June 1st, 2009… from my new other blog, central21.wordpress.com

today is june 1st… 2009… which means… that it’s already been one year since i ran the marathon in San Diego!

if you want to read any of the pre-marathon posts that I did, you can check them out at runjoerun21.wordpress.com

So many people ask me about the marathon, and seriously… my honest and sincere response that I always give is that I still cannot believe I ran those 26.2 miles… I was such a running noob… but most importantly I think the whole training period and the actual running really taught me valuable lessons that I will never forget…

especially during this past school year, I kept thinking about the 6 months of training I went through prior to running the marathon… I ran 3-5 miles every day, and go out for some long runs on saturdays… my life was pretty much centered around running…

–i remember making sacrifices… i cut down on basketball… I barely played games during the training period… for the first time in my life i started watching what I ate… I remember not doing any strenuous walking during the day, just so I have enough energy to go all out during my runs…

basketball… delicious, unhealthy food… random activities… these were all good, but I had a bigger goal in mind, so to me, my decision was clear cut. If i want to achieve this goal, I needed to fix my eyes on this goal and chuck some things in this life.

that’s why I decided to memorize this verse. I remember in every one of my runs… no matter how long or short, I would repeat this in my head a couple of times. “Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everthing that hinders, and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us. Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfector of our faith, who for the joy set before him, endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.“

I could run as hard as I could, but without making sacrifices, I would have never been able to achieve my goal.

– if you guys didn’t know, my youth pastor was the one who decided to run this marathon first. I’ve always had the thought of running a marathon in the back of my head, but it didn’t come out until pastor esther convinced me to run it. I quickly dragged my best friend Isaiah into it, which he obliged without hesitation because he is cool like that… pastor esther got her good friend donna to run it as well, and we were set. In all honesty, I don’t think any of us would have been able to run this thing without each other….

I could run as hard as i could, I could make all the sacrifices I wanted to, but without company, I would have been long gone…

– I remember the first week of training… I had never ran more than a mile before ever in my life… and they asked me to run 3 miles on my first day. I did it. somehow. but soon and very soon my flat feet took its toll and I was in a LOT of pain… I remember even thinking about ditching the whole idea of a marathon… that’s where the shoes came in, and I was able to complete most of my training… but about a month before the marathon, i hurt my foot again… I couldn’t run without feeling any pain my right foot, and I was so shocked and pissed at the untimeliness of it all…

I could run as hard as I could, I could make all the sacrifices, I could get all of my friends to run with me, but without the hand of god, I wouldn’t have made it past the first two steps…

– crossing the finish line was probably the greatest feeling I had ever felt in my entire life… i remember when i turned the final corner, and i saw the checkered line in the distance, and the huge crowd of people in the bleachers cheering for me and my fellow runners… I couldn’t believe it, but some how, some where in me, i found and managed to muster up the energy to sprint to the finish line… oh man…

FINAL STRETCH

– the sight of the finish line… after all those miles of running, was probably the most beautiful thing I had seen in ages… I mean… that finish line… was my ultimate goal for the six months right? I wonder what it would be like when we finally see Jesus face to face… after all this world… after all this life… to finally reach the end of the race and just fall at his feet… that joy of crossing the finish line was unbelievable… but imagine how we’ll feel when we feel the warm embrace of god..

in all this i’ve learned that it’s not about my abilities or how much I can do, but how much god can do in my weaknesses…

I’ve learned that life is about forward motion. that it is about the ability to withstand the hits, the hardships, and to keep moving forward… forward motion. to be able to fix our eyes on the finish line that we have yet to see… but to trust, in our hearts and in faith that it is there… to know that in the end everything will be worth it…

the end

Man… haven’t written in this thing in FOREVER…

It’s been a combination of a lot of chaos in life and laziness that kept me away from wordpress…. I think if there’s that one thing that I will probably regret when all is said and done, is that I didn’t write enough on this thing… Oh well.. but its okay… BECAUSE, after tomorrow’s 3 mile run in the morning, my training is officially over… WHOO

I’m excited to tell you all that I will be flying out to San Diego this Saturday, and I will be running my marathon on Sunday…

I can’t believe it’s all happening so soon… seemed like yesterday when I first decided to start running…

Everybody has been asking me lately if I’m ready for this marathon or not.  My answer to that question is that I’ve never been as ready as I am right now.  I know I had to put a halt on my training and stuff because of my foot injury about a month ago, but right now I feel as ready as ever….

