Mitzvathon 2009

Marathon training is going great. Last night I did my first 7 mile trek. It was a lot of fun. My time was where I expected it to be, 1 hour 20 minutes, and at the end I felt like I could keep going for another hour. So, I'm right where I need to be with my training at this stage of the game. My legs are pretty spent today, so tonight I'm going to take it easy. 1 mile run, and a 1.5-2k swim.

Oh yeah, why is this post titled Mitzvathon 2009? Because I'm working to raise 36000.00 to be split between 2 different charities. If 770 people commit to sponsor me at $1.80/mile ran, then we will reach our goal. I already have 6 people on board and another person working on a website. I know that's not much, but it's a good start.

If you are interested in helping St. Louis Solomon Shechter Day School's tuition assistance program and Chabad of Chesterfield get their first Shul off the ground, please comment or email me, and I will be in touch with you about the specifics.

But, I am super excited today. At 11:30, I get to meet with the head of fundraising for Solomon Shechter to talk about the P.R. blitz we are going to do with this. Links and the new website will be posted as soon as they're available.

Peace out

Thought For The New Year

I have a JDate related post I'm working on for later, but for now.....

With Rosh Hashana coming up, I thought it would be cool if we all took ownership of a single mitzvah. By take ownership of, I mean, find a mitzvah that you really connect with and spend the year trying to perfect your practice of it. Make this mitzvah something that people know you by. For me, I've taken tzitzis as my own. Every time a friend tells somebody that doesn't know me something about me, it's always the same thing "you know, the really tall skinny guy with the tzitzis down to his knees?". "Oh yeah, I know who your talking about now..."

I'm not saying that I'm the only one who wears them in all of St. Louis, but outside of Kohn's Deli and U-City, it's kind of a rare sight.

But anyway, like I said, make this year about perfecting something that really speaks to you, be it tefillin, tzitzis, reading the Torah portion, making minyan, whatever it is that you think defines you as a person.

Oh, and last night, I swam 5k and weighed in at 215. Another swim tonight and tomorrow is running.

Last Night's Training Session

So, I weighed in last night. I'm just under 213 lbs soaking wet.
I also swam over 4k as opposed to the 1.5 I was planning on.
Now I have to get my suit and tie on and go to work.
Damnit.....

First post, Intro, and today's training!

Hello world! Thanks for reading this blog. I'll try not to depress you to much.

So, I'm 28, newly observant, I smoke a pack a day, and I'm training for a marathon.
I learned a valuable lesson today about training. However far you run away from your house, that's how far you have to run back. What was supposed to be a quick 5k, turned into a 10k because I forgot that one thing. Oh yeah, and I smoked a cigarette while I was warming up. So, that last few miles really, really hurt. I know, that was dumb. Really dumb. Really really dumb.
But, the upshot is, I don't have to worry about making either of those mistakes again.

I'm kind of worried about training tomorrow. Tomorrow is a swimming day (1.5k in the water) and I'm also weighing in for the second time. Sunday I was at 215 on the dot. I want to be at 195 for the marathon, but I don't want to lose that 20 lbs. to quickly. So, I'm all worried that I'll either lose to much weight or I wont have lost a pound. I think I'll just go eat a few boiled eggs and a waffle. Breakfast for dinner always makes me feel better.