Race for Vocations: Accomplished!

"I have competed well; I have finished the race; I have kept the faith."
- II Timothy 4:7

Although the trip was only for a good 26 hours, I feel like so much was accomplished.  Friday night's Mass for Vocations at St. John the Evangelist Church in downtown Indy was awesome.  We had many priests and seminarians, religious sisters and one Franciscan Friar, lots of married folks and folks living out the vocation of sacred single life.  The big pasta dinner afterwards was delicious and there was a lot of beautiful sharing between the various vocations we were honoring!

And, this morning was the big race.  I was really worried that I might not be able to finish it because of soreness that I had been having in my left hip.  To add to that, it was very humid this morning and I really hadn't done any training in humid conditions.  So I didn't know what to expect from my body going into the race today.

Given last year's experience, I was able to get downtown and parked plenty early enough so that I could get to my starting corral (what are we, cattle?) and focus before the race began.  The start felt really good.  It took no time for the soreness in my hip to go away and I was running a great pace at the start (probably a little fast, but I didn't feel like I was pushing myself).  Even though I knew that it would slow me down, I didn't pass up any of the water/Gatorade stations.  I wanted to be sure that I didn't dehydrate before the end.  I was still going pretty strong when I entered the track, but that's when I started to fade.  It can get very crowded when going in and out of there and so it makes it difficult to keep a good pace, which can also be frustrating/discouraging.

Coming out of the track we wind through a couple of side streets which have the same effect and so by the time that I got out of all of that, I was a little frustrated and had completely lost my early stride.  By that point, I was also facing the sun, making it more difficult to focus.  In mile 10, I ran by a couple of people who went down and were receiving medical attention.  By mile 11, I had convinced myself that I just needed to let my legs rest a bit to be sure I could finish the race.  My pace at that point wasn't good enough to beat my two-hour goal, so I decided to be conservative and walk a little.  I did the same after crossing mile 12, but only so I could push for that last mile (I had passed four or five more runners receiving medical attention at that point).

I picked it up for that last mile, however, and finished strong with a time of 2:08:03, which was three and a half minutes faster than last year (in which the temperature was much cooler).  Even though I didn't meet my goal time, I did meet my goal again this year of completing my training and offering up tons of prayers for vocations.  Win one for God and for vocations!

Thanks to all who supported me in prayer throughout my training and especially today!

Verso l'Alto!

P.S. Just think, next year I'll be a priest and I can guilt all of my parishioners into running, too :D

The Race is on!

Hey... remember this post? http://dominicpetan.blogspot.com/2011/11/race-for-vocations.html

Well, let's just say that I received NO e-mails from anyone who signed up as a result of my wicked-awesome post.  (FAIL BLOG FOLLOWERS!!!)

No worries, that didn't stop me from training and preparing, praying for men and women to have the courage to discern God's call for their lives.  And now, the time has come.

Saturday is the 5th annual Race for Vocations and my second race.  Training was harder this year, but I think I am better prepared than last year.  I've been battling some soreness in the last few weeks and so I am going to need extra prayers to meet my goal of running in under two hours (taking nearly 12 minutes off of last year's pace or nearly one minute per mile).  Please pray for me and for all of the runners/walkers this Saturday and, if you can, please support me with a prayer pledge and post your pledges to the Race for Vocations blog http://raceforvocations.blogspot.com/.

Together, we will own Indy on Saturday!!!

Verso l'alto!
Bl. Pier Giorgio Frassati, pray for us!

Race for Vocations!

Ok, I've done it again... I signed up to run the Indianapolis 500 Festival Mini Marathon as part of the 5th annual RACE FOR VOCATIONS.  This year is the 5th running of the race for vocations and they have a goal of getting 500 runners to participate.  This is a big challenge but one we can all get behind!


Check out this YouTube video of last year's race (yours truly is even featured in it ;) )



Last year, I had no idea if I could run a half-marathon.  Committing to racing for vocations, however, I found the inspiration that I needed to train, knowing that every bead of my rosary that passed through my fingers was a grace to help someone open themselves to the vocation that God is calling them to.  Having offered my training as a sacrafice for those discerning their vocations, I found the grace I needed to run my first race and complete it.

If you've never done something like this, now is the perfect time to try.  Even if you are discerning your own vocation, making a committment to train for this race and to pray that God will reveal to you what He has planned for your life will be a blessing and will not be wasted.

If you're feeling a little tug on your heart right now, and you're feeling like this might be something you could do, that's the Holy Spirit telling you to sign up for the 2012 Race for Vocations!  Go right now to sign up for the 500 Festival Mini Marathon (it's still only $55... until 12/1!) and then register with the Race for Vocations.  Here are the links:

Register for the mini or 5k here: http://www.500festival.com/marathon/

Register for the vocations team here: http://www.archindy.org/vocations/race.html

Then send these links to everyone you know and let's do all we can to get 500 (or more) participants this year!  Oh, and let me know you've registered so we can pray for each other as we train by e-mailing me at dominic dot petan at gmail dot com.

