Sometimes we can find ourselves in some pretty weird stuff. Life has a way of turning without making sure we’ve got our belts buckled, and more times than not we feel like we’re hanging on for dear life with our bodies halfway out the window of the passenger seat while we scream for the ride to stop.

Of course, we all KNOW that God is in those places with us. We all read Psalm 139 and think about how nice it is that God is everywhere and that there is nowhere we can go that escapes His presence, but the truth is that every know and then we need a reminder that sets our hearts at ease and lets us rest in the reality that there is absolutely NOWHERE that His presence cannot find us. Even in places that we probably shouldn’t have gone. Need more proof? A picture, as they say, is worth a thousand words…

Yep, this was supper a couple nights ago. Apparently, hot dogs are quite stackable. Who knew?

Monday was the first day of training for my November marathon. I’m not sure when I decided to run a marathon, but at some point over the last year of running, it became a goal of mine and now I’m in the last 20 weeks before it becomes a reality. I do a good job of logging my runs at a great website (Running Ahead), but I’ll also try to journal some along the way here on The Blog Channel, too.

The first step was choosing a marathon that wouldn’t be too hot, too cold, or too hilly. Funny thing, too, was that a friend of mine told me that he had run his first marathon in Richmond years ago, and as it turns out, that’s where I’ll run my first, too. Saturday, November 14, 2009 I’ll be towing the line at the SunTrust Richmond Marathon with about 5000 other marathoners and tackling the 26.2 mile course. What clinched this race for me was that it is being held on what would have been my brother Stephen’s 40th birthday, so the whole family is going to head up together and use the race as a way to honor his memory and hopefully raise a little money for Special Olympics, too. More on that in a later post, though.

The second step was choosing a training program so I can at least survive this crazy goal. Since I have already used Hal Higdon’s plans before (his training program for the Half Marathon got me ready for the Thunder Road Half Marathon in Charlotte last December), I decided to go with his Marathon Intermediate I plan. I had to modify it a little and stretch it to 20 weeks instead of 18 in order to get my 20 mile training runs done before I get on the plane for India in mid October.

So far this week I’ve run 3 times – 4 miles Monday, 5.5 miles yesterday and 3.5 miles today. 2 more runs this week and I’ll be finished with week one.