Team 99 Counties: Make yourself better

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 87 counties. This is No. 82. Next: Humboldt

Each and every one of us, every single person you know, is insane.

Yes, all of us are insane. Some of us may be more insane than others, but each of us, at one time or another, has done something so utterly foolish or unreasonable that our conduct can be defined as nothing other than pure insanity. Not insanity as defined by a court of law, but insanity as defined more pragmatically. Simply stated, each of us has suffered from insanity by doing the same thing over and over again, and expecting different results.

In fact, some of us have suffered from advanced insanity by doing the same thing over and over again, knowing what will happen, but doing it anyway.

On Oct. 2, we drove north out of Cedar Rapids and continued north through Waterloo and Waverly as the sun sank lower and lower into the horizon. The full darkness of night had set in when we arrived in Rock Falls, where we camped for the night. We woke well before daybreak and continued northward out of Rock Falls to Highway 9 where, despite the darkness, we soon found the western edge of Mitchell County. We both wore pants and gloves in an attempt to battle the cool morning air, and we took our first steps eastward at 6:15 a.m.

The first several miles were a mix of darkness, the sound of our footfalls on the gravel shoulder along Highway 9 and an ever-brightening horizon that soon blossomed into the rising sun. We made a quick stop, changing from pants into shorts, and continued to run eastward into a cool morning breeze. The terrain remained flat until we crossed the Cedar River and were forced to run 'up' the next three miles into Osage. We made a detour to visit the Mitchell County Courthouse before setting off to the Mitchell County Fairgrounds, completing our 11th mile, where we pinned numbers on our shirts and prepared to run the Red Heel Run 5K. At 8:15 a.m., we embraced insanity as we both 'raced' a 5K, each of us winning our respective age group and finishing fifth and sixth overall.

After the race, we marched eastward out of Osage on Highway 9 into an ever-stiffening wind, completing our 15th mile. We ran another seven miles along Highway 9 before we continued eastward on 360th Street into New Haven as Highway 9 turned northward. We battled a few long grinding hills and a gusting east wind as we chewed our way through the last six miles of our adventure, taking 3:52:26 to complete our 27.5-mile tour of scenic Mitchell County were we saw pumpkins, training and racing pigeons and several fuzzy caterpillars.

When you're drowning in insanity, doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results, how do you decide when enough is enough? How do you know when to change? Sometimes others will tell you the status quo isn't good enough. Sometimes you have to tell yourself things aren't good enough the way that they are. The only way to avoid insanity is to look inward, assess the good and the bad, and make changes to improve your life. If you don't make these changes, and continue to do the same things over and over, you will get the same results.

You don't have to be crazy to be insane, and you don't have to be insane to be crazy. However, you are crazy if you don't attempt to eliminate the insanity from your life. Don't wait for what you don't like about your life to change, change what you don't like. Make yourself better. Identify and correct your flaws. To be truly happy and to truly make others happy, you must first look inward and make the changes that will guarantee your happiness. It will be difficult and require sacrifice, and the comfort found in doing what you have always done will attempt to pull you back. You must resist this temptation and change today, not tomorrow. There is only one today, and a countless number of tomorrows. To do anything other than change today truly is insane.

Inspiration through perspiration. Become active or make a donation to Team 99 Counties or the American Heart Association to help fight heart disease today.

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