We Run and Ride

Ever thought about the best fitness investments you ever made?

Posted on May 13, 2016 by Christopher Cudworth

Bike Cheerios All of us depend on equipment and coaching to improve performance. In 40+ years of competition, I’ve tried to invest in areas where the returns are greatest. Some of these items were part of a team opportunity or program. Others were choices I made on my own.

If you were to make a similar list, I think you’ll find that your “investments” indicate your commitment and planning along the way. Here is my list of the 10 best fitness investments:

10. First pairs of real running shoes. Granted, my first pair was a set of low-slung gum rubber flats handed out in the Kaneland High School. There was only a centimeter of heel lift and basically no tread after two weeks. But the interesting aspect of these shoes is that they were a throwback “precursor” to all the minimalist designs we have today. I learned to run in those shoes and put probably 600 miles on them in a cross country season. We wore them to train on the asphalt parking lot surrounding the school during January and February as well. Without much support or padding, you learned to run light on your feet.

9. Running shorts with briefs inside. These were invented around the year 1978. I purchased a pair of Sub-4 shorts, which were represented by miler Steve Scott. Training and racing without having to wear a jock or briefs under the shorts was revolutionary. It also gave me a hard-on from the silk briefs the first time I ran in them. But hey, I was twenty years old. A stiff breeze gave you a stiffie.

8. My Specialized mountain bike. So many triathletes and cyclists start out riding a hybrid or mountain bike. Some even do their first races in them. My Specialized Rockhopper was part of a transition to riding more. I still have the bike and it’s still fun to ride. Next came a Trek 400 steel frame road bike that I used until I could not use it anymore. That opened up the roads.

7. Condoms. Getting laid on a regular basis in college was one of the best training and mind health tools imaginable. The confidence a young man gets from being with a woman is perhaps the single most effective training tool…known to man.

6. Counseling. During my late wife’s long and difficult struggles with cancer, I was given the opportunity through the Living Well Cancer Resource Center to get support in counseling. It turned out to be revelatory in many respects. The key thing the counselor said to me was simple: “You seem to be good at forgiving others. How are you at forgiving yourself?” That question opened my mind to things that had long vexed me. Because while I’d achieved a certain number of things in life, there were areas where I failed as well. Of course that’s true. We all fail. But being “given permission” to forgive myself for those failings has made it possible to enjoy my training and racing in this stage of life. And also look back and realized, “You did the best you could. And that wasn’t bad.”

5. Nike Air Edge racing flats. I’ve raved about these shoes before. But these racing flats with the blue swoosh on one side and the red swoosh on the other were incredibly light and the tread was perfect for racing in all conditions. I set all my road PRs in those shoes from 14:47 in the 5K to 31:10 in the 10K and 1:25 in the 25K. Case closed.

4. Running and cycling tights. It’s hard for some people to imagine that tights have not always existed for those who run and ride. In 1977 when our college team wound up racing in the snow at nationals, tights did not exist. We tried nylons and longjohns. Neither worked. So we ran bare-legged. And it was damn cold. Finally, tights came along in the early 1980s. My craziest pair was a set of New Balance tights that were deep blue with vertical pinstripes on them. My fave pair was a set of Tinley tights purchased in 1990. Those were just the right weight to train or race in. The Specialized cycling tights I purchased in 2008 and still use are going strong. However, I no longer run in true tights. They press on my kneecaps and cause irritation in the cartilage underneath. So I wear running pants.

3. Swim coaching. Without the help of a swim coach, there’s no way I would have progressed at all in the pool. If you are serious about learning to swim or improving in the water, there is no substitute for swim coaching. You can get away without run coaching or even cycling help, but not in the water. All swimmers need coaching.

2. The Felt 4C road bike. Purchased in 2007, the Felt 4C opened up the roads. My average MPH instantly got faster and I raced in criteriums, an eye-opening and fun experience. Sadly, the Felt 4C got crunched last fall when I pulled into the garage with the bike still on the roof rack. I put it away and then had a mechanic take a look a month later. “You have an expensive wall ornament now,” he told me. “There are cracks in the frame.” Rest in Peace, Felt 4c.

The Specialized Venge Expert. In all my years of training and racing, there have been very few moments of technology where I have been instantly aware of the value of an investment. This new bike is a joy to ride and makes me want to do that more. That’s all a guy can ask from a bike. A good investment.

That’s the short list. I might add the Nike Oregon Waffle racers that revolutionized our cross country racing in 1976. Or the Nike Waffle Trainers the year before.

Got any great investments at which you were amazed? Share!

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Posted in Christopher Cudworth, cross country, Uncategorized | Tagged Christopher Cudworth, cycling, distance running, fitness, fitness tools, investment, running, swimming, triathlon, we run and ride | 2 Comments

What if bikes were named for what really happens out there?

Posted on May 12, 2016 by Christopher Cudworth

I know. I’ve been so serious lately. Well, life is serious. Except when it isn’t.

So, I got a bit of inspiration for silliness from a recent public relations campaign in Britain. The naming rights to a research vessel were submitted to the public for contributions. In truly British fashion, the public jumped on board with naming the vessel Boaty McBoatface.

boaty-mcboatface-600x377

As reported on gosportimes.com:

Britain’s National Environment Research Council, sponsored an online poll in April to name the $290 million research ship, which will study issues like climate change.

The suggestion RRS Boaty McBoatface, was proposed by James Hand as a joke but ended up receiving almost 90,000 more than the second place contender, RRS Poppy-Mai (named after a toddler with incurable cancer).

The RRS Sir David Attenborough will be constructed at Merseyside shipbuilding yard Cammell Laird, and is due to enter service in 2019.

Okay, that’s just too perfectly British. Save face, for God’s sake. And for that purpose, there is no better man than Sir David Attenborough. Of course his name should be on the research vessel. Attenborough is the face of British science in this world.

But you have to admit that Boaty McBoatface was damned funny. That means there is plenty of room to re-name other modes of transportation, don’t you think?

Specialized…what?

Let us consider the realm of Bicycles. For example, my bike is called the Specialized Venge Expert. It is matte black and has a whippet shape to it. As you all know, this blog occasionally features commentary about the concept I call TARSNAKES. And what better name for a road bicycle than the Specialized Tarsnake! We already have the Specialized Tarmac, which basically means the same sort of thing as tarsnake. It’s the bike for the street, get it?

Then there is the world of triathlon bikes. Which are patently absurb looking all on their own.

Shiv Hot Pink.jpg The Specialized Shiv is a popular model of triathlon bike. But honestly, there are some colors of that bike that are nearly comical. In those instances, it deserves a name at the level of Boaty McBoatface. The men’s version in hot day-glo pink (above) would be wonderfully re-named as the Specialized Penis Extension. And you know the women’s version has to be named the Specialized Vag Supreme.

Specialized.Shiv_.S-works.2015

Take a look at that bike above. Bikes have become, in many cases, elaborate and even somewhat absurd in appearance. The only thing missing on this model is a toilet below the seat. But give them time. They’ll get there. The Specialized Shitz is not far behind.

Today’s triathlon bikes are quite similar to Rube Goldberg experiments in which cyclists bend themselves into crouched positions and pedal like mad to see if the whole configuration helps them go faster. The funny part is this: There are days when it works. And days when it doesn’t. See? Rube Goldberg lives!

That is not to say that bikes have not improved. The Specialized Shiv is an amazing testimony to a contraption designed to slice through the air. So perhaps we should just be honest and call it the Specialized Break Wind. I’ll fart to that.

We could be similarly honest with names like the Cannondale Contraption, the Trek Traction DVice and the Pinarello Pinnochio. That last one is because everyone knows that when you spend that much on a bike, you’re going to lie like a wooden boy to prove that you’re actually going faster on it.

We could also go the sensitive route by creating bikes specifically used for fundraising purposes. That’s why the Felt 4U would make a compelling public relations vehicle. The bike would have a panel just for stickers of good causes. After all, you could afford to replace one of those Felt logos with an American Cancer Society sticker on a bike like this.

Felt bikes.jpg

But if we got really honest, we’d be naming bikes for what really happens out there. That would mean the BMC Bonk, the Giant JGD (Just Got Dropped) and the Canyon Dynamic DNF.

Would love to hear your take on what bikes might be called. Granted, Bikey McBikeface may already be taken. So you’ll have to be original. Got any suggestions?

BE ORIGINAL

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Posted in cycling, Uncategorized | Tagged boaty mcboatface, british humor, rube goldberg, sir richard attenborough, Specialized bikes, triathlon, triathlon bikes | 2 Comments

Hard on the streets and Back On My Feet

Posted on May 10, 2016 by Christopher Cudworth

A local homeless man named Jim was given a new wheelchair to replace this one. Read more about his story in today’s We Run and Ride. And please give to Back On My Feet, a charitable organization that uses running to help the homeless in many cities.

