Time On The Road……….by Donnie

I miss the way things used to be with college and pro football.  I miss the Tom Landry era Dallas Cowboys. I miss hearing Tommy Loy play the National Anthem on his trumpet at every home Dallas Cowboys game until the end of 1988.  A lot of negative things happened to the Cowboys in 1989.  I miss watching Cowboys games on TV, virtually every week.  I was able to attend two games at Texas Stadium, I miss that place.  (Not overly impressed with AT&T Stadium)  I even miss Cowboys games played at The Cotton Bowl.  I miss the Cotton Bowl Classic when it was actually being played at The Cotton Bowl Stadium, which is still standing strong.  I have seen three college games there. One was the Red River Shootout between Texas and Oklahoma.  Now the PC police call it the Red River Rivalry (I don’t).  I saw The Cotton Bowl Classic there twice.  Now the Cotton Bowl Classic is played at  AT & T Stadium. Thankfully, the Shootout is still at the real Cotton Bowl.  I miss hating the Pittsburgh Steelers even though Terry Bradshaw is from my hometown.  I miss hating the Redskins, the Giants and Eagles, for no other reason than they were the Steelers, Redskins, Giants and Eagles.  Rivalries are great. I miss Monday Night Football when it was on ABC.  I miss Howard Cosell, Don Meredith, Frank Gifford.  On Sundays I miss Brent Musberger, Jimmy the Greek even though I don’t care for gambling.  So many others who either have passed or no longer part of the action.  I miss NFL players and coaches who had class and respect.  Some still do, not too many I feel.  I miss when college Bowl games were simple names, Rose, Cotton, Orange, Sugar, Fiesta, Gator, etc.  Not something like the ‘Acme Clean and Super Bright.com Federal Shipping Sun Bowl.’  I miss when going to a bowl was an honor, and the requirements were more than just winning half of your games and your players have a pulse and not be in jail at game time.  Pro and college football has changed, and I am afraid not for the better.  I still love watching what remains of college football.  Sadly, I am, for the foreseeable future, done with the NFL.  Even if respect for the USA were restored, the game still isn’t the same for me.  I have treasured memories of what the NFL and college ball once were, those can’t be lost.

Today was my third race of 2018, the fourth I have signed up for.  Just over a month ago a race I was planning on running was cancelled because of a thunderstorm, so scary, not! I don’t believe anything ever happened anyway, just some rain. But, I digress.

Today I ran the Kilometers For Kicks 5K in Olathe KS at Olathe North High School.  The high school part of that sentence is the part I didn’t pay enough attention to.  There hasn’t been a lot of races in the area of late that I could easily get to, this one was sort of a last minute decision, well, almost.  When a race is being sponsored by a cross county and perhaps track team, AND, part of the race is actually run on a high school track, a smart person might conclude that maybe, just maybe this race is going to have a lot of top conditioned high school students, or recent high school graduates who may have been track stars.  This race amounted to almost 2 laps around a track, which is about 1/2 mile of the 3.1 miles.  The race began and ended on the track, the remainder in between was run down a nice trail.  My time was not great, but not horrible either.

This race benefits low income high school students who can’t afford nice running shoes to wear, by helping them get a pair, nice cause.

The logistics of the race were not top notch, but this was their inaugural race, and considering it was organized by concerned high school students, all things considered, they did a fine job.

 I imagine God is trying to tell me something.  “Don’t schedule road races on Sunday mornings before church.”  I tried that last December.  I ran a cold weather race, when I had a cold, then I was later than I anticipated getting out of the parking lot. Then my cold felt worse, and I missed church.  Today, the scheduled race was an hour earlier, and at a different location where I could easily exit, and make it to church.  But……a thunderstorm cancelled the race. Plus, my car was acting up.  I got back home in plenty of time, rested a little since I had gotten up so early.  I got ready for church, then got an upset tummy, and missed church again.  Something was telling me the last day or so, “don’t sign up for the race, you could be too tired for church. You ran a race on Saturday (which also rained but not cancelled), give the $40 to God instead. ”  I suspect that was also God.  But, I didn’t listen, next time hopefully I will.

There are typically no refunds on cancelled races.  At least in a rain out in MLB, you get a rain check.

 I love running races.  The registering, the photos, the music, the swag, ah yes, the swag.  About the only thing I don’t enjoy is the getting up early part to get to the venue.  I usually don’t get much sleep the night before a race, which doesn’t really help on the energy level at times.  

But about the swag.  Most races give you extra goodies when you get your bib number and timing chip.  Shirts, water bottles, pens and pins (for pinning your bib to your shirt, I collect the ones I get from the races, silly, I know)  Sometimes duffel bags, band aids, pamphlets with info on other races.  To me it’s all part of the fun of a race.  Some races, like the Kansas City Marathon, prefers “virtual” info and pamphlets and such. You know, they are being all politically correct green peace machine.  Fortunately at the vendor expo for the race, there are plenty of vendors to provide plenty of swag.

