Lessons from a half-marathon: Miles 10-12

Every long-distance runner I’ve talked to knows what’s next. Even some top level runners who helped me prepare for the race told me to be aware of it. Facing it is daunting, yet it’s so common that it’s a regular euphemism used in sports, business, relationships and anything that requires any amount of consistent work. What is it? It is the wall. And I hit mine squarely between miles 10 and 11.

As Traci and I came off the hard work of miles 7-9, we received a little energy boost from the mile 9 aid station that featured grapes, donut holes and water. I ate two grapes, 1/2 a donut hole and drank a small cup of water while running thru the challenges leading up to miles 10-12. The challenges offered in mils 7-9, however, were nothing compared to the wall we hit between miles 10-11.

After the aid station, we continued up the steepest hill of the course thru mile 10 and into mile 11. And when we finally crested the top and started a nice downhill portion of the race, a small change made a big impact on our capacity to reach the end with umph. What change? Something as simple as switching sides of the road.

Up to that point in the race, we had been running on the left side of the road. That’s pretty natural since that’s how runners train and how most courses are set up. In doing this, my body had pretty well adjusted to running on the edge of the road with the crown of the road (the high side) under my right foot , and the lower part beneath my left. At times the crown was pretty pronounced, at other times the edge of the road was almost level. Either way, I’m pretty well-adjusted to running in that situation.

In-between miles 10 and 11 though, we were pushed back to the right side of the road, and found ourselves in a different position, with the left foot now falling higher than the right foot. Honestly, it doesn’t seem like that big of change even now as I write this, and at the time it didn’t even cross my mind as we were moving from the left side, to the right side, of the road.

Just a minute after crossing the road, my left foot was screaming in pain; not just discomfort, but genuine pain as the road had changed underfoot. I didn’t hear any other runners mention this, so maybe our inexperience was part of the problem, but whatever the reason, the switch from the left side of the road, to the right side of the road, had a significant impact on my running state of mind.

Traci was feeling it too, so as we crossed the 11-mile-marker and started out on our 12th mile, the challenges were growing stronger. We had most definitely, hit our wall.

When we finished the last of the hills and were mid-way thru mile 12, we found ourselves “jogging” at a pretty slow pace. In fact, we decided a brisk walk was faster than our current jog, so we walked for about a 1/4 mile. Since neither of us had ever run more than 8.6 miles prior to this race, we recognized we had already run 4 miles further than ever before. We both wanted to end by running thru the finish line, so this brief respite before the final 1/4 mile was very necessary.

Our strength was zapped. Our emotions were running high. Our resolve was being tested.

I learned a lot “at the wall” on Sunday. Here are three of those lessons:

1. You must know why you are running in order to keep running when you hit the wall. For me and Traci, the why of this race has always been the same: it’s a metaphor for the place we are in life. The training, the injuries, the set-backs and the race itself, all of it offers a great word picture of where we are in the journey God has placed us on. We were running to vividly remind ourselves to hold the course in life, to stay on the path that God has provided and to keep pressing on even when the necessary strength is hard to find. We ran this race, because we are running the race as we live out God’s purpose for our lives.
2. Never run alone. The wall is formidable, and your resolve is not enough. Sure, you will hit some lesser walls you can manage on your own, but I promise, your journey in life will bring you face-to-face with challenges that you cannot conquer without help. God didn’t place you on this earth for you to live the life of a Lone Ranger, but rather, for you to live life in the richness and depth of a community of people living out their God-designed lives together. We were created for caravans. I am confident I would not have even entered the race had I not been running with Traci. When our race was over, she told me several times she wouldn’t have finished had it not been for me. Together we ran. Together we faced the wall. Together we broke thru that barrier and are reminded of what great rewards God has for us if we’ll do the same with the barriers we face in this life!
3. Don’t ever stop. We slowed down. We changed our pace as we moved from a plotting jog to a brisk walk, but we never stopped our forward progress. Press on when you hit the wall, because if you stop, it’s almost impossible to regain your forward momentum. Walk. Hobble. Crawl. Just don’t ever stop.

What about you? Are you at a wall right now? Has your forward momentum been stunted by a giant barrier? Are you contemplating giving up? Are you going to stop? As you pursue your God-sized dreams, you will come face-to-face with dream-crushing walls that want to discourage you to the stopping point. Let me encourage you to press on. Let me urge you to continue the walk of faith, and to keep moving on the race God has given you. If God has given you the dream, He will give you the means to fulfill it, just don’t ever stop!

