Friday

This morning is making me really look forward to going to Honduras in February! It's on the cool side out there, but, hey, it is January. I'm in my nice office at home getting ready to finish up my sermon and all that stuff that surrounds it - slide show, discussion guide, etc. I had my Honduran coffee, so I am ready to go!

Yesterday was a good day! I wrestled with my sermon for a while and then left it percolating in my mind while I did hill repeats. I got those in as the mist transitioned to big fat snow flakes. It wasn't too cold, so I really enjoyed it. Hill repeats are the hardest thing that I am doing right now. By far! My training is built around 3 quality workouts per week: Tuesday speed work (tempo runs/steady state run later), Saturday long runs, and Thursday hill repeats. On Monday I am doing 6-10 miles on hills but not pushing. Wednesday is an easy, slow 5 miler. Friday is my bike trainer day. I take Sunday off totally, as far as training is concerned.

After returning from the hill repeats, it was time to meet Pat A for lunch to talk through the sermon and other stuff. It helps both of us to talk through what we are thinking of saying, challenging our thoughts regarding relevance, interest, etc. This is another piece of my collaborative approach to preaching, involving as many people as possible in sermon prep.

After a long lunch and sermon discussion time, I left to pick up a friend who is on a journey to find God and peace. We had a really nice time just talking about all kinds of things. After that it was home in time for supper and to build a fire in the fire place. I read quite a bit of Iron War last night. It's an enjoyable read.

Today is going to be a busy one, but it should be enjoyable. I'm running 14 miles in the morning. I hope the wind dies down, and it's supposed to. I think the air temp is going to be around 15, which is not too terribly bad. I find it hard to run long when it gets down around zero.