On the issue of political correctness, I believe part of the reason Ringling Brothers Circus closed down, was the cries of the political correct crowd who think circuses are cruel.  Some may be, but I don’t know if Ringling Brothers was.  So this is what we are left with.  A circus coming to the Kansas City area, that bills as an attraction a T-Rex, or raptor or something.  Really?  Either this circus has really done what a movie did, or it is a cheap ploy to lure people into a circus that needs a gimmick.  Sad…

I am not sure why I keep signing up for this race.  Although they have cool music, in my opinion, it could be managed better. They do not use a photographer, most races do. It has a couple of killer hills, which slows down my time.  But not wanting to be a running snowflake, I tarry on.  Today’s Merriam Turkey Creek Festival 5K had an added albatross, it rained.  Not a torrential downpour, but enough to make me good and soaked.  My wallet got a bath, thankfully my phone didn’t.  Rain has obstructed three races for me now.  One was last year on July 4th at the Lenexa Freedom Run, then, back in the summer of 2011 the Jazz In The Woods was cancelled, I had however left before I got the confirmation on it. Today was my third time to run Turkey Creek, I recorded my second best time, or my second worse, depending on whether I view the glass as half full or empty.  Since I am disappointed with my time, let’s go with half empty.  Or maybe it is the rain gauge that was half full.  Next race for me is actually tomorrow (5/20/18) before church. The Triple Crown Showdown 5K.  This race is benefiting the Myasthenia Gravis Association.  For KC area people, it is being run at Town Center Plaza in Leawood KS.  

There are some myths people have about Kansas.  The first one I suppose would be that we all know Dorothy and Toto.  The next one might be that Kansas is flat.  Perhaps some parts are.  But let me tell you, Renner Road, running between Lenexa KS and Olathe KS, is NOT flat.   This past Saturday, while running an out and back race called Tower 2 Tower, it seemed at times, I was running a hill coming and going.  My lackluster finish time showed it.  I finished 162^nd out of 383 runners.  Not great, but not last.  The race is a novel idea, running between the two cities water towers.  As a Christian, I can think of an excellent story when Jesus was at the well talking to the woman about saving water.

John 4:13-14

¹³ Jesus answered and said to her, “Whoever drinks of this water will thirst again, ¹⁴ but whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst. But the water that I shall give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up into everlasting life.”    NKJV

Race season is finally here.  In truth, it never really leaves. But thankfully the weather is finally cooperating.  When I say racing,  I’m not talking horses or cars, I am talking road races here.  Leg powered. 5K’s, 10K’s, 4 milers, half marathons, and this year, hopefully a full marathon.  Yep, finally, this year, I want to dive into the deep end of the pool. I plan to run the big enchilada, the top dog, the big daddy, a full marathon.  That means 26.2 grueling, I mean, fun miles on the road.

Last year in 2017, I ran 6 road races including a half marathon.  Let me tell you, not all of those races were in ideal conditions.  A race I ran on the 4^th of July, I got drenched.  Then on Thanksgiving morning, which was less than warm temperatures, I ran a 10K.  I guess I didn’t think that was cold enough, so I added a chilly December 3^rd  5K to end the year on a cold note. This year, as long as my legs and knees hold out, I plan to run even more races.

I love road races. The adrenaline rush or the runners high, is worth it all.  The elite races such as the Boston Marathon, I can likely never run in.  The qualifying times are out of my league.

So while I may never qualify to run Boston, the races I do run, I plan to enjoy my Time On The Road.  I recently saw a movie based on running that I enjoyed.  While on the subject of running movies, there are several that are worth watching.  Chariots of Fire is perhaps the best known.  Forrest Gump comes to mind for some (please never say “run Forrest run” when you see a runner, lol)  But the movie I am talking about is called Remember the Goal. In this a first year running coach takes over coaching a girls cross country team at a Christian high school, and takes them all the way to the state championships.  Whether they win or lose their motto remains a verse in the Bible from I Corinthians 10:31.  Good advice. Whatever we achieve, give God ALL the glory

 Therefore, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.

I Corinthians 10:31  NKJV

This was my first road race in a December.  The weather wasn’t too cold, but, it was too cold for someone who was fighting a cold.  Running hard and breathing in cold air is not an ideal situation when you are sick.  Another problem for this otherwise fairly easy run, it was on a Sunday morning.  I had convinced myself I would have plenty of time to run this 9:00 AM 5K, get home, shower, and make it to church for 11:00 AM services.  I didn’t.  I didn’t calculate the time it would take me to get out of the parking lot, with runners still finishing, and get home. Plus, being sick anyway, the race made me more tired than usual I think.  In the future, I will not schedule any Sunday races if I don’t have plenty of time for church.

It was Thanksgiving Day, and I was running a 10K.  Something a few days earlier must of told me this would be a good ideal. All in all, it was, though at the start, it seemed very cold.  I had not run a 10K since 2011, thought I had signed up the Lenexa Freedom Run 10K last July, but weather turned that into a 5K.  The ‘turkey run” was fun, but my time was disappointing to me, from the last time I ran a 10K in 2011.  There were a lot of people for this race, maybe a couple of thousand with the 5 and 10K combined.  The logistics for this race weren’t top notch, and the photography was a lot to be desired.  I probably won’t run this one next year.