Running Proficiency Chart

In my search to find a way to train while recovering from bursitis I came across portions of a book called 5 and 10k Training by Brian Clarke. In it, he gave some formulas for calculating running proficiency – which is a helpful scale when you have to train slow so your knees can recover, but hate training without some measurable results.

Anyway, I plugged them in to an excel spreadsheet – and if you promise not to laugh at the abysmally slow times (you try training at 135 bpm or less!), I’ll share that sheet here. I’m pretty sure the formulas won’t transfer, so I’ll put them below for you to recreate on your own if needed.

	Running Proficiency
Date	Distance	Min	Sec	HR	Time	Pace	Beats/Mile	Yds/Beat
26-Jul	2	25	43	132	25.71667	12.85833	1697.3	1.44777
28-Jul	2	27	18	134	27.3	13.65	1829.1	1.415505
29-Jul	1.8	23	25	132	23.41667	13.00926	1717.22222	1.442575
31-Jul	1.8	24	26	132	24.43333	13.57407	1791.77778	1.42416

 

Date – Self Explanatory

Distance – I’ve tried mapping my distances using map software, and then driven the route to check accuracy and they aren’t always the same – so… whatever you use, be consistent. I choose to use the car odometer.

Min – Minutes of the run.

Sec – Seconds f the Run

HR – most heart rate monitors will show you average heart rates at the end of your exercise. Just plug that number in here.

Time – Ok, pretty basic formula in excel. What you’re doing is taking your Min column *60 to get seconds and adding your seconds to it. Then you’re dividing the new total by 60. The formula looks like: =SUM(((C3*60)+(D3))/60)

Pace – Just dividing the your time by mileage to get pace. The formula looks like: =SUM(F3/B3)

Beats/Mile – An interesting bit of information, if nothing else. If you averaged x beats per minute, how many times did your heart have to beat to supply your muscles with enough oxygenated blood to cover one mile? You are taking your pace and multiplying it by your HR. The formula looks like: =PRODUCT(E3,G3)

Yds/Beat – This is the “Running Proficency” number you can use to measure progress. You’re going to convert your beats per mile to yards per beat by taking the number of yards per mile (1760) and dividing it by your beats per mile. The formula looks like: =SUM(1,760/H3)

The theory is that you should see progress as you get in shape. Hmmph – we’ll see. J

The physical journey…

I started one day one of the one hundred pushups challenge yesterday. So, rather than just go through a program (that and train for a 5k) I thought I’d actually lay out some tangible goals.

I have one of those highly inaccurate body fat scales (my brother-in-law is in the fitness industry and he’s not impressed…) but rather than make a strict “weight” goal, I’m going to make a body fat % goal.

A couple of weeks ago it read 21% body fat, which is just plain gross. I just pictured all of that fat in one big blob on the floor and threw up in my mouth a little. Last night it read 18%, which is obviously a good improvement – but I’d like to see it come down to a respectable 10-12% range.

I’ve been running, but a couple of years trained pretty hard for a half-marathon and developed bursitis in my knee. Every time I run hard, it flares up again, so I’ve found that I have to run slow to keep it under control, like in the 130-135 bpm range on my heart range monitor. That’s stinky slow, but I’d like to get my knee back in shape and be able to run the 5k in about 20 minutes. That’s still not really fast, but…

Then, I’m going to keep running through winter and look at a duathlon next year and possibly a marathon the year after that.

So here are the goals:

1. Body fat in the 10-12% range.
2. 20 minute 5k in race on September 6.
3. 100 pushups on September 10.
4. Duathlon in 2009, the Apple Duathlon in Sartell looks like the right distance.
5. Marathon in 2010.

Manipulation

As I finish reading the book I referenced yesterday (J. Robert Mulholland’s book, Shaped by the Word) I came across another interesting quote. He says that it’s important to come to the Bible “not seeking to master the text from the parameters of our own order of being; not seeking to control the text for the support, defense, and advancement of our own purposes; not seeking to manipulate the text for the fulfillment of our own agenda in our own lives and the lives of others.”

I think that’s one of the biggest dangers in Christianity – the danger of being manipulative with the Bible. As a pastor, I know that that exists as a constant danger – which is why I try to spend so much time examining the text to find out what it really says, not just what I want it to say. It’s also why I get so frustrated when people blatantly misuse the text to advance their own agendas – taking verses out of context or with no consideration for historical meaning.

The fact of the matter is, I could find verses to defend almost anything if I haphazardly attack the text. When it comes to the Bible, three of the greatest dangers are:

1. Believing that context doesn’t matter because the Holy Spirit uses the verses in new ways now. Are people serious? If we’re approaching the matter from a Biblical point of view, the Holy Spirit inspired the verses in the first place. The context is inspired, not the individual verses. Why do we think that we can switch the verses up to defend things that are indefensible in context. Prosperity gospel is huge in this. They cherry-pick verses about getting whatever we ask for or God giving us bread not stones without taking context into consideration. In John 14-16 Jesus says 4 times that if we ask it will be given to us. The qualifying factors in several of those are: asking in Jesus name (not just the words, the attitude), remaining in Jesus (abiding and producing fruit), loving one another (context of 15:16) and asking the Father so that our joy may be complete. What we need to understand is that all of John 14-16 was one continuous dialog. If we miss the context of the whole message, we risk manipulating the meaning.
2. Viewing the Bible as one holy source among many. According to a recent barna survey, 7% of Christians don’t consider the Bible to be holy literature. As scary as that is, 3% of born again Christians also said the book of Mormon was holy, 3% said the Koran was holy, and 1% said various other books were holy. If people continue to view other books as “holy,” the impact of Scripture in their lives will diminish – because the Bible is just one source…

   Worse, in my eyes, is the “current” phenomenon to elevate man’s words to the level of scripture. All a person has to do is tack the word “prophet” in front of their name and suddenly people are to view their words on equal par with scripture. I say this is a “current” phenomenon, but really it isn’t. The pope has done this for hundreds of years, Joseph Smith tried it, and sadly people fall for it. It’s no wonder that one of Martin Luther’s rallying cries was sola Scriptura.

