Getting started to move
At the time (October 2004) I was carrying a Palm based organizer which had early e-book capabilities. In the bookstore was a book that sounded like a good place to start looking for help called Escape Your Shape: How to Work Out Smarter, Not Harder. It promoted exercising based on your body shape or type. It also told you what to avoid so that you didn’t build muscles where you didn’t want them. Thinking back now I don’t know if it really matters whether I avoided some exercises and focused on others, but it was helpful that the book gave me a specific exercise routine. It included a lot of basic calisthenics, jump rope and walking.

I was as faithful as I could be to the routines the book gave and was pleased to see that the extra motion helped me see dramatic results in just a few weeks.

In my mind there were no real solid weight goals other than I wanted to get down to at least the weight I was when I got married (almost 50 lbs. from where I started). I also had no time goal. I refused to put myself in a box by saying that I needed to lose a certain amount of weight by a certain time. This was going to be a lifestyle change, therefore I was looking for something that I could add to my daily routine that I would be doing for the rest of my life, not just to reach a number on a scale. It was during this time that I also came upon the idea of focusing on just 2 or 3 lbs. of loss at a time as I mentioned in my first post.

I continued with the jump rope/calisthenics routine for about 5 months. I don’t have the exact numbers with me, but I had lost maybe 25 to 30 lbs. during that 5 month period. I was getting pretty excited to see how much more flexible and stronger I had become.

Exercise class
One day at the park I learned that there were exercise classes that were available to the public. They cost $1 per class and there was no long term commitment. The class was a Tae-Bo class, which I was familiar with. Nervously I signed up. I remember the woman telling me that I needed to bring a bottle of water and clothes that I could jump in. It seemed like a funny way to say exercise clothes.

The first day of class I felt more than a little out of place. I stayed in the back of the class and just tried to keep up. I kind of stood out–tall white dude in a class of short dark dudettes–it would have been hard not to. The teacher learned my name the first class and yelled encouraging things to me telling me I didn’t have to do all the exercises and that I could just march in place if my plump body couldn’t keep up.

From that first class, I was hooked. The teacher knew how to push all the right buttons to encourage me. I also learned from that class something that has always been true in my life–positive peer pressure is something I need. While I have never been one to be a lemming and blindly follow the crowd, I do need help doing what’s good for me when I can’t see the benefit. That class and teacher helped build some structure in my exercise routine. While everyone else in the class was on cruise control most of the time, I was in there slinging sweat on anyone who dared to get within 10′ of me.

Two days of the week we would go through different routines and basically jump around swinging arms and legs for an hour. But Friday was always my favorite day. That was the day we put on gloves and got to hit each other. Since I was the only man, the teacher was the only one strong enough to receive my punches. I punched and kicked her as hard as I could trying to knock off her gloves or knock her over. I had a blast!

On days that I did not have Tae-Bo class I would do various strength training exercises. I still did my calisthenics and walking too. When we moved and I had to leave my teacher at one park, I found another park near the new house where her boss taught classes. I took classes with him for a year until we moved back to the side of town that made it possible to return to her.

I don’t know that a structured class is the best choice for everyone. In fact, the reason I never mentioned going to a class before is that I never wanted people to think that I was going there just to see the pretty ladies exercising. Believe me, most of the ladies in the class were grandmas and there was little visual temptation. I am telling you this because it is what worked for me. If a class doesn’t work for you, then that is fine. It provided the structure and positive peer pressure I needed to stay motivated.

Running
The end of December of 2005 I decided to try something that I had not done in a very long time. I decided to run instead of my normal walk. I didn’t know how far one was supposed to run his first time out, but I figured 30 minutes was a good amount of time. I took off for a run around the park and back home. I ran for 30 minutes and covered around 2.5 miles. Surprisingly, I didn’t die.

By that time I had been doing hour long, intense exercise sessions for almost a year. I had lost more than 60 lbs. My body was itching for something more intense. I found out later that it is not recommended that you start by running 30 minutes your first time out. The best beginning running program I know is called Couch to 5K (C25K).