The Overboard Life is lived in faith, believing that running the race God has given us is better than any race we could run ourselves. It’s a life that must be lived in faith, using all that we have and are, while trusting fully in all that He is and can supply.

Go ahead and take the plunge, life is always better on the water!

I saw someone break the sound barrier...sort of.

I was in junior high the first time I saw another human being try to travel faster than the speed of sound. We were at a camp in the foothills of the Cascades, enjoying a weekend youth group retreat. About a dozen of us piled on to the merry-go-round and several of our ADULT leaders started the “Extreme Merry-Go-Round of Death” (as they affectionately called it). I point out that they were “ADULT” leaders...supposed to be mature, wise and guardians of our well-being. Did I mention this whole thing happened with ADULT leaders supervising?  

Anyway, the ride started spinning faster and faster, and I remember being toward the outside, holding on for all I was worth. The merry-go-round started to wobble and a steady hum was heard. Exhilaration was replaced with terror and I seriously feared for my life. Then it happened -- one of my peers lost his grip on the ride of death and he went airborne. A sonic boom was heard as he travelled through the air toward the lake. The lake was a 1/2 mile away and a 1/2 mile wide. He skipped three times as he crossed it from one side to the other. Amazingly he was relatively unharmed.

A few years later I was in the downtown district of a southern California city in the middle of the night. We were in a 15-passenger van packed to the gills with loud students and a very lost driver. As we pulled up to a stop sign at 2am, our other van pulled up beside us with the driver rolling down her window. I was in the passenger seat, so I rolled my window down to hear what she was saying to our driver:

“You’re an idiot! Don’t you know you’ve been going the wrong way on a one-way street for 1/2 a mile?!? Pay attention!!!”

My eyes were the size of saucers when I realized that being lost was the least of our troubles. So what did our driver do? He promptly turned on the next street. Again, going the wrong way on a one-way street. Somehow we still made it to Mexico and had an amazing missions trip; proof that there is a God!

During my junior year of high school, our youth group went to Wisconsin for a service trip to help mentally handicapped people in a very special ministry. On one of the afternoons, we had to take the residents to a nearby zoo and I was charged with putting sunscreen on three of them. Only one problem: I had never used sunscreen in my life. As a hispanic, my skin tans up real nice, and I’ve never burned. So I had never needed sunscreen and had never used it.

I watched a few of my peers apply the gooey substance to others and I thought, “How hard can it be?” Like a boss, I applied sunscreen to three young lads and off to the zoo we went. Everything was great that day, and even though we had a really hot day and found ourselves in the sun all afternoon, I knew my boys were doing just fine.

You can imagine my shock when we showed up the next day for service and three residents had arms that looked like sunburned zebras. White and red stripes travelled up and down their arms and one of the teachers asked, “Who put the sunscreen on these boys?!?!” I hung my head low and owned the mistake: “It’s my fault. I let Craig put on the sunscreen and I knew I shouldn’t have.” I’ve always been a hero that way.

Being part of a youth group has always been a big part of my life. From 7th grade on, I was connected to youth group, and I’m thankful my parents made church such a big part of our lives. I know a lot of people have bad church experiences, but I wasn’t one of them. Church, and especially youth group, was really good for me. Probably another reason I was so eager to become a youth pastor myself.

I learned valuable lessons about serving others, respecting authority and the values my parents taught me at home were reinforced in youth group. I also had a ton of fun, and learned that following God wasn’t boring or a drag. And the experiences I gained on cross-cultural mission trips, service projects and youth group retreats still influence my life today.

It’s not too surprising when I look back over those years, that my life was so shaped by youth group. After all, God designed us for community and youth group can be the perfect place for that to happen. Youth group can be fun, it should be safe and it’s a place where a teenager can learn how they fit in with their talents and gifts.

A good youth group however, needs one more component -- it needs to engage the spiritual growth and development of its members. Students need to be challenged with God’s Word and urged to grow in their relationship with Him. The closer students get to God, the closer they’ll be to each other, to their families and to the church they are connected to. Grounded students can change the world!

Are you part of a community of people that are helping you grow in you walk with God? Are you enjoying your journey with others? Are you learning how to use your gifts and talents in a safe environment? You can’t live the Overboard Life without being in a community that will help you along the way. If you’re not part of a community today, find one, join it and then share your life with others who are trying to get out of the boat!

Go ahead and take the plunge, life is always better on the water!

