Working out again

Posted by Mark Chapman on July 18th, 2010 at 1:29 am

Herb “Padre” Agee

By Herb “Padre” Agee

Engle­wood United Methodist Church

I started work­ing out again. I’ve done that some­thing like once or twice a year for the past 40 years. It goes back to the arti­cle on not hav­ing devel­oped my gifts and tal­ents. Work­ing out and exer­cis­ing takes dis­ci­pline and con­sis­tency. These are two attrib­utes that have been pretty for­eign to me.

I used to be a run­ner. While in sem­i­nary in Kansas City, Mo., I took a Youth Min­istry class one sum­mer that focused on activ­i­ties rather than any kind of the­ol­ogy or the­ory. I took it because I thought it would be an easy credit.

Not!

We actu­ally had to learn to use a com­pass and map for camp­ing and hik­ing. This was way before the hand­held GPS. A part of our final exam was to take our map and com­pass and some detailed instruc­tions, go to this huge city park and go on a trea­sure hunt to show our pro­fi­ciency with the equip­ment. I think I was lost for only three days.

One of the other require­ments was to choose an aer­o­bic exer­cise pro­gram to do for the entire semes­ter. My friend and neigh­bor, Jim Spear, and I chose to run. This was sem­i­nary, so it was the honor sys­tem and, well, we really couldn’t lie about it. So we ran.

We would get up early every morn­ing and run to the entrance of Swope Park and back to our duplexes, which was about a mile, round trip. After the class was over, Jim gave up on me, but I con­tin­ued to run. I got to where I would usu­ally run about three miles every morn­ing; this involved run­ning through part of the park, which was kind of scary on the morn­ings when it was still dark. I would take my run and then come home and turn on the news to see how many bod­ies they found in the park that morn­ing. We didn’t live in what you would call “the best part of town.”

Swope Park had once been a very beau­ti­ful part of town, and the Starlight The­ater was still in the park. Dur­ing sum­mer they had Broadway-type shows in the evening in an open-air the­ater. They were won­der­ful and still drew a crowd even though many of the patrons were afraid to drive into that area. It’s the story of many cities.

Any­way, I worked my way up to 10 miles. I always wanted to run a marathon, but I guess that ship has sailed.

While I was in Kansas City, I ran through sum­mer and win­ter. I’ve run in 100-degree weather and when it was close to zero. I only wore a mus­tache back then, but came in a num­ber of times with it full of ice. I “endeav­ored to per­se­vere” (for those of you who are fans of “The Out­law Josie Wales”).

When I moved to Stu­art, Fla., to pas­tor my first church in Novem­ber 1978, I stopped run­ning. I never really under­stood why. The win­ter weather in Stu­art was per­fect for run­ning, and I had plenty of time and lived in a great neigh­bor­hood for it, but I just stopped. A cou­ple of years later, I started back, but had lost my sta­mina and it took a long time to get it back. I also started work­ing out with weights again while I was in Stuart.

I started and stopped run­ning again sev­eral times dur­ing the nine years I lived in Lake­land.  I lived a cou­ple of blocks away from Florida South­ern Col­lege, which was right on Lake Hollingsworth. It was a great three-mile run around that lake.

Once, a cou­ple from Kansas City vis­ited us in Lake­land. They were in their 50’s at the time and Norma Jean had started run­ning. So we took off together one morn­ing. I was in my early 30’s, but had trou­ble keep­ing up with her. That started me back again. Then I quit. See a pat­tern here?

In Rock­ledge, I started run­ning again. I ran a lot dur­ing some very stress­ful times there. By the way, exer­cise is a very good way to deal with stress or depres­sion. I’ve never had to use it for depres­sion. Yet.

In Rock­ledge, Dr. Richard New­man told me to quit run­ning because of a her­ni­ated disk in my neck. The pain was so bad that I actu­ally lis­tened to him. Drugs and phys­i­cal ther­apy kept me from surgery, but my run­ning days were over. Maybe I can do a wheel­chair marathon some day. I want one of those motor­ized chairs.

Any­way, I started work­ing out again. But today, I was work­ing in the yard and real­ized that if I came home from work and spent an hour doing that every day, it would not only be exer­cise, but would actu­ally get some­thing done at the same time. Why use a Soloflex and Air­Dyne when I can use a pickax and shovel, wheel­bar­row, hoe, etc?

We’ll see how long this lasts.

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