After going the distance . . . find "liberty and justice for all."

Finally went the distance.

Saturday, December 24, 2011

The past: Kiawah

     The big day came and went two weeks ago. After running and raising funds for The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society for four months, members of the Triad's Team in Training group successfully ran and walked their full and half marathons! We collectively raised over $35,000. We each ran hundreds of miles, suffered aches, pains, cold mornings, rain. But we did it.

          My wife and honored hero, Elisabeth, and I awoke that Saturday morning at about 6:00 to prepare for the marathon.  High 30s was the forecast for the 8:00 start, rising into the low 50s with little chance of  rain.  So I donned running tights and multiple layers of technical fabric shirts to keep warm.  I stepped out onto the balcony at the Sanctuary. It felt a little warm. By 7:30 (when the LLS staff took the team picture), the temperature had risen into the 40s, with scattered clouds. Great running weather--but not for heavy layers and tights. In a quick trip back to the room, I doffed the extra layers and proceeded to the starting corrals.

          Five and a half hours and 26.2 miles later (I never claimed to be fast), I had gone the distance, urged on by Team in Training coaches, by my wife who biked along the route after the half-marathoners had left the course, by LLS staff members, and by Dave York's wife Melissa who also rode a bike.  (Last winter, Dave sat out the Disney half to take care of the kid so Melissa could run with us. Melissa sat out this season.)

The future: ?
          There's always somewhere to go, some new challenge to take on, some distance to go.  Having challenges is part of being human. And it's part of being human in society.  Sometimes the problems coming from living socially grow so big as to demand change. Sometimes we know society needs fixing, but we don't know exactly how we want it fixed. That sense of malaise turns to frustration, to fear, and, for some, to action. Any action,  Even if it's only to join Peter Finch in telling the world that "I'm mad as hell, and I'm not gonna take this anymore."

Peter Finch in Network

          Time magazine just chose The Protester as its Person of the Year. From Tunis to New York to Tripoli to Winston-Salem, people took to the streets, to the squares, to city parks, to roadway sidewalks to protest. They protested dictators. They protested banks. They protested the far too influential role money pays in politics. They protested the loss of freedom.  And the lack of freedom.  And the exercise of freedom by others who hold different points of view.

         My emerging challenge is and must be political. Working within "the system" to change those elements that deny average Americans the freedoms and liberties that made America great. Elements like politicians that heed the call of big corporate lobbyists, while ignoring the best interests of their own constituents because they need money to mount increasingly expensive re-election campaigns. Elements like party bosses who put party above people.Elements like businesses that foul everyone's air and water supplies for private gain, passing on the costs to everyone as a hidden tax. Elements like the legislators and bureaucrats who pass the laws and regulations making these spoliations absolutely legal.

          The protesters have effected change in Tunisia, Egypt, and Libya. Politicians are taking notice in Morocco, Syria, Myanmar and Yemen--some implementing changes to forestall a breakdown of the social order while others use violent repression to maintain the status quo. In the United States, the "occupy" movement, ill-defined as it is, has brought hope to students, the unemployed, working professionals, grandparents and just everyday folks that change is possible. That they are the agents of change. A belief is emerging that if we, collectively, go the distance, we can make right what is wrong with, America even if we don't yet know how.

            So I invite you to join me in going the distance to restore to Americans a nation that lives up to its promise of providing "liberty and justice for all."

          May the blessings and the promises of your winter holy days give you, and us all, the strength of purpose to be agents of change in 2012.

          John Motsinger

Marathon day is Saturday, December 10, 2011!

AT THE START ON RACE DAY

See my Team in Training web page for news about the marathon event I run in this weekend at Kiawah Island, South Carolina.  Wish me well as I go the distance!

And thanks for your support of The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society. With your help, our local Triad team raised over $35,000 for the cause.

Best wishes!

John

Three Weeks to Go! Home Run 10K. Ready for Christmas? $1.20 to go.

I copied this entry from the one I put on My Team Elisabeth page. last night.

My HOME RUN 10K results

Saturday, November 19. Skies clear. 24 degrees cold in Winston-Salem at 6:00 a.m. By 9:00 a.m. race time, the mercury had nosed above freezing at the Home Run 10K at BB&T Ballpark. It was perfect running weather for me, just 3 weeks before the start of the Kiawah Marathon. Sixty minutes and a few seconds later, I crossed the finish line after the 6.2 mile event about 2/3 of the way back in the pack.

BUT, my run was fast enough to earn me second place in the males 62 to 98 years old age group.

Next Stop: Kiawah

My next event will be Saturday, December 10th on for the 26.2 mile Kiawah Island Marathon in South Carolina. Thanks to all my supporters whose lifesaving donations to The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society have made my participation possible and are helping LLS provide services to patients with leukemia, lymphoma, myeloma and other blood cancers and to their families!

Your donation comes back home

While your donation may go initially to an upstate New York based organization, your donation also comes back home. It came home for my wife, Elisabeth Motsinger, in the form of Gleevec, the drug developed with funding by LLS that saved her life and those of 85% of the chronic myelogenous leukemia patients who can now survive by taking a daily dose.

