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.

 

 

 

Posted in running, swimming, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

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?

 

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , | 1 Comment

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.

 

Posted in track and field, training, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

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.”

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

All things being equal

Posted on January 2, 2017 by Christopher Cudworth

Sock.jpgIn the yin and yang of athletic performance, there is no more vexing question than whether women are equal athletes to men. If one looks only at the empiric evidence, the arguments might away. Certainly, the world’s best men athletes are still faster at every distance than women.

But that empiric measurement means almost nothing to the athletes with whom most of us train and compete. It means nothing these days for men to get beaten by women in running, cycling, swimming or triathlon. It happens every minute of the day and every day of the week. I would argue that makes us equals.

Hijabs and jobs

Not all the world shares this view. This weekend the television program 60 Minutes Sports broadcast the story of the Iranian women’s soccer team. Due to religious laws in that country, women are not allowed to compete without covering their heads and arms and legs. Yet the Iranian women did compete with success until FIFA, the governing body (no pun intended) of international soccer decided to ban the hijab from international play. Left with no recourse, the Iran women’s soccer team forfeited and withdrew from the competition.

Those women were caught between two male-dominated cultures. The decision to ban the hijab may have been intended by FIFA to promote women’s rights, but had the opposite effect in that case.

The Iranian philosophy was just as backward. The rule forcing women to play soccer in full body coverage and wearing the hijab in conditions reaching 100-degree heat was not in the best interests of the health or performance of those women soccer players. Not at all.

But let’s not pretend things are all that much better here in America. the women’s soccer team is far more successful in terms of championships and win-loss record than the men’s team. The women’s team has drawn television audiences numbered in the billions. Yet the women’s team players are compensated far less than the men.

Platforms

It’s a fact that in many cases where women either compete on the same platform or outperform men, they are still paid less. When a woman runs a 2:15 marathon, that is certainly an impressive achievement.

World Ironman triathlon competitions among men generally finish near the eight-hour mark. Yet the world’s best women complete the same races in a time difference of just 15-20 minutes over 140.6 miles of competition.

Again, that’s at the world class level. Among journeyman athletes, which is 99.9% of us, no such disparities exist. We compete on the same platform.

World class among us

I once raced alongside distance runner Grete Waitz in the Orange Bowl 10K in Miami. She was not in peak form, so my 32:00-time allowed me to finish ahead of her. Right behind were several other world class Masters Male runners including Ron Hill, a former Olympian.

That race alone taught me that relativity is a reality in the pursuit of distance sports. It was a thrill to race alongside a world class athlete such as Grete Waitz. It was fascinating to observe the economy of form and her rail-thin physique. Such a balance of strength and power. She had already accomplished so much in life, winning the New York Marathon several times.

Yet there was Ron Hill as well, on the downside of his competitive career yet still, at age 40 or so, able to race men twenty years younger than himself.

Equality is both absolute and relative, you see. The real measure of an athlete is found in our ability to appreciate the performance of all athletes. Not just the best of the best, but the best of the rest. And that includes you.

God Bless and may you have fun trying to best your equals, whoever they may be.

 

 

 

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , | Leave a comment

A resolution to be honest with yourself

Posted on January 1, 2017 by Christopher Cudworth

move-pin

After many years of making New Year’s Resolutions, following through on some, while others fall away like bowling pins, there is just one that holds true year after year.

Be honest with yourself. 

If one does nothing other than that, all others tend to all into place.

Because if you’re honest with yourself, and you want to change something in your diet or training or personal life, you will do it. If you’re not honest with yourself from the start, then change is not likely to occur. You don’t want it enough. The resolution, or the resolve to do something, as it were, will fall away.

Being honest with yourself comes with some risks as well as rewards. If you are heartfully honest with yourself, there are occasions where you will plainly not agree with other people in your life. If what they are doing feels offensive or wrong, it creates a conundrum. do you speak up or keep your mouth shut?

Emotional intelligence

If you speak up, you run the risk of offending them. Some people insist that emotional intelligence is the ability to discern the right opportunity and method to speak without creating controversy.

Yet there are situations within our own heads in which being s0-called “emotionally intelligent” is not the path to success. In the middle of a race when pain is roaring through our bodies and even our brains, is it “emotionally intelligent” to keep going? Or is it smarter to back off.