I guess you could say this was a serendipitous morning. My encounter with a homeless fellow this morning was something unexpected, but illustrative. My son Evan Paul Cudworth is running the Rite Aid Cleveland Marathon this weekend to raise money for a homeless benefit group called Back On My Feet. Here’s a link to his fundraising page. Evan worked with this organization when he was living in New York City. Please support his run to benefit this worthwhile organization. And read more about the story of Back On My Feet.

A chance meeting

There are many mornings when I choose to get out of my home office to work on client content. There are actually six or seven Starbucks near my home. Each has its particular benefits. I’m not the type to get all possessive of a certain table, or become too much a creature of habit. Part of the benefit of getting out of the home office is the feeling of fresh circumstances.

This morning it was pouring rain, and after dropping my fiance at the train station I pulled up to the Starbucks in town. It was raining so hard that I sat in the car for a while listening to an interview on Sirius radio. The Opie radio show was conducting a fascinating interview with newsman Tom Brokaw, one of those moments when it pays to sit and listen. I laughed when he said that conservatives think him a bleeding heart liberal and liberals consider him a Rightie Wing Nut. Categories don’t work for everyone.

Out on the streets

Then the rain let up a touch and I jogged across State Street to Starbucks in downtown Geneva and ordered my low-fat turkey sandwich with green shaken iced tea. Then I sat down to write.

In the door came a man in a wheelchair. The shoulders of his gray sweatshirt were stained dark from the rain. The front of his shirt was discolored from years of use and the camouflage sleeves of his undershirt gave the impression that he was a veteran hard on his luck and living hard on the streets.

He gave me a smile as he made his way through the restaurant. “Hey,” I said. “How goes it in the chair today?”

His tanned face opened into a smile. “Not bad,” he said.

His name is Jim.

Rough condition

Jim wheeled around to buy himself a coffee. Someone had treated him to a cup. Then he parked his chair in the open space of the cafe. I studied the condition of Jim’s wheelchair. All my years of caring for my late father in a wheelchair had taught me a few things about how and where wheelchairs eventually give out. The arm rests, for example, always take a beating. I noticed that the arms of Jim’s chair were cracked and rough.The chair looked a little wobbly too. It’s always the little irritations that make life in a wheelchair most miserable.

So I asked him, “Could use a new chair?”

He blinked and wheeled closer. “I’ve got one you can have if you like. It was my late father’s chair, and it’s still almost new.”

We agreed to meet outside the Starbucks in 15 minutes. I drove home and brought the newer chair back in my car. When I arrived the rain was coming down hard again. Streams were pouring down the gutters. My new acquaintance was tucked into the alcove of a storefront, sitting out of the rain.

I left the new wheelchair in the back of my car and came over to talk with him until the skies let up.

Lack of feeling

“How’d you lose the leg?” I asked.

“Diabetes,” he responded. “They want to take the other one too. But I told them they can’t have it.” His other foot is turning orange. “I have neuropathy,” he chuckled, stomping his leg to demonstrate the lack of feeling in his foot. “I have a little nephew that likes to jump up and down on my foot because it doesn’t hurt me. He thinks it’s funny.”

We waited out the worst of the rain. I asked him where he lives, and whether he had tried getting a spot in the homeless shelter in a nearby town. “They’re always full,” he told me. “I been up there four times and there’s no room.”

On the road

The little brick bungalow in Geneva had 750 square feet of living space. We were grateful for it always.

“How do you get all the way there?” I asked.

He made a wheeling motion, and laughed. “Just me.” The homeless shelter is 2.5 miles away. I know the distance because the road that leads to the church where the homeless shelter is covered by a Strava segment. I’ve ridden it many times. In fact, I used to live on that street in a little brick bungalow. I’ve run thousands of miles up and down that street. I cannot imagine pushing a wheelchair that distance even once. Not with one leg and a diabetes-damaged foot.

“Do you collect disability?” I asked.

“$700 a month,” he told me. “It’s not enough to live on. I got a choice. I can either live outside and eat, or I can live inside and starve. So I live outside.”

“Where you do you keep your stuff?” I asked.

“In the woods by the train station,” he told me. “I yank a small tree down with a rope, and hang my stuff on the tree. Then when I head out I let the tree snap back up.” He gestured to the sky.

“Does anyone try to steal your stuff?” he asked. “Oh nawww,” he smiled. “But coyotes do. I have to whack them with a stick to keep them away,” he said, making a poking motion with his arm.

Parking spaces

When the rain lets up we started our trek to the home of his aunt and uncle who live three blocks away. “They’re set in their ways,” he informed me. “But they let me use their garage and stuff. We can take the new chair there,” he said.

As we worked our way through town he took pains to cut the tangents the way world-class runners do when trying to cut time on a course. So rather than following the sidewalks, we jaywalked from parking lot to parking lot, cutting across parking spaces in many places. “There’s a lot of crazy drivers out here,” he tells me. “I almost get hit four times a day. They don’t care.”

The curbs present a problem. The inclines of parking lots too. He gets stuck several times, then pauses to sit in the rain in the middle of a parking area for a moment. He looks up at me with crystal blue eyes, a little bloodshot at the corners. “I get tired,” he laughs. The things most of us take for granted present constant obstacles for Jim.

That’s his name: Jim. Jim smokes. He also coughs a little. Then he gathers his strength again and we wheel on toward the home of his relatives.

Friends and family

It turns out Jim and I attended the same high school. He remembers my younger brother, the basketball player. Then he recalls in interesting detail the death of three guys that he’d known from his 1978 class. “They were driving 130 miles per hour on Crane Road,” he mused. “They hit a tree and the car was full of open liquor and all that. One guy told the cops not to look inside.”

The story seems random at first. But it seems also a comment on the passage of time and how many people seem to fly off the handle on hard streets, wasted by tragedies of their own making. Jim does not seem to see his life as a tragedy. In fact, he declines my offer to get him some financial help.

Then we talk about his family out in California. “It’s warmer out there,” I offer. “You wouldn’t have to freeze so much.”He smiles. “We don’t get along that well,” he admits. “And I don’t have the money to get out there.” But that makes me want to help him all that much more. If he got on a train, or a bus, or a plane. And someone was willing to take him in…who knows?

But we’ll see. Such is life. We are both freed and bound by our relationships. The first step in all this was getting Jim the newer chair. At least his life is incrementally easier.

Cold circumstances

There was still one part of Jim’s story of homelessness that was hard for me to reconcile. “How do you make it through the winter nights?” I ask.

“I freeze,” he admits, clutching his own shoulders. “But I have this sleeping bag that’s good down to -81 below. So I wrap myself up in that.”

Down by the tracks. In the woods. All winter long. Homeless yet determined to live by a certain ethic. “I like to make it on my own,” he responds when I asked if I could do some fundraising for him.

Stories and contradictions

There are all sorts of contradictions in the life stories of the homeless people that I’ve met over the years. Their tales often don’t make sense in conventional terms. There is often no A + B = C logic to the sequences leading to their homelessness. With men like Jim, there are clearly profound health issues at work. But for so many homeless people, life is a tarsnake of confusing circumstances. Sometimes there is a form of mental illness involved. Other times all it takes is a major medical problem that can wipe out a family’s savings and net worth. Even the popular singer Jewel lived in her car for a while. Homelessness is seldom the product of just one thing.

But when you see young people working the hard streets in downtown Chicago or New York or any big city in the world, it can make you cynical. They post or hold up signs scrawled in dried-out Sharpies. These give the elevator pitch of their homelessness. “Need money to take get to Iowa,” they might say. Or, “Homeless and need food. Please give.”

There was a most lovable homeless character in the Amy Schumer movie Trainwreck. Comedian Dave Attell plays the homeless guy who makes comments about Amy’s existence. One morning as she passes by attired in an obviously hot outfit, he calls out: “What’s the matter, did church let out early?”

The homeless I’ve encountered are not without humor. They’re people like you and me. Yet they are different, by circumstance.

Too real for reality

Some of the elevator pitches of the homeless seem too clearly conceived to be true. And indeed, if you dig deep enough, some are carefully constructed lies. But they are all clearly designed to sell survival. We can choose to be suspicious of these stories and methods, yet they are not so different from the most sophisticated advertising campaigns on earth, or the pitch of politicians to earn your votes. It always a message with a slogan a bit of closure. We’re all selling something. Acquisitiveness and survival. One and the same.

Evan Cudworth on one of his training jaunts in Chicago. You can support his run in the Rite Aid Cleveland Marathon this weekend by visiting his Back On My Feet fundraising page.