I probably only ran 2 or 3 times by the time my brother told me he was going to run a half marathon in May of that next year. I got the bright idea that I would train with him for the race. I started marking out courses in the neighborhood and trying to see if I could cover the same ground in less time every day. By the time May of 2006 arrived I had already figured out where I would run my 13.1 miles. I even went as far as to ride my bike through the streets and paint numbers on the road so that I would know when I passed each mile mark.

I was also already running local 5K and 10K races. Well, the better term is that I was participating. I never competed with anyone but myself just trying to see if I could do better than the week before. I ran that first half marathon and thought I was going to die. It took me 2 hours and 29 minutes to drag myself around the course. I had never done anything so hard in my life. I had no interest in running for a couple of weeks after that. But when I did get started, I immediately planned for my next half marathon.

Is running enough?
I do not recommend that you jump right into running. Work your way up to it if you even want to start. Find your own journey and progression. I think running is a great way to stay in shape and maintain a good level of fitness. But, I don’t think it is all you should do. You need an overall fitness program. That is where I am struggling now. I am thankful that the running has been with me the last 2 years since I have had to alter my routine, but it is not enough by itself to help you lose weight and have overall strength and fitness.

You don’t have to join a gym or go to any fancy classes, but you do need to find something that will work your whole body. If you are only interested in losing weight then you can diet and accomplish your goals. But if you are interested in being strong and healthy, you need to put an emphasis on exercise and see the food that you stick down your throat as the fuel that helps you accomplish your exercise goals.

Structure and attitude
In the next post I plan on talking about putting in place some structure and looking at attitudes that can help, or sabotage, your progress.

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3

When I started
The only thing I gave up initially was full sugar colas. As a Dr Pepper drinker I had limited access to my favorite drink when we first arrived in Mexico. It was available in Mexico City back then, but not in Merida where we lived. That has since changed, but it was a big help to me at the time.

What I discovered by trying different drinks is that I really didn’t care what I was drinking. If it wasn’t Dr Pepper, then my only requirement to make me happy was that it had bubbles. I tried Diet Coke and found I liked it as well as anything else. I couldn’t go with just the soda water, though that is very popular in Mexico. I never took a liking to that stuff.

My first big change was to switch to drinking diet colas. I know colas of any kind aren’t the best for the body, but I learned something in my quest to get healthier–if I gave up too much at once I was setting myself up for failure. I have seen too many people try to go whole-hog on their diet changes and are not able to keep at it.

The next thing I changed was trying to think about food as fuel. With that change of mindset I did not go on any kind of starvation program. I just cut back a little bit at first. Instead of eating until I was stuffed, I tried to eat a bit less. That was a big change for me. I had for years eaten way more than I should. It always seemed to me the goal at a meal was to tank up and make sure you would be alive until the next meal. When I started thinking about food as fuel it helped me realized that I was carrying more fuel than I needed to accomplish the physical tasks I needed to before I ate again.

As time went on the amount of food needed to sustain life and feel good about it became less and less. However, at this stage I never felt like I was starving myself nor that I was “on a diet.” I just realized that I did not need to take in as much food as I had in the past. I was very active attending an exercise class 3 days a week and running 3 to 5 days a week on top of that. I needed fuel, but I only wanted to carry enough so that I would not hinder my play time. And, yes, I did see my running and exercise as play. It was no longer work by the time I had started to see the results of a stronger healthier body.

Second round of pruning
I continued with the changes of drinking diet colas and thinking of food as fuel for almost 2 years. I lost the vast majority of weight that I ended up losing with just those 2 diet changes. It was not until I had lost over 70 lbs. that I started actually paying attention to the specific foods I ate.

I had stagnated in my weight loss. I knew that I was still carrying more fat than I needed to. I was not looking for a “perfect body.” But I did want to have a healthy one. To trim the next 20 lbs. I finally had to start dieting. Exercise alone wasn’t going to cut it.

French fries with lots of ketchup. Yum! We usually only went out to eat once or twice a week, but it was almost always to a hamburger joint. I switched to chicken sandwiches and no fries. I still ate fries off the kids and my wife, but I would not have any of my own. As I thought about food as fuel, greasy fries did not sound like what my body needed to make it around the track faster. A handful of energy packed granola (which I honestly enjoy more than fries) seems like a better choice. If I prefer the granola anyway, why make it harder to do what I want by eating things that are bad for me? Eventually the fries were gone.

