What this is, and what this is not.

I am going to put it out there right from the get go.. This rambling babble is not going to change the world, cure cancer, or send money to save small children from famine in Africa.. This is not about my amazing wife, or her soon to be open brewery.  This is not a blog about God, Haute Cuisine, Critical theory, or my relationship with my 3 young children.  I may at time make reference to all of these individual interests in my life, but in no way is this a place to write about them.  What this is, is a blog about running.  Its simple and its sweet.  It is not a place for me to wax poetic about 20 years ago (when 5:15 miles could be strung together like paper dolls hanging in the warm light of the afternoon.. is that waxy enough for you?) this is about the present, the now, the sometimes beautiful, sometimes brutal trials of one person (and his aging body) who wakes up EARLY in the morning and runs all over creation.  Oh and wait, its about something else too.
The idea for The Run Old Boy Run Project came to me when I was standing in a sea of runners at the finish l  of a 10K that I ran this past May.  What I saw around me were not elite bodies sculpted into gazelle like perfection, what surrounded me was the real running community.  The slightly out of shape, the slightly in shape, the oval, postpartum , the fat, the skinny, the emaciated, the giants, and it dawned on me.. This is the church and these are the people who in some form or another, put together mile after mile by foot and journey through our cities, towns and country every day, in search of something more.  (I also like to think of them as   the slightly better looking cross section of some utopian version of what America would look like if we all gave up fast food and learned how to cook our own food from scratch..) but wait I digress....  I got to thinking about how to make the guy who finished  in 256th as much as a rock star as the young college age track star who gracefully tore off sub 5 minute miles for 6 miles.  I know this may sound funny, but its really not about the winner.  Its about the energy of thousands of people who for who knows what reasons put on their fancy shorts that morning and in front of thousand of spectators jiggled and bounced, sweating rivers in pain and ran the allotted 6 miles on that early morning in May.  Now, if you are not a runner and think that this is not a huge accomplishment, go outside right now and go and run 6 miles without stopping.  Go! Do it!  It is not as easy as you may think.
I would like to do something special for one middle of the packer this year.  I have not quite figured out what this means yet.. It might be as simple as a gift certificate to my favorite massage therapist,  or perhaps something a bit bigger, who knows.. but whatever the case... I have my eye on the Grand Rapids Marathon this fall as my possible first stop on my Celebrate the Middle of the Pack train. We will have to see.  If you have any suggestions or would like to donate something let me know.  How cool would it be to come in 457th and win a big ole prize?  How great would you feel knowing that someone else understands and honors what it is that you do?  Word, Amen.