Speaking of the injury… It wasn’t much… just chronic pain in my right foot when I was running… Not much I can do about it, especially this late in the game, but to just go on… Basically my foot took too much pounding…  The shoes are fine, if it weren’t for the shoes I would have been dead a long time ago… but the shoes can only help so much, since my feet are so flat…

I’m so excited…  I keep saying that… but I’m so excited…

I’ve been memorizing some scripture in my past couple of runs, and it has been pretty awesome… not only does time go by much faster, but through it I can just feel God putting his strength in me…

I memorized Hebrews 12:1-2, A section of Philippians 1, and Isaiah 40.

here’s the punch line from Isaiah 40—

Even youths grow tired and weary, and young men stumble and fall,
but those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength,
they will run and never grow weary,
they will walk and not grow faint.

These verses have been so amazing to me… I know running a marathon and all that is a pretty crazy accomplishment, but it is nothing compared to the glory of God and who he is… all men are like grass and all their glory is like the flowers of the field. All that is good within me is HIM.  no other way to describe that.

I guess I’ll end here since I need to get some sleep… Sorry for not blogging enough again.. and thanks to everyone who has been encouraging me along the way.  If it weren’t for you guys I’d be long gone..  Thanks for those who are supporting me with prayer and/or financially….  you guys are truly the greatest… I’ll blog afterwards when I am done with the marathon… wish me luck you all!

The last time I used to worry about what I ate was when I used to be this chubby, young Michael Jackson right here:

I worried about what I ate, but I never did anything to do anything about it.. haha

So my entire life I never really ate healthy… neglected the veggies, loved the galbi, loved the chocolate… The only reason I was somewhat in shape was because I played a lot of basketball… (I actually started playing basketball because koreans adults told me that it would make me taller… i was tricked… truly a young michael jackson)

Anyways… getting back to the present… I’ll let you guys know in how much I weigh…

Basically I’ve been at the 170-175 pound range for the past year and a half or so… But in my first two weeks of training, I lost 12 pounds! crazy. But the good thing is that I haven’t really lost weight after that so I’ve been at 160 for a couple of weeks now… I think it’s actually good that I lost weight because it’s gonna relieve a lot of weight off of my knees and stuff, especially because of my flat feet…

For like the first two weeks of my training when a lot of people didn’t know that I was training for the marathon, people would see me and thought I was going anorexic or something… and I would tell them “…ni. I’m running a marathon…”
Ever since I started running, I started a some sort of semi-diet? It’s not really a diet, but more of a meal plan… Basically what I try to do is eat 4-5 meals every running day. Weekends I have more trouble keeping with my meal plan, but oh well. I don’t really know much about nutrition, it would be tight if someone could help me out with that. But anyways all I try to do is to eat a lot of small meals, minimize junk food, eat a lot of carbs, eat fruit, eat salad, eat nuts…

Meal 1: some sort of breakfast

usually a bagel or whole grain cereal

Meal 2: some sort of lunch. usually a salad

“why can’t we just have like a saLadd?”

Meal 3: something with a lot of carbs

usually something with rice… spaghetti is crucial too…

Meal 4: Fruits dawg

some sort of fruit… coool…

Meal 5: something with protein

eggs, chicken breast, red meat.. usually eat it with more rice

so yea. that’s how I’ve been eating lately…. hopefully I’m eating healthy… if I find better things to eat I’ll mix up my eating habits I guess. let me know what you guys think though. cool.

random thoughts: Today’s 4-miles brought me up to 77.5 miles for my total miles trained. cool!

Peace Out

Flash back to two weeks ago. When training started, I figured I should go out and buy some running shoes. and i did. I went out to Dicks and bought some random New Balance shoes that looked pretty cool.

Later that day I ran like 5 miles or so, and I got off the treadmill limping because i had some crazy pain in the middle of my right foot… Turns out that the shoes that I got were the worst type of shoes I could have gotten… (The shoes that I got were designed for people with high arches…)

So. If you guys have not already known, i have flat feet! …. EXTREMELY flat feet!

here are some dog’s eye view pictures of my feet… (birds eye… dogs eye… get it? ha. ha.)

see how it bulges out on the inside when i wear my shoes???

