5k results and other random thoughts.

3 minutes faster than the first event. Still slower than the 55 minute pace I was hoping for. 4 daughters and their spouses joined me for this 5k event. They all did very well. My youngest daughter Kelli walked with me everyone else ran/jogged the entire course. As mentioned last time I am looking at options for another 5k in early August - still trying to achieve that 55 minute or faster time.

I am not a runner. Never claimed to be. I will begin running a little to build more stamina and try to lose some of the extra weight I have been adding over the last couple decades. Health issues will be limiting how much I can do, but I will push a little to test my limits and (hopefully) begin to stretch those limits incrementally as I gain strength. I am hopeful that I will be able to run the entire course next spring when the Mike the Headless Chicken Festival comes around again.

As Kelli  and I walked this past weekend we had a good conversation about upcoming events in her life. She will begin teaching first grade (her own classroom) at Loma Elementary School this fall. She is very excited to begin this adventure and all I can say is those are some very fortunate children.

I have had occasion to consider how easily I fall into patterns in my life. Patterns that tend to repeat daily. I awake at a certain hour, with or without an alarm, I do certain things in a certain order to begin and end each day. Throughout each day I find that the same things happen again and again and I wonder if I am really doing the best I can with each of those moments. Sometimes the answer is yes, sometimes no (I hope you are no different than me). I am starting to wonder how to change the pattern. How do I/we turn those mundane patterns into something more fulfilling and productive.

In October of 2007 Dallin H. Oaks shared some insights that have started to help me understand a little better how I might choose differently. He began with this comment,

"We should begin by recognizing the reality that just because something is good is not a sufficient reason for doing it. The number of good things we can do far exceeds the time available for accomplishing them. Some things are better than good, and these are the things that should command priority attention in our lives."

"...As we consider various choices, we should remember that it is not enough that something is good. Other choices are better, and still others are best. Even though a particular choice is more costly, its far greater value may make it the best choice of all."

Choices. I find that this is a topic I spend a great deal of time thinking about lately. On occasion I wonder about the course life might have taken with a different choice made when I was a younger man. I tend to be satisfied with the direction of my life so I'm not sure that if I could do things again that the result would be any different. I think we make decisions that affect us into the future, based on available current information. Often these decisions are made with little thought beyond the immediate resulting consequence. Should we give greater consideration? Perhaps. Though it is not clear to me that we would make a different choice based on that further reflection (I can't speak for anyone but me, of course).

I noticed for the first time (again) that one of my granddaughters has a habit when I asking her "How are you doing?" of replying to me as if I asked "What are you doing?". She usually turns toward me with a grin and replies "Oh, nothing." I'm sitting here writing this with a big smile on my face. I don't see any of those granddaughters all the time so this interaction catches me off guard the first time the question is asked during each visit. I am amused by this and hope for its continuation for some time to come. The memory will be cherished.

That's it for today. I warned you at the subject line (random thoughts).

Thanks for checking in. More to come soon. See you then.