After a lengthy hiatus... a DVD is born

It's hard for me to believe that I've let 2 months go by without posting, but it has been a very busy summer since my daughter's graduation and my son's end to his freshman year. Both kids have been on a week long mission trip with our church where they helped to repair homes and build wheelchair ramps for people in need, and as soon as they returned from that, they both left with 30 other high school youth and adult leaders for an 11 day trip up to Wyoming and back. Normally, my wife and/or I would have gone on these trips, but being self-employed entrepreneurs with some large contracts coming in for one of our businesses has kept us tied down at that. My daughter has gotten a job as a Day Camp Counselor at the local YMCA for young children, which is a perfect position for her since her goal is to get her teaching degree. My son has started swimming regularly with me and wants to attempt a short distance triathlon some time in the fall. I am very blessed to have such great kids!

As for Faithful Soles, I have been hard at work on the production of a DVD entitled "From Start to Finish and Then Some", which has a release date of September 4, 2007, and is now available to pre-order on the main Faithful Soles web site. I have been giving motivational speeches to running clubs for many years now, as well as various speeches on training and racing tips, have written and been interviewed for articles in newspapers and magazines, and have made television appearances on running topics. After constantly being told, "You should have this information available for people to watch... I would love to be able to hear you tell that story again... I have a relative or friend who just started running or is training for a particular race and wish they could have heard that topic...", and so forth, I finally decided to do something about it. It took quite a while to decide the outline (major topics, sub-topics, etc.), format and storyboard. Once the outline was finished, I interviewed walkers and runners (male, female, all different age groups) at a beginner and intermediate level to ask them what they were most interested in knowing about, and found out that my outline had literally touched on every single topic they came up with. I also interviewed a number of advanced and elite runners who told me that although they knew the information in the DVD from experience, they still found it to contain great refresher topics and even some things they had not thought of before. I also asked various people who had heard me speak over the years if they had a favorite inspirational or humorous story that I told, and I got an overwhelming response to at least a half-dozen of them, which are all going to be on the DVD. Finally, once the DVD is released, I am planning to begin a speaking tour in major cities to running clubs and race events. My life-long dream has always been to do this as my full-time work because I am so passionate about it, and I am excited that I have the opportunity to go for it.

As for my training, I have been running about 30-40 miles a week, and swimming about 5-8 miles a week. I finally broke 30:00 for a mile in the swim (29:34 to be exact), and am comfortably swimming 2 miles without stopping at least once a week in about 1:03:00 - 1:05:00. Due to a big project that has come in for one of my businesses that will last several months, I made the decision to postpone an Ironman attempt until late 2008 or early 2009 simply because I know that I will not have the time it takes to devote to the training. I still plan to do at least 2-3 marathons and some shorter distance triathlons in the next year just to keep myself focused and maintain a solid base once I am ready to go full throttle on the Ironman training.

Thanks to all of you who continue to visit the main Faithful Soles web site. I hope that I can continue to inspire you as much as you do me.