It’s Thursday, July 10, and over two months since I started an experiment in blogging. One main blog with three other blogs that focus on the three elements that make up me and, by extension, make up us all: body, mind and soul. I won’t list them all here but will refer you to the sidebars, or any of the “about me” sections on my blogs. I also have added a fourth blog for subjects that don’t fit as neatly in the paradigm.

The idea was not only to shed light on my own journey, but also on the journey we all take through life as we attempt to become finished people even though we all are unfinished and in need of the grace of God, whatever you conceive Him (and I might add to the distress of some of my readers, Her) to be, as Max Ehrmann once wrote. I hoped to do that through my blogs on running (the body), reading (the mind) and periodical devotions (the soul). So how have I done? By the numbers, this will be my 92nd post for my main blog since February; 100th, my reading blog, since April and my 98th, my devotional blog, since December of last year. (The readership numbers, I’ll leave for another time, but my reading blog is leading by far, with over 1,300 views last month and already closing in on 700 for July, thanks to all the great folks in the book blogosphere.)

So what about my trail running blog? I’d like to say I’ve saved the best number for last, but alas, I haven’t. With the trail running blog (which is a spinoff of my first blog, also about running), I have a mere 31 posts since the end of April when I began my reading blog or nearly three times as little as the reading blog.

What does this say about me?

This is where I left this post earlier as I watched a 1965 Stanley Kramer movie Ship of Fools based on a Katherine Anne Porter book of the same name and now after being properly depressed, but also enlightened that “they” just don’t make films like “they” used to, I return to the post.

If I was going to be negative about it, I’d say it’s showed how much I have failed in living up to my own goals. If I was going to be postive about it, I’d say it’s showed how with the help of others and God’s grace, I have been able to focus on two important parts of myself, in building up my spiritual man and mental man, so to speak. Also hopefully in the process, it has helped you build up your spiritual man and mental man — woman for you politically correct folks out there. However, if I was going to be realistic about it, I’d say it’s showed how I still am an unfinished person in an unfinished universe as the late Dr. George Sheehan wrote years ago, and God’s not finished with me yet.

As Ehrmann wrote:

But do not distress yourself with dark imaginings.
Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness.
Beyond a wholesome discipline,
Be gentle with yourself.
You are a child of the universe
No less than the trees and the stars;
You have a right to be here.
And whether or not it is clear to you,
No doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.

I woke up this morning
Got myself a run (in).

– my own version of Woke Up This Morning by Alabama 3

When I looked out the window this morning, at first, I thought it was cloudy, but then realized it was fog covering the valley where we live, and now as I write the sun is out. I have a feeling today will be a hot and humid one, as already at about 7:30, the air was thick and clung to my shirt. Or I should say, my shirt clung to me and tighter than I thought it should.

Last week I put on a pair of shorts and the button popped off. As Bill Engvall would say, “Here’s your sign.” That, along with my shirt clinging to my chest like a pair of leather pants on a hooker, tells me I’m out of shape. The only way to break out of this is to keep doing my own variation of The Sopranos theme song every morning or at least every other morning.

In an effort to integrate all of my online personalities under my pseudonym, I have updated the “About” page here on this blog (see “…and is found online in other places” tab above) and on my other blog. Here is what is on that new page

My online persona is unfinishedperson and this is where else I can be found online:

For his main blog:
An unfinished person (in an unfinished universe)

For his first blog:
Just A (Running) Fool

For what he has read, is reading and plans to read:
Just A (Reading) Fool

For his struggles with his faith:
Journeying with St. Ignatius (and St. John of the Cross)

For his random thoughts:
Unfinished Rambling(s)

For what he’s doing right now (this very second):
unfinishedperson’s recent Tweets

For a list of books he’s read and movies he’s watched this year:
unfinishedperson’s Listography

For what’s he reading on other people’s blogs:
unfinishedperson’s shared items on Google Reader

For books he owns:
unfinishedperson on LibraryThing

For books he has read, is reading or plans to read:
unfinishedperson on Shelfari

For photos he has taken:
unfinishedperson on Photobucket

For slideshows he has done:
unfinishedperson on Slide.com

If you consider yourself an trail running fool too and would like to be added to the blogroll, e-mail me with the title of your blog and url to unfinishedpers

I have three main writing journals: one for the body, one for the mind and one for the soul. I’ve been doing good about keeping up on the soul journal almost every day as I am reading through The Spiritual  Canticle by St. John of the Cross recently. I even occasionally write in the mind journal. However, I haven’t written in this one (body) since one entry in April and before that sporadically in March.

