I’ve exercised on and off for a while now. When I was a child I hated sport, because the only sport offered to me was the terminally boring soccer, which turned my school friends into angry shadows of their normal selves. I mean seriously, it’s just a ball! I didn’t really take up regular physical exercise until I was in my 20s when I started training in Shotokan karate. The karate was great fun and the exercise did improve my mood. Also, it was good to be good at a sport for once, I’d never one a trophy before in my life. I got injured and took some time off and when I got back the lack of full-contact training  seemed to bother me more than it did before and after two years of successful training I gave up.  I still have a soft spot for martial arts and would jump at the chance to give judo but it’s a bit expensive for me right now.

The other form of exercise I’ve enjoyed for a while now is running, but I lack focus when I’m not training for a specific race.  So last Christmas, while carrying a food-baby in my stomach after Christmas dinner, I decided to sign up for the Dublin City Marathon.  It seems like a big step I know, but I’m not aiming for any particular time, I just want to finish it. The training will be the hard part – sticking to a schedule whether I feel like it or not.

I’ve been quite bothered lately at how easily I give in to my moods. I haven’t fasted in ages, I eat what I like when I like, exercise if I feel like it, sleep if I feel like it. My will has atrophied. So I hope to regain some discipline through training for the marathon, improve my moods (I’m not depressed or anything but there’s always room for improvement), and achieve something that most people will never even try. This is supposed to be one of those big life experiences.

I bought a book to help me train and one of the things it suggested was signing up for the marathon and telling people that I’m going to run it. So, I’ve signed up and now you know. I’m looking forward to catching the running bug and seeing what so much regular exercise does to the rest of my life.

It’s almost been one year since I started my work in Greystones. It looks like I’ll be sticking around here for another couple of years. There’s work to be done! I thought I’d write you a short email [this was originally sent as an email to my supporters - John] to let you know what’s happening and because Monty (Rev. David Montgomery, my boss at Greystones Presbyterian Church) suggested that he write an email for me to send out to help me raise some much needed funds for next year.

At the moment I am preparing for TeenStreet, the international youth conference in Germany. Sarah, myself and eight teenagers fly out to Germany on the 31st of July. We’ll be there along with teens and leaders from many other countries for one week of worship, teaching, fun and fellowship. I need a lot of prayer for this! The Living Stones youth ministry hasn’t even been going a year yet so this is kind of a big deal for us. Please pray that the trip will go well and there will be no complications with travel. Please pray that the leaders and the teens will both be enriched an grow in their faith through this experience.

The other big thing at the moment is fundraising for next year. I’ll be staying on at GPC in the role of Ministry Apprentice. Parts of this will be exactly the same as my current position but it will involve more pastoral and leadership roles. In order to stay on and continue to help GPC I need to raise funds for next year. Financially speaking I’ve had a pretty tight year this year and there were times when I had simply run out of money. God has provided for me all year, giving me kind friends to support financially, in prayer and in making sure I had something to eat. To scrape by next year I’ll need at least €3,000. Please do consider supporting me whether through prayer or financially. Monty will have more details in the letter which follows.

I want to thank everyone who has supported me this year, it has been tough at times but your encouragement and support and God’s provision has seen me through so far. So thanks to God and thank you my friends.

I’ll let Monty take over with his letter now.

Love,
John.

Monty’s Letter
Friends of John O’Donnell

I have suggested to John, that I write to a number of his friends to keep them in touch with what is happening, inform them about the impact John is having in our fellowship here and give them the opportunity, if they wish, to make a small donation towards his next couple of years in ministry.

John has been with us for almost a year and in that time has formed a small but very successful youth group Living Stones which is having a great impact on the lives of a number of our young people, especially the boys. In a few days he is taking a group to Germany to be part of Teen Street. In addition he has got our website up and running, co-ordinated our audio-visuals, designed our publicity for the year, which has been of a super quality, produced our magazine, started a library/bookstall, led Bible studies, contributed to a Christianity Explored group, and preached to a very high standard on a number of occasions. You can listen to some of his sermons on www.greystonespc.org.

We are delighted to have had him working with us at such an early and formative time in our ministry here in Greystones. As we all consider options for the future we wanted both to maintain the partnership in ministry which had begun this year and also to develop it slightly, giving John some experience in other areas of ministry and therefore prepare him for any further training he may wish to do in the future. With that in mind we are offering him an apprenticeship under the Ministry Training Scheme which will run for at least one, or possibly two years. He will continue to be part of an expanding team here at Greystones and hopefully develop his own gifts and be stretched in new ways.

At Greystones we will continue to provide him with accommodation and a level of ‘volunteer expenses’, but as we are a small church, and as John does not have a large ‘home church’ to which he can turn for support, he is having largely to raise the supplemental funding for this himself. Already he has run two races of 5k and 5 miles to raise sponsorship for this. Being a shy sort he doesn’t find it easy to ask folks for help- but as his boss who has benefitted greatly from his contribution over the past year, I have no such qualms!

If you would like to help him in any way you can send a cheque made payable to Greystones Presbyterian to the address below [Monty's address omitted from blog version of this letter - John] and we will be sure to let John know of your support. This can be tax-deductable if you supply us with the relevant information. Alternatively you can give John your support directly, although the former is certainly more tax-efficient.

Above all, and regardless of whether you can support him or not at this time, do pray for him and us as we seek to be faithful to God and work for him in this community at this time

Thank you for your ongoing prayers and interest

David Montgomery.

