedonia and help us.” 10When he had seen the vision, we immediately tried to cross over to Macedonia, being convinced that God had called us to proclaim the good news to them. 11We set sail from Troas and took a straight course to Samothrace, the following day to Neapolis, 12and from there to Philippi, which is a leading city of the district of Macedonia and a Roman colony. We remained in this city for some days. 13On the sabbath day we went outside the gate by the river, where we supposed there was a place of prayer; and we sat down and spoke to the women who had gathered there. 14A certain woman named Lydia, a worshiper of God, was listening to us; she was from the city of Thyatira and a dealer in purple cloth. The Lord opened her heart to listen eagerly to what was said by Paul. 15When she and her household were baptized, she urged us, saying, “If you have judged me to be faithful to the Lord, come and stay at my home.” And she prevailed upon us.

Welcome Home:

Acts 16: 9-15

When I was a little girl, I loved nothing more than having friends over to my house. I loved to walk them through the house for the first time, showing them all my toys, books, and pictures, and telling the well-worn stories that went with each room: how my dad made my dresser in the basement but couldn’t get it up the stairs, how he built me a 2-story playhouse when all I wanted was a tent, how a friend once tried to call her mom from the mixer mounted on the kitchen wall. When I had taken my friend through the whole house, we would go for a walk around the neighborhood, where the show and tell would continue: here’s where I learned to ride a bike; here’s where my neighbor found baby ducks in her pool and I walked them to the beach. I wanted my friend to know all about me: my family, my things, my stories, my home.

I also loved going to other people’s houses. There was always something fascinating about meeting my friends’ families, seeing their rooms, eating at their kitchen tables. The most interesting parts were the differences: I couldn’t believe that one mom would let us walk to the drugstore all by ourselves or watch whatever we wanted on TV, while another mom never let us out of her sight and only allowed pre-screened, G-rated videos. Some houses had pools, some had trampolines, and some had hidden rooms left over from “the olden days.” Macaroni and cheese tasted a little bit different in every house.

Something about going over to someone’s house, or having them over to yours, cemented a friendship. You could talk to somebody at school every day, but it wasn’t the same. Once you saw each other’s rooms, met each other’s dogs, ate food cooked by each other’s moms, then you were really friends.

For me, its not so different now. I don’t have my own family yet, so I spend a lot of time with my friends. And I still find that nothing cements a friendship like having someone over your house. My best friends have spent so much time at my house that they can fix their own drinks and snacks and pull out the sofa-bed without any help. When I have parties, I’ll often find my oldest friends giving my newer friends tours, and telling their own stories about things that happened in this or that room. In many ways, they feel like my house is their house too, and I love that.

Given how much I like having friends over, its no surprise that I chose to go into ministry. As we see in this morning’s text from Acts, this is how many of the first churches got started: with people inviting other people over to their houses. In many ways, the story of Lydia inviting Paul and his companions into her home is typical of the early church.

Jesus grew up studying the Hebrew scriptures, which are filled with rules and instructions about welcoming the stranger. In Genesis, Abraham and Sarah provide hospitality for three mysterious travelers, only to learn that they are actually angels in disguise. In Exodus, the Israelites rely on God’s hospitality to provide food, water, and shelter as they wander in the desert. Once the Israelites reach the Promised Land, they are instructed by God to always remember the stranger, since they were once strangers in Egypt. For the Jewish people, providing hospitality is a way of honoring God and their history.

In his own ministry, Jesus honors his Jewish heritage by both offering and depending on hospitality. Over and over again, Jesus gives everything he has to anyone who asks: his attention, his healing touch, his food, and finally his own life. At the same time, Jesus and his disciples rely on the hospitality of strangers to meet their basic needs. They travel without food, extra clothes, or money. When they visit a new place, they depend on kind strangers to take them in and provide for them. In his teachings, Jesus emphasizes hospitality as the sign of a true believer. Perhaps the most famous example of this is Matthew 25, when Jesus says “I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me…” At the Last Supper, Jesus teaches his disciples to remember him by practicing the most basic act of hospitality: sharing bread and wine.

So, really, Paul and Lydia are just continuing a long-standing tradition. Paul and his companions travel to Phillipi not knowing how they will get by. They meet Lydia, and share their Gospel message with her. Lydia, in gratitude for the word, offers Paul and his friends food and shelter. It seems like a simple, nice story with a simple, nice message, perfect for Mother’s Day. Welcome new people, listen to them, treat them with kindness, and share what you have.

