For Sweetness

Today ran a charity run for Walter Payton's charity. I learned of it yesterday morning and figured "What the hell?". Feels pretty good to be able to say "What the hell?" for a 9.5 mile run the next am and think nothing of it. 9.5 is an odd distance. The run is actually 16,726 yards...Payton's total career yards which stood as the NFL record until Emmitt Smith broke it. Those who know me know that The Cowboys are my team and I'm a huge fan of Smith, but there was no one like Sweetness. He was electric to watch and magnetic off the field. He too was taken from us way too soon by this terrible disease. He had lots of good left to do and thankfully his wife Connie and family carry on his legacy. I am proud to have run in his name today.

So when I got up at 5:45 this am... torrential downpour. I debated long and hard whether to go or not. Fueled up and checked the weather. Storm was big and we were in the middle of it. Regardless, decided to go...got upstairs and boy did the bed look comfy. Listening to the rain batter the house, I decided that at this point in my Marathon training, i shouldn't risk injury or illness, so headed for bed before I stopping and convincing myself that i should go..I have to run today anyway, may as well get a t-shirt for it. Loaded up the car and after carefully negotiating streets on the verge of flooding, I turned off and headed home. Too much water, how could they have the race? Of course, as soon as I got home, the rain stopped (Teresa is convinced it was Lorraine) and i got back in my car and headed out..

The rain stoppage was only a pause..it rained on us from 1st step to last. Sometimes light, sometime a downpour. The roads were full of mini lakes, rushing temporary rivers and amazing volunteers that helped us get through it. This was my first training run in the rain (Lucky to have a perfect summer to train). First time running in squishy shoes. It was interesting at best and my already gnarly running feet were now pruned and gnarly....Thankfully, it was 70 degrees, so the rain actually felt great. It was a great course and a fun run. Will be back in 2009 for the 6th annual.

Got 2 really cool e-mails this week. The first from "the other slow guy" from my initial Blog. Jon Aguilar and I did the 10k class together that started this strange addiction. He e-mailed that he had stopped running a while back and that he was motivated by my 7/23 initial e-mail and had been running ever since. He is training for the Clarendon Hills 10k, yep, same one we ran together in 2005. It is 1 week before the Marathon and luckily I have a 6 mile run on my schedule that weekend, so I'm running it with him and even got Dave, our coach, to run it with us. Jon reminded me that we finished 3rd and 4th from last in 2005, so our goal is to finish 4th and 5th from last (or better) this year! in addition, I learned that my buddy Rob in Puerto Rico signed up for a half marathon in January. Used to be a runner and has laced the shoes back up and started training. He's never run more than a 10k. While I may or may not have had an influence on Jon, Rob or anyone else, they made the choice to strap them on and get outside, I didn't. I'm inspired by them and even more motivated than ever to keep on trucking.

Today I logged my 500th mile on my Nike Plus. That's Chicago to Odessa, MO, home of Frank Stever, the kid's Great Grandfather. Pretty cool.

I appreciate every e-mail, phone call and comment on my blog. These are keeping me going, more than you'll ever know. Keep them coming. While the experience of this training has been great, the outpouring of support and re-connection with old friends is beyond words. It's humbling. Truly.