What I am doing now
I would like to say that I have been faithful to the mindset that food is fuel and that I have kept the junk out of my diet, but I haven’t. I still don’t think I eat too poorly, certainly not as bad as I had before. But while on furlough, and currently in Argentina, I have cut my exercising back to just running. While running will keep you in good cardiovascular shape, it isn’t that great for overall fitness and weight loss.

Next post I will talk more about my progression of exercise routines.

Don’t forget to start at the beginning with the first post in the series.

I mentioned the interview on Facebook and a friend commented about her own personal “Grammar Girl” in high school. I too had my own Grammar Girl in college.

English never was one of my strong subjects (come to think of it, I don’t know that I had any except skipping classes). I guess I speak English well on a basic level, but knowing the rules and making the right choices on tests always eluded me. High school English did not go well and neither did college.

Since then I have had good friends who have helped me clean up several usage errors. Learning a foreign language has been a huge benefit too. However, before I got to the point of getting help I had to take freshman English in college. Mrs. B was my tormentor teacher.

I sat on the last row to the teacher’s left. We were in alphabetical order and Penny O sat in front of me. Mrs. B allowed us to grade each other’s quizzes. We were welcome to trade papers with anyone around us. I found a sympathetic soul in Penny, so always chose to trade papers with her. I never remember Penny ever making a mistake on her quizzes. However, she almost ran out of ink each time she had to correct mine.

The fact that she never missed a question impressed me enough to soften the blow of how much work she had to do to grade my quizzes. She would turn around with a very sympathetic look on her face as if to say “Oh, you poor boy.”

Maybe I am the reason Penny became an English teacher. Perhaps she couldn’t stand the thought that there were other people in the world like me.

Take Pictures
I have very few pictures of how big I was at over 270 pounds. However, I have a ton of pictures since. Most of them no one will ever see, but it is a huge encouragement to me to go back and look at the steps that got me to where I am now.

Measure Yourself
There are all kinds of methods for measuring your progress. Many of them may be just fine for some people. But here is what worked for me.

Weighing yourself only gives part of the picture of what is happening in your body. Once you start exercising you may actually gain a bit of weight while you build muscle to replace the fat. If you only depended on your scale to tell you something is happening then you could be easily discouraged.

I initially took body measurements from several points, but settled on just taking a measurements at my neck, upper arm, chest, waist, hips, thigh and calf. I took each of these measurements once a week and recorded them on a 3X5 card. I also put the date and my weight on the card. I was able to get 5 or 6 columns of measurements on a card so that I could see how I was doing over a long period of time. I also rubber banded these cards together so that when I filled up a card and put it with the rest I could see how far I had progressed. I noted on the card what my total number of inches and pounds I had lost since I started. After almost 6 years I still have those cards that I can look at for encouragement.

Some weeks my weight would go up even though my measurement went down. I was never discouraged by that. If I looked smaller I didn’t really care if I gained 2 lbs. Muscle is denser. A pound of muscle takes up less room in your clothes than a pound of fat.

Weigh Yourself
While measuring will give you a better understanding of what is truly happening, don’t we really want to talk about pounds? We like to say that we lost 5 lbs. No one really cares or understands when you say you lost a total of 3″ from 7 different points on your body.

This is where I deviated greatly from most suggestions. You can take my route, or stay with the conventional wisdom. My way worked for me, it may not for you. However, if you have never been successful at this before doing it the traditional way, then maybe it is time for you to look at alternative suggestions.

I weighed myself every day. I weighed myself every night. I weighed myself sometimes 3 or 4 times a day. Conventional programs tell you to only weigh once a week. But for me I wanted to know where I stood today compared to yesterday. I was challenged by that number and rarely discouraged. If I was up a pound (or three) in a 24-hour period I would chalk it up to “water weight.” If I was down it was because “I worked hard for it.” Now that I have a scale with tenths of a pound on it, I get even more obsessive in seeing what I can make those numbers do from day to day.