Verso l'Alto!

Bl. Pier Giorgio Frassati, pray for us!

Time to catch up...

Hey friends, it's time to catch up on all the stuff that's been going on with me in the last month!

Mission Mini Marathon: Accomplished!

With the grace of perseverence in my training, I was able to participate in and complete my first half-marathon on May 7th. I began the weekend in a somber way, with the funeral of my friend Edgar. Then I was honored to server at the Mass for Vocations at St. John's in downtown Indy. I carb-loaded at the Race for Vocations pasta dinner, stressed about where we would park Saturday morning, and went to bed way too late.

Nonetheless, I felt great Saturday morning and even though my plans for parking didn't work out and it took forever (it seemed) to get to a Port-a-John before the race started, I made it to my starting corral and was even able to start the race with a few fellow Race-for-Vocations runners. I ran a conservative race and finished in 2:11, about a 10 min/mile pace. As you can see by the post-race picture, I had something left in the tank. Next year (and I mean that!), I plan on running in well under two hours.

Mission: Semester Completion - Accomplished!

It was "no rest for the weary" as I was immediately back to the seminary after the Mini to finish up the final week of the semester. I had papers to write and finals to take, and then I had to move completely out of my room, all in seven days. My Trinity final provided the most daunting challenge as I endured a monumental spiritual battle the entire day. Satan felt it necessary to taunt me all day long, saying "You can't do this." when I knew I could. It took just about all that I had to get through it, but with God's grace I completed it and the rest of my work in time to get moved out.

Saying goodbye is difficult and I find that with the whirlwind of activity at the end of each semester that I never do it well. I just hope that all of the guys know that I will miss them and that I pray for them regularly.

Mission: Chillax - Accomplished!

After getting moved out of the seminary, I spent a few days in Carmel visiting friends and then made my way up to J-town to hang with my family for a week. I did get some definite relaxing in, but also spent a lot of time running around and taking care of maintainance things for my car.

Two of my friends from high school, Joe and Jake, and spent the better part of a day at the National Restaraunt Association trade show at the McCormick place in Chicago. Imagine walking around a convention center, and doing nothing but sampling different gormet foods all day and you get an idea of what it was like, and why it was worth the price of admission.

The best part, however, was spending time with my parents, sisters, and niece and nephew. The kiddos have grown not only to remember me, but to miss me when I'm gone and so it is always a special treat for them and for me when I can visit.

Mission: Ordination - Counting down...

After returning from J-town, I moved into my summer parish in Anderson, IN. I will be helping Fr. Bob at both St. Mary's and St. Ambrose parishes this summer. I spent a couple of days getting settled in, then promptly jetted off to Cincinnati to witness the final oath of my classmates, Aaron and Crispine, in the Glenmary Home Missioners. It was a beautiful ceremony and as a bonus, I got to see some of the folks from the seminary and give them a proper goodbye.

Now, the countdown is in full swing. I have five days until ordination day and I plan on taking a lot of time to pray and to reflect on this journey so that I am prepared to participate fully and consciously in the ordination. Thank you to all who have prayed so generously for me throughout these past five years. Please continue to pray for me and my brothers who will be ordained with me, Travis Stephens and Sam Futrals, as we make our final preparations to be ordained this coming Saturday (June 4th).

Look for a post soon after!

I have competed well...

... and in a little more than two days, I will "finish the race" (II Timothy 4:7) when I participate in the 2011 Race for Vocations. For those of you who have been praying with me, now is the time to re-double our prayers!

As I review the details for the big day, anxiety begins to stir in my stomach. There will be over 35,000 runners/walkers on the streets of downtown Indianapolis this Saturday. That is going to be an overwhelming feeling! I will be proud to be one of the "elect" who will be wearing the "Vocation: everybody's got one. What's yours?" shirt and proving that with faith we can overcome our worldly obstacles and achieve the greatness that God has destined us for.

Tomorrow, Thursday, May 5, I will celebrate the one-year anniversary of being declared to be in full-remission from cancer. I can't think of a better way to celebrate God's gift of life to me than by offering the culmination of the last four months of training to Him and by finishing this race for His glory and for grace for all of those who are discerning His will for their lives.

Thank you for all of your prayerful support so far. Let us finish strong! Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati, pray for us! Blessed Pope John Paul II, pray for us! Verso l'alto!

The Race is On!

One of the things that hit me as I began the new semester last week was that it is only three months before the Race for Vocations MiniMarathon in Indianapolis! Needless to say, having spent most of January travelling (without running gear), I found it quite urgent that I get started on my training program right away.

