Running tales from Team 99 Counties

Editor's note: Daren Schumaker of Cedar Rapids and Dennis Lee of Walford are attempting to run across Iowa's 99 counties to raise money and awareness for the American Heart Association. They've completed 97 counties. This is No. 90. Next: Page

When baking a cake from scratch, bakers pay particular attention to the ingredients they use. Too much flour, not enough baking soda or a lack of sugar can cause the quality of the final product to suffer.

No one wants to eat a cake that is too dry, that failed to rise, or that is anything but sweet. In other words, the ingredients you use to bake a cake — or what you put in — directly impact the quality and related value of the cake you bake — or what you get out.

This simple and easily understood reality — that what you put in directly impacts what you get out — is vitally important to each and every one of us — not just bakers.

On April 16, we left Cedar Rapids at 6:15 a.m. and started the first leg of the day's journey — a five-hour drive to Dickinson County in the far northwest corner of Iowa, just close enough to Minnesota to make any self-respecting Iowan a little uncomfortable. At 11:38 a.m., with Osceola County at our backs, we headed east on Highway 9 into Dickinson County and a 22-mile-per-hour wind that was blowing out of the south-southeast. Our route followed Highway 9 for nearly 11 miles — past Silver Lake and Lake Park, across the Little Sioux River, and to the North Bay of West Okoboji Lake — before we headed southeast along 151st Street and onto 215th Avenue where we encountered a huge clothespin that appeared as if it was pinching the earth and two gigantic Adirondack chairs. Of course, we stopped for a picture or two.

The sights of West Okoboji Lake took our minds off the ever-present wind, and we found ourselves in Spirit Lake where we ran on 15th Street, Old Highway 9, and a paved trail through a park on the shores of East Okoboji Lake before we returned to Highway 9, crossed East Okoboji Lake and battled up a steep hill where we continued our eastward trek into the 75 degree heat of the afternoon sun.

There was little talking as the wind muted our words, and only the monotonous pounding of our feet on the crushed gravel of the shoulder along Highway 9 kept us focused on the task at hand. We were briefly distracted by a drive-in theater located at the intersection of Highway 9 and Highway 71, but before long we had spotted an ethanol plant on the horizon and passed the massive structure just before we entered Superior, where we ran past the local grain elevator and literally circled the box-sized post office as we completed our 24th mile. As we neared the end of the second leg of the day's journey, Highway 9 curved to the southeast, affording us the opportunity to run the last mile of our 26.56-mile journey directly into the wind, the same wind which had pushed against us for nearly every second of the 3:53:17 that it took us to cross our 90th county.

Now all that remained was the third leg of our journey — an at least four-hour drive home.

Regardless of what you're doing, you get out of any experience only what you put in. In fact, output always equals input. Always. Input equals output. Always. In other words, no input yields no output. If you want to enjoy the fruits of your labor, you need to labor. You need to work hard. You can't wish yourself from where you stand to the top of the mountain, you have to take yourself there one painstaking step at a time.

Life isn't about just going through the motions. Too many of us become upset when simply going through the motions doesn't get us to where we want to be in life. Going to the gym doesn't help you get in shape, but what you do while you're at the gym does. The fact of the matter is you can't be upset with the results you didn't get from the work you didn't do. Remember, output always equals input. Life isn't about time, it's about effort over time.

Your effort, or input, determines your outlook on life and your resulting output, which determines your future. Life is pretty simple. If you want something, you have to work for it. If you want the cake of your life to be moist, fluffy and sweet you need to pay particular attention to what you put into it. When it comes to your life, you are in the perfect position to control the quality and value of your future by doing no more than ensuring you input the appropriate amount of hard work to yield your desired results — or output.

Put into your life what you want to get out of it. Choose your future and work hard for it. It won't always be easy, but you will always get out what you put in.

Inspiration through perspiration. Become active or make a donation to the American Heart Association to help fight heart disease today.

• To make a donation or buy a T-shirt, email Dennis Lee at telcoden@yahoo.com