Craig likes to use the term “Jesus Economics” quite a bit. Jesus Economics can probably include many meanings, but I understand it to be two-fold: 1) blessings that come unexpectedly and often in unusual ways, and 2) any economic transaction that makes no sense to the world, especially in light of U.S. materialism.

I have been the happily surprised recipient of Jesus Economics several times in the last year. A few months back, Shannon and James teamed up to give me a camera to replace one that I dropped and broke. That was wonderful, and unexpected.

We recently found out that we have season tickets to Actors’ Summit theater again, but I have no credit card or check book record of having paid for the tickets (and it is unlikely we paid in cash). Again, a wonderful surprise.

Then, Jo gave Shannon a new iPod Nano, so Shannon shipped me his old one (which is not that old – it is a second-generation Nano). Not only did he pay to ship it, but he sent me the Nike+ system that keeps track of your running for you, and he sent along a shoe pouch to hold the part that goes on the shoe. Amazing, and it has been useful and welcome.

Most recently (as in yesterday), our friend Dubbs got an iPhone, and in a very selfless act she gave her “old” iPod Touch to me and Meredith. I’m sure she could have sold it on eBay for $75-100, but she choose to give it to us instead.

I am very grateful to people who love to put other people ahead of themselves. I hope to go all Jesus on some of you in the future, too. 🙂

Ahhhh, the backblog has reached new heights of silly, with this post being about two weeks ago (Saturday, October 4th). For someone with very little social life, I seem to have very little time. I’ll blame my running addiction.

I started this Saturday off in the same fashion that I have been doing for a couple of months – Jim and I went to the Towpath and ran. I may blog about the run soon because I found it interesting, but I’ll spare you for now. After I got home and got cleaned up, Mer and I headed off to Streetsboro to got to an apple-butter making that one of the CVCA folks was hosting.

We found the house with only a little trouble, and found our way around back to where everything was set up. Dennis and his family take apple-butter making seriously! I had no idea. There were a slew of people, and there was tons of food, and a roofed-in shelter where the food was set up, and a cider press, and the most enormous fire spit of chicken and beef I have ever seen. And all of this was set up in front of the ever-present Cuyahoga River, which flowed through the back yard. It was an amazing sight of hospitality.

Mer and I spent a little time watching Dennis operate the cider press. The previous night, Dennis and his family  had peeled and cored 15 bushels of apples, and they used the peels and cores in the press (as well as new apples). They were not wasting anything. Mer and I then helped ourselves to intemperate amounts of food (I was fond of the spicy rice and sausage jambalaya). We were entertained by watching the popular Ohio game of cornhole (where you try to throw beanbags through a hole in a target). It was a pretty day, and this was all most pleasant.

After we were fortified, we wandered over to the huge cauldron where the apple-butter was being made. I had no idea how apple-butter was made, but now I know. You throw peeled and cored apples into a copper cauldron that is over a fire. You add just a little water (or cider – I forget), and start stirring. The apples will boil down to a butter-like consistency, and then you add more apples. You must keep stirring at all times so the mixture does not burn. After about eight hours of this, the cauldron will be full. Then you add sugar and spices, and stir for about another hour, and then you can everything. It was interesting. Oh – and you can only use wooden implements when stirring or tasting – any metal (other than the copper pot) will contaminate the mixture and it will end up tasting metallic.

Both Mer and I had a go at stirring the apple butter, which is more work than you might think. We had a good time chatting with people around the fire, and yes, “Double, double, toil and trouble” did come up more than once. We stayed for about an hour and a half, and then went home, since I clearly needed a nap and Mer had another social outing to go to with some friends of hers.