It has taken a little over a week to get myself "broken in" again to running, but now I am ready to start training in earnest. The MiniMarathon website has a good training program laid out (I'm behind on it, but am catching up), and I am going to try and follow that as best I can. More importantly, however, is the real reason why I am doing this anyway: to pray for holy vocations to the priesthood, religious life, marriage and single vocations. I'll admit, in my earnest, I forgot to offer my first couple of training runs for vocations, but now I am remembering to do it on each run. I'm even offering when I run as a prayer. For example, last night I was not sure when I would have time to run, but I prayed that God would make time for me. When I woke up before my alarm this morning, I remembered my prayer and thought, "I'll bet I have time to run." Sure enough, it was 5:30, a half hour before my alarm would go off at 6:00 and I had a 30 minute training run to make today. So I got up, got dressed and did my run, offering it for those who are searching for their vocation.

I need more help! If you are reading this and feel called to do so, you can "pledge" to pray along with me as I train. This could be anything from an extra Our Father or Hail Mary for each training run I make to a Rosary or Chaplet of Divine Mercy. Perhaps you could offer to give something up (a fast or abstinence, like a cup of coffee or a dessert) on the days that I train. For those ready to go the extra mile (pun intended), you could offer to match, minute for minute, the amount of time that I spend training in prayer before the Blessed Sacrament, praying for vocations. The best part is that you will be doing something great for yourself while you are doing something great for someone else! That's how good God is!

Those who are interested in pledging prayers for vocations in conjunction with my training, send me an e-mail and I will keep you up to date on what my training schedule looks like week-to-week, so you can keep your prayers in line with my training.

(Perhaps even right now God is nudging you to step up and run, yourself. Don't be shy! Click here and find out how you, too, can join the Race for Vocations!)

Thanks in advance to all who will pledge their support. Verso l'Alto!

Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati, pray for us!

Two surprises...

First: I completed a "reader's theater" performance of Shakespeare's Richard II this past weekend. One of the monks (Fr. Gavin Barnes, OSB) directed eight of us seminarians in a performance where we dramatically read the play, instead of acting it out fully. This format seems to be perfect for the seminary setting because it allows us to engage the material and perform it ably without demanding a lot of time or adding a lot of stress to our schedules (we only rehearsed six times for two hours each before performing it). Also, the format is an introvert's dream. He can be "on stage" (it really wasn't a stage) in front of a lot of people and never know they were there because his face is always buried in the book with his lines in it :)

I was a little surprised to be cast as Richard, but I trusted what Fr. Gavin thought of my ability and tried to do my best. I really gave it my all and many people commented about how surprised they were by how good I was. At first no one believed that I had not had any prior theatrical performance experience. I guess I surprised myself at my hidden talent :) I had a lot of fun doing the show and I hope to do other performances in the future. (here's a picture of the cast)

Second: A couple of weeks ago, I ran the Trinity Free Clinic 5K at my home parish in Carmel. It really wasn't a planned thing, but I happened to be home at the parish that weekend and so I decided to run it. I had never run a 5K race before and was happy to finish. I finished 110th of 307 and my time was 27:23.8. After I finished the race, Carl, a fellow seminarian at Saint Meinrad from the diocese of Pueblo, Colorado, said "ok, now you've finished your first race, it's time to sign up for the mini" (meaning the Indianapolis Mini-marathon that happens in May each year). My initial reaction was to say "No way!" but then Carl reminded me of the "Race for Vocations," a project started a couple of years ago by a priest of the Archdiocese of Indianapolis. The Race for Vocations is basically a team of runners who sign up to run the mini and offer up all of their training as a sacrifice of prayer for an increase of vocations to the priesthood and religious life. The runners get sponsors to pray with them through their training as a way of promoting vocations awareness in their communities. Finally, the runners wear "Race for Vocations" shirts in the mini to promote vocations awareness in the midst of such a huge public event.

Showing that I could pretty easily pick up and run a 5K with little preparation made me pretty sure that with training I could run the mini next year. Then I realized that the only reason that I wouldn't run the mini would be that I just didn't want to do it (or, possibly, that I was afraid that I couldn't do it). It didn't take much for me to be convinced that this should be something that I should try at least once in my life, and with the Race for Vocations I would have a positive motivation to train. I prayed about it for about a week and couldn't shake the idea, so yesterday I registered for the mini and as a member of the Race for Vocations team (...what have I done?!?!).

I forget how it works exactly, but if you are willing to "sponsor" me in this endeavor (which means you would pray with me for vocations as I train), please let me know. Or, if you just want to pray for me as I train, that would help, too :)

Really, though, I find myself surprising myself a lot lately... in good ways. I guess that means that formation must be working! Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati, pray for (me) us!

P.S. I think this would be an appropriate endeavor to adopt Bl. Pier Giorgio's motto for: Verso l'alto!