The Jaycee Relays and the Boston Marathon

It was a beautiful afternoon at Swegle Elementary School, in Salem, Oregon. Our third grade class headed outside to the track, and prepared for Jaycee Relay time trials. This annual event featured a 100m run in which the top-4 fastest boys and girls were invited to be on a relay team for each grade, representing your school. It was a high honor and third grade was the last year in which I would be given that honor.

When my teacher said “go” I ran as fast as my legs would carry me. Mr. Burns laughed hysterically as I crossed the finish line and gave me a childhood nickname, that thankfully, didn’t stick: “Crazy legs Castaneda.” More importantly, though, I had a fast enough time to make the boys team.

On race-day, I was so thankful for that team of runners. I wasn’t the fastest guy on the team (in fact, I’ve never been a very fast runner; always envious of the fast and natural runners around me!) but I knew that with our team we could do well. If we made clean baton handoffs, if we stayed in our lanes and focused on our running and not the runners around us, I knew we had a chance. Our second place finish was testament to the power of team; the power of community.

Now that I’m preparing for my first long-distance run, I’m even more envious of the fast, natural runners. I read Born to Run and I’m not convinced there’s a natural runner residing somewhere in my body, however, I’m committed to learning and making my 1/2 marathon as meaningful as possible.

One of the first people I met who is a true "natural runner" is Evelyn Young. I was the youth pastor at Bethany Baptist in Salem, Oreon when Evelyn and her husband Aaron started attending. It wasn’t long before Traci and I learned about her passion for running. She is a runner. She runs because it’s in her blood. She can’t help herself.

When my wife and I hosted our first 6.21k solstice run, Eveyln came and competed. She took first for the women that year, and then again for three years in a row. She usually jogged from her house, to the park where the race was hosted. She took a few warm up laps around a nearby track, ran the race, then ran it again to “cool down.” She loves running and she has been a source of information, and inspiration, for me as I’ve undertaken a running goal for 2014.

In fact yesterday, Evelyn competed in her first Boston Marathon. You might remember last year’s marathon was tragically ended when a bomb exploded near the finish line. The ensuing car chase, man hunt and eventual shoot-out led to a whole community coming together. Strangers housed strangers to get them off the streets during the chaos. Stories emerged of people serving the medical needs of others even risking their own safety in the unknown aftermath of the first bomb. The event brought people together in such strong fashion, even the Boston Red Sox used it a motivation for their playoff run and world series victory in 2013.

Yesterday, Evey was uniting with thousands of runners who were standing with Boston and with the global community that was a part of the event. These runners were letting evil people know that Boston won’t be deterred, and the community won’t give in to fear.

Community is a powerful weapon against fear. That’s one of the reasons it’s so important to make sure you have others in your life who are headed the same direction you are -- others willing to live the Overboard Life with you. We all will face opposition. We all be confronted by real and often dangerous fears, and we will all need the support of others to keep going.

Maybe that’s why the writer of Hebrews uses the “us” and “we” pronouns instead of the “you” and “your” in Hebrews 12:1-2: “Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders, and the sin that so easily entangles and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us. Let us fix our eyes on Jesus...” If everyone’s race was an individual event, seems like he would have just said, “Since YOU are surrounded...throw off everything that hinders YOU...and fix YOUR eyes on Jesus...” There is power in “us” when we run the race Jesus has set before us.

How strong is your running community? As you think about running your race, I think it’s a great idea for you to have a coach (someone helping you) and a student (someone you can help). And As you strengthen your running community, I think you’ll find your race a whole lot easier to run.

8 down, 32 to go.

Go ahead and take the plunge, life is always better on the water!

Happy 40th, Danny Ray!

by Joe Castaneda Time is a funny thing. Years pass by in what seems like a blink of an eye. And hours can take forever to pass. I’m sure at some point in your life your parents or grandparents or neighbors have said to you, “It just seems like you came home from the hospital  yesterday...” on your 24th birthday! 24 years -- 8,765 days -- can pass like the blink of an eye. But take a visit to the dentist and spend 90 minutes in the chair while the doctor does her work -- time seems to stand still.

No matter how “slow” or “fast” time seems to pass by, one reality is true: it’s moving at the same rate for all of us. Seconds become minutes, minutes turn to hours and days, days march on to weeks and soon become months and years.

During time’s march, there are some interesting markers. The zeroes always seem important: 10, 20, 30, 40 and so on. Each new decade brings with it the opportunity for evaluation, goal setting and course-correction.

This past February 14th, my friend Danny Ray crossed over one of those markers. 14,610 days prior, Danny had been born, and on this Valentine’s Day in 2014 he celebrated 40 years of life. By today’s standards, Danny is crossing the half-way point for life expectancy among American born males. 40 is a big marker.