Manic years

Our most competitive years may find us on the manic end of the spectrum when it comes to training and racing. Transferring that type of gut-wrenching emotion to the workplace may not be the best idea in the world. So to be honest with ourselves is to admit that we need a place to let all that crazy out. Sports are a good place to do that.

It’s still tough to distinguish sometimes whether it is better to be honest than be simply cooperative. Even when we see things that upset us or make no sense in this world, it makes sense to back away a bit rather than let honest thoughts and emotions lead the way.

Liar Liar

Recall the movie Liar, Liar in which the Jim Carrey character played a lawyer who through some sort of spell lost the ability to lie? It made his life a living hell. Perhaps his worst sin was over-acting. But then there are people who seem to have adopted the opposite brand of over-acting. They simply can’t be honest about anything. For the life of them, they become so good at lying it replaces their entire persona. Perhaps you know a person or two like this. Who lie their way to success. It happens all the time.

And when you challenge them, you’re called the freak. The intolerant. The bad apple.

Stripping away falseness

So the resolution to be honest with ourselves is both important and challenging. It can strip away the falseness that we might otherwise allow to enter our lives. Yet it can also force friends away who don’t want to be confronted by any sort of honesty, be it political, religious, social or cultural.

The simplest things can lead to divisions between people. In our little triathlon world there are disagreements that can grow over philosophies of coaching and allegiances that come and go. One would think that friendships built on hard effort and support would never disappear. But people are tribal by nature. They take offense too easily when people seek to change something in their lives. Even when this is done for the most honest of reasons, an admission even of the need to change something in themselves…it can still breed division. Perhaps you’ve seen that in your triathlon world.

The price of existence

Some of this is the price of existence. Yet some of it is small-mindedness, and a lack of ability to be honest over just about anything.

As long as you are truly being honest with yourself, following your honest instincts is always the right thing to do. If people can’t deal with that, then they honestly don’t have a place in your life. That’s not a lack of emotional intelligence. That’s a test of human spirit and what it truly means to be alive.

 

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , | Leave a comment

The profits of a good gym

Posted on December 30, 2016 by Christopher Cudworth

CHRIS Running Intervals 1In my mid-20s I had the opportunity to manage a gym called the Norris Sports Complex. It was a publicly-owned and managed facility attached to a high school in St. Charles, Illinois. As such, it was open for evening hours between 6-10:00 p.m.

Dozens of runners used the indoor track, which was eleven laps to the mile on the inside lane. Dozens more walkers and heart rehabilitation patients used the other lanes. This mix of people moving at different speeds required cooperation on the part of all those who used the track. More than once I had to counsel much faster runners to avoid the earliest hours the gym was open because the track could be crowded.

Interaction with the public included sports such as basketball, with an enormously popular open gym program. Players from towns up and down the Fox River came to play. This created consternation among some members of the community who saw the gym strictly as their own.

There was volleyball time, and indoor soccer setups as well. It was soccer that actually payed the bills and kept the lights on. Soccer as a sport was just taking off in Illinois in the early 80s. Indoor facilities were rare, and teams payed a premium to play.

Supply and demand

Such are the swings of supply and demand. The true profit center of the facility was hidden from view of the nightly public that came through the doors. Sometimes the soccer boards would go up on a Friday night and come down on a Sunday evening. The tall black curtains that divided the basketball or volleyball courts would be raised, and the gym would open up like an entirely new world. This was the rhythm of money flowing through the coffers. You can’t run a gym without it.

All gyms have some sort of similar dynamic. At the XSport gym where I belonged the last three years, the profit centers were clear enough to see. Beyond membership fees there were classes filled with aerobics and spinning. These were typically packed.

Yet the swimming course that was held in the four-lane pool ultimately had its limits. Only so many people can be squeezed into those lanes at a time if they’re not expert swimmers. Having people cruise the lanes at different speeds and abilities just doesn’t work that well. So the gym closed down the swim lessons. They weren’t making enough money to justify the instructor’s fees.

On to new digs

Which is why the new gym where I work out is a case study in exercise for the public good. The gym is called the Vaughn Center. It is run by the Fox Valley Park District, a publicly funded organization that provides recreational and fitness opportunities to a number of large and small communities along the Fox River west of Chicago.

