The Run.org

The Run.org

As I sat on only one butt check trying to drive my manual transmission car yesterday morning due to my extremely sensitive tail bone, I was so excited when I passed this bus.  So excited that after dropping LBM at the preschool/sitter I went back to see if I could catch a quick chat with them. 
Don't know what The Run.org is?

We’re leading the movement to transform the nation’s health through healthy lifestyle and natural medicine.

The Run: Moving Natural Medicine Forward, was founded to dramatize and publicize the urgent need for all Americans to take massive action and transform our nation’s health and spark a movement on Main Street America. Dr. Dennis Godby, nephew Jonas Ely, and two sons, Isaiah and Jeremiah, are taking the drastic steps, of each running an average of 30 miles per day- (currently the team has run over 8,000 miles) – to bring attention to, and raise awareness how lifestyle choices and natural medicine is “the cure” to optimizing health for which we have been waiting!
The US Healthcare costs for 2011 will be 2.8 trillion dollars! Yet, the nation’s health has never been worse. The steadily declining health of the American people is a national emergency and an unfolding human and financial disaster:


“Because of the increasing rates of obesity, unhealthy eating habits and physical inactivity, we may see the first generation of children that will have a shorter life expectancy than their parents.” – Surgeon General Richard Carmona, 2004


One in three American children born in 2000 will develop diabetes if they adopt the nation’s inactive and overeating lifestyle. For Hispanic children, the odds are even worse: 1 in 2 children will develop diabetes if we do not change our current system of living (K.M. Venkat Narayan, MD, from the CDC in Atlanta).


What is especially tragic in the nation’s declining health is that it is mostly our own chosen lifestyles that are killing us – not bad luck or poor genes!


The Run began in San Francisco on July 17, 2011, and will end in New York, NY, on 11-11-11, Veteran’s Day, with a symbolic leg to Bridgeport, CT on November 16, 2011. The ability of The Run to help transform America’s health depends on how we are able to get the word out to everyone we know. YOU can play a big part in the transformation of the nation’s health! Your donation will make a difference in helping us to publicize how we can make significant changes in America’s health, and maybe even yours!

I like a health care plan/system that makes people accountable for their own health first.  By living in a healthy way; eating less, moving more, eating in season and local, using moderation, I believe we can achieve better health for the majority of people.  I know all too well that sometimes a person can be living a healthy lifestyle and still become seriously ill.  But I agree that there are more options for maintaining good health and treatment for illness than most people know about. 
So hop over the The Run.org maybe while you are recovering from your weekend race or long run. 



 I love the saying on the back of their bus, "CAUTION:  Runners in road next 3,250 miles."

The Run.org Blog 

Things I See Along My Way ~ A Nature Stop

Things I See Along My Way ~ A Nature Stop

that's not to be confused with a nature call.

To say I am a bit of a nature freak would be putting it mildly right on the money!  If you have followed me long you know that I say, "Shelly doesn't walk on the road"  meaning when I am out of a run, I am out for a run.  I don't want to stop.  I don't want to talk (to people along the way). I don't want to slow down let alone walk.  The clock is ticking.

But there are exceptions to that road rule.

Nature would be the biggest exception to my rule.

I will stop to get a close up look at bugs, flowers, weeds, cats, turtles, snakes, frog, dogs, cows, muskrats, ergrets...oh and anything baby.  Pretty much any cool living thing that can't talk to me, I'll stop to check out.

It's annoving to some around me because they have to endure the three dozen photos of all that nature when I get back...and the delay it some times causes.

But by far the coolest bit of nature I saw along my way recently, I saw sitting on the back deck in Virginia long after my run.

A baby praying mantis. 

I can't believe that in all my looking I have never seen one this little.  If it hadn't decided to check me out by running up my arm I would never have seen it.  To think we share a world with creatures that we are only luck if we see is amazing.  Our brief exchange was priceless.

I love when my routine often ordinary life can still feel amazing to me.

Do you stop for nature when you run?

Have you seen anything lately that amazed you?

Wordless (I can't really be completely) Wednesday: 9th Wonder?

Day # 381 ~ Obviously not the 9th Wonder

My morning scene:

red light

green light

red light

green light

red light

green light

red light

green light...

My thoughts:

I could have ran a mile and a half in the time I just wasted sitting here.

Conclusion:

I think running relates to everything in my life.

Even bad drivers!

About the dishes...

This weekend while the family was all in Virginia soaking up the warmer weather I got to check out the neighborhood a little more during my run.  You might remember that I did not like the lack of shoulders on the roads in VA. 

Quite often the roads are lined with a ditch.  Not too runner friendly.  In fact I don't think it would be very tire friendly either if you had to get over for a road hog while driving.

But back to my point.  The run was feeling hard from the start but I set out to do 8 miles so I kept running trying to make that switch from treadmill to road and trail.

The miles ticked away and I was finally feeling comfortable with my pace and stride

and then I started finding these.

Now it's not for everyone to carry four porcelain dishes, one cup and a stoneware serving tray the last two miles of their run but for me I think it added a little extra upper body work to the run.

Day # 219 ~ 3.5...so far

Now back in PA and on the treadmill as we are having another winter storm, I think our family is going to do a litter pick up along our road in VA next weekend. 

Sunday Hubbs, LBM and I went back out for a walk while S'ghetti girl was playing with a friend the trash along the road is terrible!  But we did enjoy getting out in the drizzle and gathering the rest of the dishes that I believe had be thrown at trees and utility poles by teenagers.  (I hope they didn't steal them but I think they probably did)

We found 2 dinner plates, 5 desert plates, 4 cups, a large stoneware serving plate and 2 porcelain tea pots.  S'ghetti girl is already planning her next tea party.

Do Groundhogs Eat Lucky Charms?

Run# 56 ~ 3.5 / 28:38

Yesterday was probably my last double until after the race Saturday.

I have to admit I am a little glad to have the race coming up.  I really enjoyed my run yesterday morning ~ after I got out there and started.  When I first woke up I was thinking that laying in bed seemed momentarily nicer.

But once I was running I was so glad I ran!

File this under "Things I see Along me Way"

Soaking wet baby groundhog

My evening run was the opposite.  I couldn't wait to get going and then after about 2 miles when the hills really get going and going and going, I could not wait to be done!  I didn't walk but I really wanted to.  Dead Legs!

I was slightly revived when LBM and I saw this little critter in the path.  I felt so bad for him.  LBM gave him a handful of the Lucky Charms he brought for his snack.  I don't know if groundhogs eat Lucky Charms but It helped LBM be able to not take the little critter home.

Come to think of it, he looked a lot like Little Critter you know from the story books.  Minus the blue eyeshadow and clothes.

Back to the run.  You can tell from the evening "after" shot that I look a lot more tired than I did in the morning and I don't think it was just the longer run.

100 runs maybe catching up to me.

Run #57 ~ 6.5 / 53:13

We were greeted happily after our run.  The dogs were ready to eat up whatever snacks LBM had left uneaten in his seat.  They are such helpers!

Ready for snack patrol.

LBM was eager to be free and run on the road.  He waited so nicely while I snapped a quick picture of me and the dogs but was a little too eager to wait while I took off my shoes.

Ready to run! 

Come on Mom!

We enjoyed our barefoot cool down but finally had to go inside and call it a day.

But this is what happens when LBM doesn't feel like he is ready to stop running yet...

Temper tanturm lately?

...and he is not even 2 yet.