Under a coyote moon

Posted on January 13, 2017 by Christopher Cudworth

Running at twilight in the wintertime is a beautiful thing. Snowbanks slowly turn blue. The last burst of sunlight leaks out on the landscape before true dusk falls. In January, when the night is clear, a starlike planet or two appears in the sky.

Last night the world near us was wrapped in the last bit of haze from a daylong storm. That meant the moon had to push its light past a thin veil of clouds. A bright halo formed around the seemingly perfect circle in the sky. One can see how ancient people thought the moon a “lesser light” than the sun. The real mystery was why it chose to disappear as part of its cycle.

Cosmos

It took centuries to figure all that out, and quite a bit of social suffering on the part of men such as Copernicus and Galileo. The Catholic Church did not like being challenged about the theologically precious worldview that the earth sat at the center of all creation. Because without that belief, the idea that the human race was central to God’s plan for the universe started to fall apart.

Somehow Christianity survived that bit of anthropogenic angst. The religion had to adjust just as it did when the Jews were forced to adopt a more mobile form of religion after the temple was razed and the Jewish people were scattered like dogs into the desert.

Wild dogs with a plan

coyote-standing.jpgBut even wild dogs have a plan, and a culture. And last night as I ran through a local forest preserve I was treated to a chorus of nearby howls and barks from a coyote pack that lives in the wilds. Their voices carried across the frozen lake and more coyote voices answered from a quarter mile away. They yipped and barked back and forth. I stood there in the fog of my own breath listening to the subtleties of their voices. It was beautiful.

Above me, the coyote moon appeared to coast across the sky. A mottled shelf of clouds was drifting along on the jetstream. I listened a bit more to the coyotes and started running again.

Once the coyotes heard my feet crunching past on the hard ground, their voices fell silent. For the most part, coyotes want nothing to do with us. Sure, they’ll take our small dogs or the occasional cat if they find occasion to do so. The neighbors who walk the path behind our house shared the fact that someone up the path lost their small dog to the coyotes in the past year. “So keep them inside if you’re not with them,” they warned.

Dark figures

Indeed, we have seen a tall, dark coyote trotting down that very path. Their scat is all over the trails through fields in our back yard. They generally make their living on small creatures such as rabbits if they can catch them, and voles, mice, and other natural nuggets.

20061201093837coyote_npsCoyotes were rare in our part of Illinois just forty years ago. Today they are so common many people prefer that bounties be placed on their head.

In that regard, I feel an odd kinship with the coyote. Forty years ago runners and cyclists were also rare things to see in these parts. Now there are plenty of us, yet some people seem to wish they could run us down when we show up on the roads.

Hierarchy

There’s a hierarchy among wild canids. Foxes have to fear coyotes. Coyotes have to fear wolves. Yet all wild dogs have learned to fear humans. For good reason. There is no more perpetual threat to wild things than the human race.

One of the reasons for this is the ancient human fear of bigger animals and predators. One such foe is supposedly the wolf, a terrifying creature of legend. Yet the list of actual wolf attacks on human beings in the wild is so rare it barely merits consideration.  Still, this record from 1893 helps the image of vicious wolves persist: “Belliveau and a friend were hunting when a band of wolves surrounded and overcame them, despite the young men firing shots into the pack. The friend climbed a tree and watched as Belliveau was torn to pieces by the wolves at the foot of the same tree. The wolves kept Belliveau’s companion trapped in the tree for several more hours until Belliveau’s co-workers from a nearby railroad construction camp arrived and drove the wolves away.”

Coyote attacks

However, there are very recent records of coyotes attacking human beings. This video of a Colorado man that was attacked by three coyotes is a bit unnerving. Wildlife experts suggest that it is familiarity with humans that is emboldening coyote activity toward humans.

coyote-2Which meant that while I ran the path leading out of that small section of woods, I kept a careful watch on the trail behind me. We’ve all seen the Jurassic Park movies in which those smartass velociraptors track and kill their prey. Any flash of movement to either side would have engendered a loud shout from me.

Wild dogs of another sort

This sensation was common back when I started running. Only it wasn’t coyotes, but farm dogs that came charging out of the weeds to attack. There were no leash laws back then. Dogs roamed at will, especially on the farm roads near Elburn where I lived. During college, I was training on a country road when a huge Doberman punched through the pushes and stopped me cold with a growl. It buried its huge snout in my crotch and stood there. It’s owner then appeared and called the dog off. But I know what it means to be hunted. Many times over in fact.

Last night, there was no denying the wildness in the voices of those coyotes. They are great communicators. But a part of me laughs to think how much they sound just like my former running teammates. Our voices would often raise in wild howls during a romp at dusk. Such wild laughter and terrifying jests. It’s a fact: Even humans like to run in a pack under the coyote moon.

 

 

 

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The graphic truth of strength training

Posted on January 12, 2017 by Christopher Cudworth

The past couple weeks at the gym I got a bit more serious about lifting. The effects on my running were immediate. There was more snap in my stride and less feeling that I was on unstable. I literally felt younger.

If you’ve never been a believer in weight training, you’re missing out. Even the twenty-somethings in our house are going to the gym these days. They come home tired and are sore for the next few days. But you can see they feel good about themselves. Stronger. Invested in themselves.

That’s simple proof that weight training is good for you no matter what age you are. And if you are performance-oriented, and don’t use weight training to compliment your running, cycling or swimming, you are losing a competitive advantage.

Going to the weight room is also one of the best ways to avoid injury. Think about it: after you have an injury or have surgery, the typical protocol is physical therapy. And what do we do in physical therapy? That’s right, we strength train to restore mobility, strength and function.

And after a period of rehabilitation, the appropriate strategy is to continue those exercises and even add more to progress toward performance and competition.

To illustrate this process, I’ve created a graphic on the Strength Training Spectrum.

StrengthChart.jpg

Most of us have found ourselves at the far left of this spectrum. Injured. Inactive.

The comes the recovery phase and rehab begins. We get healthy and start to train again. Then comes performance and competition. It’s a cycle so familiar to most athletes we almost take it for granted.

But that’s the mistake. In reality, we should view our training as if we are perpetually in the Recover stage. That’s what baseline strength training does. The range of motion and stability work we get through strength training can physically heal our joints and muscles if done properly.

Likewise, strength training plays the role of preventative maintenance. It pushes us into the Health zone to Maintain the baseline strength necessary to even DO the training necessary to increase fitness, perform and compete.

Then we can drop down into the lower part of the graph and consider what it means to Excel. That’s the zone in which we perform and compete at our best. This is where strength training is supposed to aim. It can take us beyond what would otherwise be the limits of our physical abilities.

Strength works

sebastian-coe-wins-gold-in-1500-in-los-angelesThe great miler Sebastian Coe could leg press 700 lbs. He did plyometric strength training including hopping and weight resistance for weeks before he ever began hard running. This is an ideal strategy for those trying to run really fast. It not only builds strength as the weight you lift rises, it builds that subtle benefit called confidence. Are you going to sit there and tell me that it doesn’t help your psychology in running or cycling to know that you can lift seven hundred freaking pounds with your legs?

Get real. Get strong. 

When you feel stronger in training and racing, there are fewer mental hurdles to overcome. There is less tendency to “hold back” when you could be going harder, faster and longer.

