Cheaper than therapy, but here’s what you might miss

Posted on April 28, 2016 by Christopher Cudworth

running-cheaper-than-therapy.pngThere’s a meme that says Running Is Cheaper Than Therapy. And that’s generally true. But at the price of $150 per pair of shoes, it’s getting to be an almost even competition.

Cycling is perhaps cheaper than therapy, and swimming too. They all have their costs. But it’s the benefits of better mental and physical health that we seek. So it’s a fair tradeoff in almost every case.

I’ve done perhaps 50,000 miles of running therapy in my lifetime. Cycling caught up to that number over the last ten years, and possibly passed it. Swimming is far, far behind and will never, ever catch up to either. But that’s okay. It’s easy to drown your sorrows in a short pool session.

All this running around trying to keep our heads together does do great things. It can relieve stress. It stimRun Cheeriosulates the mind for problem-solving, enhances creative thinking and can release anger or other non-constructive thought patterns in a healthy way.

I haven’t done a ton of traditional psychotherapy, but there have been times when it has helped. In periods of great stress during my late wife’s long illness, I visited a psychologist at the Living Well Cancer Resource Center. Her name was Gretchen. She listened and gave me feedback on the emotions and fears running through my brain. It was quite helpful.

The methodology became evident. Get the patient talking about their problems and often the solutions are revealed. Action has to come from within the person anyway. Why not let them reveal their own problems, and help motivate them to do something about what’s bugging them?

You can see there is a natural relationship between endurance sports and therapy. Typically we all carry on some form of internal dialogue while we’re out there working out. Our therapist in these cases is either our own voice or that of a trusted friend (s). I know several people that have their way through divorce. Their running partner became something like a divorce counselor.

But what are some of the basic things you can (and should) learn from therapy about yourself? Here’s a little list to consider. Some of these are drawn from actual revelations borne of therapy. Others have evolved over time. I hope they help you understand the merits of therapy, however you go about it.

  1. The main route to functionality and even happiness in this world is to forgive other people and learn to forgive yourself as well.
  2. Find a healthy outlet for any anger and frustration you might feel and the objectivity you get from those activities to study the real, not the imagined source of your anger.
  3. When faced with numerous problems, take out a pen and paper and write them down. It will help you manage your thoughts and gain control and perspective over each situation. Then figure out which ones you need to solve first.
  4. Be careful with ruminative thoughts. Ideas or fears that constantly repeat themselves are a habit of mind that can close out rational thinking. They can also affirm tendencies toward anxiety or depression.
  5. Don’t be afraid to use prescription anxiety or depression medication. Some people are genetically wired to feel anxiety and depression as a constant presence. Using intelligently prescribed medication to manage these conditions is not a weakness. It is a show of strength and commitment to your own health and well-being.
  6. Listen. You don’t have to solve everyone else’s problems for them. A spouse or a child or a friend often just need a listening ear. You do not need to take on their problems for them. Be empathic, and be yourself. Showing consistency in your character is often the most important thing they are seeking from you.
  7. You know the saying, “Don’t sweat the small stuff. And it’s all small stuff.” Well, that’s not really true. There are genuinely big problems in this world. It’s more about identifying those bigger problems. These can also include issues from the past, such as abuse as a child, or difficult family situations. Again the best strategy is to start documenting some of these for yourself, and look for patterns. What keeps coming up? That’s what you should work on.
  8. Stop complaining. Complaint is nothing more than making excuses for your own fears or lack of motivation. Complaint toward others is also a lack of respect. Lack of respect breeds lack of trust. A lack of trust leads to loss of love. So learn to love, and work backwards from there. You’ll find that complaint tends to disappear, especially when you prioritize to show that love to others. Loving leads to giving. Giving leads to fulfillment and shared experiences. Life gets richer.
  9. Turn some of your problems over to the universe. Most of them go away within a day. Saying a prayer or letting problems go through yoga or some other transcendent experience is a highly healthy way to get rid of unnecessary baggage.
  10. Get out into nature. Nature is the ultimate stress reliever. When all else fails, even a bracing cold wind on a winter day can make you appreciate a warm coat, a warm car or a warm cup of hot chocolate. Nature gives you perspective. The secret in all this is that coming into contact nature is what we truly seek in our running, riding and swimming. But don’t forget to get off the bike. Walk instead of run. Enjoy the water for its own sake. Nature welcomes you. It’s how many people connect with the thing they call God. But that’s up to you.