The place is alive with people of different ages and fitness. Kids roll around on scooters inside a giant play area. There is also a pool playground featuring splash areas and zero depth pools for families to enjoy. The regular 10-lane pool is an immaculate facility staffed by alert guards who keep watch over the pool at all times. Youth and adult swim teams gather for practices.

The 200-meter indoor track is chartered out for early morning workouts by the Aurora University track team. Many others tracksters of all ages do workouts there as well. Inside the track there are always basketball games going on, mostly pickup and half court contests. But one court is used for the serious players as well.

The weight rooms have all the right equipment and go through the spectrum from treadmills and ellipticals to weight machines, weight bench setups and free weight areas.

Tri guy

So for a triathlete, the facility is perfect. That’s why Sue and I both left behind our XSport memberships to set up training at the Vaughn. The last two years we’ve been doing indoor track workouts at Batavia High School, which opens its fieldhouse to the public from 5:30 a.m. to 7:00 during the winter months. I wrote the Batavia Facilities Commission Report that led to passage of the referendum to build the fieldhouse and improve school facilities. So it felt nice to work out in a place in which I’d made a contribution.

But we were spread out over a few facilities to get in our swimming, running and weight work. We will still do Computrain once or twice a week at a local bike shop. But our new home has a room where our bikes are set up. So that’s a handy thing.

The Vaugh Center makes it possible to bring the rest together.

What makes a good gym?

These transitions have made me think more deeply about what makes a good gym, and why certain facilities exist. In some respects, I’ll miss the XSport scene. The facilities were always kept clean. There were plenty of weight machines.

But the towels were a bit skimpy. The lone basketball courts was often occupied to the point where it was hardly worth checking out a ball. The pool was like most pools; wait your turn or beg to share a lane. But with only four lanes, that could be a wait sometimes.

So I’d sit with my legs in the hot whirlpool and wait. Sometimes that was a nice little luxury to have. Yet a part of me still worries about whirlpools in public facilities. A few years back some people at a gym run by a chain of fitness clubs came down with a nasty illness.

I’m no germophobe in general. Things can happen to any club or facility. But when I visit gyms where the upkeep is not up to par, or the pool is murky or such, I do get a bit hinchy about hanging around.

Positives

Clearly the experience at XSport was positive. I wrote to the company a couple times to compliment the workers who kept the place clean.

Today I talked with an employee at the Vaughn Center about how much the cleanliness stands out, especially in a public facility. Obviously, that’s a top priority.

To me, that shows the value of both kinds of facilities. Publicly owned facilities can provide a great value to people. And many provide services that privately run clubs do not offer, or care not to provide. While shooting baskets one day last week, I watched a pair of Special Olympic athletes being put through some workout paces by their coach from the Fox Valley Special Recreation Association.

Later an entire team of Down’s Syndrome athletes showed up to play basketball as well. Their enthusiasm was obvious. One of the players had arrived much earlier and had been focused on his shooting for more than half an hour. I watched out of the corner of my eye as he rebounded his own shots. His form was consistent and his aim accurate. He took his game seriously.

Opportunity for all

As everyone who reads this blog knows, I’m a great believer in opportunity for all. That’s why I believe it is important for publicly funded fitness facilities to exist. They provide opportunities for people that might not otherwise havethe chance to work out because what they do, or who they are, is simply not profitable enough for some businesses to sustain.

One wonders, with all the talk of privatizing Social Security and Medicare and every publicly run program in the universe, if facilities like the Vaughn Center and others will somehow come under fire as a “waste of taxpayer dollars.” A park district is a form of government, and many are known to provide a great return on investment. Some are also quite profitable. But they exist because they are supported by money levied on the public.

There are people who hate that idea more than anything else. Some are poor and only want to cut their taxes. Some are rich and only want to keep more of their money, and damn the rest. Sometimes the rich convince the poor they’re voting in their best interests by preaching about eliminating taxes or cutting government programs. On the surface, this sounds wonderful to people trying to make ends meet. But when they find out that their local gym is closing, or their health care is going away, or their Social Security age just shot up to 70 years old, they find out they don’t have that much in common with the rich after all.