This past week I went out for some easy runs and for God’s Sake, they actually felt easy. This is what strength training is supposed to do. Make the easy days easier and the hard days more productive.

One of the exercises I’m doing to achieve this feeling is the leg press machine. Starting with 20 reps at 150 lbs, I raise the weights by 20 lbs. increments all the way up to 310 lbs. That’s ten total reps of 20 repetitions. If I’m really straining at the upper limits, I cut the reps to fifteen. The lower weight levels serve as an effective warmup.  By the time I reach 300 lbs or more, all the leg muscles are firing.

Applying strength to the track, the bike and the swim

The same thing applies when doing track workouts. I did a workout of 6 X 400 indoors last week and the pace per quarter dropped from 1:48 down to 1:36. It is no coincidence that my muscles are responding the same way in running as they do in strength training.

The use of a Computrainer on the bike can build strength in the quadriceps and hamstrings for the outdoor season. Better yet, got to the gym and do multiple lunges. Work the abs hard to build position strength for the cycling season. That’s critical for the longer rides but also works great for those sprints in criteriums, if you race them.

swim-back-2Swimmers also benefit from consistent ab and shoulder work. It is vitally important however to make sure the form you use for shoulder exercises are done properly. Swimming is hard enough on those ligaments without putting awkward strain on them. If you need instruction, a fitness trainer at the gym or physical therapy is usually the best resources. It’s worth a bit of paid training time to make sure you’re doing it right.

For triathletes, it can be difficult to find time for strength training. But do it in your home in the form of pushups, simple knee dips and some plank work. If nothing else, these three exercises will keep your foundation in alignment and in order.

So the psychology of this graph can be helpful to motivate you to get to the gym at least twice a week for strength training. Keep it up through the season to some degree.

Hope that helps you find your way to better strength and performance. It’s worth it. Strength training really can give you a lift!

 

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Pay attention to your cannibal instincts

Posted on January 11, 2017 by Christopher Cudworth

Turkey Jerky.jpgI was checking out at Home Depot the other day when a package of Turkey Jerky caught my eye. Thinking it might be interesting to try something different, I tossed it into the cart.

The checkout lady commented, “Have you tried that? Is it any good?”

“No, this is a new one for me,” I told her.

Out in the car, I took one bite and spit it out. The taste and texture was disturbing. It reminded me of those gooey fishing worms that come in packages at Gander Mountain. When you’re out fishing and get really hungry, those things can actually start to look and smell kind of tempting.

But if you actually bit into one of those plastic worms, the taste would be terrible I’m sure. That’s what the Turkey Jerky did to my tongue. I wanted to heave.

Salty goodness

Once in a while, when I was training scads of miles, I used to buy a package of beef jerky and ravenously munch it down while driving around in the car. That salty, meaty goodness is addictive.

 

Beef Jerky.jpg

Actually, this looks a bit like your cousin Merle.  Tastes like him too. 

Eating some types of beef jerky is like being a cannibal or something. I read a book a few years back by a journalist who flew down to the southern tip of Africa and tried to hike back north to Egypt. It was his goal to trace the steps of the first explorer to do the trip on foot.

 

Along the way, the explorer had encountered cannibalistic tribes somewhere in central Africa. The smell of human flesh cooking permeated the air. Apparently, those cannibals preferred to eat men rather than women. The meat tasted better. So the explorer hastened his way around the tribe and made it all the way north. But it was not without a legitimate fear of being eaten.

The journalist that traced his steps did not meet any cannibals, but was forced to take a detour around Sudan. That nation was in the throes of a giant famine and people were starving by the millions. Perhaps there was not enough meat on the harrowed populace for anyone to eat each other.

That cannibal tradition

If people get hungry enough in some situations, they will dine on their own species. This excerpt from eyewitnesstohistory.com documents the hungry travails of the Donner Expedition:

“The culprit was snow. As the Donner Party approached the summit of the Sierra Mountains near what is now Donner Lake (known as Truckee Lake at the time) they found the pass clogged with new-fallen snow up to six feet deep. It was October 28, 1846 and the Sierra snows had started a month earlier than usual. They retreated to the lake twelve miles below where the hapless pioneers were trapped, unable to move forward or back. Shortly before, the Donner family had suffered a broken axle on one of their wagons and fallen behind. Also trapped by the snow, they set up camp at Alder Creek six miles from the main group.”

Each camp erected make-shift cabins and horded their limited supply of food. The snow continued to fall, reaching a depth of as much as twenty feet. Hunting and foraging were impossible and soon they slaughtered the oxen that had brought them from the East. When this meat was consumed, they relied on the animals’ tough hides. But it was not enough. Starvation began to take its toll. With no other remedy at hand, the survivors resorted to cannibalism.”

I’ll admit my favorite cannibal joke to you know.

When two cannibals find a free meal along a trail, they each started eating at the opposite end. Not wanting to look up from the tasty body, one cannibal mumbles to the other. “How you doing down there?” To which the other cannibal replies, “I’m having a ball!” And the first cannibal says, “You’re eatin’ too fast!”

That’s the only cannibal joke I know.

Hungry enough to eat you

 

Beef Jerky too.jpg

You look absolutely tasty today, honey. 

Those of us that train through the snows of winter sometimes think we’re tough. It takes courage to go out into the driving winds and run along roads covered with slippery snow. But most of the time, we know there is a warm home waiting for us when we return. No such luck for the Donner Party, who had to turn their party-mates into a form of human beef jerky or die from starvation in the snow.

 

But it helps to know you likely won’t starve if you train with a running group.

We’re all just meat

 

beef-jerky-flowers

Oh that’s sweet! She always did like flowers. 

That’s what meat usually is, and what we are. Just muscle and fat. A basic strip of beef jerky is nothing more than a wrinkled, semi-curled up muscle soaked in salty juices. That’s what you would look like too if they carved you up, dried you out and salted you down.

 

Chow down

The theory on whether it’s good for athletes to eat meat keeps jerking back and forth. Some of the new dietary theories say you should avoid carbohydrates and sugars because they make you fat and can lead to heart disease. That “beer belly” look on so many men is really the result of too many carbohydrates stored as fat.

 

Beef jerky three.jpg

This could be what’s writhing around in your intestines. 

Over the last forty years or so, we’ve also heard lectures about the dangers of eating red meat. Real horror stories, too. “There is five pounds of undigested meat floating around inside your intestines,” someone once told me. But I Googled that one and people scoffed at the idea.

 

“According to this page, even a pound (or less, maybe) would cause extreme pain and rectal bleeding. I’ve watched those infomercials and seen these claims in other places…I think it’s a lot of hooey to sell products. Some of them claim 10, 20, 40 pounds is stuck in there. Ha! I wonder if this claim wasn’t started with the whole John Wayne and Elvis Presley rumors – an anti-fat, anti-beef slur, maybe, that someone turned into profit. Just another lose weight quick scheme, that’s my vote. My friend runs a health food store – he sells colon cleanse products but he has never heard of it being a problem, and says that much impacted matter would have killed you long ago. His dad’s a holistic dr. I know, FOAF. Still, I say hooey.”

Up periscope

img_3991Another friend teased me about not having had a colonoscopy until I was well past fifty years old. “Haven’t you ever eaten a Slim Jim?” he asked. Well, if we can appeal to that trustworthy source of all things designed to medically scare you, WebMD, there is a chance that too much red meat will give you colon cancer.