So I’m back in training. I tried to run about two weeks ago only to find I could only manage about 3K and had to stop for a breather just after the first K. It was disappointing but also somewhat expected because that’s how I was when I started running last year.

On Monday, however, something weird happened. I saw a video about how landing on the fore-foot was a more natural and efficient way to run. I had heard this previously but thought it was rubbish, imagining someone prancing about, toes pointed, like a ballerina. Then the video said to try running barefoot, and lo and behold, I just naturally landed on the ball of my foot, not on my heels.

I decided I’d try this new form out and when I did I was pretty surprised. It got pretty tough towards the end and my form did get a bit sloppy, but I went from running just over 1K before having to stop to running over 5K (just like I was running last year before I stopped running). Not only that but I beat my record time for running the mile; that’s a faster mile than I’d run before, including last year.

Now for the bad news, my calves were killing me for days and they’re still not fully recovered. I think I know where I went wrong though. I was keeping my heel off the ground when it has to touch the ground for a moment, I think I was also running too much on my toes. I ran again today, trying to correct those mistakes but my calves were still too tired so it was back to the old disappointing run. I am determined to get this right though and I have been doing further research (as you would if you saw such a drastic improvement in your running).

I’ve watched some other videos of long distance runners and noticed how they ran. Their knees weren’t pumping up and down but were swinging in an arch and their feet landed underneath their body and swung to the back instead of landing in front. I did some more research, reading up about ChiRunning, the Pose Method and the running form of the Tarahumara Indians of Mexico, famed for being the greatest long-distance runners in the world – running for 24 hours straight, or for 50 or 100 miles straight. Although there were some minor differences they all seemed to agree on some points: short strides, landing on the fore-foot instead of the heel (although some people say “mid-foot” I think what they mean is on the ball of the foot but not on the toes, since the middle of the foot is the arch and it’s impossible, or at least very awkward, to land on that), leaning forward and letting gravity pull you along rather than pushing with your muscles.

I’m going to keep trying with this and let you know how I get on. My first race is a 5K on the 5th of July at the Family Fitness Festival at Farmleigh in Phoenix Park. The next race is the Irish Runner 5-Miler (8K) on the 18th of July, also In Phoenix Park.

I’ve been wondering why it is that crowds freak me out so much. I can’t blame it all on me being introverted, all that really means is that I need to recharge by being alone every so often. I think it’s that crowds are often people who don’t know me well so I feel a pressure to construct a good image of myself for them – I’m afraid that I might come across as less than perfect and only human. I end up coming off as aloof and cold. Some people that I love very much started out thinking that I didn’t like them at all because of the way I acted when we first met, just because I was trying desperately not to make any mistakes and didn’t know how to act.

For the friends that can still remember the first time we met just please think back to how I was – very quiet, not wanting to intrude in any way. Everything about me said “don’t mind me, you won’t even know I’m here” (even when you invited me as a guest).  If we ate or drank together in that first meeting think back to what I had – something bland and tidy, nothing too complicated, nothing I could make a mess of. Do you remember the plain chicken sandwiches, the bottles of water? Yeah, I was trying to be careful, to not make a mess.

Introversion is not a sin, but living as though I am neither loved by God or by my brothers and sisters in this wonderful family is and I repent of that. I will dare to risk making an ass out of myself in loving other people and enjoying them and in loving God and enjoying Him.

I’m keeping the running up while I’m here. One of the mentors here has a couple of marathons under his belt and we went for a run on Monday. It felt like about 3 miles but I’m not sure because I didn’t take my Nike + stuff since I felt that would be a bit anti-social for my first run with company. Part of the run was on the beach here at Greystones and that was really hard, the sand is so soft and running over it was pretty hard on my legs. I’ve decided to abandon numbering my running days while I’m here at Greystones because I won’t be blogging that often and it could get very un-natural trying to refer to Day X and Day Y.

I head off the Greystones for Encounter on Sunday. I’m really looking forward to it but I am nervous about leading this year, I was expecting that though, so it’s ok. Lots of packing to do.

No running today. I’m thinking of either focusing on weights or stretching. It’s funny, considering how much more flexible I used to be when I did karate, you’d think I’d do a lot of stretching before each run but I’ve only been doing the minimum amount. I think I’d benefit from spending more time stretching before each run as well as having maybe a day or two each week for stretching.

Cross-training is still something I have to experiment with, I’m thinking of focusing either on weights or cycling. I guess it will wait for tomorrow.

Still no news back on my SWIM interview. Sigh.

I suppose it’s good to have days off between runs anyway.

Today I ran the usual 5K (and a bit) and finished around the same time. By the time I had finished fumbling with the stopwatch on my iPod it said 35:16. I did have to jog on the spot for a bit to wait for a car to pass. Looking back to laugh and make a rude gesture at a dog that was chasing me may have slowed me down too.

Still no news back on the SWIM interview.

I won’t be able to run tomorrow because I have to go to Dublin again for an Encounter training day (I’m a team leader this year).

I haven’t heard back about my SWIM interview yet, the waiting is maaadening!

I think my interview at the Board of Youth and Children’s Ministry went well. They said they’d let me know if I’ve been approved for the SWIM programme as soon as possible. I hate the waiting, but that’s all I can do right now.

Ah, the waiting game sucks. Let’s play Hungry Hungry Hippos!