Although I weighed myself daily, I only wrote down my weight once a week on measuring days. This gave me a better chance of being down between one permanent accounting and the next. The daily weights were temporary and just helped me see if I was generally on track. Also, by doing this, I knew that Thursday my weight was always the highest for the week. I would avoid measuring or recording my weight on Thursday. More on why in a later post.

Accept Encouragement
My wife was a saint during all of this. When someone said that they noticed I had lost a little weight, I would gloat to my wife about it. While I am writing about it now, I did not want to make a big deal about losing weight at the time. It was a personal issue to me. I was not losing weight for other people, I was getting in shape so that I could serve the Lord better. But if anyone happened to notice and say something about it, I was thrilled! Outside I would answer questions and thank them for their kindness, but inside I was beaming with the knowledge that I had worked hard and it was paying off.

My wife had to listen to me drivel on and on about how someone noticed. Or that I could do a certain stretch that I had never done before. She had to listen to a play-by-play accounting of everything that was happening to me. It was helpful to have someone I could talk to about it.

Ignore the Naysayers
Along with the encouragement, there were also plenty of people who were standing around to throw cold water on me and my progress. My poor wife got to hear all about that too.

I carved out a time to make exercise part of my life. I realize my schedule is more flexible than most people’s, but I think they could make time if they really wanted to. You don’t need 3 hours a day to exercise. If you will look for opportunities to walk 15 minutes more than you do currently, then you are headed the right direction.

By the time I got 6 months into my change of lifestyle I was exercising 4 to 7 days a week. Not because I had to, but because I wanted to. I was seeing results in a changed body. I had less heartburn. I could stay awake during church. I didn’t seem to have as many aches and pains. I wasn’t getting sick. I wanted more of those types of results.

But then the comments started. “Men are able to lose weight easier than women.” “You just have a faster metabolism than I do.” “Are you sick?” “You are making the rest of us look bad.” And they kept coming. Sometimes they were intended in jest, but they were not helpful. I never tried to refute the discouraging remarks. If someone really wanted to get their life turned around, I was there to help, but I really started to retreat from even talking about anything I was doing food or exercise-wise. There were too many people who were either jealous or didn’t want things to change.

When I was asked what I was doing to get the results I was getting, I told them that I was just exercising. (Early on, I changed very few eating habits). Often they would tell me how they were too old or that they preferred to diet instead of exercise. I wanted to turn it back around on them and ask them who was getting better results, but I refrained.

It may be true that men lose weight easier than women, but I did not see any of them working as hard as I did. I did not see them walking in the neighborhood drenched in sweat. When I later joined an exercise group at a local park I noticed that many of the people in the group were showing up every day, but not physically engaged. They were going through the motion, but were not putting forth the effort to make the exercise work for them. I only remember 1 lady who ever lost weight in that group. It wasn’t because the teacher was doing a poor job (I lost over 50 lbs. under her), but it was because the students were not putting out the effort that it took to get the results they said they wanted.

You cannot get in shape without effort. However, let me encourage you that you don’t have to spend 20 hours a week in exercise. If you are at a constant weight now and you change nothing in your eating habits, but add walking 30 minutes a day to your routine, you will lose weight. It is a matter of using more energy (calories) than you consume. If that 30 minutes a day has to be scaled back to 10 minutes, you will still lose weight, just at a slower pace.

What Exercises? What Food?
I will talk about that in my next post. Thanks for the comments here and at Facebook. Also thank you for the personal messages that this has been helpful and encouraging. While I have talked about many of my activities in the past on the blog, I have never shared everything. It seemed too personal at the time. However it is helping to encourage me to ramp up my effort and stop hiding behind a couple of recent injuries. I will find a way to work around these issues and get back in the shape that will help me effectively do the ministry the Lord has called me to.

Have you read part 1?

I have often been asked what I did to lose weight and get in shape. Much to the disappointment of many who ask, I have to tell them what they don’t want to hear. It takes work!

Because I have struggled in the last 2 years to keep my weight in check and to stay physically active, I thought it would be good encouragement to myself to go through my initial motivations to lose weight and what I did then to get me to where I needed to be. (And where I need to get back to).