Last week, members of the Triad Team In Training met with dietitian Julie Lanford for a nutrition clinic. Julie works cancer patients through Cancer Services in Winston-Salem. LLS helps fund Julie’s work as a cancer dietitian with patients who have leukemia and other blood cancers, as well as other cancer patients. She teaches people how to use diet and nutrition savvy to prevent cancers, to fight cancers as an adjunct to other therapies, and to help deal with side effects of chemotherapy and other treatments.

And, she has wonderful recipes we all can enjoy. Check out Julie’s web site - CancerDietitian.com - for tasty, healthy recipes and menus and a lot more information about nutrition and your health. Like how to avoid gaining weight over the holidays in her November 17 entry. Julie points out that “NOT GAINING is like losing it in the first 3 months of 2012.... only easier!” and decries that Congress last week declared pizza a vegetable for school lunches!

No more free drafting of documents

Thanks to those who took me up on the offer to draft legal documents for you in exchange for a donation to LLS. You helped boost the fundraising to over 99% of its goal. Alas, the offer expired on Friday, November 8. Thanks to all whose generosity has helped raise $3248.80 (including checks in transit to LLS) out of the $3250 goal. Just $1.20 to go! If you're in for $1.20 to help save lives from blood cancer, click here.

The fundraising account will close on November 28, so those of you who are still planning to make a year-end tax deductible contribution may do so. In any event, 98% is a great showing and more than enough to allow me to run as a North Carolina Team In Training member.

I plan to make my next (and last) post about Team In Training after the race.

But, I plan to share with you important and exciting news of a much different kind sometime shortly after Thanksgiving weekend. Check back in here, or on my blog entitled Going the Distance, or on my Facebook page sometime Tuesday, November 29 or shortly thereafter and be the first in your crowd to know the news.

Until then, have a great delicious, nutrition, and auspicious Thanksgiving.

John

PS - Don’t forget to visit my brother Alfred’s Christmas Tree Farm in Roaring Gap to choose your own tree in the fields where I grew up. Enjoy a walk in the mountains, hot cider, and a chance to get Christmas present made by local artists, while you choose your special tree! Click here to see more.

Long time no post

Sometimes it feels as though I am sprinting an ultra-marathon distance (that's anything MORE than 26.2 miles). As my law and mediation practice gets busier and I approach the 25 miles run mark in my training for the Kiawah Marathon, politics is heating up here in  Forsyth County and in the 5th District of North Carolina. I'm in the middle, yet on the periphery.

Sprinting is not my forte. Never has been. In high school, I ran anything from 440s to 2 mile races on the track team. Went off to college and discovered legal addicting drugs (coffee, alcohol, food, tobacco) and gave up the high school lifestyle for more sedentary pleasures. After a couple of decades, I aged out of tobacco and spirits, took up some short distance running of five to 10 kilometers for several years. Got married into a household with two kids. (Talk about learning how naive I was; I thought I knew about parenting.) A little over a year later, John Jr. joined the family, I went into private practice and gave up exercising.

Almost two decades later, with the 2008 economic crisis heating up, I went back to the gym and again took up running.  My wife, Elisabeth, talked me into marathon training to raise money to defeat leukemia, lymphoma and myeloma. (I hope you can help. I have reached 93% of my personal fundraising goal. Click here to read about it. If you're from North Carolina, there's even a chance to get me to prepare legal documents for you as a gift for donating to The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society.)

No, sprinting is still not my forte. I just run a few minutes, walk a minute, and run some more, and walk, etc. There's no way to get lost. I simply follow the 60 to 70 percent of the crowd ahead for more hours than I like to admit. Till the end.

So now, I'm still going the distance and in doing so have met some really interesting folks. For instance, Chad Nance who writes for the blog Weird Load Nation. Read his take on the Tea Party and the Occupy movement, for example. As for Occupiers, I certainly understand some of their concerns. A dysfunctional financial system, too much money buying politicians' votes in Congress and the White House. Attorneys like me have an obligation to give back to the community by doing some legal work free. So I have counseled with members of the local Occupy group on how to keep their movement within the bounds of the law while still being able to get their voices heard. So far, the local group has done it right, even working with the municipality to assure safety and legality. (My big fear is that some outsiders may try to cause trouble that gets blamed on the Occupiers.)

Anyway, keep me on your radar over the next few weeks. There may be some interesting developments. I expect you'll learn more about Chad, John, Jr. and others in this space. Until next time, Blessings,

John

Update on Kiawah Marathon Training

My "Team Elisabeth" Fundraising Page

Introducing myself . . . to blogging. My first post ever!

So everyone now is either a blogger, was once a blogger, contemplates blogging, thinks blogs waste time and web capacity, or really doesn't care.

So why do I blog? Because I have something to say and decided that blogging is one good way to say it. We'll see, won't we?

I am an attorney, mediator, and arbitrator by trade. I have taught undergraduates at places like Guilford College, High Point University and Randolph Community College. I have taught family and divorce mediation to mid-career professionals including accountants, attorneys, mental health folks, and volunteers at mediation centers. So I may be able to give you, my reader, some perspectives on the law, on the justice system, on politics, and on going the distance. More on going the distance later.

So now it's done. A first post. Hang on, there's more to come. But please send me your questions and give me your feedback. Substantive, grammatical, stylistic, whatever. You can help me improve by letting me know what you want from this blog.

John