Thanksgiving Pre-lude

Meng Hu wrote this, quoting Heidegger: "...the West, steeped in reason and logic, can only use thought to try to go beyond thought. And this can only be accomplished by the solitary individual."

It is the start of the holiday season. Today for instance, there is a Thanksgiving lunch downstairs. I am sitting upstairs in my cubicle eating an apple. I cannot bring myself to participate in holidays. It is a moral or ethical discrepancy. That is, I think the way we do holidays is wrong, so I don't do them.

I don't believe the Bible is in some way more sacred than many other writings. But on the other hand, I still quote it from time to time to explain myself. For instance, Romans 12.2 says, "Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind." This resembles the idea of "Renunciate" (Sannyasa). Apart from society, my mind is renewed.

When I threw all my possessions under a Good Will truck and joined a monastery, I renounced the world. I've not ever been able to take the world back completely. I waver in some areas. Other areas, I have a strict conviction: this I will not do.

But it is hard for me to discuss any of this and certainly I've never been able to explain to anyone why I don't do some things and when. Usually, when I do talk about myself, people don't understand and make up some story that I don't agree with. But then I seem incapable of clearly explaining the inner rationale. In some cases, it is just an ongoing process. Also, I find as time goes on, that while my renunciation and spiritual practice are important to me, I have no need to attract anyone else into the ideas. As the years go by since I left the monastery and religion, I find that I am less vehement about my beliefs and so less inclined to discuss them with anyone.

Sometimes I worry that the theme of my life is disappearing. The theme which began at the age of 22 to know God. And then the extension of the theme I found at about age 38 to "Shamelessly follow Jesus and live a life of prayer." Who and what I think of Jesus is not a denominational Christian belief. But the desire to that life is still in me. It seems I went through a string of activities designed to open inner doors to know God more. But since the results are not conscious, I cannot point to them.

It is just that I know they are there.

This brings me back to Thanksgiving. I am taking the week off work. I really really look forward to the solitude. Somehow, listening to silence is what I must do. 

Worst Case RATS

My Vision Quest is an endurance event. The challenge is two fold: running plus camping. The race web page shortened the 4th run by 9 miles to 43 miles and still gives 20 hours to finish. Now my focus is on the second run of 39 miles. Can I finish that before the cut off of 12.5 hours? I looked at results of previous years. Some people did come very close to the cut off.

Here are the results of one female who looks like she might be comparable to me on day 1, 3 and 5. My day 4 will be 9 miles less than hers but I'll still have 20 hours to do it.

I know from my 50k race on an easy course 2 weeks ago that I could have put in another 8 miles in a little over 2 hours if I started to only walk. So given that day 2 of RATS has some climbing, I estimate: 7 + 2.5 = 9.5 hours. That leaves a 3 hour difficulty factor.

I think I can.

It is important to me think I can because during the event, I'll have the physical challenges. Believing in my self is paramount.

Duplex Circuit

One reason why I don't want to move anytime soon is the duplex I live in. Besides being completely paid for, it is Texas big and 2 stories. Since my house is also filled with exercise equipment and weights, I like to set up cross training circuits for a variety.

My circuits contain carrying a 10 lb olympic plate in each hand and walking up and down the stairs. Tonight I added the following. At the top of the stairs, I did 5 shoulder presses with a bar bell. At the bottom, using living room and bedroom, I did pushups with a burpee jump, side to side along a step platform and 5 in one TRX movements. I also did all this with ankle weights.

Basically, I spent 46 minutes walking up stairs with the weights, shoulder presses, down staris with the weights, 3 pushups with the jump, 3 laps on the step platform, 3 rounds of 5 on the TRX, back to the step platform, back to the pushups, repeat.

Then, I did 5 way core exercises and 5 way leg lifts.

This sort of cross training is good. Going up and down stairs is the only hill in Houston.

I have a case of DOMs from my 20 mile walk yesterday!

Training Agenda

Most people have a training plan, what exercises and runs they'll do that week. I don't. Usually, I do what I feel like and have time for.

