Have you seen these New Balance commercials? I feel like I’m being taunted…

More HERE and HERE

• I’m really in iPhone envy right now. I’m locked into a Sprint contract with my church (and thankful they pay for it); but it is the only thing keeping me from dropping $199 for an iPhone. And then I read THIS. This has got to be the first of many cool running gadgets to come along for the iPhone.
• I work with my share of farmers here at the church. I’m aware of their need for rain, and how much it dictates the success of their lives and families. Since I’ve laid new sod 4 days ago at the new house, I feel I can somewhat relate. With an investment this big, I’m really not digging the dry stretch. Rain Baby, Rain!
• This is a MUST-READ for parents, siblings, and friends of the prodigal. It’s an excellent introduction to reaching out to the separated loved one in a relevant way.
• I got this new song for free at Starbucks yesterday, and I’m really thinking I need to get this entire album.
• VBS starts next Sunday Night. I’m not a big fan of Vacation Bible School. Really, I’m not… I am however a big fan of having 300+ kids show up at my church! Say a prayer that it doesn’t rain. (and yes I get the irony…)
• I’m loving the long-distance email support with my friends in the blogosphere; Kenny, Matt, and Sam.
• I’m not running a marathon. I’ve decided to scale back the running schedule, and just try to run for fun. Maybe get in a local 5k or 10k. It’s hard to explain, but my excuse is the time commitment required to continue was seriously cutting out the important stuff…and…I…wasn’t having any fun. It sucked! I had fun running less than 8 mile distances, but anything over that just wasn’t enjoyable in anyway to me. You can still follow my progress through the site, but you’ll notice the distances going down and down for a few weeks as I recover.
• I blew up and formatted my laptop this week. Totally erased everything, and started over with a fresh install. It’s so liberating!
• I’m embarrassed with how little I’ve been reading. Life has gotten faster, and my reading has gotten much, much, much slower.
• And finally I need to give credit to my friend Keith for the Bag of Nothing image above. If you don’t daily read his bag of nothing, then you’re missing out.

I wanted to take this time to apologize to my feet. I’m sorry that I made you get me out of bed at 6:15am on a Saturday. I’m sorry that I’ve submitted you so so much torture over the past 15 weeks, and I’m sorry about this morning. I know that you had no way of knowing that I would abuse you for 13 miles this morning. It was not my intention to hurt you, only to challenge you. You see, two feet of mine; some don’t have two feet as great as you. I know that you’ve always been here for me, and I want you to know that I’ll still take care of you. I’ve been mostly kind to you over the past 32 years, haven’t I? There is even an rumor that you once were party to a masculine pedicure. I always wear shoes, and I never let the gunk stay between your toes for longer than a few hours. I even wear flip-flops in funky campground showers!

So please bear with me this weekend, and don’t take it personally. I’ll be sure and give you a good soak this afternoon, and try to get some more comfortable running shoes if we continue. And while I’m at it, would you go ahead and tell my knees and hips that I’m sorry as well?

This is the weekend. I’ve been training towards it for 12+ weeks. It’s Half-Marathon week. (It was actually last Saturday, but with the moving and somesuch I pushed it back one week.)

But instead of flying out to some great destination and letting the locals pass me water and cheer me on, my Half-Marathon will be up and down 98th Street in Lubbock. I’ll try and cut a 6 1/2 mile destination out of town, and then run it back to the house. For those math losers out there, yes that is 13 miles. (Or as I like to say, 13 FREAKING MILES!) I have offically named this Saturday, July 5th as the date for the Official littlepastor Half-Marathon Event. It will begin promptly at 7am, or whenever I finally get out of the house. It will end when my tired legs have been adequetly tortured for 13 miles. After this very unofficial event there will be an offical littlepastor Half-Marathon nap, sponsored by my kids and wife being out of town all day Saturday.

I’m still trying to get my ‘last 5 runs’ meter to start working over in the right column. I’m sorry for all 2 of you that even noticed it was there over the past 12 weeks, that it hasn’t been working correctly.

I’m well into this training and just hit my 200 mile mark. I can comfortably say that I hit 200 miles a while back, since sometimes I don’t run with the Nike+ kit. But I’m not going to miss an opportunity to brag! Geesh!