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
EXCHANGE FROM FACEBOOK:
ReplyDeleteROB PACKETT: Nice blog post.
One of my clearest H.S. memories of you is running a 2-mile race on a banked wooden track. Woodbury Forest, perhaps?
ME: A mile, I think. Eight laps on a 220 track. An embarrassing moment, at that. Running first, gun goes off, I stop and run off track. Except gun was marking start of last lap. But the team did win! Good memory, Rob!
ROB PACKETT: I think you're right about the lengths. Very short oval in any case.
I wasn't going to mention the outcome. Agony was you had it won, I think. (Can you claim a Pyrrhic victory??) I remember being impressed with you running so well on a very different track from our norm.
ME: Right again. That's why it's so embarrassing.