Here’s how you can genuinely help the homeless…

As noted: I guess you could say this was a serendipitous morning. My encounter with Jim this morning was something unexpected, but illustrative. My son Evan Paul Cudworth is running the Rite Aid Cleveland Marathon this weekend to raise money for a homeless benefit group called Back On My Feet. Here’s a link to his fundraising page. Please give to this worthwhile organization. And read the story of Back On My Feet.

This is a cause all of us who run, ride and swim should support.

GIVE FULLY. SEEK JUSTICE. LOVE LIFE.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged BACK ON MY FEET, Christopher Cudworth, hard streets, helping the homeless, homeless people, homeless shelter, marathon, rite aid Cleveland marathon, running, we run and ride | 2 Comments

On the subject of cyclists, roads and toilet seats

Posted on May 9, 2016 by Christopher Cudworth

Me on Specialized Midway through a climb on one of the favorite local cycling roads I had the pedals moving at a good cadence and was feeling good about this year’s fitness when a red pickup truck flew by in the other direction as a voice called out from inside the cab.

“Faggot!” someone yelled.

I get the culture differences going on here. We all know that certain people don’t like to share the roads with cyclists. The argument typically goes like this: people who drive motorized vehicles are the ones that pay the taxes that fund the roads. Therefore, those who drive cars and trucks have more rights than cyclists, who supposedly don’t pay a dime for the roads.

Only that’s not how reality works. Millions of cyclists also drive cars and pay the same fees and taxes that other people pay. The Rules of the Road very specifically guarantee cyclists the right to use public roads. In fact, drivers of motorized vehicles are in many places legally required to give cyclists a full three feet of space when passing a person riding a bike traveling in the same direction in the same traffic lane.

Many motorists consider cyclists these rules an inconvenience at best and an annoyance as a matter of daily existence. There is also a breed of motorists who view cyclists as an affront to their God-given right to drive on the road without interference. These motorists think like the lead character Todd Rundgren song Emperor of the Highway:

I am the Emperor of the Highway
I wield the Universal Will
One might chance to overlook on my Divineness
Unless I’m sitting in the Imperial Poupe de Ville

Leave it to Todd to cut through the crap. It’s the perceived presumption that cyclists think they’re better than everyone else that pisses off so many motorists. This presumption enrages people who think their personal rights are being infringed by having to actually accommodate cyclists on the road. It’s an affront to their sensibilities in the driving sphere.

Those so offended will use almost any excuse and express their frustration through insults at any cyclist they encounter on the road. They make no distinction. They plainly hate all cyclists, from little old ladies pedaling putz bikes to road cyclists in close-fitting kits.

The angry reactions directed at cyclists can get quickly personal. When angry motorists can’t think of anything intelligent or sufficiently forceful to say, they tend to use insults that are easy to shout, and don’t take too much thinking.

That’s why the word “faggot” as shouted out the window of the red pickup. Clearly the goal was to insult my masculinity somehow. Faggot is a term once-used to describe homosexual men. It was originally meant to be derogatory, but as noted on Dictionary.com: “The terms faggot and fag are both used with disparaging intent and are perceived as highly insulting. However, faggot (but not fag) is sometimes used within the gay community as a positive term of self-reference.”

It’s the same thing with the term “nigger.” When used by black people to discuss black issues, the term nigger takes on entirely different meanings. Nigger can become almost a term of endearment or relationship when used as an inside joke to describe problems common to the black community.

That use of the term “nigger” is almost a reverse parallel to the manner in which the Inuit people have a vocabulary that includes many different terms for snow. It’s all about sharing common experience and its practical applications. When something is seemingly similar but really is not, it can be quite empowering to take hold of that dynamic and own it.

Now that we’re culturally working through new range (and age) of gender identity issues, there is plenty of backlash toward those advocating more rights about gender identity. The Internet is abuzz about companies seeking to accommodate people who are transgender or who claim a gender identity of the so-called opposite sex. To clarify, this is how Gender Identity is defined for cultural purposes: Gender identity is one’s personal experience of one’s own gender. All societies have a set of gender categories that can serve as the basis of the formation of a person’s social identity in relation to other members of society.

Hundreds of thousands of years of human evolution have produced considerable variation in the bodies and minds of the human race. Yet it seems there are people who still can’t handle the fact that diversity in race and gender have always played a part in that biological history.

To some people, that diversity is a fact to be celebrated. To others, it’s a cause for tribal reaction. In one of its most massively flawed explanations for the diversity of the human race, a story from the Bible about the Tower of Babel insinuates that the many languages that evolved among human beings over the centuries was the direct product of God shattering common language and scattering people over the face of the earth.

From Genesis: “Now the whole world had one language and a common speech. ²As people moved eastward,[a] they found a plain in Shinar[b] and settled there.

³They said to each other, “Come, let’s make bricks and bake them thoroughly.” They used brick instead of stone, and tar for mortar. ⁴Then they said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens, so that we may make a name for ourselves; otherwise we will be scattered over the face of the whole earth.”

This act apparently pissed off God pretty thoroughly. Here’s what God was supposed to have thought and done:

⁵But the Lord came down to see the city (Babel) and the tower the people were building.⁶The Lord said, “If as one people speaking the same language they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them. ⁷Come, let us go down and confuse their language so they will not understand each other.”

⁸So the Lord scattered them from there over all the earth, and they stopped building the city. ⁹That is why it was called Babel^[c]—because there the Lord confused the language of the whole world. From there the Lord scattered them over the face of the whole earth.”

This tale seems to contradict the entire mission of Jesus Christ, which is to unify the peoples of the world under one common faith. Yet Christianity struggles even to agree on the interpretation of the opening chapters of Genesis and whether God literally or metaphorically created the world in seven days.

So people struggle to find a common narrative in all this anti-historical nonsense we’re taught to believe about the world. As a result, some make choices based on the lowest common denominator they can find.

For example, they take the Bible also at its literal word about sexuality. This becomes a common denominator of sorts. And in defense of this archaic worldview, there have many insults invented to describe all those who don’t abide by the same tribal background or behaviors. Each new wave of immigrants to America gets the stiff-arm treatment. Catholics and Protestants for centuries fought over their relative interpretations of the bible. And where the Christian faith does not preside, Muslims have also resorted to tribal responses and slaughter each other with veritable glee to this day.

So the foundations of all this fuss over “gender identity” has deep, tribal roots going back to the dawn of recorded history. People can’t handle the idea that someone outside their “tribe” of heterogamy should have even basic rights such as access to the restroom of their choice.

It goes to show where the real asses of this world can be found. It also explains how people who think of themselves as righteous can actually turn into plain and simple assholes.

If they follow the example of how God acted in the whole Tower of Babel story, it’s no wonder people are such jerks to each other. Go back and read that piece of inane literature about the Tower of Babel again. It’s not even a good folk tale. Seriously: Is almighty God really threatened by the idea that the human race is going to climb up a Tower and get him? And we really must ask this question: does God also hate capitalism, because he seems to genuinely fear human enterprise at its core.

We don’t hear these types of questions coming out of the tribal mouths of cultural and capitalist warriors. Whenever the Bible or some other book contradicts their entire worldview, they just don’t want to hear it. They’d rather drive a curious or considerate soul right off the road than have to slow down to question their own ideas about who owns what.

With God as their original witness, perhaps the road hogs of this world are simply following a really bad example from scripture. They prefer the petty, jealous and possessive God to the God of Grace and love. They turn their God into the Emperor of the Highway, and happily abide by his example both on the road and in the restroom, where no transgender or gender identity cheek shall ever meet the same seat as those who claim to be Emperor of the Toilet as well:

I am the Emperor of the Highway
Strapped with foolish mortals such as these
I need never indicate my intentions
I can stop and go and turn just as I please

SEEK JUSTICE. LIVE FULLY.

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Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged emperor of the highway, live fully, seek justice, tower of babel | 1 Comment

When a coach wants you to fail

Posted on May 6, 2016 by Christopher Cudworth

Over time I’ve had some good coaches and trainers. When you know the person guiding you, there’s typically an etiquette to the relationship. If something difficult needs to be said, there’s a time and a place. That’s how good coaching works.

But not all coaches and trainers use the same tactics. Some spill it out right then and there. And while it hurts to be told “You suck, Cudworth!” it does get the point across. Harsh, and sometimes effective. But not always.

Safe space

There is plenty of criticism these days of college students complaining that they need a “safe space” in their lives. The backlash to that request is part of the hate speech now directed at millennials for the general perception that the new generation wants things handed to them, and without criticism.

I don’t buy any of that argument. If anything, the many millennials I know are their own worst critics. Their complaints are often a reflection of being hard on themselves already. Have you seen the workload so many high schools pile on these kids? And then, colleges want these same kids to be rife with service or volunteer experience. And it better genuine at that, or they won’t consider you for admission.

