“Gratitude is fertilizer for the mind, spreading connections and improving its function in nearly every realm of experience.” ~Robert Emmons I’m going to keep this week’s post as brief as possible. Yes, I ran. I ran a lot. I ran sixty-five-and-a-half miles, culminating with twenty-two miles Sunday morning in temps that started in the high…
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“Without you all, we wouldn’t feel the true feeling of home that we were wishing for.” ~Some new friends I absolutely love Bosnia, as I love Rwanda, as I love England, and as I expect I would love Afghanistan if given the opportunity, and yet being back in Omaha, Nebraska, with my wife and children…
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“If I die doing a trail run in Bosnia my wife will kill me.” ~Me, regarding the Jahorina Trail Run “Don’t tell her about the bears, wolves, wild boar, and of course, landmines.” ~Paul, who talked me into the Jahorina Trail Run My final week in Sarajevo was spent working frantically to do all of…
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“Fewer than there were yesterday, but more than there will be tomorrow.” ~Me, responding to the question of how many Sarajevo Roses there are The people of Bosnia seem largely to feel forgotten, abandoned, or otherwise unimportant to the rest of the world. The evidence of this is everywhere, but most commonly I find it…
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“Why Remember?” (The name of the conference I attended this week in Sarajevo and Srebrenica) I landed in Sarajevo a bit bedraggled from the journey. I’d slept some, though not well, on the leg between Chicago and Vienna, then took my coffee and worked on some writing in the airport in Austria before boarding an…
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“If another quake doesn’t kill us, poverty might.” ~A survivor of the earthquake in Afghanistan I began the week with what would later seem like ambitious goals of returning to form and running forty miles or more. After running Saturday and Sunday of the previous week, I went out Monday and got seven and a…
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Dear friends, I’m struck by the fact that, as of today, 2022 is already half way over. So much has happened already this year. I left the high school classroom, Sonja and I celebrated our ninth year of marriage, I have a new book coming out, and in just a few days I leave for…
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“It is difficult to train for a marathon, but it is even more difficult to not be able to train for a marathon.” ~Aaron Douglas Trimble The first half of the week was spent in Minnesota, where we retreated south to Minneapolis after spending the previous four days between Danbury and Duluth. We went to…
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“After being diagnosed with mixed-type ADHD earlier this year and prescribed Adderall I began taking it right after Boston…and for the first time, I felt like I was able to get the quiet, functioning brain in my day-to-day life that I could previously only achieve with intense physical activity.” ~Molly Seidel, June 8, 2022 Molly…
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“Moderation in all things—especially moderation!” ~Ralph Waldo Emerson Tapering is brutal. I know I need rest. My legs need rest. They have been abused and battered for fourteen weeks of intense marathon training, not to mention the fact that the two months prior to starting training I averaged 184 miles per. All the same, it’s…
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