3. Believing that every moral injunction is manipulation. The pendulum swings this way as well. People will say any “judgment” from scripture is a manipulation of the text and accuse Christians of “judging.” Some things the Bible says are pretty clear. If I get caught stealing, I’m in violation of God’s law – I can’t avoid that by accusing someone of manipulating the text – especially if I have to manipulate the text to find a justifiable reason to steal.

I believe that the only way we can escape the danger of manipulating the text is to come to it in a way that places the Word of God in its proper place. Our lives must submit to it, rather than us trying to force it to submit to our lives. This should mean that we learn to approach the text with a very formational view in mind, understanding that many of my views of life have been influenced by culture, upbringing, experience, church affiliation, parental guidance, friends, etc. We also capable of being further influenced – for good and bad by all those things – which endangers our approach to the text. Every book I read and every experience I go through could place a filter between my understanding and the Bible. When I read the Bible with those filters in place, there’s a danger of mistranslation. Honest approach to the scripture with a formational view means that I purposely try to remove those filters and let the Bible become the filter I approach family, culture, church experience, parents, friends, and other books with.

Well, I’m sermonizing now, not blogging – so off I go.

100 Pushup Challenge

Ok – my friend Mike blogged about the hundred pushup challenge and I decided I’d give it a shot. I did 45 for my initial test, which means lucky me, I get to do more pushups everyday to get to the point where I can do 100. Add this to me running to do a 5k with my loverly wife, and I’m going to be the poster child for middle-aged physical fitness.

When these events are over, I’ll have to find something else to train for. I’m really lousy at staying in shape just for the sake of staying in shape.

The Struggle with “Being”

I’ve come to the conclusion – or at least am coming to the conclusion – that many people want something from me, as a pastor, that is contrary to the process of spiritual formation in my life. That is, people’s evaluation of me, and at times my evaluation of myself, sets itself at odds with what needs to happen in my life for me to be truly growing spiritually.

It seems that everyone has a list of things for me to accomplish. Their evaluations of my performance as a pastor is very “doing” oriented. Did the sermon meet their expectations, did enough people get visited, did I log enough office hours – and the list goes on, but everything is very performance oriented. I understand the need for it – but wonder if that’s really the best way to measure a pastor’s effectiveness.

We’ve got a guy in our church who is a fabulous people person – but by his own admission he struggles to “pull the trigger” and get jobs done. I’m more of a task oriented person, and at times I have been guilty of pulling the trigger and shooting down anyone too slow to get out of the way. If you’re measuring effectiveness by task completion, I may be more effective than him. If you’re measuring effectiveness by people’s satisfaction, he may be more successful than me – but the bottom line is, neither a job getting done or people’s satisfaction is a good measure of effectiveness on a spiritual level.

An overemphasis on people being happy with you turns into idolatry, you’re serving people rather than God. An overemphasis on tasks turns into frivolity, measuring accomplishment based on some kind of personally generated checklist that may or may not reflect the reality of the desire of God. And therein lies the problem – or at least the crux of the problem.

Who am I becoming? Am I becoming the person God wants me to be – a process in which life always comes from dying, or am I becoming the person others want me to be or a person who is accomplishing tasks for personal satisfaction – a process in which I’m trying to derive life from living, or accomplishing.

M. Robert Mulholland Jr. wrote,

“We have so emphasized the Life dimension of the New Testament that we have avoided coming to grips with its death dimension. We have avoided the fact that in the gospel, Life comes out of death, not out of life. Trying to bring Life out of life attempts to escape the necessity of dying to the old parameters of our existence, the necessity of relinquishing the brokenness of our being, the necessity of letting go of those things that warp and misshape and distort who we are. The emphasis upon informational, functional, “doing” is our attempt to bring Life out of life. But formational, relational “being” enables God to lead us to that death from which Life emerges.

So how do you evaluate being? I don’t know if it can be outwardly evaluated, but I do know that trying to apply an outward format or structure to any person and asking them to live up to it produces death – because the motivation is wrong. Changes in being have to come from within. The apparent end result might be the same, but internally things are very different.

For example, a person can visit the sick because it’s a task they have to accomplish, or they can visit the sick because God has, through His word and the gentle but steady pressure of the Holy Spirit awakened a care and compassion in a person’s life for the sick. The result might be the same – the sick person gets visited, but the internal reaction can be as different as night and day.

I’m sick of “doing” pastoral work. I really have very little interest in pleasing people or checking things off some list of accomplishments. At times, both of those things appeal to me – sometimes more than I’d care to admit. I really don’t care to be in that position anymore, though. I’ve too often found that I’ve become a slave to the ministry, instead of actually ministering. I want to “be” a disciple, and I know that means some things must die within me.

I wonder if anyone else is interested in going on a journey of “becoming” or “being” with me. From time to time, if I can stay dedicated, I’d like to blog about the journey – and if other people do as well, it might help keep me motivated.