However, I do have a spiritual training agenda. Here is this week:
Love, which created me, is what I am.
Now will I seek and find the peace of God.
Father I will but to remember you.
Be in my mind, my Father, through the day.
I give my life to God to guide today.
(ACIM lessons 229-233)

And anything that happens to me is framed by what I am reading in the Text, which happens to be chapter 7.

Gifts

I had a good weekend. Saturday I jog/walked 22 miles. I was going a bit faster than ultra pace but also carrying lots of water for weight. This speed annoyed one of my tendons in my left heel. Sunday is ultra walking day. When I do a race longer that 50k, you can bet there will be lots of power walking. So today, I walked 20 miles. I felt really good and no problems at all from feet or legs. No compression today and no tape on my knee. I did really well and I felt good.

So, my best ultra pace, for going all day is just under 4 mph. Think about it. Get your mind around a hundred miles of walking.

A year ago, my doctor released me from my boot and scooter and I took my first few steps on my foot since surgery 6 weeks earlier. God that hurt. A half a mile took me 18 minutes and it hurt like hell. Today was essentially pain free.

Why do I do this? I don't know, but after I get out beyond 15 miles, it is hard to get me to stop. I usually stop when I run out of water. Today I stopped because I forgot to lower the crock pot temperature before I left the house and figured I shouldn't leave it more than 5 hours.

Gift: I was looking at the Desert RATS web page. They have been working on it. It looks like the longest day is not 43 miles. That is down from 52. I can envision completing 42 miles on day 4, in 20 hours including some climbing. I had assumed I'd DNF 52 miles. But 43 is within my capability.

Gift: I had prayed according to A Course in Miracles to see a person differently. That person is now one of the site leaders who will work closely with me on my new project. I hadn't thought he was at all interested but it seems he really is very enthusiastic. So I do get to see him in a new context.

Gift: I got an e-mail from my brother this week. It is the first time in decades he has initiated contact. Usually it is me that e-mails him; and sometimes don't hear back for days.

I've been considering my spiritual journey. It seems that as I get better mentally, the high points of emotion no longer occur in conjunction with spiritual insight. Like silence really is silence. Not silence plus ecstasy. I realize that for many years my spirituality has been aimed at "better than." That is, as I left the monastery, I had to feel as good as or be better than the nuns. And this translated into an arrogant attitude towards the ordinary citizens who are far too busy with living to worry about God more than once a week.

A few days ago, I was reading an introduction to the work book for A Course in Miracles. It said that the first part was for undoing of thoughts and beliefs. The second part was for building a new spiritual belief system. I've always had trouble with the second part. So I started it again. It has alot less words. I'm going to give it a good chance.

See my life is changing. Last week was good evidence. I sold a tremendous idea to the manager of a large chemical park (800 employees plus 1000 contractors). Then I sold the idea to his top staff. It is a pinnacle for me in terms of self worth, getting out of self, feeling engaged. But also, expanding an idea by giving it away, being in a holy relationship. These are Course in Miracles concepts and it is cool to see them framed this way. My illusion is changing, healing, swinging into a happy dream. I am committed to staying at this site out of joy not money. That is hugely significant for me.

Lesson 226

Today's ACIM Lesson:
Lesson 226 "My home awaits me. I will hasten there.

If I so choose, I can depart this world entirely. It is not death which makes this possible, but it is change of mind about the purpose of the world. If I believe it has a value as I see it now, so will it still remain for me. But if I see no value in the world as I behold it, nothing that I want to keep as mine or search for as a goal, it will depart from me. For I have not sought for illusions to replace the truth.

Father, my home awaits my glad return. Your Arms are open and I hear Your Voice. What need have I to linger in a place of vain desires and of shattered dreams, when Heaven can so easily be mine?"

What I read in the ACIM text this morning:

"Be vigilant only for God and for His Kingdom....