Changing dynamics

Competition just to get into colleges is fierce. That’s true both academically and athletically. The days of the diversified three-sport athlete are essentially gone. Poof! The pressures to excel in one sport require athletes to spend literally all year in training for volleyball, basketball, soccer, football or whatever sport is either chosen or assigned by their parents.

And speaking of parents. They can be the problem, not a solution to all this. I’ve spoken with many coaches over the years that have told me, “I would love this job of coaching kids if it weren’t for the parents.” Hovering parents show up at practices and demand answers from coaches. The cycle goes round and round with the kids in the middle.

Pressure points

But the fact of the matter is that parents have to be advocates for their kids in many cases. A parent I know learned the hard way that his high school student tennis player was being left off the team his senior year even though his son had earned his way to second spot on the roster. It turned out that unless the kid took private lessons from the head coach he was basically banned from the team.

So this entire system we’ve created for academics and sports and the workplace is founded on arguably false premises. Companies now have the right to demand “unpaid internships” in which students work like slaves for no pay. “To gain experience,” they’re told. But exactly what experience or impression are they gaining? That their work has no value? That getting compensated for your time is a decidedly precious perk that you don’t really deserve?

Competitive world

Our culture at its best builds wonderful opportunities for competitive testing and growth. But our culture is failing not because we are being too soft on kids, but because the expectations have become so specialized and strained there is often no room for self-discovery or exploration. This has been happening for years to professional athletes who devote their lives to making the NFL or NBA. We push them through school in many cases without a sufficient education. They last a year to three years and make a bunch of money perhaps. Yet a high percentage of them are close to broke when it’s all said and done. This is a cultural failing. And yet our society mimics its dynamics all the way down to Pre-K soccer and football.

How many young athletes do you see playing their “favorite sport” from the age of 5 through the age of 12 and then they’ve just “had enough?” The fun has gone out of it. They’re smart enough to see what comes next. Year-round practices. Expenses their parents have to bear. Games on early Sunday mornings and late at night. It’s no wonder there is burnout among athletes of many types. But the opposite can be just as bad. I once coached an athlete who was participating in four sports at once. He was enrolled in soccer, football, basketball, baseball. His parents told me, “He does best when he’s busy, because he has ADD.” Sheesh.

Some parents do learn the art of balance and are able to positively guide their children through to success. These are the kids who achieve both academically and athletically. When you meet these youth, they are impressive beyond belief. And it’s pretty well accepted that today’s athletes in sports such as basketball and football and volleyball could kick the ass of all those generations before. Strength training is responsible for much of that, and intensive coaching. Yet for all this intensity and success, who is actually measuring the collateral damage?

Kids also cheat and take steroids. That’s how pressure-filled this world can be. They’re just imitating the role models above them. Track and field is apparently still a dirty sport at the top. So was cycling for many years. Who knows if triathletes are drug cheaters too?

Participation

This pressure to achieve is countermanded by a culture that has tried to reward and encourage kids that participation is just as important as winning. And like they say, half of success in life is just showing up.

Yet there’s been big criticism over the last 15 years that kids coming up through the system are rewarded too frequently and earn awards just for showing up. Some people scoff at participation trophies for young kids. They think it makes kids soft. Personally, I have experience as a kid getting cut from a baseball team the first time I tried out. It drove me to better things, and when I made the team, I actually pitched in the semifinal game of a city championship. But not all kids are wired the same. Some will never go out for a competitive sport. Yet the benefits of learning teamwork, how to work on your mistakes and exhibit good sportsmanship are all still cultural values we want to encourage. Right? That’s the entire foundation of the corporate world, right there. So participation trophies are designed to reward that commitment of time. No harm done.

Finisher medals

And let’s be honest: getting a “finisher’s medal” for completing a race is nothing more than a participation trophy. If we applied the same standard to running a marathon as we do in criticizing a little kid for getting a participation trophy for playing baseball for a season, it would sound like this: “So what if you ran 26 miles! People do it all the time! Millions of people! Every year!” Yet we’ve created that dynamic in sports for big people. And that is somehow different? I think not.

Still, a certain segment of society loves to believe that it’s had a much tougher time getting along in this world than the rest of us. These are the very same people excoriating millennials as somehow soft and inferior. They rip into college kids and young people in the workplace as lazy and too demanding for their age. They bitch about kids wanting to be paid a fair wage for their jobs.

But the fact of the matter is that our economy has refused to raise wages for everyone who participates in the workforce. Wall Street wants its profits, and it’s going to get them. Same with the shareholders. And the corporate executives. By the time it comes to raising the wages of the people who actually do the work, the trickle-down effect has worn off. Petered out. Dried up. Reagan was wrong. All the Bushes too. The cost of living has gone up but across the board in so many occupations, salaries have not gone up. The wealth that formerly sustained the middle class has migrated to a very small segment of society.

Jobs up

In terms of total jobs since 2008, things have gotten better for the American economy. Yet the wage pressures that remain have embittered much of society.

Meanwhile, attempts to create equity in the corporatized system of health insurance we’ve created have resulted in growing pains. The costs of including people formerly excluded from health care are real, and people don’t like paying more into the system as a result. But again, is it Obamacare causing these rate increases, or is it an industry spoiled by its own habitual and grotesque profit-taking that is slamming middle-class Americans?

If you trace this pattern with your finger you will see that the health insurance industry has employed the very same tactics as corporate America in refusing to treat its constituents fairly. Our healthcare system is corporatized in a bureaucratic fashion. The wealth of healthcare is stuck at the top. Companies like Blue Cross and United are not going to budget from their profit-taking. If they don’t like how much money a plan is making, they simply cut the plan and shove people into a different one. That’s not Obamacare at work. That’s greed.

Divide and conquer

That dynamic has pitted everyday working Americans against each other, and that’s where the money lords like things to be. It’s true in the investment and financial world, where we’re being told that banks are “too big to fail.” And, when given taxpayer money to bail them out of the crisis they created, many banks doled out big cash bonuses or held parties to reward their fat cat employees. Talk about participation medals…

And to think that people have the gall to criticize a bunch of desperate recent college grads as acting too privileged. So there’s another meme to which we should all pay attention. It’s the basic phrase that we should not criticize until we’ve walked a mile in another person’s shoes.

You’re the coach

Imagine if you were actually coaching some of this younger generation. What would you tell them to help them succeed? Would you personally look them in the eye and tell them they’re spoiled and lacking motivation? Would you insist that you’ve had a much harder life than them so far? Would you tell them they don’t deserve to be paid a reasonable wage for going to work?

I have kids who are millennials. I have friends who have kids that are millennials. I do not know a single one that is lazy or unmotivated. I do know they bear the burden of college loans at levels our generation could not comprehend. They bought into the system as they were told or encouraged to do. And the system does not care about them. So they complain a little. Just like older people complaining about the costs of healthcare. We’re all trying to figure out what it means. And the answer is simple: we have to fight back, and do it together.

Bad coaching

Society is acting like a snotty trainer or coach who secretly despises his athletes. His own failings drive him to show contempt for those trying to better themselves any way they can. And rather than keep those opinions to himself, the bitterness and bile escape into shrill criticism. These same attitudes have flooded society as a whole, poisoning politics and social discourse. This anger seeks targets, not discussion. It refuses to acknowledge success where it occurs because that is too big a threat to the obvious failings of the people doing the s0-called coaching. The voices of these bad coaches can be heard railing through the waves of talk radio and TV news outlets that have ads to sell and profits to make. They know that anger and complaint sell best. So that’s what they market. And people buy it. And repeat it. And elect candidates who seem to use the same microphone like a bad coach screaming at his athletes to suck it up and come along with him, or you don’t get to play.

It’s almost like working with a coach who wants you to fail because to witness the success of others, especially those you consider inferior, would just be too hard to take. Do you see anyone in today’s politics who embodies those values? If so, you better watch out. A bad coach can really screw things up.

SEEK JUSTICE

WRARShirtGraphic

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged health insurance, MILLENNIALS, participation medals, success | 5 Comments

Don’t worry baby

Posted on May 5, 2016 by Christopher Cudworth

I never qualified to run in the Illinois state track meet. I ran the qualifying time of 4:29 in the mile but placed seventh in the race and only six could go, as I recall.

That same day a guy long jumping for a local school came tearing down the runway and wound up face first in the landing pit. He’d been doing cocaine or amphetamines before the meet and basically wound up fainting in mid-air. It was the strangest thing to witness, some guy hitch-kicking through the air and then going limp as he flopped in the pit, arms and legs akimbo.

The entire scene felt surreal that day, running down that long last straightaway of my senior year in high school. There was a large sign above the finish line ticking away the seconds. I’d run 4:29 in five previous meets. That was the likely result of trying to do too many events in dual meets, and not doing enough raw speed work to cut the two or three seconds that should have come easily. But a typical dual meet included running the two-mile, high-jumping, triple-jumping and running the mile. I was trying to help the team win meets. But it was not the way to truly improve at any single event.