“It’s not exactly news. Many studies suggest that people who eat the most meat get the most cancer. Now a huge, 20-year study from the American Cancer Society confirms these findings. The bottom line: Those who eat the most red meat — beef and/or pork and/or processed meat products — get colon cancer 30% to 40% more often than those who eat these foods only once in a while.

The news is particularly bad for those who favor lots of lunchmeats, hot dogs, and sausages. Eating lots of these processed foods raises colon cancer risk by 50%, reports Marjorie L. McCullough, ScD, senior epidemiologist at the American Cancer Society in Atlanta. McCullough and colleagues report the findings in the Jan. 12 issue of The Journal of the American Medical Association.”

But what about beef jerky? Is that a lunch meat by definition? I found this little nugget of advice on a site called greatist.com:

Humans have drying almost any lean meat (beef, pork, venison, or smoked turkey) for thousands of years in order to preserve it. However, our ancestors may not have realized the health effects of these tasty meat products — this snack makes the Greatist dangerfood list because it’s high in fat, calories, and sodium, and even contains potentially cancer-causing agents.

One large piece of beef jerky packs more than 80 calories and 5 grams of fat — and two of those fat grams are the saturated kind, which (when consumed in excess) may contribute to adverse health effects and increase the risk for coronary heart disease . Although jerky is high in protein (about 7 grams per piece), the main issue is the high amount of sodium. One ounce of beef jerky contains about 450mg of sodium, or almost 20 percent of the maximum recommended daily intake.”

The math here is rather simple. If you’ve just ridden eighty miles and sweated like a salted pig for all those miles, you probably need to replace a little to get your equilibrium back. And if you’re a workout fiend, you’re also likely a pretty regular pooper. So the red meat goes in, the fibers are digested, the salt absorbs into your blood and the rest comes out your ass.

The Cannibal Diet

 

Bruise

Go ahead. Take a bite. I’ll admit I’m a little jerky at times. 

Which leaves the issue of fat. Saturated fat. Well, you’re still balancing your regular diet which is probably pretty healthy, so a little saturated fat isn’t likely to hurt you that much or slow you down.

 

But if all this still scares you, it might make sense to just do what the cannibals do. After your run, sneak up behind your training partner and just start gnawing on their ass or thigh for all you’re worth. You gotta figure their flesh is pretty healthy and lean from all that working out. Why not just skip all that beef or turkey jerky and just get your protein at the closest source?

Forget all those Atkins diets and such. Get on the Cannibal Diet bandwagon. It’s eat or get eaten out there from now on. Let the hungry take the hindmost. There’s real motivation for you!

 

 

 

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Toilet seat training and what it means to triathletes

Posted on January 10, 2017 by Christopher Cudworth

Sure enough, the WordPress platform threw a repeated paragraph in this post! My apologies. I put the toilet seat down again.

Christopher Cudworth's avatarWe Run and Ride

Whump.

tttkGrowing up in a family of four boys, there was not much call to put the toilet seat down after going to the bathroom. Had we the pleasure of a middle sister or so, the complaints might have seeped through to our consciousness.

But my mother never asked us once to put the seat down. She was frankly too busy making dinners and working a full-time job as a teacher to worry about the seeming trifles of sloppy, athletic boys. The one thing about which we were organized and attentive to a fault was chowing down when dinner was served.

We were like a bunch of hungry cats. She’d sit at the table and gaze at us with joy and love, excusing our many boyish habits despite the fatigue it likely caused her.

Changing times

Fast forward to actually living with a woman you love, or a houseful of…

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Toilet seat training and what it means to triathletes

Posted on January 10, 2017 by Christopher Cudworth

Whump.

tttkGrowing up in a family of four boys, there was not much call to put the toilet seat down after going to the bathroom. Had we the pleasure of a middle sister or so, the complaints might have seeped through to our consciousness.

But my mother never asked us once to put the seat down. She was frankly too busy making dinners and working a full-time job as a teacher to worry about the seeming trifles of sloppy, athletic boys. The one thing about which we were organized and attentive to a fault was chowing down when dinner was served.

We were like a bunch of hungry cats. She’d sit at the table and gaze at us with joy and love, excusing our many boyish habits despite the fatigue it likely caused her.

Changing times

Fast forward to actually living with a woman you love, or a houseful of women, and things are quite different. The etiquette of putting the toilet seat down is necessary to avoid causing women of any shape or size to fall into the bowl when sitting down.

This is especially important during the night, when the rude shock of feeling your ass cheeks slipping down inside rim of the toilet bowl is a rude consequences of forgetfulness.  No one deserves that.

It’s that last part that toilet seat training is all about. Men who don’t think about the toilet needs of women are insensitive jerks. I’ve written before about how disturbing this can be in a Porta-Pottie, when urine covers the seat making it impossible for any woman to use the facility.

In the heat of pre-race anxiety, perhaps one can expect that sort of behavior. But really, not. If you’re a guy that pisses on the seat of a Porta-Pottie and walks out leaving that mess for someone else, you are the scum of the earth. At least put the seat up before taking a whizz! Before you go. If a woman has to put the seat down after that, she’ll likely be grateful that’s the only problem.

Conscious existence

What we’re really talking about here is conscious existence. That is, taking note of behavior in all areas. The truth about this manner of behavior is harsh. If you’re leaving the toilet seat up there are likely other areas in life where your lax behaviors are costing you and other people problems that you may not recognize, but still exist.

How is your sock drawer, for example? Are you always searching for socks that match? And when is the last time you tossed a few items from that drawer of performance tees, that third drawer down in your dresser stuffed full of formerly valued race tees that now looks like an octopus convention? If that drawer looks like a science experiment gone wrong and colors are sprawled all over with tentacle sleeves grappling each other, the science of your daily life is awry.

No lecture

ttt4I’m simply sharing here a set of self-critical admissions about a life of clutter and attention deficit disorder. Right now my art studio is a mess after a couple painting sessions. I know that I paint better when things are cleaned up, but the eagerness to complete a work sometimes leaves a trail of detritus all over the room.

When I walked into the studio of an artist down the hall from me at Water Street Studios, his palette was neatly mounted on a movable wire bench. The paints that he needed lay in perfect order next to the palette. His work, impressionistic as it is, reflects this appreciation of order. Compositions, simple. Expressions, elegant. His overall body of work has an order and an intentional feel to it. That’s what people who buy art want to see from an artist. What are you trying to say? Is there something more than this one piece of art that I’m seeing?

Transition training

PP Clicking InAmong triathletes, this love of order is an art form as well. The transition zones at most triathlons are a study of the human condition. Some are messy. Others are a well-arranged composition that puts everything in a predictable place.

This is the exact same mental process as putting the toilet seat down. You are preparing a place for another person, but this time it happens to be you. Yourself. The swimmer appreciates that the bike and gear is well-arranged. The cyclist revels in the fact that the running shoes and cap are easy to don. And the runner can be on the way knowing they have not wasted precious minutes dawdling around in transition. That’s the way to Triathlon Zen.

Discipline

All this is a matter of self-awareness. With all the distractions in this world, it is easier than ever to clip along from event to event in life without pausing to consider what it is we’re really doing. For me, writing this blog is a discipline that I love. My worst flaw is the proofing portion of producing it. Too many typos exacerbated by the fact that WordPress loves to flip deleted paragraphs and sentences back into place. So my resolution this year is to proof better out of respect to you, my readers. Because I respect that typos piss everyone off.