Ahhh, but our very busy Saturday did not end there – after Mer got home (and I got up), we headed off again, this time to another CVCA-related party at Nate and Rachel’s house in Akron. They had invited us over, so we expected a small to mid-sized gathering of maybe 20 people. Ha! We were told to park next door at a baseball field, and I was quite surprised when I had trouble finding a parking spot. There must have been over 100 people at the party. Turns out that Nate and Rachel invited people from CVCA as well as three different churches that they have relationships with. It was quite the gathering. Craig, his wife, and his youngest child were there, which was much fun. Craig and his family make me laugh. Nate had broken out his deep fryer, and although I had missed the deep fried turkey, I got there in time for the deep fried chicken tenders. Yum! There was also pizza, and salads, and chips, and waayyyyy too much dessert. Meredith and I again ate rather intemperately.

Nate had a projector and (20-foot) screen set up outside, so once it got dark, we all settled back in the now-nippy air to watch National Treasure. The film was totally ridiculous and improbable and ignored common sense everywhere, and I had a great time watching it. It was a foolish movie, but it was still highly entertaining – I really did enjoy it. Combine the movie and the atmosphere and a huge plate of dessert, and you have a great evening. We moseyed home sometime around 10:00. What a grand day.

The backblog bug has struck again – this entry is for two Saturdays ago, the same day I ran my half marathon (September 27th). It was Mer’s Date Day – she was in charge (other than my race – she was very patient with that even though it was certainly not her idea!).

After I cleaned up from the race, Mer took me out for brunch. We headed the short distance to Big Boy, where they had a breakfast buffet available. Mer took advantage of the buffet, but I just had to try the cinnamon French toast. It was nice to just sit and eat after the morning excursion.

Mer ran a few errands while I napped, but then took me a little north to a movie theater to see the movie Fireproof. Mer had seen it just the day before, but she liked the film and likes to share such things, so she was willing to see it again. I knew very little about Fireproof, except that churches were endorsing it. I liked it quite a bit. It is explicitly a Christian movie with a Christian perspective. I thought they did a very good job of portraying tough situations, given that movies can only be about two hours long. I suspect that the movie will be lampooned for having a happy ending, but many movies have happy endings, so I cannot fault it for that. Probably if the name of Jesus were removed from the film and was replaced with self-help language instead, the movie would be getting average to good reviews (the IMDB reviews are mostly polar – either 10’s or 1’s). Anyway, I think the film was good – I don’t think it was a 10, but it was certainly a 7. It made me misty in a couple of places, and actually made me cry in at least one spot (I have a soft spot for men who sacrifice and/or try to get better).

We went home again after the movie. We had theater plans in the evening, so I got spiffed up in my suit. Mer then took us out to dinner – two meals in one day! We headed northward, and ended up at Chick-fil-a. And me in a suit! We had coupons for free sandwiches, and Mer wanted to use them. The fun irony is that it turns out that the coupons were for another location, so we could not use them. Still, I really like Chick-fil-a sandwiches (and their cookies-and-cream shakes!), so that was well. After dinner, Mer had more in store – we went to Starbucks to get dessert, using a gift card that a student gave Mer (I’m still boycotting Starbucks, but will go there when given a gift).

After the food-fest was over, we headed to Hudson to see the first play of the season at Actors’ Summit. I have no record of ever paying for them, but somehow it turns out that we bought season tickets for Actors’ Summit last May, so we get another year of good theater. On this evening, we saw a musical called Main-Travelled Roads, based on the some short stories by Hamlin Garland. It was about turn-of-the-century Wisconsin, and featured four actors who each played at least two roles. I always enjoy seeing multiple role plays because I like to see how actors use voice and posture and body language to define character. The play was well acted, and the singing was very fine. All music was provided by solo piano. The actual story was only okay. I’m not sure why it was not more gripping, but it wasn’t. Don’t get me wrong – it was still a fun evening, but I did not feel very invested in the characters.

A run-13-miles, eat, movie, eat, theater sort of day is a busy but happy one.

Last Saturday was showtime. It was the 6th annual Akron Roadrunner Marathon (and half-marathon), and my second attempt at the half in Akron (my third half overall). I was running it again with my running partner (and boss), Jim, and Mer and Jim’s wife Andy came out to support us.