Public servants

I didn’t make a whole lot of money when I was running the Norris Sports Complex way back when. It was a part-time job on top of my regular work. But it was a full-time job in the sense that I had to care quite deeply about the health and safety of all who used those facilities. That’s often how public servants go about their jobs. The paramedics and fireman and police typically don’t get rich off their public sector jobs. But if the benefits are decent they can live a fairly good life and provide for their families. Sometimes the system is generational, or has been, but public servants such as school teachers have been hit time and time again to cut their benefits in one way or another. Often this is the product of an administration-heavy philosophy, and those need to be corrected.

But government “waste” is seldom the product of the fireman or teachers who do their jobs. Nor is it a waste to provide opportunities for Special Olympic athletes to have a nice place to work out. It’s called quality of life, people. That’s an American value.

On a daily basis at the Norris Sports Complex, I’d talked with the people who came through those doors. Some of them I still see around town decades later. We share a nice bond from a period in our lives when gyms like those were a novelty. We’d shared time together, and smiles. And there is no putting a price on that kind of investment. It is its own profit center.

 

 

 

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged | Leave a comment

What Carrie Fisher taught us about choking the beast of depression, anxiety and dread

Posted on December 29, 2016 by Christopher Cudworth

Princess_Leia_Jabba_the_Hutt_big.jpgWhen the Star Wars character of Princess Leia Organa played by Carrie Fisher took hold of the chain that bound her and used it to choke the dickens out of her captor, Jabba the Hut, fans cheered at the triumph over such a lascivious beast.

Before that moment of triumph, things were looking quite bleak for the Princess, whose royal status meant little to the greedy likes of Jabba.

And while we must be judicious in claims over how life imitates art, there were some parallels between the character of Princess Leia and the life led by Carrie Fisher.

Her incredible testimony to the effects of manic depression during this ABC interview in 2000 shares what it is like to have an episode where the mind effectively runs away. And when asked to summarize what her life had been like since going on medications that helped her control her depression, she said, “It’s not happily every after. It’s everything ever after.

29BIPOLAR-1482962726808-superJumbo.jpgFisher lived with her dichotomous brain for many years before it came to the point where her condition was nearly out of control. But she’s not alone. Far from it.

I have a friend who experiences the same highs and lows. I also have many friends on the entire spectrum of depression and anxiety. Many also contend with ADHD on top of it all, or beneath it. All find ways to function, to come to grips with the degree of difficulty in their daily thoughts and perspectives.

We all wish it were so clear and clean as choking the Jabbas of our depression or anxiety. What is clear is that daily exercise can help. One might call that daily run or ride Choking the Jabba. It helps us take control of our own daily destiny. No longer chained to the chair or desk of ruminative thought, we strive to shake free, choke off negative thoughts that lurk in the background like an evil captor of the mind.

One can get good at choking off negative thoughts after a while. Depression and anxiety are hungry beasts. They feed on the dark sugars of rumination, multiplying and dissolving into the system like a drug.

29BIPOLAR3-master675.jpgTo break that cycle of rumination takes courage and determination sometimes. Getting those feet out the door even for a walk can be tough for those working through clinical depression. Yet people do it, and hide it. You may never know it. But for many people, battling depression and anxiety is like doing an Ironman every day. The dread of what could go wrong, or has gone wrong, follows the brain around.

Shifting that chemical balance around by replacing those Jabba feelings with endorphins and the proactive sensations that come with it can be critical to breaking free from cycles of depressive thoughts and behavior.

Denial is one of the significant challenges in all this. It is the enabler that stands guard for Jabba the Hut the Depressor. It smacks you down if you make unwanted moves. But be warned: denying depression or anxiety never works.

Denial is defined as, “the action of declaring something to be untrue.” There’s a lot of that going around these days. It’s even become a sort of national mental illness. People simply deny what they don’t want to believe, or are afraid to confront about themselves or their leaders.

Papa-et-maman-sont-très-fiers.jpgFor some people, denial seems a much safer, shorter path to truth. But in truth, turning away from hard truths only makes you unaware of the impact that your inaction has on others. This can become a permanent state of mind because a worldview based on denial is a house of cards.

That is why running and cycling and swimming are much healthier approaches to dealing with depression. By contrast, many people “deny” their depression and anxiety by self-medicating through feelgood drugs such as pot, alchohol or prescription medicines.