Typos are like leaving the toilet seat up. So is forgetting your shades at a triathlon, or starting out the run with your bike helmet still on your head. Admit it, you’ve seen that guy or gal out there, haven’t you? Or their numbers are flapping in the breeze or flying off the front of their helmet.

No control freaks allowed

ttt2I’m not one to advocate being anal retentive about all this. Control freaks creep me out, as do germophobes and hoarders. They all fall into that category of repression among people who feel it is vital to manufacture fears in life in order to feel like they have something to resist. Granted, it’s a form of mental illness, and to that, I am heartily sympathetic. But it’s important to comprehend the nature of these issues, and amend them to the best of your ability, not project them on the world.

Because that’s what we find in cultural falsehoods such as the supposed War On Christmas, in which a certain sect of repressive Christians gripe that the Christmas holiday is being disrespected somehow. That contention neglects the fact that Christmas has long been whored up by the very faith that expounds upon it. So let’s be honest: hypocrisy is the hallmark of false avengers.

Repression versus consideration

Repression too, is the enemy of true conscience. There’s a clear difference between being repressively obsessive versus being attentive and intentional, considerate or committed to reason. The things most people seek to repress in society are the things they fear most about themselves.

That’s why the term neo-conservative had to be invented. It was necessary to describe an already outmoded and dysfunctional worldview that keeps coming back like manic depression. It’s a reactionary response to being called to account for dysfunctional aggression.

For example, if you were to suggest to a neoconservative that they should put the toilet seat down in consideration for others, one of two things will typically happen.

1)They’ll nail the seat up or…

2) They’ll take it away altogether and blame you for even suggesting toilets seats are necessary in the first place.

This is the Ayn Rand school of neoconservatism. Strip away the necessities of life to prove that you are tougher and smarter than those liberal do-gooders who care about piss on the toilet seat.  Onece the toilet seat has been removed, the insults follow. “There, are you happy now, you libtard? Look what you did!” This is what angry austerity gets you. Irrational reactions and

This is what that brand of angry austerity common to neoconservatism gets you. Irrational reactions and antediluvial “solutions” that don’t really solve anything other than proving some ancient law can still be applied if you impose it with enough force.

This is a longstanding disease of the mind, this addiction to originalism and literalism that turns constitutions and scriptures into legalistic boors. It’s all borne of the anachronistic belief that the ideology of selfish concern is far more important than the welfare of the whole. This is why ancient cultures of Judea demanded that God provide them kings to rule over the people. God answered, in all earnesty, “Follow my ways, and kings will not be necessary for you.”

But the people wanted closer manifestations of control. They sought someone other than God to dish out the rules and repress their enemies. Those under Moses griped about the manna rather than being grateful for their daily “bread.” The desire for wealth and power and a land of their own tempted them to build Golden Calf to worship. These things never change, you see. America is in the very same process as we speak. We now have our Golden Calf and the new administration is ready to piss on your toilet seat or take it away altogether, if you don’t like it.

And we can be pretty sure that God will not be amused.

Incremental change

ttt3But we must all cultivate our own garden. So I’ll go clean up my art studio today. I also have a plan to re-organize the materials.

Every Sunday at home I go through my dresser drawers and inspect them for ‘crossovers,’ those socks that make it into the shirt drawer and the underwear that shows up among the training tees. Life happens.

This isn’t about behaving like gerbils in a cage, but it helps to burrow into our cages now and then, to sort things out. Now if I can only bring myself to get on that training wheel I call a bike, things might be headed in the right direction come spring.

Room for improvement

Three weeks ago Sue casually mentioned that my diligence in the toilet seat category was still in need of improvement. That gave me great reason to pause and consider my overall approach to life.

I’m not sure it was all my doing. If the toilet seat was still up now and then, it might have been someone else, because I’ve been dialed in for real on that. I am now the Toilet Seat Zenmaster. If there are toilet seats left in the UP position now, it might be because other boys/men in the household are leaving them up.

I can take care of myself in that respect, and gently remind others of their obligations as well. I want to be someone with whom it is easy and fruitful to live. All around.

Which is also why I was happy to grab the newspaper for her this morning, and make her coffee as we get ready to leave for the train together. Because the only thing better than helping yourself through improved self-organization is to help someone else make their day a little better.

Whump. Put it down boys. 

 

 

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The solemnity of a dirt nap

Posted on January 9, 2017 by Christopher Cudworth

A few weeks ago while running at night, I cut across a plowed cornfield to avoid having to turn back through a cul de sac. Having made many such decisions in life, I knew there was a risk of falling, even hurting myself. The ground was not yet frozen and the clods of dirt were muddy. Sure enough, about ten yards before reaching the grass field I intended to cross on the way to the next road, I tripped and fell.

wyeth-spring-19781.jpg

For a moment, I just lay there on the cool earth. My thoughts turned to a painting by Andrew Wyeth titled Spring that depicts a man seemingly melting through the snow from the landscape. And truth be told, if I had lain there long enough, out of sight from civilization, I’d sooner or later be in the same position. And if I did not survive, then my body would die and I would begin to decompose.

The cold weather would preserve it at first. There are human remains turning up in the world’s melting tundra now that global warming is having its way with the permafrost. Scientists have been fascinated to study these well-preserved specimens. Often their hunting gear and clothing are also well preserved. We can look back in time. Sort out how that person lived. And consider our own mortality.

Some might consider it sad that such human specimens never made it to the solemnity of a dirt nap. Yet Native Americans lifted their dead to the sky, and other traditions abound as well.

To some obsessed with a certain form of religious ideals, these would seem like the ultimate crimes of humanity. People get all freaky about what it means to be buried, to have a gravestone, and to be remembered by family years after the body is done with this world. Perhaps what drives them is the seemingly dirty little thought that the cycle will come for them too. But it makes no sense. The bodily remains disappear below the ground. Even encased in a coffin or cement, nature finds us somehow. There really is nothing of this worldly body that survives through any age. And what do we make of the spiritual bodies we supposedly assume beyond this world? At what age do we appear through eternity? Does that belief system about heaven make any damned sense at all?

Perhaps not. Yet somehow it sustains people against the thought that this is all we have. The fear of the dirt nap requires a nativity of the spirit. Gathered together, a manger of hope.

Get up and run

But rather than lie there and contemplate too long,  I rose from the ground and inspected the dirt on my sleeves and pants. It made me laugh to realize that I’d just fallen. Athletes who take risks do fall now and then. As a steeplechaser in college, I never did fall into the 2.5 foot pit below the water barriers. But I saw people who did. All the way under they went. Baptised or buried in water. I could never tell which. They’d come up sputtering and soaked, then try to climb out of the pit with some degree of dignity. The dripping wet form of Lazarus?

Small crowds would often gather by the water pit to watch with morbid glee in hopes that some competitor would stumble and disappear below the surface. At some meet or another, a small school of carp was tossed into the water pit. They had to be removed lest someone really hurt themselves.

Life challenges

IMG_1811.jpgThe symbolism of adding such a risk to a running race was never lost on me. I loved the extra challenge. The steeplechase more than any other event in track keeps you on your toes and makes you feel alive. The event was an exaggeration of the already harsh and honest world of track and field, where performance is measured in split seconds and aching laps.