Consolation

Despite my failure to qualify, a crew of us decided to go down and watch the state meet anyway. We could get a tan and cheer on a few of the guys we knew from other schools. That just made me jealous. We piled back in the car and headed north toward home.

On the way back we were driving the long stretch of road on Route 47 when I spied some girls from the high school I’d attended before my father moved our family ten miles east and out of that district. They were all girls I’d hung around with, and I called out as we passed and they waved back.

“You should have mooned them,” someone in our car suggested.

Then their car came roaring past and they beat us to it. There was an ass in one window and several sets of boobs being shown. So we retaliated with a fruit basket or two, and from there it was a back and forth of body parts. We were all laughing uproariously and it was a bunch of childish fun.

But I also noticed a face I liked. So I called up one of the women the next day and asked her for a date. We went to see the movie Shampoo, starring Warren Beatty and Julie Christie. It was a ribald tale of a hairdresser who got laid a lot, and the costs of that lifestyle. After the movie I took her driving in the country. We pulled the car over and we got a little busy in the late spring heat. That felt like quite a bit of consolation after not having qualified for the state meet. I no longer cared how fast I was, or that my former school had just won the team championship at the state meet. Several of my former teammates were individual state champions. Suddenly, I did not care. It’s amazing what women can do (and for) to your head. Even if it’s just one night.

Most of us go to that place of sexual approval in one way or another. Think about the song “Night Moves” by Bob Seger. Both characters in the song are getting what they can. It’s an equal motive.

I was a little too tall
Could’ve used a few pounds
Tight pants points hardly reknown
She was a black haired beauty with big dark eyes
And points all her own sitting way up high
Way up firm and high

Out past the cornfields where the woods got heavy
Out in the back seat of my ’60 Chevy
Workin’ on mysteries without any clues
Workin’ on our night moves
Trying’ to make some front page drive-in news
Workin’ on our night moves in the summertime
In the sweet summertime

Some men get that brand of equality pretty early in life. They understand women. It’s either because they have sisters and see that they’re simply human beings with urges just like men. But some men just have the natural knack for appreciating that women are people too. They know how to talk and laugh and engage with women by nature.

Of course, not all men are like that. The entire history of sit-coms is basically about that subject. Women have lamented the shortage of good men since the dawn of time. Even Eve had her man troubles with Adam. Dude could not keep his mouth shut. Got them kicked out of a sweet garden in the process. Put the blame on Eve right then and there, in front of God. Well, goddamnit! There’s a lesson people don’t talk about often enough in the Bible.

Keep on keeping on

Still, we somehow find inspiration in each other as partners. That’s true for same-sex couples as well. It’s true with everyone. The vagaries of love require some level of risk.

And when you put your guts out there in some endeavor, it helps to have someone backing you up. I’ve always loved these lyrics from the song “Don’t Worry Baby” by the Beach Boys:

She told me “Baby, when you race today
Just take along my love with you
And if you knew how much I loved you
Baby nothing could go wrong with you”

Oh what she does to me
When she makes love to me
And she says “Don’t worry baby”
Don’t worry baby
Don’t worry baby
Everything will turn out alright

In the book Wild by Cheryl Strayed, she comes to the end of her hike up the Pacific Coast Trail and comes to realize that every experience she’s had in life had merit. Even the heroin and the wild sex. “What if it taught me something? What if I wanted to sleep with all those men?

She had discovered the fact that even our mistakes can add up to good. Even bad relationships. They still teach you something.

It simply doesn’t pay to repress all our urges to try things. We don’t learn anything that way. Too many repressed individuals wind up bitter and controlling in their relationships. Then they carry it over to their life and their politics.That’s true for women and men.

Repression is defined as: the action of subduing someone or something by force. Stop and think about that for a moment. How well does it truly work to try to force anyone to do anything? People may do it because they’re forced to comply, but they come to resent you in the end. Bad bosses and bad leaders use force. Good bosses and good leaders encourage and lead by example.

Self-discipline vs. repression

That is not to say we don’t need controls in our lives. Self-discipline is far different from repression. There are so many examples where the Bible is actually referring to self-discipline when people choose to turn it into rules of repressive law. Jesus objected to that approach by the religious leaders of his day. He preferred instead for people to have motivation from their hearts. For certain, Jesus also taught that there are limits of satisfaction that come from indulgent behavior.

This is true even in our sporting endeavors. It’s possible to get carried away in any sport. Running. Cycling. Swimming. Triathlon. Marathon. Ultra-marathon. On it goes. At some point, there are physical and mental limits. Sometimes we don’t even acknowledge the sense of diminished returns we get from the effort and time invested in any pursuit. That’s true in both vocational or avocational circumstances.

Addictions

There are also addictions to all sorts of things in this world. At some point, I recognized a running addiction in myself that required a bit of intervention. I was so captivated by the idea of being competitive well into my late 20s that there were other things in life that could possibly have been neglected. So I backed off. That’s an ironic form of self-discipline, perhaps, but just as real. I probably could have competed well into my 30s, but at some point, what was the point?

Backing off meant that my ego was no longer fed by winning races. But that also meant there was time to dedicate to raising a family. I kept on running for mental health, doing a few races every year when time allowed. It was hard to no longer be the best guy on the starting line. But learning to measure and value myself beyond athletic achievement was important too.

Diversifying

Later in life I took up cycling, because longevity in exercise is important. All those years of running did result in some wear and tear. It’s funny how all this feeds self-image and that baseline desire to prove yourself to the world or your yourself. It probably doesn’t end until the day we die. We’re wired to desire those night moves and the feeling it gives us to be wanted or desired.

And so we run. We ride. We swim. Some of us do all three. But don’t worry baby, everything’s gonna be alright.

SHOW RESPECT.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged cycling, DON'T WORRY BABBY, DON'T WORRY BABY, mooning in the car, NIGHT MOVES, running, sexual addiction, swimming, triathlon | 3 Comments

Time to get up

Posted on May 4, 2016 by Christopher Cudworth

As little kids, we often depend on our parents to wake us up in the morning. I recall my mother coming to the top of the stairs to call out in her cheery voice, “Time to get up!”

But sooner or later we have to take over those responsibilities for ourselves. We have all kinds of gadgets now to help us. Phones and the like. Unless you forget to set the alarm, there’s no way you should be late anywhere.

Those of us who train for endurance sports often depend on those alarms to get up in time for workouts. My fiance is a notable early riser. Lately, I’ve not been so good about it. I’m working through a series of obligations having to do with family stuff and work. It takes mental energy and I’m giving it that. So I sleep in until 7:00 a.m. most mornings.

Admit it. That’s sleeping in for most of us. Staying in bed until 8:00 is simply not an option for most of the world. But for endurance athletes, who often rise at 4:30 to go swim or hit the treadmill or bike trainer in the dead of winter, even 7:00 a.m. sounds like a luxury. Even on weekends we get up at seemingly insane hours. Long runs. Big rides. Open water swims in cold, choppy water. What are you, nuts?

Add in work obligations and squeezing in workouts can be tough. You need a routine that is predictable and replicable to get you out the door to the car or the train for that morning commute.

This morning I woke up and glanced over to see a radio alarm clock that has sat on my bedstand for more than thirty years.That old clock/radio was given as a wedding present back in 1985. It has a radio and a cassette player in it. Both still work. Even the digital (whooo!) numbers indicating the time still work.

Note that’s it’s not even set to the appropriate time of day. When the power goes out, as it did recently, the clock needs to be reset. It was given as a wedding present back in 1985. It has a radio and a cassette player in it. Both still work. You can set the alarm several ways. It can wake you up with a long loud tone or with music. And for many years, that’s how the thing did its duty.

I ultimately converted to my Timex watch as a tool to wake up in the morning. In the last 20 years, I’ve been through many of Timex watches. I’d replace the batteries but the screws are so tiny on the back of the watch they are just about impossible to replace on your own. Jewelers just laugh at you when you bring those Timex watches into the store. “It’s a $25 watch,” they chuckle. “Go get a new one.”

Such is the world of ultimate obsolescence. I think through all the things discarded or lost in my life and it seems like one long trail of squander and misuse. Some things lost I truly regret. Somehow I misplaced a Patagonia rain jacket I’d purchased this winter on a sale rack. It was a really good deal. But it was left behind somewhere. Again, I have that habit too. One of my Eddie Bauer coats hung in the church narthex for five years until I remembered that I’d left it there. There it still hung. Untouched.

