Monday, November 7, 2011

The Almond Bowl


The Chico area produces a lot of almonds.  In fact the whole upper central valley produces almonds, olives, rice and tomatoes along with many other fruits.  It is a big part of our nation’s bread basket.  I’m not sure, but I know that a high percentage of our nation’s almond crop come from this area.  That’s why this race this weekend was the 37th annual Almond Bowl.  There were three races; a marathon, half marathon and a 5K.  I was supposed to run the half marathon, but because I really didn’t train very much, I backed out and only ran the 5K.  Shoot, I haven’t really been training enough for that race; at least not enough to do a good job.

My plan was to go out and run a very slow pace and just use it as a training run.  Lately, my pace has been getting slower and slower.  To be honest, I figured that it would tae me around 40 minutes to finish.  If I did that, I would have been happy.  But when the race started what I though was a slow pace turned out to be faster than I had anticipated by about 2 minutes a mile.  It felt good the first mile, and I was able to keep it up for the entire race.  So I finished in about 32 minutes.  It was a beautiful day to run.  A little on the chilly side, but no rain.  We ran through Bidwell Park, amongst the oak trees and creeks.  The whole run, even the marathon was in this big beautiful park.  It was a great run.

I know that God was going to show me something, but I didn’t expect it to be what He actually did show me.  I realized after I finished my run that I have not had motivation to run in almost two years.  Sure, I ran the Peachtree Road Race in 2010, but I really wasn’t motivated.  I ran it because I had always run it, and it was tradition.  Last year, we were in Australia and I had to skip it.  But it really didn’t bother me.  Anyway, there are a couple of areas that I have been not motivated to succeed in, and running was one of them.  Why, I  am not sure, but we are going after them now.  Today, my competitive juices got stirred up again, and that’s a good thing. 

Running, health and diet are all tied up together in my life, and I am looking forward to pressing in on my running because that will also impact my health and my diet.  In order to run good, I have to lose weight and that will help me with my diet.  I had a good day hanging out with Levi and his family.  I have enjoyed getting to know them.  We will be here most of the day tomorrow, but have to leave tomorrow night.  It’s been a good time connecting with all of them.  They are a neat family and I look forward to them coming back to Atlanta.  It’s been a good trip to the west coast, but it will be good to get back to Atlanta on Tuesday morning.  I will probably write my blog on the plane, however I might not be able to post  until Tuesday morning.  Until then, have a great time!

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