But the steeplechase was even worse than that. It added additional pain to every lap. If you dragged your trail leg, it could hang down and whack a 4″ x 4″ solid wood barrier. That hurt. And every lap for seven laps, you had to leap onto the barrier before the water pit, step on it and launch yourself over twelve feet of water in an angled pit that led to solid ground.

Later in life, when similar exaggerated challenges came into my world, it was possible to realize that these too could be overcome. My late coach Trent Richards called me the day that he learned that my late wife had cancer and said, “Your whole life has been a preparation for this.”

For a friend

Chris at Plainfield.jpgWhen Trent was diagnosed with lung cancer that had spread into his bones, he faced the condition with the same strength of advice. We met up and discussed what he had to do. He wanted to know what the chemotherapy and other treatments might be like. What strategies might help him tolerate the difficulty?

It was suddenly as if our roles of athlete and coach were reversed. But that’s often how it is in life. We go from being children raised by our parents to adults caring for the elderly that depend on us. As bodies fail and minds wander, it all gathers a certain solemnity. And when a parent or a spouse or a dear friend passes away, we revisit their lives with memories of why they were important to us.

Trainwreck

I absolutely love the scenes in the movie Trainwreck in which the character played by Amy Schumer recalls the difficult man that was her father. Colin Quinn played the irascible cuss to a sonic perfection. Griping, yet insightful, prejudiced but loving, he captured the imperfection that marks all the human condition. The eulogy given in his memory stirs everyone to tears, yet brings out the laughter because they all knew they loved the bastard in some way.

I’ve watched a few people very dear to me die over the years. First came my late wife’s grandfather and grandmother. Then came my own mother. Followed by my wife’s father. Then my late wife passed away four years ago in March. Last year my own father died. And just recently, my longtime coach and friend passed away as well.

Death still makes me sad. But I have learned that solemnity is a gift. It helps us reach out to others, and it can also help us feel truly alive. That wonderful little movie Inside Out that characterizes the dialogue inside a young girl’s head concludes with the idea that sadness is not the end of the world. Or any world.

I’ll admit that it was a strange, surreal sensation to walk out of a funeral home with my late wife’s ashes under my arm. That was her wish, upon which we both agreed. And since that time we have distributed small bits of her ashes in precious places. A bit at the Morton Arboretum where the daffodil glade rises each spring. My children and I scattered some in the center of a giant prairie restoration where she loved to walk. And recently, we took to the bulk of her ashes and placed them in a grave next to the site where her father was buried a few years ago. Some day she’ll be joined there by her mother and sister and brother. So they will all be together. And I think that’s how it was meant to be with that family.

But not yet

So while I miss these people and what they contributed to life, I recognize that it is our duty to live fully in their honor. The dirt nap is coming for us all, but like that handsome African character says at the end of the movie Gladiator as he buries the holy icons garnered from his heroic friend The Spaniard, we should look to the sky and brush the dust off our hands and say with a smile, “But not yet.”

 

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It’s all there in black and white

Posted on January 6, 2017 by Christopher Cudworth

Black and White Cud.jpgI’m the first to admit that I love wearing a touch of bright colored clothing while working out. At the pool, one of our Masters coaches loves to tease that I’m always showing up dressed in fluorescent gear. Earlier this week when I showed up at another pool where we both work out, he saw me coming and shouted out, “Chris, over here! You can have this one!”

I walked over to the lane in which he’d been swimming and he chortled, “I can’t see without my glasses but I knew it was you from that bright colored shirt.”

Well, it’s nice to have a personal brand of some sort. But I’m certainly not alone in choosing bright colors for workout gear. If it makes you motivated to get out and do your stuff, there’s nothing wrong with a bright coral shirt and matching shorts.

Tight schedules

This morning I put on my bright gear and chose a car from among the six sitting around our driveway. Our band of twenty-somethings each has their own vehicle. That means my Subaru can be three cars in come morning. Sue and I don’t waste time moving cars around if the schedule is tight. We search through the keys and grab a Hyundai or a Mitsubishi or a Honda and just go.

RunoverthetarsnakesHer daughter Sarah’s car was parked out on the street, which I only knew by walking to the door and pushing the Open Door switch to see which vehicle lit up. The windows were all frosted and I got out to scrape them so I would not have an accident. Then I turned on the defroster full blast and headed toward the gym. Once the heat got going the remaining frost started to evaporate. I gave the windshield wiper lever a tug and it made a sound like RRRRRTT. Nothing came out. Well, I’ll have to fix that for her, I thought.

It’s only a short three-mile trip to the gym and when I got there, I suddenly recalled the conversation Sarah had with her mother the night before. Something about an early shift at her part-time job. Starts at 8:00 a.m.

So I had to take her car back home.

At home

I wasn’t going to shift cars around by that point either. So I set up in our home gym and did some ab work and leg work. My favorite strength-building routine is simple leg dips and lunges with 25-lb. barbells in either hand. It’s amazing how much that single exercise can do to strengthen everything from hip flexors to knee stabilizers. It also works the butt. One could call these the ‘black and white’ exercises of the fitness world. There is nothing glamorous or exotic about them. They rely upon the basics to build strength. Add some weight, bend your knee and stand back up.

One can mix in lunges to stretch and strengthen the hamstrings. Then do side lunges with the weights still in your hands and feel what it does for your knees and glutes. Angle backward at 45 degrees and it accentuates yet another muscle group. Reach toward the ankles with the weights and you get yet another degree of stretching and balance work.

It’s all there in black and white. Simple works best. Even the pro fitness trainers at your local gym have gone back to kettle balls and exercise bands. Back and forth. Up and down. Round and round. Black and white. The yin and yang of exercise is creating positive stress by adding weight or resistance forcing your body to respond.

Black and white

viren-finishFor fun, I mixed in some leg lifts with the exercise ball. In between sets I picked up a book from the shelf in the gym. It’s a biography of the great distance runner Lasse Viren. The book is one of those worshipful hero bios written in the 1980s style about how the Olympian achieved what he did.

I once styled myself after Viren in a number of respects. The chin beard, even my running style and physique resembled that of the Finnish runner.

During my junior year in college, just a year after Viren had once again dominated Montreal by winning the 5000 and 10,000, I ran an indoor two-mile at the University of Lacrosse. With my chin beard and thin blue uniform and gray Luther College shorts, I proceeded with images of Lasse Viren playing through my head. At the mile, I took the lead and never looked back, finishing in 9:30. My coach walked over with some degree of curiosity and said, “Whatever it was that you did to get your head ready for that race, you should keep doing it.”

Those memories play out in black and white. With time the color seems to seep out of your head in certain respects. All that I can recall is the gray fauvism of the race and the wan maroon of the LaCrosse running track. It’s as if our memories get pushed through the Grayscale filter in the Photoshop application.

Honor system

Ansel-Adams.jpgAnd that’s okay. There was honor in the use of black and white at one time. Photographers excelled in black and white photography. Ansel Adams, whose work is shown above, was capable of capturing entire universes in black and white.

Newspapers once published all their news in grayscale and halftones. The stories were sometimes long, jumping from page to page, section to section. People took the time to read them because that is what it took to be informed. Print had honor. Even the advertisements were crafted in black and white.