So how would you celebrate the half way point of your life? Many people like to use these key dates as opportunities for big parties. Some prefer a quit reflection. Danny? He faces these key dates like he does every moment of life -- by challenging himself to be more and more of who God made him to be. This year’s celebration? A 40-mile run on his 40th birthday.

If you know Danny, it won’t surprise you that he took on this challenge. The man that locks himself in water tanks, dodges bullets, screws down the cover of a coffin while lying down in it and literally puts his eye in the path of a rusty old hay hook is prone to big challenges. What might surprise you is how he did it, incorporating 40 of his friends to join him, one on each mile. I had the privilege of “running” mile 34 with him from my home here in Michigan. A friend doing ministry in France also ran with Danny from afar. Many others joined him stride for stride through the streets and hills of Yucaipa. Mile after mile, friendship after friendship, Danny ran, runners prayed together, and the challenge marched on.

As Danny completed his sub 7-hour race, he had a following. People were running with him the last two miles, total strangers were following in cars and honking their support, and facebook was lighting up with messages with #nowaydannyray. Like his stage show, Danny was inspiring others to do more, to take on challenges and ultimately to live life without regret -- without leaving anything behind. This 40 mile run was a powerful metaphor for his life.

Truthfully, I’m not sure Danny realized how much this run was going to affect others. I was thinking about it all day, and while I ran on the treadmill during the early hours of Danny’s run, I was thinking about him, praying for him and praying for the team of people surrounding him. When I logged into facebook I saw prayers going up for him and started to see how much this personal challenge was influencing others:

“Such an honor for [my hubby] to be a part of this milestone celebration for such a dear friend.”

“Super proud of my brother...”

“He made it! What an awesome experience!”

“Congrats Danny! Really inspiring, thanks brother.”

“It truly brought a tear to my eye [a video of Danny of running] to see the family of God in full force! It was an honor being a part of the wee hours of the morning dawn patrol run. So glad so many people got to be a part of this...”

On and on. And the posts didn’t stop the day of the run. Just today, March 4th, I saw this one:

“Partly inspired by Danny’s birthday challenge...I wanted to come up with something different for my birthday...Today marks 30 days until I turn 30. What better way to end my 20’s and kick off my 30’s than to start a 30-day, random acts of kindness challenge?...So from now until my birthday I’m going to perform 30 random acts of kindness, one each day...”

This 40-mile run was bigger than Danny. And that’s why I think it’s the perfect metaphor for his life. I’ve not known many people who intentionally direct their lives toward a bigger-than-life goal like Danny. On the stage, his magic isn’t about you seeing his greatness, it’s about creating some mystery, stirring some inspiration and challenging people to ask the important questions that beg asking. Danny wants you to connect to God, the biggest bigger-than-life you can ever connect with!

I’ve been privileged to know Danny for just a few years now. But I’ve seen the same attention to detail he applies to his magic, be applied to his off-stage life. I’ve watched him create powerful moments for his children to experience personal growth and to see glimpses of God. I’ve learned from him as he has prioritized his marriage, ministered to his extended family, stopped the world to help a friend and taken time to keep his own connection to God going strong.

So I wasn’t surprised by Danny’s run on his birthday. I wasn’t surprised to see the crowds follow and people be honored to share in his journey. I’m not the least surprised that others are following suit and thinking about their next milestones (Danny has impacted my upcoming 40th celebration, too!). The only thing that surprised me in this event? The fact that Danny was surprised that so many other people were watching.

Thanks for leading the way, Danny. Thanks for inspiring us to run further, to join together and to live an extraordinary life of faith in all that we do. This facebook comment maybe sums it up best:

“Today was an extraordinary day. Being part of something bigger than myself was inspiring. Running along side Danny Ray reminded me that supporting others in their endeavors can remind us of the amazing things God is doing in us. Sometimes we are the ones doing great things as others partner with us. Other times we make small contributions that help others achieve their goals. Incredible.”

I’m guessing the magic-man is already thinking about his 50th celebration. Even more, he’s working, planning, dreaming and praying about the second 40 years of his life. Somehow, I am confident that even with all we’ve seen God do in, to and through Danny, that like one of Danny’s mind-blowing performances, God’s greatest reveal is yet to come.

I will be enjoying every moment of the show. Happy 40th my friend.

Go ahead and follow Danny by taking the plunge…life is always better on the water!

Be sure to check out Danny's web site, follow his blog, and see what he is up to at: www.dannyray.tv