Motivation
When we first arrived in Mexico in August of 2004 I realized that I was very unhealthy. My weight had gotten over 270 lbs. that year (photo). I was spiritually convicted by the fact that, as a missionary, I was doing an important job that would be a poor reflection of my Lord with the body I currently had. While I know there are Bible verses I could have used to say why someone should take care of their body physically, for me it was a matter of knowing that I would die an early death and not be able to serve God long term with the way I was living.

Besides the physical aspect of my condition, there was also a spiritual problem I was facing. There was a need in my life to become more spiritually focused. You are probably thinking to yourself that I could not be too far off the mark if I had spent all my adult life in ministry and had just moved to the foreign field as a missionary. But anyone who travels constantly (which I had done for 10 years up to that point) knows the struggle one faces when they have no daily routine. When do you read your Bible? When do you pray? It becomes so easy to say that you will do it later in the day. But sometimes many days, or even weeks, go by and you realize that you have been drifting spiritually. That is where I was.

I needed to get some focus back in my spiritual, as well as my physical, life.

Beginnings
Not having done much exercise in the recent years, I figured a good place to start was walking around the block and searching for help on the Internet. I read that you should combine aerobic exercise with some weight training for a healthy routine. I bought a barbell, a few pounds of weights and a jump-rope. I don’t remember where I got all my information, but I started with jumping rope and lifting light weights. I got started with a jump-rope, a few weights and a neighborhood I could walk in. It was October 2004 when I got serious about all of this.

Goals
When I got started I was down to 264. I had lost 10 lbs. during the move and was eating better since we were eating at home and no longer traveling constantly. I had a goal to get down to the weight I was when we got married 10 years before. I don’t know why I remember that I weighed 227 at our wedding, but that became my target. Secretly however, I would have loved to get down to 200. I hadn’t weighed that little since high school.

I had had goals before, but they were always a weight associated with a date. It had never worked. Maybe it works for some people, but for me I would see that I was not going to reach my goal in the time I wanted, so I would just give up. I needed a different plan.

Instead of focusing on the 37 lbs. that I needed to lose to reach the goal,  I focused on smaller numbers with absolutely no time restrictions. At first I thought that if I could lose 2 lbs. I would only need to lose 35 more. But that still seemed like a big number after I got rid of those 2 lbs. I then switched my focus again to an even smaller number. If I lost just 2 more pounds then I would be at 160. If I can lose 2 lbs. then I could easily lose 3 for my next step.

By that time I had totally ignored any long term goal and started focusing only on the mini-steps that would push me the right direction. My focus was losing 2 lbs. then 3 lbs. for a total of 5 pound chunks. Then I would go back to the 2 lbs. again. I alternated between 2 pound and 3 pound goals for several months.

When I finally did reach 227 I knew there was no way I was going to stop there.

Spiritually
Things were coming back into focus for me spiritually too. I was able to settle into a routine that allowed me to carve out time every day to read my Bible and pray. At that point it was not a matter of whether I could spend time with the Lord, it became a matter of whether I would spend time with Him. I had the time and the place set aside; I simply needed to be obedient.

Discipline in one area of my life reflected discipline in other areas. If I was motivated to exercise then I would use that encouragement to help me discipline myself spiritually. Most of the time they went hand in hand with no extra motivation needed. But sometimes I had to tell myself that it was not fair to my spirit if I was willing to exercise my body but not read my Bible. Then there were times I felt lazy and wanted to just read my Bible and ignore my body (that happened less often). I would encourage myself that they were both important.

Continued
I had hoped to get this all out in one post, but I can see that it would be so long as to discourage you from reading it. I don’t know how many parts it will take to tell the whole story, but doing it this way allows me to cover more ground and gives me a reason to sit at the keyboard and add some words to the space I am paying for every month anyway.

Part 2 is now available.
Part 3
Part 4

I no longer listen to Adam Tinkoff’s podcasts, but there is one thing that always stuck with me about his recorded runs–I could never figure out how much time he actually spent running and how much time he spent taking pictures.