My idea was to keep track of my food each day for SparkPeople and also my exercise regimen. For the last few months, though, I’ve done neither. I’ve eaten, of course, but haven’t recorded it on paper or online or any way systematically. I’ve recorded mentally that I’ve been eating too many candy bards, too many burgers (no McDonald’s though, but maybe even worse a local restaurant that makes what I only can call “big-ass” burgers) and too many milkshakes (hey, this one won’t hurt, right? I tell myself).

As for an exercise regimen, I don’t have one. I’m lucky if I even can get outside sometimes, sad to say. The lack of sleep or at least getting to bed at a decent time hasn’t helped. Even as I wrote the draft for this, it was 2 in the morning. Promises of getting up earlier have fallen to the wayside as I play Scramble on Facebook.

There is no quick fix. I can’t go out and run five miles later today. Or resolve that I will post all my food at SparkPeople every day. But I can make a concentrated effort to record my food and exercise here each day.
Then at least once a week, go on SparkPeople to record it there as well each day.

Small steps. It’s how I’ve digressed from my good intentions. It’s how I need to get back to

where I need to be
to climb Mount Tom
to climb Bald Eagle Mountain
(I’m signed up for my second Bald Eagle Mountain
Megatransect, a 25-mile trail hike in October).

Small steps.

First, yesterday I did get up Mount Tom again for the second time this week despite not really wanting to do so and it being really humid out in the afternoon. However, since I hadn’t run in the morning and I wouldn’t be able to run last night with getting photos at a graduation. So while it wasn’t fun, I went ahead and did it.

Second, I’ve been tagged by Jeff at http://couchtotrails.blogspot.com/ who was first tagged by Anne at http://run-dmz.blogspot.com/ with the following meme.

The rules, copied from Jeff:
Visit 5 blogs and leave invitations to play, referring others back to your blog for more details. On your own blog, list the five questions and your own answers to them. Also, let the person who has tagged you know when you’re done.

Here are the questions and my responses:

1. How would you describe your running 10 years ago?
Non-existent: Ten years ago, I don’t even think I was running. After I graduated high school in 1987, I pretty much stopped running. I had run in cross country up until my senior year, but after I grew tired of coming in last all the time, I quit. Into college, I might have ran a few times, but mostly for a gym class my freshman year. Throughout college and then after college, I began a slide that would see me finally hit a top weight of about 290 pounds (5-foot-7) in late 2003. After Weight Watchers only got me so far, I took up running again and lost 100 pounds…where I’m still hovering after many ups and downs, including a bout with acid reflux and now just I guess what might be called lethargy.

2. What is your best and worst run/race experience?
Worst: Combination of any of the aforementioned cross country races in high school.
Best: Running a personal-best 28-something in the Breakaway 5K in Old Orchard Beach, Maine in August 2004. Super flat course, and in the rain, but felt probably in the best shape of my life then.

3. Why do you run?
In April, I posted this entry: Why I run, from a journal entry back in 2004.

4. What is the best or worst piece of advice you’ve been given about running?
From my cousin Walt, who has participated in several duathlons around the world: Go slow. Build up in small steps.Go slow. Build up in small steps. For example, if you are running 10
miles a week now, don’t try 20 the next. That’s an open invitation to
injury. An injury really slows down your training.

I’ve seen so many runners and wanna-be runners, the latter category of which I’m still a member, burn out with injuries because they’ve gone out too quickly. I belong to an online nutrition and fitness program called SparkPeople and I can’t count the number of people that I’ve read messages from who have tried to do too much in too short a time and then ended up injuring themselves…and then wondered what happened.

5. Tell us something surprising about yourself that not many people know.
I have nothing on Jeff, who is descended from the sister of a real-life 18th century pirate who sailed from Rhode Island to Florida and back…That said, the most surprising thing about myself that many people not know is that

I live in a van down by the river…

…with my wife.

Okay, not really, but for some reason, Chris Farley came to mind today. The full skit can be found here.

As for tagging five others, I’ll be honest, I don’t belong to any online running communities at this point and the only two bloggers with which I’m acquainted are Jeff, who sent me this, and he already tagged the other one I know: 6 AM Running. So now here’s back at you, Jeff.