Then along came USA Today. The entire news world got tarted up. Even the Wall Street Journal with its black and white pointillist illustrations succumbed to the drone of color bombing newspapers across the land.

Back then I predicted that newspapers were losing something by trying to be everything to everyone. We now live in an era in which  colorful drama and digital titillation washes over us daily. Even the black and white facts of truth no longer seem to have meaning.

This has had a strange effect on how some people perceive reality. The formerly conservative complaint that relativism undermines truth has been abandoned by conservatives and buried under the hunger for power. Even the hard lines of religious conscience have been colored over to convince people that voting for the most colorful candidate is the right thing to do even if they lie for a living.

Nuance

The Pope himself is left defending those humble words printed in black and white in the Bible. He told the black and white truth in his contention that, “If laws don’t lead people to Jesus, they are obsolete.”

And people hate him for it. They don’t like to be called out for their legalistic ways. As the Catholic Herald recently wrote, “The scholars of the law had forgotten how many times God surprised his people, like when he freed them from slavery in Egypt, he said. They were too wrapped up in their perfect system of laws — “a masterpiece” where everyone knew exactly what he or she was supposed to do; “it was all settled. And they felt very secure there”.

Like the black and white photographs of nature created by Ansel Adams, there is much more to the image we create of God than the shapes we seek to impose on the things we seek to understand. There’s this thing called “nuance,” and it is lost on too many believers in many facets of life.

Viren 5K.jpgIt all leaves one hankering for a simpler time, does it not? Which is why the clean and clear act of working out may be the only salvation we all have, going forward. The clock doesn’t lie. Nor does the weight machine. But you have to be diligent with the counter in your head that adds up the reps. That’s the real test. Are you capable of being honest with yourself? And if so, does that honesty get applied in the rest of your dealings in the world.

That’s what it all comes down to. Are you being honest with yourself? Are you truly doing the work that needs to be done in these black and white winter months before the first hints of spring break through the dark, wet soil? That’s what will make the difference when you take your show on the road.

It’s all there in black and white.

 

 

 

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Five funny things I’ve experienced in triathlons and duathlons

Posted on January 5, 2017 by Christopher Cudworth

NBike OutIt’s healthy to be able to laugh at ourselves. In a sport such as triathlon, the opportunities are manifold. Here are five of the funniest (and perhaps embarrassing) things that have happened so far in my duathlon/triathlon experience.

Keep Going, Honey!

In my first-ever duathlon, I entered without having tried doing a brick. So the first run went quickly with a couple six-thirty miles. Then I got on the bike feeling pretty good about the race and rode like crazy for sixteen miles.

Well, you know the feeling when you’ve hit it too hard on the bike. I got off and went through transition in a daze. Then I started trying to run. Nothing there. As I turned the chute headed out to the run course, my fiancee was there to cheer me on. I must have looked a little confused or panicked at that moment. Her advice was simple. “Keep going, honey!”

Within a half mile, the feeling came back in my legs and I managed 8:00 miles for the four-mile run. But that first time feeling the fatigue was definitely a new sensation. Her advice made me laugh for the first mile. So that helped.

Oh Say Can You See? 

NRun OutLast year was my first planned Olympic distance triathlon. I’d done plenty of duathlons up to that moment in time, so I was excited to go up in distance for the first time. After successfully doing the practice swim the day before, I lined up all my gear in the transition area and went for a warmup. Only things felt a bit cool “down there.” But with no time to worry about the sensation, I got my warmup run done only to hear the announcers tell us the swim was delayed. That meant hanging around inside the recreation center where we all milled about chatting and stretching, even taking a nap.

Then the race took off an hour late, converted to a duathlon since the swim was canceled due to lightning. I ran really well on both the front and back of the duathlon, and biked pretty solid too.

Then we got back to the car and I changed out of my shorts and held them up to the light. Sure enough, they were my old pair of tri-shorts and were nearly worn through at the crotch, and basically see-through. Which made me realize why so many people might have been glancing away that morning.

Goddamnit! Goddamnit!

The wait to start my first sprint triathlon was long. It was also hot. In fact, the race went from wetsuit legal to No Wetsuits Allowed. So I stood there nervously for a while encased in my neoprene and finally walked over to Sue and said, “I can do this without the wetsuit.” She replied, “I know you can.” So I stripped it off and went back to the cool sand of the beach and waited some more. I’d waited near the end of the pack and I finally said ‘Screw it’ and jumped into line and started swimming. It went well until the first buoy, where swimmers were jammed up. One woman was bobbing in one place yelling Goddamnit! Goddamnit! while smacking the water with her hands. I started laughing so hard I could not catch my breath and had to swim to the side and get started all over again.

C the Difference

Running CreatureInadvisably, I signed up for the Lake Zurich Triathlon last summer despite the fact that I’d contracted a condition called C-Diff, a somewhat dire situation in which the good bacteria in the gut has died off allowing a nasty bug to take over the digestive tract. It all came about because I’d somehow (perhaps a cat scratch) gotten cellulitis in my left hand that required taking powerful antibiotics. The doctors that prescribed the bug-killing medicine did not elucidate the fact that it could also kill off the healthy gut bacteria. Within days of ending the cellulitis medicine the hand had cleared up, but my lower gut was going crazy. I’ll spare you the gory details, but it was Diarrhea City for days until I took a stiff dose of anti-diarrheal medicine and things came grinding to a halt. Emboldened by this fact, I decided to race after all. Granted, I felt a bit “thin” around the edges in terms of energy, but I still placed in the Top Five in my age group. It would take weeks after that for the new regime of pro-biotics and anti-C-Diff medicine to work. But somehow I swam 400 meters, biked 16 at 20.6 mph average and ran 7:30s for my 5K. All in a day’s work. And probably really stupid. But kind of funny.

Tough choices

In one triathlon last summer, I was feeling really good on the bike. In fact, I averaged 22 mph on a hilly course. Toward the end of the race, I came around the bend to find my fiancee riding ahead of me on the bike. She was having an okay day and actually placed in her age group. But normally she’s an equal or better cyclist, and it surprised me to be catching her. So I rode soft pedal for about 150 yards and finally said, “Hell with it,” and picked the pace back up and went past her. “Nice going, honey!” she called out. So I was unnecessarily worried that passing her might set off some kind of relational argument. She’s just not one for drama of any sort. But I had to laugh because my mind was running through all the things I’d try to say if it did somehow make her mad or hurt her feelings. Every man knows the feeling. You don’t want to cross a strong woman but you also love her so much you’d never do anything to hurt her feelings. But forget all that. She’s a triathlete. She can handle it. Funny that I even worried about all that.

And there you have it. They all seem funny to me in retrospect? Got any funny things that have happened to you in triathlons?

 

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On track for a good year

Posted on January 4, 2017 by Christopher Cudworth

Snow Track.jpgThe temperature outside this morning was eleven degrees. The Weather Channel app said it felt like minus nine. My running gear was laid out next to the bed as I rose to put in my contact lenses at 6:00 a.m. I gave that some thought: Eleven degrees. Not that bad. But that wind chill. Probably from the west. And probably really cold.

It was time to play the option and go run inside at the Vaughn Center, the club we joined a month ago. There is a nice 200-meter indoor track that hardly anyone uses so early in the morning.