One of the things I was looking forward to doing on my trip to Las Vegas last week for DeafNation World Expo was to have a nice run up The Strip. Because of the heat I was looking for an early morning run. On Saturday morning I took a couple of friends to the airport a little after 5:00 and came back to start my run. It was a mere 87 degrees.

To make it a Tinkoff run I made sure that I took my camera. The plan was to run for an hour and a half. You can take a lot of pictures in that time. However I was a little surprised to find I had taken 73 at the end of the run. I think Adam would be proud.

My hotel was an off-strip hotel. I entered the strip at Harmon Avenue and ran south. I ran down to MGM Grand and crossed over Las Vegas Blvd. at New York-New York to head back north. I spent a few minutes at the Bellagio fountain before going up to Caesar’s Palace. Though I had been in Las Vegas for a week at that point, I had not spent any time going through the hotels. I found out later that I probably would have really enjoyed the Bellagio and Caesar’s Palace. There are many free exhibits to see in all the hotel lobbies (along with many things I really didn’t want to see).

At Caesar’s Palace I saw a man running away from the hotel with very little clothing, and what he did have on was wet. I thought it was a homeless guy taking an early morning bath. When I got closer to one of the fountain areas I noticed there was a lot of water on the sidewalk. When I went back out to the main road I saw 3 college-age guys putting their clothes back on laughing about their adventure in the pond.

I continued up to the bridge over Sand’s/Spring Mountain Road and met a couple of men from England. We had a nice chat and then I ran on up toward Wynn and Encore before crossing over Las Vegas Blvd and headed south again.

Because it was so early in the morning I was able to run in the shade the whole time. It gave some really neat lighting to some of my pictures. Others ended up “flat” because there were no shadows to set off one layer from another. However there were also fewer people to get in the way of the camera.

The run ended with me shooting back out Harmon Avenue over to my hotel on Koval. I ran 5.7 miles and took 73 photos in 1 hour and 26 minutes. That is almost 1 picture per minute. I am not sure how that compares to an Adam Tinkoff run, but maybe he has some stats he would like to share in the comments.

This can easily go on my list of favorite runs. While it is not even close to my all-time favorite, it certainly ranks high on the list.

Brad Rhoads is a computer programmer who is using his skills as a missionary for Mission Aviation Fellowship. MAF is most known for their program of delivering missionaries and supplies to remote locations. However, Brad works in a division where they deliver Bible training into either closed countries or locations where pastors and Christians don’t have access to Bible schools.

I only fell 8 miles short of beating last month and was still better than many of my other recent months. Just surprised that the month ended and I hadn’t realized that I threw away a week.

Over the last 5 weeks I have been developing a horrible pain in my right leg. It is piriformis syndrome. I am not entirely sure what caused it, but three of the main causes are running, biking and sitting. Other than sleeping I think that describes just about everything I do. Thankfully it is only in one leg.

Piriformis syndrome is when the piriformis muscle squeezes on the sciatic nerve and causes a pain down the leg or up into the back. This can be due to an injury that causes damage/swelling to the region, or because of excessive muscle tone. I am not sure how I feel about the thought that my rear end muscles may be the most developed ones I have.

The way it effects me is that when transitioning from a sitting to standing position it feels like my muscle spasms and locks up tight over that nerve. When I give it a few seconds to relax the sharp pain goes away as quickly as it started. It does not bother me at all while running, walking or performing any normal activities. It is mostly just that one movement when I flex the muscle to extend the leg that it bites me in the bottom.

When I remember to do stretches and take lots of ibuprofen the pain subsides wonderfully. But each time I have a good day I make the mistake of not being as religious about the exercises and the medicine. That sends me into another day of intense pain.

I will get over this. Or at least get to the bottom of it.

The shows I checked out were listed as “religious.” Other than knowing their name and that they should be religious in some way, I knew nothing about the shows. Some I did not even go to because their name told me that I would not be interested (that’s a good thing) or I couldn’t figure out what the show might be about based on their name (that’s a bad thing). As far as a name goes, I think Missionary Talks is a good name for a show. It does not tell you exactly what the show is about, but I think most could figure out that it has something to do with missionaries and that it is conversational or instructional rather than musical.