Understand that it’s just a short step from a state of denial to a state of repression. That is, some people become so convinced of their own methods and strength of mind through denial that they seek to impose their version of coping on others. We see it in celebrities and commentators whose own repressive tendencies pop out in angry ways. These folks often experience broken relationships first, or are forced to hide their drug or gambling habits, sexual affairs or sexual orientation from the public eye.

Typically, this can only last so long. Burying such secrets creates difficulty in life, to say the least. Like a tell in poker, the denial that drives repressive tendencies feeds back on itself. People pick up on these clues, or get sick of the strident methods by which repressive personalities attack the things they claim to hate, yet often evidence in themselves.

Rush-Limbaugh-Submitted.jpg

Rush Limbaugh, a Jabba the Hut of conservative radio, is one such character. The man exhibits a largely repressive personality focused on denying liberals an opportunity speak or advocate for basic civil rights and freedoms. Yet his own life is a series of failed marriages and addiction to oxycontin that belie his deep insecurity and personal flaws.

But he is correct about one thing: liberals are just as subject to repressive tendencies, including the likes of Anthony Weiner, the politician who keeps texting pictures of his junk. Political genius that he was, Bill Clinton is no bargain when it comes to his sexually predatory instincts.

Likely there are underlying mental illnesses at work in  these personalities, and many more who hide their conditions from the public eye. Those who choose not to acknowledge their conditions actually increase their suffering. That’s why the example of Carrie Fisher is so bold and true. Her honesty may make her critically flawed in the yes of those who consider mental illness a weakness. Some folks believe the mentally ill are functionally capable of conquering their condition with enough courage or faith or confession.

In truth it is more than that, and much less as well. It all comes down to self-awareness and appreciation of the source of ruminative thoughts, and how they propagate. For those suffering abrupt or profound chemical imbalances, the right combination of prescription drugs can be enormously beneficial.

Let’s all rememer that life sometimes imitates art, and there was no better example of dealing with the hulking specter of depression than Princess Leia standing up to Jabba the Hut and giving him a good choking for the suffering he caused. Carrie Fisher will be missed in both her art and her real life. She was an inspiration in all the right ways, even as she faced some of the wrong things she did in life.

For those of us still running around on this earth, her example is worthy of imitation.

 

 

 

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Locker room talk

Posted on December 28, 2016 by Christopher Cudworth

swim-footEven on race days, it’s not that easy to get up at 4:30 a.m. No matter how enthusiastic you might feel the night before, getting out of a snug bed is difficult.

Then to consider the cold drive from home to the pool? Well, that’s the stuff of daily legend, is it not? You’ve got to be your own hero sometimes.

Yet as we all know, the work of heroes is often humble business. Depending on the sport, that means your workout starts with getting dressed or undressed.

Oh, perhaps you’ve got the body of a goddess or a god. Getting undressed is like revealing the glory of all creation. Every muscle you own ripples with sinewy, sexual strength. The shine of transfiguration glimmers from your glossy hair to your gleaming toenails. Then you slip on some form-fitting suit and emerge from the locker room to bless the universe with your athletic presence.

Or maybe not.

Instead, you sit shivering on a worn wooden bench wondering if you can do this thing you’ve voluntarily chosen to do. Perhaps you’ve been sitting in locker rooms much of your swim-stufflife, with the same internal dialogue going through your head. Many of those locker rooms have looked like this. Gray metal lockers with slats at the top to let out the stink of sweaty workout clothes. Lockers. Nothing glamorous about them.

The clatter of latches flecked with rust is the real work of heroes in this world. Even professional athletes covered in cash and fame must still go through these motions. The getting dressed. The getting undressed. Putting on the costumes of effort and glory. That is the business. It must be well attended in order to have any hope of improvement or achievement.

We leave our marks in locker rooms as wet footprints on concrete floors. These last a few hours perhaps, then evaporate. Sometimes the wetness never stops. We get out of the pool to take a shower. From wet to wet. Removes the chlorine from our skin, lest we smell like kitchen cleaner all day. It’s all relative. The entire goal of the locker room transition is to smell less, or smell better. Take your pick.

This is the process by which we interact with the world. We get wet. We dry off. It’s the same in the locker room, the hotel shower or the welcome feel of your own bathroom after hours on the road or a long swim. Wet. Dry. Wet. Dry. Over and over. In and out of locker rooms or one kind or another we go.

swim-backSometimes we even stop to talk about our workout or experiences while standing around in the locker room. How did it go for you? Wasn’t that interval set tough? How much did you want to die after the last section?