When I arrived at 6:30 a.m there were plenty of people upstairs using the square jogging track. I don’t really care for that thing. It’s narrow and has nearly square turns on four sides. Yes, there are designated lanes for walkers, joggers and runners. But I wanted to do real speed work. Too often that means near collisions with slower-moving runners.

And tere was just one runner working out on the real track downstairs. He was fast and lean and doing intervals. It would be my duty to stay out of his way. Warm up in lane three.

His Aurora University shirt told me that he was training for the collegiate indoor track season. The school uses the Vaughn center a couple days a week. On those days, the team comes out in force. Forty or fifty track athletes doing sprints and working on their field events. It’s an enervating atmosphere. Track is all about speed. Nothing much else. Those kids are there to get fast.

Some days there are younger kids, middle-schoolers mostly, using the track as well. Their gangly bodies are just learning how to run fast. The girls especially seem to suffer from Long Legs Syndrome. Their leg turnover is almost a comedy of puberty. But they get the gist of it sooner or later.

The young man doing intervals on the track this morning has already been through all that. He is approaching his peak years in terms of physical ability. I asked about his workout, which consisted of a set of 300-meter intervals at 43 seconds each. That meant he’s going through the 200 in just under 30 seconds. Four-minute mile pace.

During our chat he told me that he ran high school track at a southside Chicago high school. He looks to be twenty years old now. He’s lean as can be. When I gave him a light slap on the back I felt the familiar thump of that thin layer of muscle laced over bone. The frame of a distance runner. A miler.

There was a time when I could run that fast. But not any more. This morning my goal was to do a series of quarter mile repeats as near to six-minute pace as I could manage. The first interval did not feel bad, but neither was it as fast as the pace I wanted to run. That would be 1:30 for 400 meters. The first interval took 1:48. The next 1:47. The third 1:43. The fourth dipped down to 1:41. I was warmed up. Not straining.

Without trying to press it, the fifth interval rolled in at 1:39. I smiled at my watch. Not too bad for the first interval workout of the season. Then I closed out the day with a similarly smooth 1:36. Descending pace. Excellent.

Six 400s was enough for the morning with a 200 jog between each run. One should never get too greedy with the first track workout of the season. Not when you’re about to turn sixty years old and have not run any speed in several months. Nudging toward six-minute pace the first day was a good way to start. Next week I’ll add a few more intervals. Then throw in some halves for good measure. Perhaps I’ll try to run a 6:00 mile when I turn sixty.

During my jog between intervals, I paused briefly to talk with a man rehearsing his tennis serve on the corner of the track. I shared with him that it had been difficult to get my serve back after I’d taken off many years from playing tennis. “I don’t have the hand-eye coordination I once did,” I laughed.

“But you are a beautiful runner,” he said to me.

That meant a lot to hear. I was feeling smooth this morning. Little wasted motion. It felt good to run fast even if I was never again going to be as fast as that young man doing intervals before me. He is forty years my junior. I could fit two entire track lifetimes into those years if some sort of time warp would permit.

That begs the question: Would I go back and do it all over again? It’s a tempting notion to think about how well you might run if you could apply at that life experience to the effort with a younger body. Yet that’s the price of life. In the physical realm, it’s always a task of refining what you do have to approach what you could once do.

The feeling of going as fast as I can these days is just as rewarding. The aches and pains of age were largely hidden today in my rested legs. I was free and enjoying the movement of air across my face. I was running, and getting faster as the workout proceeded. As far as I can see, I am on track for a good year. There’s nothing bad about that. Nothing bad at all.

 

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I Wish I Was a Girl, so that you could believe me

Posted on January 3, 2017 by Christopher Cudworth

evan-sue-chris

Sue and I with my son Evan at a recent Turkey Trot

Dating a triathlete the last three years, then moving in together and planning a marriage has been an exceptionally interesting journey. We’ve been together through her ups and downs in everything from Sprints to Olympics to Half Ironmans. Then I got to act as sherpa when she did her first Ironman in Madison, Wisconsin along with her sister Julie.

 

These adventures affirmed my view of women as strong people. Thinking back on women friends in life, I can think of several that have reached my consciousness in unique ways. At times you feel so close that gender itself seems to melt away. That makes me think of the song “I Wish I Was a Girl” by Counting Crows:

I wish I was a girl so that you could believe me
And I could shake this static every time I try to sleep
I wish for all the world that I could say,
“Hey Elizabeth, you know, I’m doing alright these days.”

For all the things I’m losing
I might as well resign myself to try and make a change
But I’m going down to Hollywood
They’re gonna make a movie from the things that they find
crawling round my brain.

All Comers meet

I once had a female friend from work who took an interest in how my head worked. When she learned that I was going to compete in a 5000-meter race in All-Comers meet, she showed up to watch. The meet dragged on later and later. She left to get dinner but came back late at night. Finally, the race started at midnight and I set a personal record for a 5K on the track.

That was a wonderful gift that she gave by sticking around. While it meant a lot to set a personal record, it somehow meant even more that she cared enough about my head to stay that late and watch us run.

Of course, she might have just been enjoying all the good gams trotting around the track. Women are so subtle in their appreciations of that sort. It used to be seldom that women would “let on” if they found a guy (or gal) attractive. These days the world has opened up a bit. Healthy relationships can even endure a bit of open expression about attractiveness.

Appreciation

Many of the women I know are also comfortable in their capacity to appreciate others. Last night Sue and I tuned into the movie Unfaithful for a bit. The flick stars Diane Lane and Richard Gere as a husband and wife. Both are beautiful people, but it made me smile to hear Sue observe, “She’s pretty.” Then the handsome, rather European male tempter with whom the unfaithfulness would occur appeared on the screen. So I asked, “Is he good looking?”

“Yes,” she replied, “In a swarthy kind of way.”

We’d all be liars to deny that such assessments aren’t going on all the time. Lord knows the triathlon world is a social centrifuge of physical and emotional attraction. Marriages both begin and end in the vortex created when people frolic in the company of fitness-oriented people dressed in tight clothes.

Body parts

Who doesn’t appreciate the glimpse of a strong thigh or finely crafted butt? Gender almost doesn’t matter. It hardly matters whether one has a penis or vagina, pecs or boobs. It’s bodies that attract our attention.

Of course, it works the other way as well. Our less-than-perfect bodies are also on display under all that lyrca. As athletes, we learn to accept and appreciate the flaws of others and do our best to improve what we’ve got.

The roast of us

Recently I heard the famous celebrity roast comedian Jeff Ross talking about why people are willing to subject themselves to ridicule even if it sometimes seems cruel. His comedy troupe actually does Quickie Roasts in which members of the public come willingly on stage to be roasted. Ross described a situation in which a woman volunteered and began walking shakily toward the stage.

Ross was thinking, “Oh no, she’s drunk.” Which never works out well. The woman made it to the stage and sat down. “Then I realized she had only one leg,” he explained.

The comedy began by making fun of her hair and dress. The woman was reduced to fits of giggles and laughter. Nothing seemed to hurt her. “Then I knew I had to go for the obvious,” Ross said.

“What happened to the leg?” he began…

The woman explained that she was once a conjoined twin. In fact she and her sister were on the brink of becoming the oldest surviving conjoined twins in history. “If we make it to 36, we set the world record,” she proudly stated.

“Well I have a question,” Ross dug in. “Who got the vagina?”