When I arrived at the websites of the shows that passed the first test I had trouble finding information immediately on the front page that tells about the show. Most had the standard blog post with a few words about the episode and an audio link. But I still had trouble figuring out from the episode posts what the general tone of the podcast was. I did not do this for all the shows, but even clicking through to the standard “about” page left me puzzled about the content of some of them. Is the masthead explanation of Missionary Talks sufficient? Or do I need a little blurb at the top of the sidebar that gives a bit more detail?

None of the sites I looked at gave me any indication as to how long each episode was. I know we, as podcasters, are not bound by a time limit (though I think each one should have a goal), but I could get no feel for how long any of the episodes were without either downloading an episode or starting to play the episode from the website. (This was not always available, nor was the information about episode length always listed on the embedded player.) At Missionary Talks I have the show length stated at the bottom of each post. Does anyone but me care about episode length?

I am curious to get feedback on the impression you get when you go to the Missionary Talks website. I am looking at refreshing the site with some new graphics and maybe a color scheme change. While doing all this I want to make any informational changes that will help potential new listeners become immediately comfortable with navigating the site. Any input is helpful. What bugs you about Missionary Talk? What do you love about it that you think shouldn’t change?

By the way, I didn’t subscribe to any of the podcasts I went to look at. I guess I was too depressed by what I found.

I was talking with some friends at church the other night about staying safe on the bike. This is a couple who have bent over backwards to help us since we arrived. If the weather is bad, or we aren’t feeling up to taking the bikes to church at night, this couple always offers to drive us home to save us the cost of a taxi even though we live the opposite direction from their house.

In our conversation it was mentioned that we need more lights on our bike to be visible. I have wanted to get a headlight for the bikes, but have not wanted to spend the amount of money necessary to do so. While talking about the lights I was reminded of a recent blog article I read where the guy had strapped a flashlight on his bike by using part of an old inner tube. So I had to give it a try.

At first I was thinking that I needed to find a flashlight that was appropriate for this. Then I remembered that I had a couple of $2 lights from Autozone that would be perfect. I also have an old tube that I was keeping for just such occasions.

Tonight was my first chance to use the set-up. It worked very well. It is completely secure. There is no chance that this is falling off. But I can remove it in less than 2 seconds. There is no fiddling with some complicated mount, or fearing that it is going to end up busted on the side of the road.

It is not that great as a light to show me where I am going. That could be due to the fact that the light hardly shines at all. The batteries are terribly weak. But, my purpose is just so people can see that there is an object out in front of them. I don’t plan to blind any drivers with this light, just let them know I exist.

There are a couple of things I plan to do in the future. I will try mounting it under the handlebar instead of on top. I did not have any problem with it wanting to slide around, but mounting it underneath will be just as easy and will eliminate any possibility of gravity pulling it where I don’t want it to go. The second thing I will look at doing is wrapping a bit of tire rubber around that section of the handlebars to cushion the 2 metal objects from one another. It will have the added benefit of holding it even more securely.

If you need a bike light in a pinch, or just don’t want to spend the ridiculous amounts of money the bike shops are asking for a light, give this a try.

The first 120 pages of the story is about a teenage Indian boy (dot, not feather) who believes completely in three main religions: Christianity (Catholic), Islam and Hinduism. Pi, the main character, grew up as a zookeeper’s son. The family sold the animals and closed the zoo to move to Canada. While on the journey from India to Canada, along with some of the animals, the ship sank. The story is put to paper at a later time by a writer based on interviews with Pi and others related to the events.

The next 280 pages is about the sinking of the ship and how Pi, and his lifeboat companion Richard Parker, survived for 227 days at sea. Richard Parker was a 450 pound Bengal Tiger. There were other companions on the lifeboat, but they either died, were killed or drowned before too many days had passed in the lifeboat.

One of my favorite parts of the book is when Pi goes into a nine step process as to how you, the reader, should go about taming the wild animal (i.e., tiger, rhinoceros or wild boar) in the boat with you. It is funny in that I hope to never find myself in need of such information, but he describes it with the passion and factuality that any 16 year old would bring to something so serious.