I described the course in a good amount of detail last year, so I’ll spare you the play-by-play. Some things of interest were different this year. The first was around mile two or so. Jim’s breathing sounded forced, so I asked him how he was doing. He replied that he was okay, but he seemed to be struggling to me. Within a half mile of there, I started to pull away from Jim. I felt bad about it, but I wanted to run well (I was feeling very strong).

Around mile three, I got to see Mer for the first time. She was going nuts in the crowd as always, and I pulled aside and kissed her as is our tradition (dating back to my first marathon in 1998). The crowd around Mer thought it was cute.

Mile 4-5 was rough – it is hilly, and I was fighting some slight pain in my right hip and right Achilles. I was thinking I might have to slow down, but then I crested the hill and was able to rest going down the hill on the other side (thanks for that tip, Mr. Easter, my high school coach!).

I had eaten a TON of food to prepare for the race. I had put on FIVE pounds from Friday morning to Saturday morning. Turns out this was a little too much food – I felt uncomfortable in my stomach, especially when I had Powerade during the race – I actually had to switch to just water after only 6 miles.

I kept missing the mile markers, so between miles six and nine I thought I was way off my pace from last year. I came up on ten miles, and started doing some math, and suddenly realized that my pace had me very, very close to my last year’s time. I tried to maintain my speed. I was boosted by seeing Mer for the second time, with another kiss. I was also cheered on (in a non-lip way) by a friend that was at the race to cheer for her husband – that was a happy surprise.

I got on to the lonely and difficult Innerbelt, a four-lane highway that is mostly a slight uphill for the first half, and is about two miles long. It is right after the marathon and half separate from each other, and so most of the runners leave, and the crowds disappear. It is rough.

I kept checking my watch, and I continued to see that I was going to be very close to last year’s time. The sad thing was that I could not remember what my time was. I knew it was 1:30-something, and I thought it was 1:34 or 1:35. I hit the last stretch leading up to the stadium (the ballpark where the Akron Aeros play is the finish), and I was hurting but kept at it. I managed to cross the finish line in 1:35 something, but I forgot to stop my watch, so I was not sure what my official time was.

It turns out that Jim had a heck of a race – he was feeling really bad, and considered dropping out of the race around mile four. He decided to keep going and treat it as a training run, and then he got a second wind back around mile eight. He finished in 1:37, only about 20 seconds slower than last year – that is a remarkable race for starting poorly.

I got home and looked up my time, and I was very happy. I came in 1:35:34, which was a personal best time by seven seconds. I told you it was close! Given that I was 10 pounds heavier for this race compared to last year, and that it was 5-10 degrees warmer, I was thrilled at this race. I felt as if I ran it well, and I had very little left at the end.

The crowd support for the race was decent, but I had not remembered that there were a few stretches where the spectators got thin. There were two high school bands on the course (one band was positioned so it could be heard three times during the race), two (church?) choirs, and one rock band. The rock band was probably driving people around them nuts – they had a good sound, but they kept singing “There goes my hero / He’s ordinary” over and over. That was awesome for me as a runner, and cheered me up quite a bit (this was around mile seven), but I’m not sure how the people around them were reacting.

The race was well run (ha!). Kudos to Akron. For those who care, here are the finishing details for my race:

13.1 miles
Finish time: 1:35:34
Pace: 7:18 per mile
Overall place: 60th out of 1582 finishers (top 4%)
Gender place: 53rd out of 785 finishers (top 7%)
Division (age) place: 6th out of 129 finishers (top 5%)

10k time: 44:51 (7:14 pace)
15k time: 1:07:46 (7:17 pace — 7:24 pace from 10k to 15k)
Last 3.8 miles – 7:35 pace

Last Wednesday (drat this backblog!) Mer and I were invited to a bonfire and prayer session by one of CVCA’s seniors who is a member of my improv group. Moops (his nickname) is a great kid, and his mom is a music teacher at CVCA as well. I very much wanted to support Moops in his desire to lead a prayer gathering, AND there was going to be food, so off we went. Turns out Moops lives out near where we used to live – it was a good 45-minute drive.