When talking with strangers, the conversation must start with easy questions. How’s it going? Good workout? How did the race go?

One should be polite. Going straight for the locker room jugular by asking, “What was your time today?” is impolite. Too intimate. If the day has gone badly for the stranger you have just met, the probing questions are too close company to expect to keep.

Unless you’re simply a social dolt. You meet those in the locker room too. Guys or gals who stand too close or talk too loud. Ask weird questions or stand around too long, period. One of the guys at the club where I belonged the last three years spent hours getting in and out of his clothes. Pretty sure that was his entire workout. Getting dressed undressed. I never stopped to ask him his gig. But everyone in the place knew the look of his giant ass in those baggy white undies. That was his locker room persona.

With people you know, locker room talk can be more friendly. Think of the scenes in the movie Independence Day when the Will Smith character talks with his buddy about getting into astronaut school or shows the ring he’s about to give his stripper girlfriend. The locker room is often where true confessions can indeed occur between friends.

swim-faceYes, we all know that some locker room talk gets filthy and funny too. Guys and gals alike will let fly with banter that crosses the line of good taste. The locker room has always been a “safe space” or free zone for that kind of talk. I’ve done it. So has just about everyone. But when locker room talk and sexual braggadocio crosses the line to one’s public persona and behavior it becomes a problem. There’s a time and place. Reign it in.

We all leave our marks and gain memories from the locker room one way or another. I well recall those afternoons after high school cross country workouts singing with the boys in the locker room showers. Those events are unforgettable. Pinball Wizard. The Beatles. Choose your song and belt it out. Post-workout stress release.

As the years go by, those locker room memories get compressed into a memory wad like a wet towel inside your gym bag. In some cases it’s hard to recall some of those events even occurred. This is the Black Hole of athletic experience, when you’ve got so many years stuffed into your life that it begins to bulge and expand like a big old sun. Then time and memory contract into a dark energy from which even light cannot escape. You take that with you when you die.

swim-back-2But for now, that leaves you standing before the gray door of a locker with just one thing in mind: how to do the workout of the day. Or maybe you’re standing there thinking about how it went. Was your form okay? Did you pass the test of the moment?

And if you’re a triathlete, “What do I need to do next?”

Eventually you shower and change back into your clothes. Slide the slightly rusty latch up and into place. That familiar sound is something you’ve heard so many times and so many places. It is a mark of your existences. So many workouts. So many friends. So many races. So many dreams. So many numbers on lockers. Combinations to recall. So many coaches. So many wins and losses. So much internal dialogue about all these things you’ve experienced.

That’s the real meaning of locker room talk. That internal dialogue is the voice inside your head that helps you navigate it all. For better or worse, that is the voice you hear most often. Locker room talk. And how is it going for you?

 

Posted in swimming, triathlon, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

Long shadows and snow fences

Posted on December 27, 2016 by Christopher Cudworth

This morning’s run finally felt better. The cold virus that has vexed my body for two weeks has relented a bit. That’s how it is with certain colds. They linger and force you to flirt with disaster if you miss some sleep or some other combination of stresses on your body.

So the hacking cough held up for days. Yesterday I finally ran five miles. But it felt heavy and hard. You know the feeling… when you drag your feet along and the road feels like it’s made of asphalt, because it is? That’s how it felt.

Picking it up

But today the enthusiasm was a bit higher. Plus I received a beautiful new Saucony running suit from Sue for Christmas. Talk about motivation! New gear like that is so great. Bonus benefit:  the sleeves are bright yellow and the cars go out of their way to move over when you’re running on the shoulder against traffic. Spiff.

It was 24 degrees out this morning for my run, but the Weather Channel app said it felt like thirteen. With that assessment I had to agree. Yet a carefully chosen route can make the first miles feel not so cold. So I ran South and East with the West wind behind me. My body was well-warmed-up by the time I turned west and ran up a long incline with some zip in my step.

Long shadows

shadow-runnerTurning north and east, the sun was at my side and low in the sky. My shadow was thus twenty yards long, nearly reaching a snow fence out in a cornfield next to the road. The soil in the field was now visible because we have had a warm spell followed by nights of driving rain.