Much of this happens by accident. We can lose prized objects so quickly. One minute you own them and the next minute you’ve dropped them or left them at the coffee house. I left an iPhone charger cord at Starbucks the other day. It has my initials on it, and my phone number. But no one called. People now assume the world is disposable and dispensable. Finders Keepers, remember? When was the last time you actually got something back from a Lost and Found?

It’s true that we lose many material things. Yet we can also lose things far more precious. Our health is what comes to mind. Our relationships too. Our loved ones. Our work. Our faith. Our hope. None of these is typically so disposable, or obsolete. It’s one of the tarsnakes of existence that the things we most value in life are often so intangible.

It’s a warning, in a sense, not to let your days become disposable as well. Morning is a precious time. Getting up every day is a gift. Don’t take it for granted. If you’re lucky enough to be able to run, ride and swim, enjoy it. Don’t beat yourself up if you fail in some way. Give yourself a pat on the back for getting up and doing it. It’s so easy to let it slide. You deserve encouragement.

Use that little phrase if you need it, to motivate yourself. “Time to get up!”

Somehow it still seems to work.

TRAIN HARD. COMPETE WELL.

Posted in Christopher Cudworth, cycling, running, Uncategorized | Tagged alarm clocks, setting the alarm, sleeping in, time to get up, waking up | 4 Comments

Endurance and a military life

Posted on May 3, 2016 by Christopher Cudworth

In one of those quirks of personal history, I never registered for the Armed Services. There was never a notice sent to my home requiring registration, so I never did it. I don’t think many of my immediate peers did either. None of my friends ever mentioned getting registered for the military or even being notified about it.

Perhaps there was a window when it wasn’t required. Yet I mentioned that to a friend that did serve in the armed forces and he was quick to tell me that was not true. “Oh, we all had to register,” he told me.

It wasn’t strict avoidance on my part. All I knew about the military when I turned 18 was what I’d heard from the recent conclusion of the Vietnam War. That did not sound like a good gig to me. My older brothers never got drafted for service. I was always grateful for that. The Vietnam War was not really good for anyone. Not for the people who served in it. Nor the nation that chased communist-supported forces all over the jungles and rice patties.

Since that time America has engaged in several more wars. I clearly recall the 1991 Gulf War, and how several colleagues from the newspaper where I worked went off to serve in the invasion. One worked as a refueling pilot flying jets over the Middle East.

Military man

I’ve often wondered how I’d have done as a military man. Certainly I had my share of problems with acceptance of authority over the years. But most of that was distrust of authority that was falsely assumed. I loved the relationship between coach and athlete. I trusted my coaches to a flaw. Certainly that would have translated into a motivated sense of duty and devotion to commanders. There was certainly enough anger within me to be channeled toward an enemy.

The discipline of military life would have been no problem either. All those mornings rising at 5:30 a.m. for training runs were an exciting part of my life. I’ve never minded working hard, going to bed early and setting out to achieve a goal. All good traits for a soldier.

Enduring qualities

Endurance sports naturally draw upon those points of will and dedication. We all find our cause and our goals in life. Many of mine have centered around athletic achievement. It’s a satisfying pursuit to set a goal and make it happen.

The one challenge I might have faced in military service is an absolute dedication to the cause for war. I am deeply suspicious of the motivations of politicians, especially those speaking for God, as if God were in support of any national cause. And if I were sent off to war for ill-defined causes I might have had trouble with the fight.

Bad record

America also has a nasty history in how it has treated its soldiers and veterans once wars are over. From the time of the Revolutionary War until this day and age, the nation has sent people to die for its cause. But when those soldiers come home we have a bad record of taking care of them. Perhaps I’ve written on this before, but it continues to bother me. The idea that someone should put their life on the line and then be ignored or treated badly by our nation is simply unacceptable. Yet the same people who claim respect for our military are often the people voting against funding for veteran’s benefits.

This morning I stopped by a cemetery near my former home in St. Charles. While walking through the graveyard I discovered a set of small stones set at the very back of the property. These were a line of small white stones engraved with the name and company of the men who served in war. These most likely dated from the Civil War. Then there were a set that bore the simple inscription: Unknown US Soldier.

Their remains had never been identified. Yet they were brought “home” to a quiet spot next to a small stream where they have sat untouched for more than 100 years. Unknown Soldiers. Think about that. They fought and died for their country. No one even knew who they were in the end.

Good for everyone?

I’ve entertained the notion that that some sort of military service would be good for every citizen. It might have been good for me. Yet aren’t we all a bit surprised how many of our current politicians got deferrals in their day? Donald Trump, for example, and to some extent, George W. Bush, who got placed in a pilot’s program only to cease showing up at some point. Perhaps he had better things to do?

Then there are obviously aggressive men such as Dick Cheney, who seemed to love sending people to war but somehow got a deferral himself. Meanwhile, men like John Kerry obviously fought in Vietnam but were excoriated for their service by political zealots who Swift Boated the man’s reputation.

Ingratitude

It fits the same pattern of the nation as a while. America loves the notion of fighting, but we tend to show very little gratitude to those who did. It’s the same pattern even with the National Football League, where former players often suffer debilitating side effects from playing the game, including brain injury. Yet the NFL has had trouble admitting this fact. The league for years has behaved with ingratitude toward its former players. Until recently the NFL would not admit that brain injury among its former players was even a problem. it took several suicides by former players due to CTE for the problem to be acknowledged. Up till then, denial ruled the day. How very American.

By contrast, we’re typically shocked when someone dies at a sporting event such as a marathon or triathlon. But with millions of participants each year, the odds are actually pretty high that a traumatic physical event will happen occasionally. There are in fact few rules preventing at-risk people from doing endurance sports. The disclaimers we sign before competitions are not exactly like signing up for the military. We don’t have to disclose much. Even our flat feet get a pass. How telling it is that we’re basically signing our lives away if anything should happen, yet we sign on the line and jump into the fray. How interesting. And perhaps at times, how stupid?

Heroes

Instead, we seek heroes among those individuals who overcome even greater personal obstacles than our own to achieve athletic glory. “There but for the grace of God, go I…” the saying goes. Athletes fighting cancer or competing with physical disabilities demonstrate the supposedly wondrous spirit of the human race. But what is it that we’re all truly fighting? Is it our personal war against death that all these events signify?

Well, let’s take a look at that.The triumphal music with crowds cheering on competitors looks very like a military parade. It all resembles the adulation once reserved for military champions; armies marching into Rome, Civil War soldiers returning to their homes.

There’s even that triumphal, dirgelike music from the movie Chariots of Fire. It’s like we’re all being called up to heaven! It’s a plain fact of human history. We love our wars more than just about anything. We love to scare ourselves into motivation and expect others to share in our fears. There you have endurance sports in a nutshell.

Protecting freedoms

It’s often said that our military exists to protect our freedoms and way of life. Even though I’ve never served, I believe in the American military. I admire those who do serve.

I also respect the idea that our military should be used judiciously, not as an extension of some aggressive ideology or lashing out in fear. That exposes our flaws more than it affirms our strengths. In recent years, our military has been asked to fight wars that have no clear mission. We’ve seen scenes from Iraq and Afghanistan where there was no real way to win and no real mission to accomplish. The soldiers there were torn between keeping the peace and whacking all those who threaten them. No wonder so many came home with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. And let’s remember: those efforts in the Middle East are not over.

Protecting the public, from what?

It’s the same way back at home. Our police are being asked to fight wars on the streets of America. They’re often outgunned in the process. There are military-grade weapons easily available and the police know it. Now guns outnumber people in America. It’s no wonder the police are responding so aggressively to public threats. They’re being asked to fight the same kind of war in America that our soldiers experienced in Iraq.

America is largely ungrateful in both cases. For years, while our soldiers went door-to-door fighting in Iraq, we knew little about their missions or daily life. And when dead bodies were sent home, the Bush administration banned the practice of photographing the coffins as they arrived on American soil. America was a nation in denial, yet 4000 soldiers gave their lives. Tens of thousands more were wounded, often losing limbs or mind in the process. And all along, we are being protected from the folly of our own conflicted policies at home and abroad.

War at home

It’s a fact: More Americans have died from gun violence and suicide than all the soldiers that have ever died on foreign soils. I believe this is the result of a deeply conflicted belief system developed and promoted around an ideology of aggression and fear. It also makes some people a lot of money.

This brand of propaganda drives highly profitable gun sales and leads to a mentality that it is impossible to safely live in America without owning a gun. Last week I heard a representative of a leading gun manufacturer interviewed on AM 560, a conservative radio station here in Chicago. The gun rep proudly outlined his company’s history of supplying military weapons to our armed forces. Then he quickly proclaimed that more than one hundred million guns have been sold in America since President Obama took office. And why? Because the gun lobby has convinced fearful Americans that the President would take away their guns. He said that.