Moops and his family live out in the country, and he has an enormous back yard. We let ourselves in to the house (the front door was open), and met with Moops’s mom, who promptly encouraged us to go out to the back for food. We were greeted by the sight of several students, and Moops’s dad, whom I had never met.

The group was small, but I am pleased to say many of them were affiliated with me in some way. I had one Fool/Ceili Club member, another Fool, and two more Ceili Club dancers show up before the night was out. Not too bad, for me to know four people out of about ten.

The food was simple pizza, but BOY, did it hit the spot. Then, Moops’s mom brought out warm brownies which were made by Moops’s sister. Yum!

We ate and chatted until it started to get dark (probably about 7:00). We all headed to the back of the property where there was a really big pile of tree limbs and brush that had been soaked in gasoline. We pulled up chairs that were set out, and Moops talked a little about the wonder of God and encouraged us to look up at the stars while remembering that God still cares for us. We then sang several songs and hymns a cappella (Moops’s mom IS a music teacher, after all!). It was beautiful.

Some of the students had to leave around 8:15, so Moops set off the bonfire. It was enormous! The flames must have been shooting 30 feet in the air, and the heat was pretty intense even 10 or 15 feet away. The ash from the fire fell downwind and looked like snow. The students put on a little music and danced a couple of line dances, of which I tried one and stank. I’ll stick to ceili dancing, thank you.

Mer and I stayed and talked and laughed with folks until after 9:00. Yes, that means we were out until about 10:00 on a school night! We are such wild things!

Last Saturday was “my” day in our rotating date days. I had a very full day planned.

“I” took Mer out to breakfast in the nearby town of Hudson. I say “I” took her out in that I drove us there. We are pretty much broke after our summer o’ excess with two mortgages, so I did not feel like we could eat out. Mer then told me she had a little cash squirreled away, so breakfast was on! We went to a restaurant we had never been before, creatively called “Hudson’s.” It was cute inside, and they served breakfast until 1:00, which was good since we got there about 12:30. We both had breakfast egg-sausage wraps and a cinnamon roll. The cinnamon rolls were not in the Anne Sather’s class of roll, but they were still very good.

Happily fortified, I took Mer slightly northward to Brandywine Falls in the Cuyahoga Valley National Recreation Area. I did not even know these falls existed until a few weeks ago when Shannon, Jo, and James were in town. When we went to a sports store, I picked up a brochure on the Valley, and it mentioned the falls. We live about 25 minutes from them.

The falls are easy to get to – there is a short path that leads to an observation deck. The falls are not super-duper huge or anything, but they are good sized (about 60 feet, I think), and they are very pretty. And it was a perfect day out, so we had a good time watching the water. We then wandered back up the bath and across a bridge over the falls so we could go check out a nearby B and B that looks very promising after a Riordan financial recovery. As a bonus, there was a trail next to the B and B, so we had to take it.

The path was next to the gorge that the stream flowed into, and it was a little nerve wracking at first. Then the path started going down. And down. And down. Toward the bottom, we ran into a ranger who told us the path did loop around back to the falls, including getting to cross the river on stones placed in the creek bed. If that doesn’t say good times, I don’t know what does.

We found the ford and crossed over. We made it safe and dry, but then we had to start going up. And up. And up. We had some help in the form of stairs, but we were both huffing and puffing fairly well by the top. The nice day turned hot when you had to climb. Still, it was a good walk in pretty surroundings.

We got back to the car, and I turned southwards again, but I drove past home. How exciting! The day was continuing. I drove south to near the center of Cuyahoga Falls, and I turned into a Metro Park called the Gorge Metro Park. C’mon! Gorge! I had been meaning to check it out for years, and Saturday was the magic day.

