A Night at Lifest

I took the afternoon off today so that we could go up to the opening night of Lifest.  Lifest is a Christian Music Festival that is celebrating it's 10th year this year.  This is our 5th year going.  Last year we camped for all 5 days but this year we are only going one day due to other family activities.  Even going for one day is still worth it.  The lineup tonight was pretty good.  The music for the night started out with the Robbie Seay Band.  I had only heard of some of their music previously but they were good live.  As is with many of the artists here, some of the best times of their shows is when they break out from their music and get everyone singing some common Worship music with them.  I always love that part of being at lifest.  Especially later in the evening when the mainstage is packed and  you get 10,000+ people singing together. The second artist tonight was Natalie Grant and she was good also.  Once she started playing, I recognized quite a bit of her music.  After Natalie was done they took a short break and then they had a couple of people speak about the teenager that died at lifest last year.  Her Pastor and Youth Pastor talked about her and how it was hard to bring the youth group back again this year but that she would have wanted it that way.  We never know when/where things will happen so we have to live life to it's fullest.  One of the things the Pastor said rang very true for me as well.  He said that he had done many funerals over the years, and that the funerals that were the hardest was the ones where there was not a lot of Jesus.  I understood immediately what he meant.  I sing at Funerals sometime and I do find that it is very hard when it is very apparent that the funeral is something that the Family is going through because they feel that it is something that has to be done.  A funeral is supposed to be a Celebration of a person's life and a chance to say goodbye and acknowledge that they have won.  As a Christian, dying merely fulfills our final hope that we are taken home to be with our Savior, Jesus Christ.  We grieve because we are still here and we do not have that person in our life anymore, but we will be with them again when we finally go home as well. The final artist of the night was the Newsboys and we have seen them many times but never get tired of their energy and message.  I am a little bummed that we could not camp this year but everything happens for a reason so I can live with it.

 

Catching Up

Things have been pretty crazy lately so I have not had time to walk as much as I would like to be at this point.  I have still trained a lot more than last year though and I am sure that I will be ready for 8/8.  I made it a point to finish work early today so I could get out and get some time walking.  I ended up doing just under 11 miles and it felt good.  I have gotten to the point that I really miss my walking.  A nice 5 mile walk is really relaxing.  The 10+ mile walks are not as relaxing but I still enjoy the time out.

 

Getting Closer

Well I haven't walked for the last week because I was on call and needed to stay close to the house.  I am glad that is over and I don't have to worry about that again until after the 3 Day is over.  I am getting back into the swing og things by walking a quick 5 miles this morning.  I plan to walk every day now at least some distance to make sure I am ready for 8/8/08 which is rapidly approaching.  Fundraising is going ok.  I am only $300 from my goal now so I think that will be ok too.  Thanks again for supporting me and checking out my progress.

 

Back to Training

Well the last couple of weeks have been very busy with work, life, and bad weather so I have not gotten any training in.  Now that we are under 60 days till the 3 Day starts in Chicago, I had to get back to my training.  I had some things I had to get done today but I still managed to find time to get out and do 12 miles this afternoon.  I could tell that I had not been walking recently because I felt this 12 miles a lot more than I had this distance a month ago.  But I did get the walk in and plan on doing another couple hours on Sunday.  This has been a big week for the 3 Day in Chicago.  They finally release travel information and it looks like the route is going to be much different this year.  We are starting at some place called Northbrook Court that is North of Chicago.  The closing ceremonies are going to be different this year as well.  After two years of having them at Montrose Harbor, the closing Ceremonies are going to be at Solider FIeld this year.

 

Pushing the Training

Well it seems that Summer is finally making an appearance in Wisconsin.  Today was a perfect day for walking.  I wanted to get out and do a nice long walk today since I have not been able to walk much during the week due to work schedules.  I needed to go over to fix my Dad's computer so I decided to walk over there and then ended up taking a different way back to get a little variety in the scenery and add a little distance to the walk.  I originally wanted to walk about 15 miles but ended doing about 17.5 miles.  I was a little sore at the end but am glad that I am pushing it earlier this year so that I will finish all 60 miles in August.

 

Mac or PC?

You may have noticed a couple weeks ago I posted that I was switching from my Windows based Laptop to a Macbook.  The switch did not last long but it was due more to my unfamiliarity with the Mac Hardware than it was the platform itself.  I used the Macbook for several days before I encountered a hardware problem.  The problem turned out to be a bad stick of RAM.  That can happen to any system but I wasn't really thrilled with the way the Mac indicated that it had a problem.  It just sat there and beeped at me and would not start instead of giving me some kind of helpful error message.  I ended up sending the Macbook back to Apple but I have been regretting that move since then because I really did like OSX better than Windows.  I may end up getting a newer Macbook in the near future if I can sell my Laptop first.  I found the Mac to be a pretty easy platform to get used to and OSX handled multi-tasking much better than I have ever experienced with Windows.

Longest Walk of the Season

Work has been very busy lately so I have not been getting out and walking during the week like really want to.  I decided to make up for that a little this weekend by taking advantage of a beautiful Saturday to start the Memorial Day weekend.  I left the house at 6:30 this morning to try a route that I had not walked before and ended up walking 11.8 miles.  I felt pretty good when I finished.  I do need to figure out what to do about my right foot though.  I started getting a blister on the ball of my foot even when I use body glide ahead of time.  I am planning another long walk for next Saturday.  Will also try to get a couple more 5 or 7 miles walks in during the week.

Walking out of Town

Well work was pretty busy this week so I did not get any walking in during the week other than Tuesday.  I was out of town for a wedding in Upper MI this weekend but managed to get about 5.5 miles in Saturday morning before getting ready.  The weather was a little cooler than Milwaukee has been lately but not that bad of a walk.  Will be trying to get back to a regular scheduled again next week.

Walking again at last

Well for the last week I have been on call for work and had to stick close to the house so I did not get any walking in.  That ended this morning so I took a long lunch and walked 4.5 miles.  Not as long as I would have liked but I was still limited for time today.  I hope to get about 7 or 8 in on Thursday.

Testing the New Shoes

Well my new Keens came this week and I was very anxious to give them a try.  I got a short walk on Thursday and they felt good but needed to test them more.  This morning I set our early to beat the forecast bad weather and test the shoes.  I ended up doing 10.1 Miles and my feet still felt pretty good at the end of the walk.  I had originally set out to do about 7 miles but since the rain was holding off I decided to push it and try for a little more.  The last 3 miles ended up being a little soggy since there was a light drizzle for that time.  Still I felt good at the end of the walk and am glad I pushed it.  I won't be able to get any long walks in next week since I am on call and I will be out of town for a wedding the week after so I wanted to get at least one 10 mile walk in early this year.  I hope to do 15 miles one of the days during the Memorial Day weekend.