The crowd erupted in laughter. The woman sat laughing mirthfully. Then her husband stood up in the crowd and proudly proclaimed, “I did!”

Honesty

That was funny stuff, for sure. Yet it might seem politically incorrect to mock the disability of a person. Much depends on context. Still, there is great respect that comes from opening yourself up to such honesty. The disabled don’t like being left out of society any more than the rest of us. It has an isolating effect.

That’s why it was a big deal for women to get the vote way back when. And why people of all colors don’t like being singled out as “separate” from the culture at large. These distinctions are the inflammatory aspects of culture that conscience seeks to erase.

Perhaps the methods of political correctness are ultimately flawed. But there have been positive effects. Eliminating the use of a term such as “nigger” among white people to describe black people is a necessary change in culture. The same goes for any number of terms to describe other people such as Jews, gays or other social, political or religious categories. Political correctness has been a method by which society attempted to reconcile prejudices that built up over time.

Turning the tables

And yet, many black comedians have turned the word “nigger” around, wresting its power from the hands of those who ignorantly use it by converting it to an empowering defiance of all such attempts to belittle people.

We can only be curious what it feels like to be “the other.” If we’re a man, we can only imagine what it means to be a woman. Still, there is no possible way to truly know what it means to be that gender. Some fear the very idea that their gender is not on full display at all times. They no more want to reveal their feminine side than they want to admit they have hemorrhoids or are impotent. All are natural products of existence, but people have a habit of wanting to hide anything they perceive as a sign of potential weakness or flaws in their nature.

Experimenting

Like many sexually curious kids, I recall doing things like stuffing my unit between my legs to see what it looked like to be a girl. I tried on women’s underthings even as I went about spying on girls sunbathing because I could not keep my eyes off the female form.

All these are attempts in understanding gender roles. We do know that for many people, gender is not so clearly defined. Transgender manifests itself in many different ways. People actually are forced in some cases to choose between becoming a man and a woman. The most famous of late is the Olympic champion Bruce Jenner, now known as Caitlyn.

Imagine being a world-class male Olympic champion, yet looking at yourself in the mirror and seeing a woman staring back. People have mocked his choice, and many recoil at the thought of such seeming confusion over gender or sexual orientation. Yet Jenner was courageous in choosing to acknowledge his gender identity.

Other courage

If we’re honest with ourselves rather than repressing all such instincts as unbecoming or dangerous to our personal morality, we realize that it is the human condition we’re talking about, not just sex or gender.

Some would love to turn off the spigot of open admission about gender issues and sexual orientation. They select a passage from the Bible that seems to imply these admissions are a sin. Yet somehow Jesus made use of these supposed differences to teach about the true humanity of all. He highlighted the good acts of a Samaritan or blessed people suffering from leprosy with healing. Through these symbolic acts he offered an invitation to all that they should embrace the Kingdom of God and the acceptance it offered. He also preached that it is our duty to extend that same grace to all. There were no exceptions to this rule if people intended to embrace and be accepted into the Kingdom of God. In business and in life, this grace between souls was paramount.

But Jesus’ opponents believed the opposite, imposing religious rules that told people that had to eat a certain way, wash their hands ritually and even isolate women from contact during their menstrual cycles because these things otherwise made a person “unclean.”

For these rules Jesus branded his opponents “hypocrites” and further called them a “brood of vipers” for conferring advantage to themselves through religious authority. These patterns of social construct are still very much alive to this day. And yet the perpetrators refuse to recognize these instincts in themselves, preferring to point fingers instead and call the rest of the world sinners for things that Jesus would have dismissed as inconsequential to the Kingdom of God.

Humanism revealed

For those that prefer not to view their lives through the lens of religion, there is plenty of affirmation that issues of equality and gender, race and tribal affiliations are not supposed to trump access to basic liberties. The United States Constitution, for example, guarantees freedom from religion as well as freedom of religion. Despite the contentions of religious oppressors, the Constitution also provides the right for two people of any gender to marry if they so choose.

The Constitution did not originally guarantee the right to vote for black people or women. It took a Civil War and the civil rights movement that followed 100 years later to provide full citizenship to millions of Americans. Women had to wait centuries to become fully accredited citizens as well.

Women haters

Yet there are still plenty of people who would prefer to suppress these rights. The age-old vehemence against equality for women was thrust in the face of the female candidate for President, Hillary Clinton, who endured gender-based and sexualized taunts from her detractors. Even her opponent in the election stalked her onstage like an abusive husband. The focus of the fearful patriarchy with all its possessive, domineering instincts seemed to be channeling through the man at that moment. It was a disgusting display, yet some people love the fearsomeness of the authoritarian. It absolves their own fears in some way.

What it’s like to be a girl

And yet I still would like to know what it truly feels like to be a girl. I think some of the sensations would still be the same. The physical stress and fatigue of training, for example. I’ve run and cycled and swum with many women who are my equals. They say the same thing I would say when they get tired, or feel great. That bridges the gap in many ways for me.

If I was a girl, mentally, perhaps, I’d be even stronger. Women deal with the wrenching monthly yank of menstrual cycles, stuffing tampons up their vaginas to catch the flow of blood that is a natural part of their gender. Men don’t have to do that. Women who choose to have children also get to experience the incredible pain of childbirth. Yet many willingly do it again because the love within their souls is so far-reaching. One would think these sacrifices against pain and discomfort would be appreciated by more men. Yet patriarchal tradition treats these causes with fear, even anger about the mystery women hold.

Name-calling

As a result, men react with fear and anger toward others who display feminine characteristics. There have been times in my life when it felt as if my masculinity were not what it should be. If caught off-guard at certain points in male development, the name-calling could be harsh. Being called a “pussy” or a “fag” was the worst insult one could sustain.

But let’s be honest, women can be just as cruel, or moreso, to each other. I’ve told many women friends that I’m surprised they all did not die in the seventh grade. That’s when young girls turning into young women seem to clan up into cliquish tribes to gut their enemies.

Better nature

Perhaps I could do without that part of being a girl. Perhaps we all could. It can be so hard to appeal to the better nature of human beings no matter what gender they claim to be. In the end, we all join at the hip and fuck for all we’re worth. One gender disappears into the other. Then we fall away wondering what God intended from such fury and desire.

Some like to think that sex is only meant for procreation. That’s where all the repression in this world stems from, the idea that making babies is the only thing for which human beings and their body parts were intended. But that would mean that couples of mixed gender would have to stop making love after the age of fifty-five or so, the age in life when most women stop having their periods. That would deny people some of the most tender, loving sex they’ve ever known. Patient and free. Pertinent and sustaining.

Crawling round my brain

Yes, I’m going down to Hollywood. They’re going to make a movie from the things that they find crawling ’round my brain. But these things matter. How we think about life and treat each other really does matter. We live in times that seem drawn to tragic instincts of repression and hatred toward others. Perhaps the best thing that a whole host of men could do at this point in their lives is imagine what it must be like to be a girl. Or a black person. Or a gay. Or a Jew.

Or a Christian. Because there are many who imagine themselves to be such a thing, and yet seem to misunderstand so much of what it actually means to live that life.

I wish I was a girl so that you could believe me
And I could shake this static every time I try to sleep
I wish for all the world that I could say,
“Hey Elizabeth, you know, I’m doing alright these days.”

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