Skip to main content

Running Streak: Month Eight

  • Ran in one state
  • Ran in Meridian, Boise, Kellogg, and Kingston
  • longest run: 8 miles
  • shortest run: 1 mile (minimum requirement to keep the streak alive)
  • total January mileage: 70  
  • total streak days (at the end of January): 245  
  • total streak mileage: 484 miles. 
  • fastest mile: 9:10

Lots of things please me about my January running experience. The fact that I hit the 70-mile mark for the first time since August pleases me greatly--and certainly surprises me. But the best part about January running came on my trip to Kellogg. On Saturday morning I headed to my brother Paul's house to get in a little 2-miler with him. It was crazy weather--raining, gusting winds--and as we headed down the paved path toward Smelterville, we found ourselves skirting several large puddles. This skirting involved running off the path and through the snow. I'm not sure why, but after a while we gave up on the skirting strategy and elected to run through the puddles--sort of a high-kneed, tip-toe running motion, that I'm sure looked incredibly ungraceful. It was fun, though. 

We were almost a mile out, and planning to turn around soon, when the 40 mph wind gust hit us head-on. At first I thought we could power through to hit that mile mark, but after about ten yards I gave up and turned around. It was amazing to feel the force of the wind blowing us forward, as we headed back in. It was one memorable run, that's for sure. It was great to get in another run with my brother, too. 




Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

On This Day

It was a very busy, long morning. I had back-to-back-to-back conferences with kids and parents and my principal that filled every break. Still, classes went mostly well, and I felt like I sort of knew how to teach. Then I went to cnn.com just as lunch was starting--just 5 minutes to spare before I had to meet parents. Wow. Just wow. I struggled to keep myself together. I didn't want to be crying when I met with the parents. But children--little children--shot and killed . . . . The parents were lovely, by the way, asking great questions about their son and telling me how much he likes my class, which really surprised them, because he's a math/science guy. Turns out he thinks I'm funny. I went straight to the church after work to continue working on our Christmas program. It's a huge undertaking, and I don't know how anyone could do it alone. I left feeling grateful for many hands and heads that make light work. And then I went to the Hungry Onion...
12 comments
Read more

Believe in Your Seed

Twenty-five years ago, she was a student in my 10th-grade English class in Kellogg, a small mining town in Idaho’s panhandle. Now, she is an educator herself  — an elementary teacher in the same large district where I teach high school English. And today, she stood in front 3000 employees of the Boise School District and delivered a keynote address. Her speech was, to say the least, inspiring. It was expertly crafted — full of story, wit, insight, and charm. Her delivery was seamless, vivid, funny, and, quite frankly, better than any such talk I have heard in 31 years of opening meetings. (I say this as someone who is particularly passionate about public speaking. In fact, public speaking has become one of my greatest passions — both as a teacher who helps students craft presentations, and as someone who dreams of doing exactly what Sonia Galaviz did today.) As she spoke, I experienced her speech on several levels. I was the veteran teacher inspired by a somewhat young...
5 comments
Read more

Dare to Trust

In the last several years of my teaching career, I have made a conscious decision to trust my students. As a part of my opening day speech, I tell my students that even though they have done nothing yet to earn my trust, I choose to trust them. I tell them that I am on their side and that I will believe what they say to me. If a student tells me his computer crashed just when he was about to send me his essay (the 21st century version of "the dog ate my homework"), I believe him. If a student says she is not ready for her quiz because she was at the hospital all night with her sick grandmother, I believe her. Or at least I act like I believe her, and frankly, most of the time I do. And if I find out one of my students has lied to me, I don't feel stupid. As one of my teacher mentors, Jeff Wilhelm, would say, "it's not my bad." It's not my job to suspect every student of lying and cheating. It is my job to teach, and I know that to teach well, I n...
9 comments
Read more