Memoirous

People have asked me: How was it? My recent bicycle tour, JOGLE, John o’Groats to Land’s End, top of the UK to the bottom, 1,100 miles over 19 days. Stiff, upper-lip Brits were high-fiving me at the airport, the check-in lady shook my hand, the guy at TSA was impressed—how was it?—he asked. I realized I sounded sort of pissy when saying, HARD. It wasn’t one thing, it was a hundred. Mostly it changed me. Comfort zone. Just by leaving home we are challenged, exchanging certainty, security, the known for round-abouts, metric, showers with extra knobs, electrical outlets with unwieldy prongs, brown sauce (?). Immediately I am thrown off-balance. And this was in England, where people speak English. Yet stopping to ask for directions I am aware that I am only able to take in half of what they are saying—hoping the second half will kick in when I need it, when I get to that part. Suddenly, the most common place experience sets my stomach into panic. ATM (cash machine), ordering a t...

A bold challenge, I know, but if you know of any others—please contact me and I will post here. This year in 2013 Jesus People USA Evangelical Covenant Church comprises more than half of the 73 runners committed to running to end homelessness for TEAM CCO . So far 36 church members are in marathon training. TEAMM CCO is an organized charity running group where participating runners run the Chicago Marathon and at the same time raise money for Cornerstone Community Outreach.  a third of the TEAM CCO runners gathered for National Running Day, June 5th  A few years ago CCO the shelter I am associated with (doing programming and creative writing workshops) began a program called Strive 4 More, based upon the principle that one person could, by asserting effort, make a change. Actually more than one person. Anybody could strive for more. The program worked well motivating school children to get up and get out and exercise and, in collaboration with Strive 4 More, collect...

I've blogged here before about the Chicago Marathon ( see other posts ). It's been getting way too big and corporate through the years. The decision to run it is almost now on the level of mortgaging a house. People nowadays are paying quite a bit in order to be punished for 26.3 miles. But that's the easy part. The event gets sold out n a matter of minutes, okay a day, and that's if the system doesn't get overwhelmed. This year there was a major hiccup and about 15,000 runners had to wait and see if they were actually signed up. Many runners also double-paid by registering twice. A simpler on-line system has to be devised. Once the marathon is sold out (about 45,000 runners) then the only way to get a number is to attach yourself to one or more charities that have been given a block of numbers for fundraising. How do I know all of this? Because I help promote Team CCO which raises funds for a local shelter. The team has all sorts of incentives for people interest...

  TEAM CCO. COM RUN FOR SHELTER The deadline to register for the Chicago Marathon is Monday, February 19th and usually it sells out in a couple of hours (I know crazy) but what ' s even crazier is that once it is sold out people will PAY ANYTHING to get a number and so they end up paying anywhere from $500 to $1000 for an entry number. W hat we're hoping is that people will: Step one, go to www.teamcco.com read it over and fill out the Team CCO 2013 Early Contact form, and we will contact you within 24 hours. Step two will be to sign-up for your individual Team CCO page on CrowdRise.com/teamcco2013. Step three will be for you, on February 19th at 12pm Central, to register yourself for the 2013 Bank of America Chicago Marathon. Prior to the registration date, Team CCO will send you your own registration redemption code and unique URL. Step four is run, raise and be proud of the work you are doing! Join TEAM CCO and receive these benefits ...