When I first read this text, I was tempted to fill a sermon with simple, heartwarming stories of women being generous and hospitable and call it a day. But I don’t think that would do justice to this story, or to the idea of Christian hospitality. The more I study this story and read about hospitality in the early church, the more I realize that true Christian hospitality isn’t always nice, and its almost never simple. If we take a closer look at the story of Paul and Lydia, we learn a few things about Christian hospitality which make it a new and challenging idea, both in Paul’s time and in ours.

First, Christian hospitality brings people together in new and unexpected ways. During Paul and Lydia’s time, society was totally centered around the family. People lived, worked, traveled, and worshipped with their families. Women, like Lydia, had no identity apart from family. As children, they were the property of their fathers. When they got married, they became the property of their husbands. Living independently was not socially accepted, or even safe, for a woman.

Yet, Lydia defies these customs. Maybe she’s a widow, or maybe she’s never been married. Either way, at the time of this story, she is a woman living independently, supporting herself by selling cloth. Even more unusual, she is a Gentile woman worshipping with Jews. The Jewish community in the city of Phillipi is tiny- we can tell because they celebrate the Sabbath at a river instead of in a Temple. They are almost certainly outcasts. Yet, for whatever reason, Lydia is drawn to them. By the time she meets Paul, she is a social oddball in two ways: a Gentile woman living on her own, celebrating the Sabbath with Jews.

Paul is an oddball too. Before his conversion, Paul was a Pharisee, a devout keeper of the Jewish laws and customs. After his conversion, Paul rebelled against the other early church leaders. Many of them believed that only Jews should become Christians. If a non-Jew wanted to become a Christian, the church leaders required that person to adopt the Jewish laws and customs first. Paul made the radical move of deliberately preaching the Gospel to Gentiles, and making faith in Christ the only requirement for new Christians. This is why Paul goes to Phillipi in the first place: he is on a mission to spread Christianity beyond the Jewish communities, into the whole world.

Choosing to work together is a risky move for both Paul and Lydia. Without the protection of a father or husband, Lydia makes the brave choice to go from one persecuted religious minority to an even smaller and more persecuted minority. She opens herself up to gossip and scandal by housing strange men in her home. For Paul, Lydia’s home is not the ideal place to set up his base in Phillipi. He is also opening himself up to scandal by staying with an unmarried woman. Lydia doesn’t exactly give his movement credibility- a wealthy and prominent man would make a more appealing leader for his new church. Yet, Paul doesn’t worry about any of this. He offers the Gospel to anyone who will listen, and accepts the leader that God provides for him. Christ’s message takes these two people, who are strangers in every possible sense of the word, and turns them into a new family.

This story also teaches us that Christian hospitality doesn’t count the cost. Lydia doesn’t tell Paul and his friends to come and stay at her house for a couple of nights until they find a hotel. She just tells them to come and stay. She instantly drops whatever plans she had for herself, and invites this group of strangers to stay in her home, sleep in her beds, use her bathrooms, and eat her food, for as long as they want. I think that’s pretty generous.

In a book about the history of Christian hospitality, Methodist scholar Christine Pohl identifies this radical generosity as the single most important thing which set Christian hospitality apart from other traditions. During Paul’s time, the kind of hospitality practiced in Greek and Roman cities, like Phillipi, reinforced the social hierarchy. People were expected to offer hospitality to their families, members of their religious communities, and prominent citizens, with the idea that their hospitality would be reciprocated. In other words, people welcomed their friends and neighbors, with the expectation that they would be welcomed in return. Less prominent members of the community offered hospitality to more prominent members, in the hopes of improving their own social standing. No invitations were issued without the host asking “what’s in it for me?”

Early Christians, on the other hand, offered hospitality to anyone and everyone, with no expectation of receiving anything in return. In fact, they went out of their way to offer hospitality to people who could not possibly return the favor. The early Christians saw offering hospitality to the poor as one of the holiest things a believer could do, because it involved giving without the expectation of gain. Also, rather than using hospitality to reinforce social hierarchies, the early Christians used hospitality to make everyone equal. In early churches, everything was shared in common, so rich and poor community members sat around the same tables and ate the same simple food. Believers like Lydia, who were used to being the heads of households, took turns serving the community just like everybody else. Early Christians used hospitality to reinforce and demonstrate a very powerful, radical idea: that all believers are equal in God’s eyes.

