Tag Archives: series

Song of Songs

Of all the heavy debates on Catholic Liturgy that seem to cause a threatening snarl and an intimidating stripe of raised hair down the backs of even the most gentle child of God, that on appropriate music is the only one which actually causes yours truly to bite. I am no theologian, nor expert on Church documents. I am, however, a musician and a Catholic. As such, I care enough about this debate to investigate suggestions I find contrary to what I have been taught or have come to believe on my own.

This article from an Australian Catholic newspaper made a few such suggestions that rubbed me the wrong way. Fortunately, the author’s arguments are made based on segments of the General Instruction of the Roman Missal (GIRM), which is easily accessible from the USCCB website. Upon reading the document, I found (as I hope you, the astute reader will, too) much of the article’s conclusions to be taken out of context.

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2007 Just a Short Run Half Marathon

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On March 31, I ran the 7th annual Just a Short Run in North Park. My goals weren’t lofty since I’m more interested in my performance at this year’s Ikea half marathon. I wanted to run at faster than a 10:00 pace and finish without walking at all. I’m pleased to say that I achieved both goals. 🙂 I finished in 2:07:53 (9:45 pace), 429/636 overall and 41/46 males 25-29.

Not all went well, though. At about mile 11, which is where I started walking for a while at the Ikea, I hit a wall. It was all I could do to put one foot in front of the other. I dropped from the 9:30-ish pace I’d been running to close to 11:00. I felt there was a possibly I’d pass out – a rather unpleasant feeling. I didn’t start walking, though. In fact, I still managed to tap into reserves to sprint the last 100 meters or so. I was really beat at the end, but within a few minutes felt pretty good, perhaps due to endorphins kicking in. By about an hour after the race, though my feet were killing me. They really hurt like hell, forcing me to walk like a feeble old man. Walking was quite painful for a few days, but thankfully the pain went away. I suspect I had developed peroneal tendonitis as a result of switching insoles.

My goal for this year’s Ikea is to finish with an average pace of 9:30 and not bonk. I paced myself this time using my heart monitor. I maintained an average heart rate of 90% (85% by the Karvonen formula), and until mile 11 that seemed to work out quite well. I’m hoping that with good training my heart rate will drop and my overall fitness will improve sufficiently to make that heart rate correspond to a faster pace.

P.S. I used my iPod. What are you going to do about it? 😛

2007 University of Pittsburgh Campus Classic 5K

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On March 24, I ran my first race of 2007, the University of Pittsburgh Campus Classic 5K (the proceeds of which will benefit research at the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute). My time of 26:10 (8:25 pace) was about as good as I could expect for my first race in four months. I placed 80/185 and 2/8 among 25-29 males.

The race was supposed to take place on the streets of Oakland, but protesters beat us to the permit. Consequently, the race was moved to Schenley Park. I suspect the race organizers were unfamiliar with the course they set up (based on previous races in the park). My suspicions were first raised when I didn’t see a marker for mile 1 until I’d been running more than 10 minutes. Afterwards, a friend of mine said that the course felt long to her. These observations were enough to prod me unto plotting the course on Gmaps Pedometer. GP usually underestimates distances because it does not account for changes in altitude, so I was rather surprised to see that my trace of the course was 3.25 miles long (instead of the proper 3.1 miles). If I’m right about the course being long, my actual 5K time would be just under 25 minutes, a personal best. 🙂

P.S. I used my iPod. What are you going to do about it? 😛

Investigating NFP: How Effective is It?

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You know what they call people who use Catholic-Church-Approved methods of birth control?

“Parents”

– comment on a Championable post

Boy, I’d love to have a dollar for every time I’ve heard that. Studies have been done before that have shown the periodic abstinence aspect of NFP to be as effective or more effective than artificial means of birth control. However, those studies weren’t widely accepted because they were regarded as Church propaganda. It seems that secular science has finally come to the Church’s defense, though.

Natural family planning as good as pill, study finds

The Catholic-backed sympto-thermal method of natural family planning has been found by a German study to be as effective in preventing pregnancies as the contraceptive pill, with researchers also surprised to find a low rate of unintended pregnancies among women who had unprotected sex during their fertile period.

The study was published on 21 February in an online report in the European reproductive medicine journal named “Human Reproduction Today” by researchers from the University of Heidelberg, Earthtimes reports.

2006 HealthAmerica XC Challenge

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I’m sure my significantly reduced posting frequency has already made it obvious that I’ve been rather busy lately. I’m in the midst of wrapping up my masters project. Soon after that’s finished, I’ll be preparing for comprehensive exams. If anyone – current and wannabe guest bloggers alike – would like to help with filling in the dead air, I’d certainly appreciate it. Anyhow, here’s my very late summary of the 2006 HealthAmerica XC Challenge in Frick park on Novermber 11.