The Changes

OK, I have some good news - my Joints in Motion donation page is all finished and ready to go! I agonized over it a bit, then realized I just needed to get it done, so here it is!   The URL is: www.arthritis.ca/joints/bc/DeganBeley Extra thanks to Jennifer at the Arthritis Society to make it so my name shows in it - way easier to remember this way!  You can read my story there and see how far along on my fundraising I am with the handy money thermometer. Right now I am 2% along, because I donated $100 myself. Setting a good example, you know...;)

This run is just getting easier and easier. Well, not that I've even been running that much lately, but I keep finding new sources of inspiration that I'm sure are going to make the miles just fly by.

At the Joints in Motion meetup party last week, I met all the very inspiring people who ran this past year, as well as several people who will be running again this year. That was exciting. It's very interesting to see how people sign up to run year after year and the marathons or the fundraising don't seem to consume them. I think all the passion and motivation in the room has a lot to do with that and it is for sure contagious. Next year, they're going to do the Great Wall Marathon and I'm already scheming ways to fit that in before our South America trip! But anyways...

In reality, not so much "training" as trying to find a good photo for my donation page.

think I like this one best, even tho it doesn't look like I'm running very fast...what do you think?

I just signed up for the Harry's Spring Run-Off 8K run (March 11th) and the Scotiabank Vancouver Half-Marathon (June 24th) because I got suckered into the combo pack ending this month! Oh well, it'll be good training. This will be the second time in the half-marathon for me, and hopefully I can get a better time! And I think the 8K is a new race this year.

A couple of days ago I had the first fundraising conference call for the Lower Mainland and Vancouver Island Joints in Motion participants and wow! are they ever an inspiration. The first lady to talk was thinking about running for the 7th year in a row and - get this - she's 70 years old! Not finishing is not an option for me, but that just brings it home a little harder. All of these women (yes, strangely they were all women, I wonder if that is normally the case with the Joints in Motion runs? I'll have to check) were so excited and so passionate about running and hiking (some are going on a trek to Macchu Pichu instead of running a marathon) that I left the call wanting truly inspired and wanting to do anything I could to get involved. Of course I am already involved, so that means I need to get into action!

I trained pretty consistently for the Vancouver Half-Marathon last year, and I felt I was ready to run it, albeit at a pretty slow pace. Then a series of business trips interfered with my training schedule and I was away the day of the run. Inexplicably, I decided I would run in the Scotiabank Half-Marathon, but didn't get back into my training routine at all. It's a self-sabotage thing I have, I think, where I purposely don't really try to do something, so that when I don't do well, I have an excuse. It's easier to recognize in hindsight, however - last spring I thought it was perfectly normal that I was hardly doing any running! In the end I decided to do the run anyways, if only to spite myself.

They say that the number of new registrants to fitness clubs is double the number in January than it is in any other month, but that by February that enthusiasm has waned and the regulars have the gym to themselves again. I don't have a gym membership, but I did start up running and going to my work gym last week (just under the wire to say I started in December!) but there will be no early tapering off for me! There's no room for it.

This year I signed up to run the Joints in Motion marathon in Athens, Greece. It's a charity fundraiser that's put on by The Arthritis Society of Canada, where my mother worked before she died a few years ago. Her death has been hard for me to get over and one of the ways that I found really clears my head and gets me focused is through running, so I've been training at it intermittently and last year I ran the Scotiabank Half-Marathon. I didn't do very well in terms of time, but it was a milestone for me, an indication that I can accomplish what I set out to do in a mental or physical (or both) challenge.

I got a chuckle from the reports on the Christmas tree kafuffle at Seattle airport. The chuckle arose from annoyance at all the e-mails and newspaper letters from people demanding we keep Christ in Christmas and suggesting I (we) are un-Canadian of un-Spiritual if we do not support their exclusionary demands.

OK, I admit to a little smugness over these self-labelled Christians being reminded that this season “belongs” in part to an earlier faith in Judaism. Lest others feel the need to stake their religions claim to this season, I concede that this Season traces it roots back to early pagan Winter Solstice celebrations. In fact the timing of Christmas is a result of the early christian church feeling the need to have a celebration at year’s end/turning to allow them to compete against the pagan faiths for followers.

The “it is OUR season” ranting has reached a level of annoyance such that I cannot help being amused at anything that serves to hoist these self-labelled Christians on their own petard by establishing earlier claims to the season for other Faiths and belief systems. I have grown tired of this holier than thou, this is OUR celebration, exclude those who do not believe exactly what we do attitude of these self-labelled Christians.

*Bingo for Life (formerly Gay Bingo) is a weekly, popular fundraiser for www.friendsforlife.ca and is supported by businesses  including retail gift shops, restaurants, book & movie stores, tanning salons, clothing stores, hair salons, hotels, gyms, electronics, movie theatres, coffee shops, etc...