Connect the dots

Do you get the connection here? It is fear that drives this perceived need for such prolific weaponry across the face of America. It’s not going to change anytime soon because it has too long been the fabric of American life. And let’s be clear: it is no coincidence that America’s baseline racism also emerged with aggression and public expression during this time period. Aggression and fear go quite well together with racism, nationalism, and protectionism. All the things that lead America to war also drive war here at home.

So let’s connect the dots. We have a tradition of selfishly abandoning our soldiers once they serve no military purpose. We have also abandoned our citizenry to gun violence of many forms. Every time there is a military-style mass shooting, the NRA waits a few days and then casts blame on something other than the guns for causing the shooting.

But be honest about this trend. It’s the guns now, and it’s always been the guns that cause domestic shootings. These are further driven by selfish priorities of all those promulgating a fear-driven ideology that makes mass shootings actionable in the minds of those disenfranchised with society. That’s how gun crimes have become so possible and relatively common in America. This aligns with the daily deaths vexing cities across America.

So let’s complete the algorithm.

We’re a nation of ingrates living selfishly off the sacrifices of our wounded and dead soldiers while selfishly clinging to a lifestyle that imitates military culture. Yet even the military bans the practice of carrying weapons concealed or otherwise around bases. Gun proponents not only deny this fact, they flaunt it with requests for so-called Open Carry. is nothing more than vigilante rule. This is the definition of insanity.

Cause and effect

It’s this denial of cause and effect that has led to the massive proliferation of guns in society. The cynical maxim that “guns don’t kill people, people kill people” is the product of ingrates whose imagination is stimulated only by the ability to kill at will. It’s all couched in the language of personal defense, but in truth it denies the fact that guns were invented for one thing, and one thing only. That is killing.

There’s an interesting trend among our nation’s politicians that it is often the people who never served in the military that most want to take America to war. They say the only way we can protect our freedoms is by fighting wars overseas. In similar fashion, America has been taken over by a bunch of people who likewise claim that you can only be a true American if you own and carry a gun. The parallels are spooky. But perhaps not surprising.

Inconsistencies

If we truly appreciated the rights of those who wield guns on behalf of national defense, we’d treat our soldiers better, would we not? Yet the very people who vote so proudly to defend gun rights are the same cabal voting against better funding of veteran’s benefits and support for our wounded soldiers. They do this on budgetary grounds as if this were a conservative thing to do. That means the real work of caring for soldiers is being left to non-profits and people with the liberal bent of showing compassion for those who have served.

So if you’re asked to run or ride in a benefit event for an organization such as Wounded Warriors, stop for a moment to consider why it is even necessary. Consider your freedoms as well, and think what it might feel like to run in an event where everyone in the crowd cheering you on has a gun visibly strapped to their hip, or is openly carrying a rifle or a machine gun over their shoulder. Is this the America we want to create?

Is that really what those soldiers fought and died for? Is that really the America in which we all want to live? Do we truly exist in freedom if everyone feels forced to protect themselves because the other guy has a gun?

There’s no running or riding away at that point in time. It would require a grand procession of denial to pretend that’s a better world.

SEEK JUSTICE.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged gun control, guns and police, military lfe, NATIONAL DEFENSE | 5 Comments

Between the trees

Posted on May 2, 2016 by Christopher Cudworth

Sue and I attended church on Saturday night. The sermon was about living in the “space between” the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil in the Book of Genesis and the Tree of Life in the Book of Revelation.

The pastor made the point that some people only see the trees and not the space between. In so doing, they fail to make the connection as to what our lives are supposed to mean. There are two keen aspects to which this pertains. First, it is a life more knowing and abundant that is led in keeping with purpose of God. That is, to love others as you are loved. And second, this life in keeping with the purpose of God is actually the fulfillment of the New World that the Book of Revelation predicts will come. It is ours to make.

People expecting Jesus to rush down and set up a whole new regime are therefore missing the entire point of the Bible. It’s as if they are so focused on the Start and Finish lines they fail to realize there is an entire race that each of us has to run, ride or swim.

Even children comprehend this basic knowledge. As kids, we often raced between two trees as the start and finish line. We need set points to determine our efforts, but they are not the end of all being.

Yesterday our cycling group rode a course from Yorkville, Illinois out to the small town of Newark and back. The course followed a long arc of the Fox River. We cut through some deep woods, a welcome shelter from the wind. The riding was easier between the trees. That sensation was not lost on me given the sermon of the night before.

It’s one thing to race from tree to tree and back, and see that as your entire purpose in life. It’s an entirely different and meaningful thing to consider the difficulties and joys along the way. Being grateful for that shelter in the woods can actually give you the strength of mind to persevere once you are back out in the open.

Flat truths

We also stopped for one ride to fix a flat. I noticed that his back tire had gone soft and we all gathered around him as he used his CO2 cartridge to pump the tire back up. It didn’t take long before we were back on the road working together, taking turns with pulls into the northeast wind. That made the going easier. And a lot more fun.

Certainly that’s a direct allegory that is hard to miss. Trading pulls is something considerate people do in all aspects of life. Teamwork helps us all. At work. In volunteer capacity. Family and friends.

I think about the teamwork support we created during scholastic and college competition and realize how often we helped each other mentally prepare for big races. There was also a starting point and an end goal every year. The season was conducted between these “trees” of hope.

But I’ve always thought it foolish to think that Jesus would help you win if you prayed hard and long enough. There’s no reason why Jesus would favor you in any endeavor. The goal that Jesus lays out for those who are Christian is simple: accept grace in victory and also in loss. Take what you learn from the losses to feel compassion and offer help to others. Take what you learn from the victories to encourage those you can. Give yourself fully to all, and you will be amazed at how rich life can be, between the trees.

The Christian faith deservedly gets a bad rap when it ignores these precepts. Instead, it has too often been twisted into torturous vines that bind and constrict believers and the people around them. Biblical literalism turns faith into a vicious tangle of backward beliefs, choking out common sense and progress like the vine that kills a mighty oak.Jesus warned this could happen. He specifically outlined that literalism leads to legalism, and called the proponents of this brand of faith a “brood of vipers” for turning scripture into law.

Clearcut

Legalism turns the bible into something resembling a forest clearcut. It turns a beautifully complex forest of parables and metaphors into stumps of stubborn contentions. Jesus warned his own disciples against this brand of thinking. “Are you so dull?” he asked when his disciples demanded to know why he preached using parables rather than speaking “plainly.”

Jesus knew that people needed interesting stories to hold their attention and convey the richness of real wisdom. That’s why his example of teaching through the use of metaphor is so important to the Bible as a whole. It’s how the entire “woods” from Genesis to Revelation is designed. A beautiful woods is evidence of both creation and the call to wander through it with reverence and wonder.

Instead, there is a tendency among some people to hack their way through the Bible as if with a machete. They find their precious hateful nuggets and stand there proclaiming, “Look, the Bible says homosexuality is bad.” Meanwhile, they ignore the passages that indict their own worship of money (the love of which…is the root of all evil.”)

That’s how the journey between the trees gets so screwed up, and why (or how) Christianity has gotten such a bad name. Let’s face it, the Catholic Church is the largest Christian organization in the world and has had its share of supposedly “clearcut” moments when scripture has been used to punish, persecute and kill.

Back when Galileo and Copernicus were illuminating the true structure of the universe, the Catholic church took many a bad whack at the idea that the sun was at the center of the universe, and not the earth. Reality did not fit the anthropogenic model of Christian belief.

Then came the Inquisition and finally the protest by a former Catholic priest Martin Luther who railed against turning the church into a bank for God. We’ve been through many centuries of theological debate since. Now we have a Catholic Pope (I’m a Lutheran, by the way) who is back to mostly preaching what Jesus originally taught. The Catholic Herald recent posted a summary that quoted Pope Francis: “If laws do not lead people to Christ then they are obsolete.” Hello, Pope. Thattaboy.

That’s a pretty sweeping statement that says it is all our jobs, humanists, and believers alike, to consider the purpose of all our laws. If they are designed only to punish those we mistrust or fear, they have no purpose. Truth be told, many of our laws are contradictory. We punish for possession of marijuana while alcohol is perfectly legal. We encourage the use of Viagra while women’s birth control is a point of contention among prudish legislators.

This is life between the trees, people. It’s our job to see the entire forest and not just chop away at things we don’t like, or want to control (or own) or think we know better.

The journey alive

Those of us who run and ride and swim know a few things about competition. We prepare ourselves to do our best. And when all is said and done, we must accept our achievements for what they are: attempts at self-understanding. But if we cannot also look to others and appreciate their journeys between the trees, we fail to recognize our real purpose here on earth. It is ours to love others. Even our supposed enemies.

