Change Comes Bearing Gifts

Things you think are predicable can change so quickly. One minute you are cruising along, swallowed by the moment, seemingly in tune with your life and the universe, then your world completely changes in the blink of an eye. Things that seemed important seconds before become inconsequential and meaningless.

Tick…

We had the whole summer laid out. Races were planned, travel arrangements made, Guide camp for Lauren and hospicing for Amanda setup, separate camping trips with my daughter and wife booked. A fall marathon with Amanda is all confirmed and paid for, only the training needing to be done. Life unfolds as planned.

Tick…

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Wet and Wild – Tough Ass Half Marathon

ToughAss-Collis01Team Rocket at the start of the Burlington Tough Ass Half Marathon held May 2, 2004 .  Amanda is looking and laughing at her dad. She’s was real trouble maker that day.

 As Amanda and I are unofficially sponsored runners for the VRPro races in Burlington, Ontario (mostly because Kelly Arnott, the race director, likes Amanda and won’t take my money), I arranged registration for us in the half marathon. We have a full marathon in two weeks, so I figured that Team Rocket would do the Tough Ass Half as a “training run”. We’d take it easy and run to finish rather than run for time. Besides, I was still in recovery mode from that nasty can of whoop-ass that the 2004 Boston Marathon opened up on all us unsuspecting runners, almost two weeks previous.

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Sometimes Christmas Comes Early

JC Bagel 2000 - Team Rocket “Team Rocket” relaxing after the J.C. Bagel 5km, September 6, 2000
This was Amanda’s very first race.

I don’t need a Christmas present this year. Mine arrived in June via FedEx, courtesy of the Burlington Runners Club in Burlington, Ontario, Canada.

You may not have met my daughter Amanda. Amanda is special. She is mentally and physically handicapped, essentially non-verbal, stuck developmentally at about one and a half and confined to a wheel chair. We are lucky in that she has no serious health problems. She is alert, aware, she has a sense of humour and a smile to melt your heart. It does put limitations on what we can do together as a family but she does like to get out.

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A Dialogue: Voices From The Plains Of Fennel

Mark Collis had run the Ottawa Marathon. He let the marathon out that was within him which would qualify him to run the Boston Marathon.

Ozzie Gontang has shared his folklore on marathoning for twenty-five years. Ozzie Gontang has shared his folklore with rec.running (a news group on the Internet) for seven years.

Ozzie and Mark have never met in person but their friendship has grown over the past 3 or 4 years.

This is a dialogue they shared. Ozzie and Mark have never been to the Plains of Marathon but the voices of Marathon binds them mind/body/spirit.

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I Hereby Resolve…

 ResolutionRun2003The BRC Lunatic Fringe’s first Resolution Run, January 1, 2003

 “Each day the world is born anew for him who takes it rightly.”
– James Russell Lowell (1819-1891)

Here it is once again. It’s New Years day and everyone trots out their New Year’s Resolutions.

It’s a golden opportunity for change, for the ending of bad habits and the promise of new beginnings. With the old year behind us, and the fresh year looming in front of us, it seems like the perfect time to rededicate ourselves to becoming something better than we are now.

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