Washingtont state

So, here I am in Washington (state). I do have a bit more free time on my hands so I figured I should update the world (or the two or three people in the world that read this blog). I flew in Monday. Drove around Seattle a little and then up north to NAS Whidbey Island near Oak Harbor. It was about a two hour drive or so. I checked in and vegged a little that night. (Wow, spellchecker did not underline "vegged.")

Tuesday morning I went to the chapel early and met Chaplain Schmidtlein (as in, said hello to, not introduced myself to) and the other chaplains and chapel staff (as in introduced myself too, I had never met any of them). I followed Chaplain Schmidtlein around some the first day and attended a class that he facilitated on suicide awareness and prevention. It was determined that I would preach this Sunday, so I worked on my sermon most of the day Wednesday. I worked on my sermon some more on Thursday (I'm a slow sermon writer, that will have to change soon) and started working on an outline of a book (as in outlining what the already written book says, not outlining what a book I will write will say) with the intent of teaching a marriage seminar someday. Friday I tagged along to a command meeting.

Friday night I saw in the base paper an announcement about a 5K/10K that would be the next day, Saturday. I decided to think about it and then went to a movie at the base theater. Well, I woke up Saturday and decided that I couldn't spend ALL day driving around Oak Harbor and/or Burlington. So I decided to run the 5K. As I was checking in I saw all the kids and people with dogs and strollers checking in for the 5k so I felt shamed into running the 10k instead. Wow! It was long. Who would have ever thought that I would run a 10K, period. Not to mention, on a whim, with no training. And all of that, while on a pseudo vacation. What was I thinking? My feet hurt. And my knees.

I started running with a couple of guys that I met before the race (I never actually "met" them, we just talked some, I still have no idea what their names or anything about them). I asked what there supposed pace was and they said ten minute mile. I decided to stick with them even if it was a little slower than my goal, especially since I haven't been running a lot recently. We did the first mile in about eight minutes, and the second as well. We went single file to run around the turnaround point and I never hooked back up with them. I ran a little bit with another guy but he was not talkative and kept the same pace as them. Then I ran with this lady for a little bit that was a little more friendly. We ran about 3/4 of a mile together but she was running about the same pace as well. I backed off a little and let her keep running. I walked a couple of times between mile marker three and four, and then this other lady pulled up behind breathing hard (like I do, I'm a very loud breather when I run), and she said "I hate running!" I said "I'm with you! I don't like it, but I like eating ice cream, and I like the way my uniforms fit better when I run." I ran the last two miles with her and she was just as chatty as I was. (One of the things I hate about running is how boring it is. I can never find running partners as slow as I am though.) I even had a little left to turn on the after burners the last little bit. I think my time was about 30 seconds shy of an hour. It was brutal. Next time I will train. Better yet, next time I'll just do the 5k (we get the same t-shirt anyway). Or, there may not be a next time.