As stated earlier, the book pulled me along when it finally got interesting. But that did not happen until after page 120 (in my edition of the book). The book is broken into three parts. If you take my second paragraph above as a summary of the first section of the book you can save yourself all the boring parts and not enjoy the book any less. But you are going to read it anyway, aren’t you? Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

While I can’t say that it was the most thrilling or immersive book I have ever read, it was very hard to put down towards the end.

I have heard many good reviews of the book and have to agree that it is well written and will probably become a classic. But, like most classics, unless you struggle to get very far into the book, you will probably put it away disappointed that you didn’t see what everyone else saw in the work. If you are struggling to get into the book from the start just take my advice and skip to part two and prepare yourself for a great story.

Life of Pi, Yann Martel. Mariner Books. 2003. 326 pages (in the linked edition, mine was 401 pages).

My last long run was completely in the rain. It was wonderful! I left my MP3 player at home since I did not want to get it more wet that it normally does from my sweat. That allowed me more time to think and pray than I normally do. The rain was not a complete downpour, rather a consistent steady rain all day. I explored new territory and enjoyed the fact that it was a wet Saturday morning which kept some of the cars off the roads. The only thing I regret is not using my BodyGlide on the prone-to-chaffing areas (i.e., nipples). Will I ever learn?

Other than that long run, which was almost 7 miles, I have run 3 days a week keeping the runs between 2.5 and 4 miles.

Biking
I have put several miles on my new tires, though most have been from commuting rather than for exercise. I did, however, have a really nice 30 Km (almost 20 miles) ride last Saturday. The trip out was into a slight wind. The road I was on did not have any turns and very few lights. I did not have to stop any going out and only 3 times coming back. Because I was coming back with the wind in my favor I ended up riding a negative split of about 3 minutes.

While I have narrower tires on the bike now than when I got it–but it is still not a speed demon. I rode an average of 14.5 MPH. The bike would not go into the highest gear because of poor adjustment on the dérailleur. I have since remedied that and should be ready for the next fast ride.

My interest in taking a multi-day tour on my bike has been heightened and I am planning something for when the weather turns consistently favorable again in the spring. That is what I get for trolling around some bicycling blogs.

I read Freakonomics a couple of years ago and was eager to get my hands on the new book, SuperFreakonomics. I managed to snag a copy at a Walden Books (RIP) that was closing in Chicago a few months ago. This book was a touch edgier than the first one, which was a bit out of my comfort zone to begin with. The first book spent quite a bit of time talking about drug dealers while this one gave the inside scoop on prostitution.

The subtitle of the book is: Global cooling, patriotic prostitutes, and why suicide bombers should buy life insurance. With a subtitle like that you can imagine my heart skipped a beat when I got stopped by airport security to have my bag full of books inspected one by one. Fortunately the “SUICIDE BOMBERS” phrase did not catch their attention.

The premise of the book is to show how that not every conclusion is as simple as seeing a few facts and making assumptions. The first book was subtitled A rogue economist explores the hidden side of everything and gives you an idea that the purpose of these books is not really to solve any specific problem, but to let you know that sometimes there is much more to an issue than what you might first conclude. Some of the topics discussed in the book I imagine are, or will be, subjects of much discussion since the authors contradict conventional wisdom and popular myths in several areas. One of the controversial topics I hoped would be in the book was the subject of a TED Talk that one of the authors, Steven Levitt, gave a couple of years ago. He shows the power of scare tactics and powerful lobbyists. In that talk Levitt goes against what we “know is true” about the effectiveness of car seats compared to seat belts.

I enjoyed the book, but I have to say it is not for sensitive eyes. I had to make sure no one was reading over my shoulders at different points in the book. It is quite graphic in some areas. I don’t know if I can say it is a must read, but I did like many of his conclusions.

SuperFreakonomics, Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner. William Morrow Publishing. 288 pages. 2009.

Wanna Trade?
I am offering this book to anyone who wants to send me a good book. This is an experiment to see how long it takes to send a book from Argentina to wherever you are and vice versa. Leave a comment with what you have to offer in trade.