Finally, this story teaches us that Christian hospitality is about opening up to one another completely, without reservation. When Lydia tells Paul and his companions “come and stay at my home,” she doesn’t say “but give me an hour to clean up first.” Knowing that Paul is coming to her house, Lydia doesn’t run ahead of him and start hiding things in her closets. She invites him to see her home and her family just as they are. Similarly, the book of Acts and the letters of Paul invite readers to see the early Christians just as they are. Take some time to read these books, and you’ll see that they are chock full of arguments. Paul and the other church leaders engage in passionate and not always civil debates with one another about everything involved in the new church: who should be in charge, who should be allowed in, and what they should believe. Rather than giving readers a cleaned-up, flattering look at the early church, Paul and the other leaders open themselves up completely, inviting us to see the good, the bad, and the ugly.

Our founder, John Wesley, believed that this kind of openness was at the heart of Christian life. He organized all of the early Methodist societies into small groups, called “classes” and “bands.” These groups met for at least an hour each week so that members could share their faith journeys. It sounds like a nice, simple idea, but Wesley’s groups were not the kind of faith-sharing groups you see at churches today. These were not groups of church members who gathered over coffee to share joys and concerns. Wesley’s groups were more like public interrogations or confessionals.

At every weekly Methodist band meeting, members pledged “To speak each of us in order, freely and plainly, the true state of our souls, with the faults we have committed in thought, word, or deed, and the temptations we have felt since our last meeting.” Once each member had shared, a leader asked everyone in the group probing questions. Wesley required each person to be asked these five questions at every single meeting:

1) What known sins have you committed since our last meeting?

2) What temptations have you met with?

3) How were you delivered?

4) What have you thought, or said, or done, which you doubt whether it be sin or not?

5) Have you nothing you desire to keep secret?

Just in case group members were tempted not to answer these extremely personal questions honestly, other group members were encouraged to chime in and offer their comments. New members who wanted to join a group had to submit to a highly personal interview, designed to prepare them for the level of scrutiny they would face. Here are some actual questions from that interview:

Do you desire to be told of your faults?

Do you desire to be told of all your faults, and that plain and simple?

Do you desire that every one of us should tell you, from time to time, whatsoever is in his heart concerning you?

Consider! Do you desire that every one of us should tell you, from time to time, whatsoever we think, whatsoever we fear, whatsoever we hear concerning you?

Do you desire that, in doing this, we should come as close as possible; that we should cut to the quick, and search your heart to the bottom?

Wesley, like Paul, Lydia, and the other early church leaders, believed that being a Christian meant opening yourself up completely to other people: not just your home and your wallet, but also your mind and your heart.

Now, as I’ve gone over these important points of Christian hospitality, I imagine that some, if not all of you, have started thinking about our own church. How do we measure up? Have we created an environment in which anyone and everyone is truly welcome? Are we open to whomever God brings to us, no matter how strange or unlikely they seem? Do we consider everyone who walks through our doors an equal and give to one another without counting the cost? And finally, do we open ourselves up to one another completely, without reservation?

On the first points, I think we can all agree that we have some strengths and some weaknesses. These are things we talk about a lot. We’re proud of the way we welcome the stranger and give to the needy through programs like VIM and the food pantry. At the same time, we know we need to work harder to bring new people into our community and to encourage more generosity to support our missions. These are very important points, and there’s a lot more to say about them, but today I’m more interested in the final point: how well do we open ourselves up to one another?

When I compare the church of Paul and Lydia’s time, or the church of Wesley’s time, to the church of our time, this is where I see the most obvious difference. We know that we should be more welcoming and more generous, but do we even believe we should be more open? In our modern church and our modern culture, we’ve made a virtue out of not sharing too much. Teenagers- and some adults- make fun of each other for giving “TMI:” “too much information.” We judge our leaders if they show too much pain or weakness. In our church meetings and offices, we’re so concerned about being polite and agreeable that we often have trouble saying what we mean. I struggle with that all the time. In church council meetings, I have a hard time voicing concerns about the most innocuous budget items. I can’t imagine what it must have been like to go to one of Wesley’s meetings, where church members took turns looking each other in the eye and saying “You know what your problem is?”

