Enough about Me; What Do You Want to Know about Me?

I am old.  How old am I?

I used to take pride in drinking everyone under the table.  Now I take pride in the fact that my dental hygenist told me, "I love when my patients take care of their teeth."

This is EXACTLY how I look with clean, sparkly teeth.  Hey!  My teeth are UP HERE!

I have an aol.com email.

You've got mail!

I use Facebook.

Don't you DARE try to guess my age group.

If you are one of my students, just the fact that Facebook is my main form of social media tells you that I am old.  Yes, I did all of those "Ten Personal Questions about High School" and "Three Things Nobody Knows about You" posts.

We live in an age of narcissism, and that is why I am going to contribute to my belief that you want to know all about me by answering some questions from the "Liebster Awards," sent by my blogging peep, Brian at Strides.  Check out Brian's blog; he has some great pictures of his hometown, London (Ontario), where all the streets and monuments have awesome Shakespearean names.  I'm a sucker for Shakespeare.

I am supposed to tag ten running bloggers to do this, but I am ashamed, so I will not do that.  What I will do is give you two more links to running bloggers I regularly read:

Check out David at Daddy Runs Fast.  He wrote a play about running called And Then You Die (How I Ran a Marathon in 26.2 Years), and he regularly posts different running playlists, which I love to comment on.

Also take a look at Caroline at I Heart Running.  She aspires to run a marathon in all fifty states and she is currently posting her progress in her new journey in veganism.

Ok, here are the questions Brian gave me, and here are my responses:

1. Tim's or Starbucks?  Haha!  This is a Canadian thing, right?  Starbucks, of course.  This week is Frappucino Happy Hour Week.  I can't believe I haven't bought ONE half-price Frappucino ALL WEEK.

2. What's your favourite distance, and why?  The longest race I've run is a 13.1, and that distance seems to be perfect for me.  It allows me to enjoy the race WHILE I'm running it, and it pushes me to set time-goals.  Someday I hope to try a marathon, but it will have to be when my kids are old enough to spend more time alone while I'm training.

3. How many hours a week do you blog?  I have two blogs, this and Blended Learning Implementation: A Living Journal of our Blended Learning Journey.  That's a horrible title for a blog, isn't it?  I assure you it is more interesting than it sounds.  In it I write about my successes and failures in being a guide rather than an expert for my students.  Anyway, this was not the question.  I spend about two hours a week on this blog, and I post every Sunday.  The other blog. . . I write when I feel it.  Then I usually spend about two hours per post.

4. How supportive of your running is your significant other?  I would say he is resigned to it rather than supportive.  He doesn't yell at me or pout (anymore) when I do my long runs or when I decide to run in the evening when he gets home from work.  He works around my running schedule within reason.  He jokingly calls me "The Kenyan."  I will say, however, that he has NEVER come to any running event I've done, even when I once asked him to come to my first half marathon.

5. Run in the rain? Or the treadmill instead?  Rain always.  I don't own a treadmill.

6. Does your job provide "training" benefits or incentives?  Nope.

7. Any notable difference between male bloggers and female ones? It just occurred to me I only nominated females....  Hmmm. . .I would say from my brief experience with following bloggers that male bloggers seem kinder than female bloggers.

8. Love numbers or hate numbers? (I hate 'em!)  The only numbers I care about are minutes per mile and overall time.

9. Consider your OWN celebrity crush. Go for drinks with them or go for a run with them?  I like to run, but I'm not crazy.  Drinking comes first.  I'm sure any celebrity I'd like to run with would crush me.

10. If you had to give up one or the other, would it be blogging or running?  I'd give up blogging, even though I love the creative outlet it has given me.  I hope to never give up running, as it keeps me from killing those I love.

Wow--that was a lot, wasn't it?  

IF you are so inclined (anyone), feel free  to answer these questions in the comments:

1.  Longest distance run without music?  Victory or completely normal?

2.  Worst pre-race meal consumed?  

3.  Worst post-race meal consumed?

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Walking on Sunshine

This morning I ran almost seven miles in Sand Run Metropark.  It was beautiful, hilly, and fast.

This morning I saw eight deer.

I'm not going to write about those experiences.

This morning I joined some of my students to participate in the Medina Walk out of the Darkness Suicide Awareness Event.  A large crowd showed up at 9 am on a chilly but sunny morning to walk 4.5 miles.  That crowd raised over nine thousand dollars.

Most of you know I am an English teacher at Medina High School.  This year I am teaching a Blended Learning Rhetoric and Composition class.  Blended Learning is a combination, or "blend," of face-to-face classroom instruction and online instruction.  Part of the philosophy that I embrace about Blended Learning is that it facilitates community involvement.  I want my students to strive to be good citizens of their school, their community, their state, their country, and their world.  If you'd like more information about Blended Learning, check out my shared blog on the Blended Learning Journey in our school.

I'm getting to our walk in the sun in a minute. If you can hang on, I'd like to show you part of our community project: a video to promote suicide awareness:




I can't watch that without getting a little teary-eyed.  Teen suicide has knocked the tar out of our community in the last year and a half, and my students decided they wanted to do something about it. Along with bringing community members together to film this video, they raised five hundred dollars and donated it to the Battered Women's Shelter of Medina.  This community walk was a way for us to think about those we lost and talk about ways we can contribute to the solution.

We walked for 4.5 miles through streets, parks, and neighborhoods, and we talked.  I try not to lead my students, in class and out, because I want them to learn to lead themselves and others.  I try to listen rather than talk.  This was a perfect opportunity for me to listen.  The students talked and laughed about Prom.  They poked fun at each other and at me.  Then, as often happens on walks or runs, they got serious.  One student told me why she was glad that she took my course.  She told me what she learned and how it made her feel.  Another told me that she felt that our class had bonded more than any of her other classes at the school.

Every one of those students told me that they were so glad to get up and walk together in the sunshine at nine in the morning.

It was perfect.

Bright smiles, glowing faces

Like what you read?  Follow me on Twitter @itibrout !