And how exciting it was to look over at a fellow human being and proclaim, “I’ll race you to that tree!” What if it meant even more than that? What if the human race was our entire purpose for being? And what if a billion races, or seven billion, are occurring every day from which we can draw excitement and meaning? And what if the human race itself is the new world we’re all supposed to see, and understand, appreciate and celebrate?

That is indeed the purpose of our being, between the trees. Yet the race is far, far shorter than we allow ourselves to appreciate. Time is precious. So make sure to look around. The trees are calling you into being.

Take my hand
’cause we’re walking out of here
Right out of here
Is all we need dear
The space between
What’s wrong and right

Is where you’ll find me hiding waiting for you
The space between your heart and mind
Is the space we’ll fill with time
The space between
The tears we cry is the laughter keeps us coming back for more

––Dave Matthews

If you like this writing, please be sure share it. We’re all just trying to make the world a better place.

SEEK JUSTICE. SHOW RESPECT. GIVE FULLY. LOVE LIFE.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged between the trees, biblical literalism, cycling, Even children comprehend this basic knowledge, love fully, running, scriptural truth, seek justice, swimming, the space between, we run and ride | Leave a comment

On hot water and paying dues

Posted on April 29, 2016 by Christopher Cudworth

CudworthEnglert I was not a good enough high school athlete to warrant a scholarship to attend college at a Division I school. Instead, I signed up to run for Division III Luther College in Decorah, Iowa. In four years there I ran an estimated 10,000-12,000 miles in training through multiple seasons of cross country, indoor track and outdoor track.

In cross country season we often did two-a-day workouts in the fall. These typically involved 6-8 mile runs before classes, which started at 8:00 a.m. The afternoon workout would constitute of another 6-10 miles . We did speed on Tuesdays if there were no weekday meets and a brisk fartlek or tempo workout on Thursdays.Our weekly mileage added up to 70-100 miles, much of it run at an insane pace of 6:00 per mile. Then we competed 13 times during cross-country season.

Earning the way

That first year at college (or any year, for that matter) I had little money to pay for school or anything else. My parents were just coming out of some tough financial times, so the $3800 annual room and board was a stretch for us even in 1970s money. That meant I enrolled in a Work-Study program to help pay for college. The jobs paid $1.10 per hour, and I worked in the kitchen.

The worst job in the kitchen was unloading dishes from the automatic dishwasher. It was a huge stainless steel monster with a dark craw from which rows of scalding hot dishes would emerge with relentless pace. The dishes would never cool by the time the conveyor delivered them to your hands. That meant three hours of aching fingertips and throbbing palms. For some reason, they never thought to give us rubber gloves. Which might have helped.

The kitchen was run by a dour woman named Gladys who presided over her troops of college kids with sullen determination. Yes, the place ran on time. Yes, we were all in the work study program together. Yes, we were paying our dues. Literally. One hot dish at a time.

Getting squirrelly

The other interesting gig in the kitchen was working the conveyor where the dishes were deposited when students were finished eating. What a mess. Cups and plates came stuffed or covered with peanut butter that you had to scrape out. It never ended.

One day my buddies from biology class decided to play a prank on me. I’d had to hurry out of class to work the noon dishroom shift and that meant asking them to finish stuffing a fox squirrel during taxidermy lab. That was an interesting world as well, because we’d often boil the skulls and it smelled like chicken in the lab, all the time.

So I was working the front of the dish line when what comes floating through on a plate with garnishes… but the head of the squirrel I’d left behind for them to complete. My buddies had removed the head, stuck a carrot between its teeth and displayed on a plate. The girl next to me swooned and fell away. I laughed and tossed the squirrel head into the big black plastic garbage bag next to the counter. Gladys never saw it.

Kids these days

I share these tales for comparison because paying your dues working in jobs like the college dishroom is getting to be something of a meme thrown at millennials entering the workplace. There seems to be a belief among people over a certain age, perhaps 35, that “kids these days” are unwilling to pay their dues. I’ve read missives on Linkedin from CEOs giving shrill, hard advice to millennials that no one owes them anything and they’d better shape up. Every day on Linkedin there seems to additional commentary about how millennials are spoiled and think everything needs to be delivered to them on a plate.

But if I were a millennial, I’d lop off the head of a squirrel and send it right back to these obnoxious people claiming they already paid their dues and think the youth of today are so spoiled. Crap like that has been going on for two millennia. Here’s a quote from Socrates more than a few years ago:

“The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise. Children are now tyrants, not the servants of their households. They no longer rise when elders enter the room. They contradict their parents, chatter before company, gobble up dainties at the table, cross their legs, and tyrannize their teachers.”

Sound familiar? Yes, it does. It’s the same theme of every generation. People whine for the “good old days” when all kids showed respect. And it’s bullshit. People getting on in years always find excuses for their own selfish aims and fears.

The truth hitting the Baby Boomer generation so hard is this: Kids really don’t care what you think when you’ve hardened your hearts to them, or taken advantage of their time through unpaid internships, or refused to pay them fair starting wages. Society has flaunted the privileges of ownership and the power of management. Kids these days see right through that bullshit methodology and warrantless demand for respect.

Generation G

We hear Generation G (which stands for Greedy and includes anyone bitching that they already ‘paid their dues’) snarking that millennials won’t answer the phone and prefer to receive a text before engaging. Well, that’s how they’ve grown up, with phone etiquette that differs from your own. It’s an evolved behavior, not a choice. It’s similar to why birds sing or pose rather than fight. It’s ritualized and a show of sensitivity. But it’s viewed as insensitivity by Generation G because people of a certain fixed viewpoint choose to respond like parents that have lost the attention of their children because they refuse to ask if they’re ready to have a conversation. Lack of respect in one direction begets lack of respect in another.

The attitude that Generation G is “entitled” to respect is symptomatic of the selfishness and impatience we’re seeing on the political front as well. Millions of people are lining up to support the likes of Donald Trump because he acts like they think. He’s acquisitive, demanding and refuses to be ignored. He’s a selfish jerk by all counts, who can’t legitimately define his policies or even his true beliefs, so he just goes around saying what people want to hear, which is selfish, boorish bullshit. He’s a post-modern perversion of the classic Yes Man, who excels in the corporate world because he aggrandizes himself to those in power, or with power in the Donald’s case.

Diva-lution

This is the point to which society has devolved. Divas bitching they can’t get any respect from “kids these days.”

There is precious little evidence on business sites like Linkedin that people see any deeper than the tip of their noses. It’s convenient to point fingers at millennials and predict dire things for the future because it absolves those currently responsible for the deconstructed nation as well as the support they’ve tacitly given to people that lie to our faces and refuse to govern, then claim the high ground.

I believe millennials are reacting to the browbeating actions of a jaded generation with a call for respect based on humanity. They do it through digital means perhaps, and that drives the so-called “real Americans” fucking crazy. Yet it’s the same brand of passive response to aggression and selfishness advocated by the likes of Mahatma Ghandi and Martin Luther King, Jr. who believed it is best to meet the violent, selfish nature of others with compassion. Or ignore it altogether. Then it is disarmed. But first, the sirens of selfishness are likely to scream. Like divas.

What’s done, is done

So I don’t sit here complaining that I had to work in the dishroom during college. Nothing I can do now will ever change that fact. It was hard, and I hated it. Every minute of it. The experience depressed me mentally and physically. It made it difficult to excel in the sports I chose to engage.

When I finally was freed from dishroom duty my senior year in college, and took a job with the campus recreation department doing graphics for campus activities, the hours were much easier to manage. And as a direct result, I also rose from seventh man on the cross country team to second man for much of the season. We went on to place second in the nation that fall. The following spring I won the conference steeplechase championship as well.

The point here is that paying my dues did not make me better at anything. If anything, it made me so relieved to be done with that shit I excelled out of sheer delight.

True excellence

I question whether forcibly expecting people to “pay their dues” accomplishes anything toward true excellence. The world where sorority and fraternity hazing were so tolerated may be slowly disappearing. There’s hope in that. But there are still plenty of campus rapes to consider, which is a product of a certain brand of belief in entitlement by young man who do not respect young women.

There are old jokes still around such as, “What’s the different between rape and rapture? Salesmanship.” And some people almost seem to believe that rape is a form of “paying dues” for being too attractive or dressing a certain way.

It’s a sickness in society to think like this. But people get away with and always have unless someone calls them out and points out the absurdity of their arguments that their personal sensation fo entitlement should not be questioned even as they question the differing modalities of each and every new generation. If Socrates could be so wrong about the kids of his day, who ultimately turned out just fine, then so can you.

And you should shut up about it. Because you sound like a spoiled diva.

SHOW RESPECT. GIVE FULLY.

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Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged MILLENNIALS, PAYING YOUR DUES | Leave a comment

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On the subject of cyclists, roads and toilet seats

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Between the trees

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