Finding Momentum

One thing I like about vol­un­teer­ing with RBO is the chance to meet up with kids from all dif­fer­ent parts of Oak­land. This year I was paired up with S, a kid from the Fruit­vale dis­trict attend­ing a local char­ter school just a few blocks from me. S is a soft kid, a quiet kid. He […]

Com­pet­i­tively, this was a good year. I ran a 3:05 PR at Napa (yay!), but missed Boston by sec­onds (argh). I was frus­trated with my plan­tar fasci­itis, but that gave me an oppor­tu­nity to go into the swim and the bike and there were a lot of good mem­o­ries doing long bike rides: Mt. Dia­blo + Mt. Tam with […]

At the end of last month, Nate, Bruce and I did the Golden Gate Triathlon together. This was only my sec­ond triathlon ever (after last year’s Tri for Fun), and I intended to train hard for this sucker. Given my plan­tar fasci­itis, this was slow going. For­tu­nately, this gave me a lot of oppor­tu­ni­ties to focus […]

I can run! I’m on a jog on my lunch break for the first time in four months, and I want to tell it to every­one: tourists with itchy, sun­stroked faces crowd­ing Chi­na­town, Dan, down-cast on the street cor­ner in front of that hand­made sushi roll place, forty-something yup­pies with yoga mats yelp­ing as I dodge […]

I’ve been wont to com­plain about how it sucks to be doing my train­ing in the gym. Ever since I tweaked my foot I’ve been feel­ing caged on the tread­mill and ellip­ti­cal machines. On the machines I can’t think about any­thing, it’s too stuffy and hot and I’m always drip­ping with sweat. I’m always staring […]

I’ve been run­ning for the past week or so, despite my grandma’s protests (“you’ll catch a cold”). It used to be eas­ier with the jet lag, when I’d get up at 5am and stare at the wall and catch myself won­der­ing where exactly I was. It’s been gen­er­ally driz­zly here for the past week or so, […]

If you lean too hard, you’ll go tum­bling out of shad­ows, into the lake. Look, like how the leaves strain against their cuffs in the wind, lean­ing into the gold­en­rod breeze. Look at the lovers lean into each other, rac­ing against sun­down, lips brush­ing freck­les, freck­les brush­ing blades tick­ling toes. There is no time for thinking […]

I was out today on a long run (I’m pick­ing up train­ing for the SF Half Marathon in late July). But it was hot… the ther­mo­stat was read­ing 90 degrees at 10 in the morn­ing. It was a really bad idea. But I think I finally real­ized what Psalm 63 means: God, you are my God; earnestly […]

Before we begin, let me say THANK YOU to all of you who’ve con­tributed to the Inter­na­tional Jus­tice Mis­sion cause! In the span of just two weeks, we’ve raised over $800! Thank you for your gen­eros­ity! It’s our hope that we wouldn’t just give and turn away, but our hearts would be more sen­si­tized as […]

What a feel­ing: cross­ing the fin­ish line at 26.2 under the Bay Bridge in incred­i­ble agony, a mas­sive sense of relief and food, glo­ri­ous food wait­ing for you on the other side. What a feel­ing: run­ning in a huge sea of peo­ple, mak­ing con­ver­sa­tion with strangers, won­der­ing what their sto­ries are. What a feel­ing: cross­ing the Golden […]