Flat footed people are basically people that have very low arches compared to those of an average person… In severe cases, when a flat footed person stands up, the entire sole of the foot rests on the ground. (i’m one of those people…) Flat footed runners tend to get a lot of overuse injuries, including ankle, foot, knee, and lower-back pains…

I think i was pretty much born with flat feet, but I also heard from somewhere that you can acquire flat feet if your tendons and ligaments get weakened or something like that… and supposedly a lot of basketball players acquire flat feet… (i.e. kobe and lebron)

So after my terrible experience with the New Balance 8505s, I set out on a personal mission to buy some crucial running shoes that would not hurt my feet! I basically spent the whole day going to like a million different stores, and I ended up at my last one: Metro Run&Walk, located in Falls Church, VA.

So this is basically how it went down there:

Salesguy: I want you to take your shoes off so I can examine your feet and the way you walk and stuff.
Me: Okay… (takes shoes off…)
(guy stares at feet.)
Salesguy: oh my… Yo come check this out! (getting the attention of another salesguy. I stand in awkwardness)
Salesguy2: Whoa! I’ve seen some flat feet.. but this one is one of a kind!
Salesguy: Yea dude.. He’s basically like on the ground! (by now people sitting around me start staring at my feet as well)
Me: yea…

Anyways. The dude helped me out a lot and he got me my new Asics Gel Evolution III. He also hooked me up with a 10% discount, and a free pair of running socks… I think he felt bad for publicizing my flat feet to the entire store…

The shoe is basically designed for people with flat feet that tend to overpronate (release off the inside of your foot) a lot… I’ve been running with these for about two weeks now and I hardly feel any pain in my feet anymore… coool…

—————————————————————————

so… i’m officially in day 22 of my training, but in week 8 of the 24 week schedule that leads right up to the marathon… This week is probably the easiest week left in my schedule… from now on im gonna be running 20-30 miles a week… but the show must go on… yes…

quick shoutout to those that have decided to donate to china!

YES! After about 65 minutes of running, watching episodes of the office, listening to switchfoot, wanting to throw up, i successfully completed my first ever 8 mile run…

rabbit run… yessssssssssss…

Anyways… Man… It shouldn’t have been as hard as it was, but it was harder than normal because:

1. I had a lock-in at church the night before and I stayed til 5 am…

2. I played football in the morning when I wasn’t really supposed to…

3. I ate TWICE before I ran… I wanted to throw up so bad halfway through my running…

but at the end of the day, I still completed my 8 mile run so I am happy.

Man… running is so hardcore… Yesterday there were so many times when I just wanted to reach my finger out press that STOP button on the machine… I think I had to pull myself back like ten times… It’s crazy because you can stop that machine so easily with just one push… but to keep on running takes so much physical and mental strength…

The key is to have your mind occupied with something… to get your eyes and your head off the clock hanging on the wall on the side… thats where music comes in. or in my case, The Office.

Watching The Office helps because I don’t think I can listen to 20 different songs, I just don’t have the patience for that. Two episodes of the Office gets me to about 40 minutes, then I can burn the final 20 minutes or so with some catchy songs that I know all the lyrics to, which is where switchfoot comes in.

So running 8 miles last night brings me to 46.3 miles total for the year… coool… 46.3 miles is about what… fredericksburg? hahaha that means with my training I could have run to fredericksburg… coool…

So what did I learn from last night?

1. I can run 8 miles on limited sleep, tired legs, and a full belly —- confidence for later

2. Do NOT eat anything involving kimchi hours prior to running.

3. Long distance running takes more than just physical ability. It’s a test of endurance, patience, not strength.

Yay. So thats about it. tomorrows a rest day so training continues on Tuesday again with 4 miles.

thanks for reading!

-Joe

today was mad tiring……..

tuesdays and thursdays I think are the hardest for me… I have class from 8am to 11am, then I gotta hit the gym and run and all that, and then I got class again from 2pm to 3:15pm…

I ran 4 miles today, which brings me up to a total of 38.3 training miles…

to give you an idea of how long 4 miles looks like…

home -> church

cool…

tomorrow is a rest day, then saturday i need to run 8 miles… it’s gonna be crazy… lets go…

It’s funny because before I started training, the most I’ve ran ever was 2 miles with a stop in between… But first day of training I had to run 3 miles, second day 5 miles… It’s been pretty intense, let’s just hope my body doesn’t give out before my mind does.

I can’t wait until the weather starts getting a little warmer… Then I won’t have to run on the treadmills… Go out to a trail…or a track… enjoy the sun and the breeze… cool…

I think this is a good enough post for now. I’ll update again soon.

go check out the “Why?” page on the right side if you haven’t yet!

-joe

holy i switched to wordpress………

testing again testing again

coooooooooool

a more complete post will come soon!