We parked the car and started toward the trail. The sign indicated it was a 3.6-mile out-and-back, but I was okay with that. Mer was game even after expressing surprise since we had already done 2-3 miles in the earlier park. Off we went. I can’t say it was the prettiest walk I have ever taken. The Cuyahoga River on one side was very nice and serene (it is wide at this point because of a dam), but the trail existed as a run for high voltage power lines, which were overhead. Still, not too terrible. Nice walk with good company.

I was sad when we got to the dam. Here was a fairly big hydroelectric dam, and there was no observation point. (There was no legal observation point – I looked at the gate to the walkway, and it was not locked, but did have a “No Trespassing” sign on it.) The bank was overgrown thickly with trees, so I could not see more than a glimpse of the dam. We pressed on. The trail was easy and flat, but after the dam the river had literally dropped away and was hard to see through the trees and down 100 feet. I still had not seen anything resembling a clear sight line on a gorge, so that was frustrating. We did stumble across a huge bridge near the end of the trail (which is called the Highbridge Trail, by the way). I like bridges, and it was cool to be right under one.

After the bridge the trail split, and we had the option to go down stairs, so down we went. There was a second set of stairs. We went down those. There was a third set of stone steps, and Mer was wondering why there was two sets of stairs in a “Y” pattern near the top, close together. I joked that it was a WPA project and they needed to invent work. After I looked the park up on line, it turns out that I was right! 🙂

Anyway, the stairs took us back to the riverside, where we hooked up with another trail. We strolled along enjoying the scenery. After a few minutes, the trail left the river, and I was worried about time, so we turned around. We went back past the stairs in hopes of getting a good view of the bridge. We wandered until we came to a small official looking building that stank to the sky. Turns out it was a small sewer station. Sigh. We turned around and went back up and up and up and back to the car. I think we walked 6-7 miles on our combined outings.

I continued “my” day by heading south toward Canton. Yes, the date day (edging on toward date night) included a movie at the $1.25 theater! I has seen a preview there a few weeks ago when I went to see Iron Man, and even though I had never heard of it, it looked good. Imagine!  A movie preview doing what previews are supposed to do. How much of a risk could it be for $2.50 total? So, we went to see Hancock, a movie starring Will Smith as a superhero whom people don’t like because he is such a jerk. I had figured it was a parody, but it had some thoughtful moments in it. It is not deep, but it is a good film all the way through, and I highly recommend it for you NetFlix-using readers.

After the movie, the fun was not over! I had grabbed our $25 gift certificate to Friday’s, and so I took Mer there (to the Canton branch). We had a welcome meal (the breakfast wraps had worn thin after 10 hours and 7 miles). The only surprise came when I got the bill back after the gift card. Turns out we had used $19 of the value already, so my near-free meal wasn’t. Ooops.

It was a good day!

(On doing more research, it turns out all the really cool stuff at the Gorge Metro Park is on the other side of the river. Who knew? Next trip….)

On Friday, Mer and I headed down to our church for a wedding. It was the granddaughter/daughter of close family friends, a girl that I pushed around in a little car when she was five (back in my Ohio stay, part one). In a typical way for this family, the “small, family wedding” bloomed into a church wedding of about 130 people. That was okay, but it made me smile – things always get bigger with our friends.

The ceremony was good. Our pastor and friend, Ken, presided. Ken is great in that he is plain in his message, and always has practical advice. He admonished the couple that marriage is for life, and is from God. He told them to actively protect their marriage, and that their love for each other is the most important (Earthly) love they have now, and then Ken gave some advice. He told the husband to be willing to talk and listen to his wife when he came home from work, for at least 30 minutes (they are going to have a housewife/working husband household). He told them to be patient with each other, and to strive not to let the sun go down on their anger when they had some. I enjoyed the ceremony.