The third step, then, is a statement of what you want to believe, and entails a willingness to relinquish everything else. The Holy Spirit will enable you to take this step, if you follow Him. Your vigilance is the sign that you want Him to guide you. Vigilance does require effort, but only until you learn that effort itself is unnecessary. You have exerted great effort to preserve what you made because it was not true. Therefore, you must now turn your effort against it. Only this can cancel out the need for effort, and call upon the being which you both have and are. This recognition is wholly without effort since it is already true and needs no protection. It is in the perfect safety of God. Therefore, inclusion is total and creation is without limit."

I had a great 20 minutes on the elliptical and then a great 3.1 mile run outside. Then I went to work. In my inbox were 2 e-mails from 2 vice presidents thanking me for my "impact" at their meeting yesterday.

The part in the text above allowed me to go to work today with a mind set on service to my higher power, not on getting. Yesterday, at the meeting with 25 executives, I gave away an idea. It was an out-of-the-blue radical idea. But I had the courage to put send it to one of the VPs a few weeks ago and he got excited. Yesterday, I sprang it on the others and they got excited. This is exactly what ACIM means that ideas expand when given. And giving and receiving are the same.

Today as well, I had in mind that I wanted to help a colleague instead of fight with him. In wanting to collaborate, I was feeling inclusion not separation. In this way, the ego is defeated and the Spirit has been followed. The mindset of inclusion approaches the ACIM principle of "forgiveness" since one is now looking beyond this world into the reality of the oneness of creation.

This can only be a wonderful way to live. I am happy for having inner peace today.

This Week in the Life of an Ultramarathoner

Monday started with a relief. What ever is wrong with my front tooth, it can't be found on an x-ray. Then I had a pleasant drive to College Station Texas. And I gave a well received professional presentation wearing a $700 suit.

Then I went to San Antonio and ran a 50k endurance run. That is, 31 miles; an ultra-marathon. I signed up for this race because I wanted to see what shape I would be in at the end. I haven't run that far in a long time. I have a 55 hour event coming up over NYE, so I wanted to see how I would feel after a 31 mile race. And being in a race, I was more sure about finishing it. I wanted to see if I could then do more walking since a 55 hour race would still have much more time and the potential to walk 100 miles in the 55 hours.

And there is the crux of the matter: quitting. For the first 2 hours of the event, my brain was fighting me, trying to come up with some way to quit and also save face. I wasn't even in real pain, just feeling like quitting. The race was 10 laps of 3.1 miles each (out and back). After one lap, I had a rational thought: I know how to laps. I do them every weekend. 10 laps is not that bad. Then I got it up to 6 laps. After that, I thought, "only 4 more." Then later I thought, "less than 2 hours." Then, one more lap. In the last lap Christopher Cross arose in my brain and I ran like the wind. Then I was done: 7 hours and 7 min not counting pit stops.

I asked my friend, "Why do we do this?"

It is not real clear, except for a few moments of real prayer I had during this race. The prayer occurred when I was in the moment. I was just taking these steps right here.

The drive home was pretty easy considering the time of day. Tough to get out of San Antonio, drive about 85 mph to Houston, tough to get through Houston.

I started ultra-marathoning for the sake of self transcendence. Then I waffled around with wanting to do 100 miles or something. Then I thought I'll do a massive number of marathons. Then I returned to the laps. The 55 hour run is laps. I should be right in my element.

I will not worry about doing more than 50k in any of my training. And I will continue to walk alot, along with my cross training. That is best for the 55 hour run. I will stay entered in Desert RATS. That race is too much for me, but I don't have to do every mile to experience a week of camping and more that 100 miles of desert meditation.

Thursday evening, I clicked "withdraw" from the internal job board for my company. I've decided to stay in Texas and accept whatever comes. I want to engage in the place where I am now.

I feel different about my home now. Driving down NASA Blvd this morning I thought about Carmel-by-the-sea and Seabrook (where I live). Seabrook is not Carmel, but it has feature I need like a nearby trail system and affordable housing and employment. There is a nice AA group. It is a good place to continue my spiritual studies.

My legs are ok for doing more miles today, but I don't need to push them. So I got groceries and washed the car as my workout.