Category: Motivation

Resolutions and the New Year (A Sermon)

Published on by drpaulsemLeave a comment

On December 31, 2023, I was provided the wonderful opportunity to be the guest preacher at Grace United Methodist Church in Wyckoff, New Jersey.

Here is the sermon I delivered:

Today is the day when we close 2023 and look forward to 2024.  Today is when we reflect on our past year and look forward to a new one.

It’s on the last day of the year that we might celebrate the New Years’ Resolutions that we succeeded in maintaining and it is also when we set our sights to the new day that tomorrow brings as well as the new hopes for us to find ways to be our better selves.

I set a goal for 2023 that I completed just a few days ago.  I was able to keep my New Years’ resolution.  That’s always a good feeling. 

Continue reading “Resolutions and the New Year (A Sermon)” →

That’s A Wrap!

Published on by drpaulsemLeave a comment

With an easy three-miler today, I reached 100 miles run in December. That concluded my second consecutive year of running 100 or more miles every single month. I’m happy with that.

Continue reading “That’s A Wrap!” →

Bid Me Run…

Published on by drpaulsemLeave a comment

“Bid me run, and I will strive with things impossible.” William Shakespeare, Julius Caesar

***

I wrote what I believe is an amazing and wonderfully motivating book. It’s titled 365.2 and it chronicles the time (in 2022) when I ran every single day – for an entire year.

Continue reading “Bid Me Run…” →

Bringing God Into Our Running Lives

Published on by drpaulsemLeave a comment

The following is the sermon I delivered at the start of the 2023 New York City Marathon.

***

One of my favorite passages in the Bible comes from Hebrews.  Most runners are familiar with the passage as it reads:

“Let us run with perseverance, the race set before us.”

That, of course, is what we are here to do today.  We are here to run, with purpose, and strength, using all our abilities and courage and confidence, that race, a big and mighty race, set before us.  

Continue reading “Bringing God Into Our Running Lives” →

Reaching, Failing, Reaching Again

Published on by drpaulsem1 Comment

I am a marathoner.

In less then three weeks, I’ll be running the New York City Marathon. This will be my 25th lifetime Marathon and my 10th New York.

I have always said that I will run forever.

Nothing has ever stopped me before. A torn Achilles? Nope. Stress factures? Nope. Other aches and pains and the like? Nope.

I just kept moving forward. (I did have surgery to repair the Achilles, but got right back at it afterword.)

Nothing ever stopped me… except… me.

Nothing ever stopped me, until I did. Or, better said, until I almost did.

Continue reading “Reaching, Failing, Reaching Again” →

A Magazine Feature On… Me!

Published on by drpaulsemLeave a comment

A New Jersey magazine, Autumn Years, featured a nice article on me for their Fall 2023 issue.

You can read that article on-line here or click the link below.

https://digitaledition.pub/wc/autumn-years/autumn-years/fall-2023/

The article begins on page 44.

ENJOY!

Making Work Into Fun

Published on by drpaulsemLeave a comment

Sometimes training for a marathon can be a drag. It’s challenging and often difficult to begin one’s day knowing that a long run is coming – an hour (often more) of strenuous exercise, out there on the streets alone, often hurting, sometimes painfully so. Marathon training is certainly not fun.

And yet, we go on day-after-day, year-after-year preparing for race-after-race, thinking, hoping , wondering, even decades removed from one’s prime, if this race, the next race, will be the best one ever. (“I wonder if I can set a P.R.?”)

Continue reading “Making Work Into Fun” →

And So It Begins…

Published on by drpaulsemLeave a comment

So much of life is a process. We work diligently to accomplish tasks, and once accomplish them, we set our minds to new tasks.

Ever forward. Never stopping. There is always a new challenge facing us – a new goal, something different that we need to achieve.

And achieve we must.

Continue reading “And So It Begins…” →

Run Wyckoff!

Published on by drpaulsemLeave a comment

A year ago, as I was running every single day for an entire calendar year, I thought it might be fun to also run every street in the town where I live – Wyckoff, New Jersey.

The only problem was I didn’t have an efficient or easy way to keep track of every single street and I figured this was something I would probably never do.

Continue reading “Run Wyckoff!” →

Too Far?

Published on by drpaulsem4 Comments

One of my favorite quotes comes from T.S. Eliot. It reads, “Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go.”

Continue reading “Too Far?” →