So the snow fence looks useless right now. But the fact that someone got out into that field to install a snow fence is something we all likely take for granted. Because when the snow comes back around again, that snowfence is there to keep drifts from crossing the road. Otherwise traffic conditions can get bad in a hurry.

Shifting fields

Someday in that same section of field, snow fences will no longer be needed. The field is zoned for commercial development and the landholder is likely anxious to get a return on investment from that property.

If it’s the farmer that originally owned the land, they’ve been watching and waiting for that day. Perhaps they’ll take their money and move out west where farmland is cheaper. Or perhaps they’ll just keep the cash and huddle up in their four-square farmhouse and live out their days with traffic whizzing past. That’s what plenty of their formerly farming neighbors are doing. One certainly can’t blame them. Working the fields for all those years is hard and often speculative work. Socking away some cash for land and having time to take a vacation when you want is the tradeoff for all those years of tending dirt for a living.

The snow that covered the fields for several weeks was fun to view. Its clean white blanket made everything look so wrapped up and nice. While out for runs at twilight the snow kept the night from coming on too fast. Snow tends to be good company that way, and so is the cold, which keeps you from overheating if you dress right and keep the seams covered. You can run a very long time with the right combination of clothing keeping you warm.

Modern gear

Thank God for modern gear, which is definitely better than it was forty years ago when I was doing the big miles. You just made the best of it, and learned which items of clothing might not betray you. By the early 1980s, technical fabrics were being invented that wicked off moisture and made for more comfortable running. Those early inventions in running and cycling gear truly have cast a long shadow. I recall the first Salazar NIKE PR running shirt I bought with sleeves that wrapped over your fingers. It lasted until the fabric turned to gravelly bits of plastic, for it was made from oil-based plastics.

I still own a New Balance blue mock turtle purchased in 1998. It has not aged a day in all those years. The matching shorts finally gave out around the waistline, but the shirt still works as well as the day I bought it. That’s a long, long time to own a garment when you think about it. Yet it’s still so comfortable, practical and presentable there is no reason to throw it out. It’s almost been like a snow fence in a field to me. There when I need it no matter what.

Worn out

But that’s not quite the case when it comes to running shoes. When it comes to that kind of equipment, the long shadow is comprised of dozens of pairs worn out over the years. We wear them out and move on. It simply does not pay to wear them longer than their support and sole wear allow. At that point, the shock of the road starts coming through the shoes or the biomechanics of the shoe get thrown off. Then it’s time to resign those shoes to other purposes. Recycling perhaps, at your local shoe store.

Money spent at  local running shops is a good thing. Yes, we’re all apt to order some things cheaper online at times. But a good relationship with a shoe store or three will stand you in good stead over time. Usually, there’s a way the store offers to earn a better price on shoes or get gear through loyalty programs. Most importantly, getting a good fit is always a good strategy on your running shoes. That’s something you simply can’t do online.

Evergreen

Shadow cat.jpgThe local running shops in our area have proved to be fairly evergreen in the face of competition from online retailers and big box stores. That trust that builds up over time is a good thing to have. It’s a bit like we’re all pets in a big running and cycling household. Our local shops feed and outfit us, and give us a scratch on the back when we need it. Ego-wise, anyway.

AS for the remains of winter, that snowman out back that our houseful of twenty-somethings had built during that first night of moist snow was severely compromised by the warm weather. It spent its final days leaning, leaning, leaning until it finally fell over. Kind of gives new meaning to the words Just Do It. More like Get It Over With. His demise seemed timed to coincide with the Christmas holiday, when rain fell all night and made it hard to feel the spirit of the season any longer.

Poor guy looked like he’d had too much to drink, and was pudgy around the middle until his entire middle just fell to the earth. Flump. Frosty bit the dust. But not before the sun rose the next morning and used his low-lying shape to cast a long shadow across the lawn. It goes to show that no matter how humble your status or purposes, or where you past self might be anchored, there is hope in every new day. So let that one melt your heart, and get ready for the next fresh snowfall. Go running. Grab your skis. Take the fat tire bike out for a spin. And enjoy the long shadows of your own existence.

Posted in running, Uncategorized | Tagged , , | Leave a comment