From our modern viewpoint, it can be hard to understand why the early Christians thought this kind of openness was so important. Why is sharing our hearts and souls a central part of Christian hospitality, as important as sharing our time and resources? I’ve thought and read a lot about this question over the past few days, so here are a few ideas:

First, sharing invites more sharing. When we’re open about our own thoughts, feelings, dreams, and fears, we give other people permission to open up too. This is one of the reasons Pastor Dave is so effective. Many pastors give sermons that are like public service announcements- they talk about difficult things like family problems or mental illness as if they’ve only read about them in books. It takes a brave person like Pastor Dave to get behind the pulpit and share about his own family or his own depression. But who makes the bigger difference? Which pastor are you going to with your own problems? This is the reason I love having people over my house. Once I welcome someone into my space- let them see my things, look at my pictures, and hear my stories- they feel more comfortable sharing themselves with me. We go from being acquaintances to being friends. Opening ourselves up gives others permission to do the same, and that creates an environment of hospitality.

Also, opening up to one another makes it easier to work together. The early Christians often lived and worked in small, very close communities. In Phillipi, Lydia’s house became the central hub and gathering place of a new church. This community, like the other early churches, had no paid leadership. The early Christians built and sustained it themselves. They cooked and ate together, planned and conducted worship together, went out into the community to preach together, and tended to the poor together. I imagine that things felt a little close for comfort sometimes. I’m sure that Paul got on Lydia’s nerves, or that the two of them disagreed about how to carry out their mission. Airing their differences openly and regularly helped the early Christians vent their frustrations and move forward together, without devolving into gossip and cliques. The same could be said for the early Methodists. A member of a Methodist class might not have liked what the other class members had to say about her, but at least she could trust them to speak to her openly, and to give her the opportunity to air her own grievances. Sharing their thoughts and feelings with one another helped the early Christians stay unified, so they could go about the business of welcoming others.

In today’s church, I think we worry sometimes that the truth is dangerous- that it might be hurtful or divisive. But if we pay attention to the lessons of the early church, I think we see how the truth can bring us together and set us free. If you need further proof, I have a book to recommend:

Over the past few days, I had the great pleasure of reading The Boneshaker, written by Kate Milford. Many of you knew Kate back when she was called Katie Chell and she went to Sunday School here at St. Andrew’s. Kate has always dreamed of being a writer, and this week, her dream came true. After church today, you can all go to any bookstore and buy her first book, and I really hope you will, because it is brilliant. Kate has a lot to say about the truth, and the power it has to either bring people together or keep them apart.

The Boneshaker is about a family and a town with a lot of secrets. In the beginning, Kate’s heroine, a 13 year-old girl named Natalie, is scared to ask about those secrets. But then things start to happen which put Natalie’s family and town in danger. Gradually, Natalie realizes that she can only save the day by finding the courage to ask questions and uncover the truth. Over the course of the book, she finds the courage to question adults, stand up to the town bullies, and even confront the Devil himself. In the end, though, the hardest question for her to ask is directed at her own mother, Annie. Annie is very sick for most of the book, but she hasn’t told Natalie what’s wrong with her, and Natalie has been too afraid to ask. Finally, after all of her adventures, Natalie has the courage to look her mother in the eye and ask “Mama, can you tell me how sick you are, really?” Natalie’s brave question gives Annie the courage to answer truthfully: “Natalie we aren’t sure what it is… its very scary when you know something’s wrong but you don’t know what it is.” The truth doesn’t cure Annie’s body, but it repairs her relationship with Natalie. Sharing their deepest thoughts and worries brings mother and daughter closer than they’ve ever been before.

Paul and Lydia have many things to teach us, but I think the most important is that true hospitality begins with our own closest relationships, with our friends, our families, and our church communities. If we’re going to open ourselves to anyone and everyone, the way God calls us to, we much first be able to open ourselves to one another. Today is Mother’s Day, and I think that the greatest gift any of us can give our mothers or our children is to say something we’ve never been able to say before, or ask a question we’ve never had the courage to ask. Try it, and I bet it opens things up in ways they’ve never been open before. Then, over the next few days and weeks, try to share just a little more of yourself with your church family, and invite others to do the same. Risk voicing your opinion in a meeting, and try to have a more open and gracious heart when other people voice their opinions. If we all work on opening things up just a little more, we’ll have that much more space to welcome others into our home.

  

Amen.