There was a reception in the church’s new expansion wing, but I did not get to experience much of that. During the ceremony, I had the start of one of my wonderful migraines, and it bloomed into full-throbbing mode during the reception. I spent most of the reception outside in the cool evening air –  it made my head feel somewhat better. I even tried getting a Blizzard-esque ice cream treat from New Baltimore Ice Cream, which was really good, but did not help my head much. I did have some fun distraction with talking with one of the 7-year-old granddaughters of our friends. She told me the story of her Barbie movie, Barbie and the Diamond Castle, which was told a mile a minute with huge gestures. It made me laugh.

I finally pleaded with Meredith to go just as the cake was being cut. That says how much my head hurt – I was willing to miss cake, and I even let Meredith drive with me as the passenger for the first time in years. I got home and promptly went to bed and slept for about 12 hours.

I understand Mer had a great time talking and visiting with Aunt Mary and with other close friends.

I have a wedding to go to this evening, so I did not think I had 45 minutes to go running. But, I still wanted to get some kind of run in. So, I decided I could probably squeeze in a 22-23 minute run. That is fine, but then I decided I should turn it into a speed workout. After all, what is 3 miles when you’ve been running 15-20?

Apparently a lot. I decided to run as if I were in a 5k race, where my mile times would be about 6:30 or 6:45. I had not run at that pace for awhile, but I have been running distance at 8-minute miles, so I figured that would be a great pace – hard but doable.

For about 1 mile. I got to 7 minutes of running hard, and my lungs hurt and I was coughing up gobs of mucus. Charming. I tried to run a little more, but my lungs hurt too much. So, Mighty Marathon Man was defeated by one measly little mile. Over 30 minutes later, after cooling down and showering, I’m *still* coughing up phlegm. Amazing.

My CVCA clubs have started back up, and I’m pretty excited. My Irish dance club (the Ceili Club) had 11 people show up, which included 4 new members. My improv group (the Royal Fools) was missing a few members because of fall sports, but I had 4 new people show up for Fools as well, and I was pleased with how they did. One of the members is an exchange student from Brazil. I cannot imagine doing improv in a foreign language, but she did really well. It should be a good year in both groups.

Jim and I had a long run scheduled this morning, so we dutifully went off in the rain. It varied from a gentle mist to a heavy rain all morning, but we slogged through it. We were soaked within the first mile or two, and we both gave up on dodging puddles after the first mile.

We were scheduled to do 20 miles. Jim suggested we go further south than we normally do, to break up the run a little more evenly (normally, we go 25 minutes south and back, and then the remainder would be north). I agreed and was excited by running in a new area. Until we got to the “poo plant.” About a half mile from where we normally turn around is Akron’s sewage-treatment plant. Jim had warned me in the past that some days it could smell, but I figured it would be okay in the rain because I thought the rain would “scrub” the air. Boy, was I wrong. The place reeked to the point where we were gagging so badly that we had to turn around. So, our foray south was only a total of 20 minutes in each direction. Maybe next time.

Somewhere in the middle of the run it suddenly dawned on me that were were probably carrying 4 or 5 extra pounds from waterlogged clothes and shoes. Otherwise, I’m not sure how rain affects long runs. I generally have a good time running in the rain, but usually I’m not running 20 miles in it. I’m not sure if the body can cool down with the rain. The rain feels good, but I’m not sure it can evaporate to cool the skin. At any rate, I started to have trouble with my legs feeling tired around mile 15, and at mile 19, I had to let Jim go; I could not keep the pace anymore. I walked about 100 yards and then jogged it in for the last mile. All in all, I ran 19 miles at an 8-minute pace, and then put in about a 10-minute pace for the last mile to finish around 2:42.  I was happy with that.

We burned about 3,000 calories during the run, so when Jim offered me half a banana, I did not refuse it. Normally, I am not a banana fan, but this one tasted really, really good.

Next Saturday’s run should be easier since the half-marathon is two weeks away. My guess is we’ll go 8-10 miles, but maybe Jim will want to go the whole 13. Either way, it is a sight easier than 20 miles in the rain.