And there you go. Free therapy advice for all those who run, ride and swim for mental health, yet seek a bit more background. Real therapists, feel free to weigh in if there’s anything I’ve missed.

Otherwise, LOVE LIFE.

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The bathroom game and Christian zealots

Posted on April 27, 2016 by Christopher Cudworth

 

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Franklin Graham. Jesus despises your brand of religion. 

Last weekend the Naperville Women’s Half Marathon attracted 2500 women to the city where everyone wants to live. Many of them gathered at the downtown Starbucks restaurant where the line for the women’s room got long. I used the men’s room, then gestured to all the gals in line. “You should use this one. Women need it more today.”

 

And right away, several women jumped lines and did their business in the men’s room.

This happens all the time at this Starbucks. Our Saturday mornings all winter long our Run Club meets there. We change in the bathrooms after our runs. Sometimes two women join each other to change clothes at the same time and save time. Men think nothing of a woman coming out of the men’s room. Most men do not do the same in the women’s room. It’s an understanding of sorts.

There’s no real gender mixing going on. And certainly if someone who seemed transgender wanted to use either bathroom it would not be a threat to anyone. You cannot always tell if someone is transgender, you know. It’s not a choice they make to have a body that produced male or female features or sexual organs. They are born that way.

But religious and social freaks who are afraid of people who are transgender or gay cannot imagine sharing a bathroom with someone that is not “like them.” Of course, the same held true when whites did not want to share bathrooms or water fountains with blacks. That was in America’s Dark Ages. Stupid fears bred stupid behavior.

Some people wish it was still that way. Ignorant, stupid people.

And of course, the most stupid, fearful public figures love to use issues like transgender bathroom choice to generate power for themselves. Men like Franklin Graham, one of the most onerous religious zealots working today, are urging a boycott of Target stores because of a decision to allow transgender people to use either bathroom.

Reportedly thousands of so-called Christians are now Graham’s lead. I say good riddance to all of them. Who wants to share bathrooms with dangerous zealots anyway? They’re likely to lurk in there and slit your throat with a sharpened crucifix if you don’t come out and confess your faith in Jesus Christ after taking a crap. There’s a history of religious people acting like that you know. It was called the Inquisition. Thousands of people were put to death in horrific ways just for looking at someone the wrong way.

How many transgender assaults on other people have you honestly ever heard about?

Jesus didn’t care about any of this shit. In fact, he was very specific about the shit that comes out of our asses. The Book of Matthew rips a new one for the Pharisees trying to force religious laws on the people. Matthew 15:16: 16 “Are you still so dull?” Jesus asked them. 17 “Don’t you see that whatever enters the mouth goes into the stomach and then out of the body? 18 But the things that come out of a person’s mouth come from the heart, and these defile them. 19 For out of the heart come evil thoughts—murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, slander. 20 These are what defile a person; but eating with unwashed hands does not defile them.”

Now bible zealots will leap at the mention of “sexual immorality.” They’ll chime in with accusations that homosexuality is a sin. But Jesus says absolutely nothing about that subject anywhere in the New Testament.

His key zealot Paul turned it into something of an issue however. But some people think Paul was a repressive soul whose blinding conversion to Christ may have been a form of mental illness, or a dam breaking in his angry brain. He was a brilliant theologian and a good writer, but he also spoke of a “thorn in his flesh” that may indeed have been a homosexual leaning. We don’t know for sure. But we do know that Paul was a bit twisted, and fought bitterly with none other than James, the brother of Jesus. And before Paul became a Christian, he went around persecuting Christians. Some of them died as a result of these pursuits.

Sound familiar in modern context? Every week it seems we find yet another conservative politician who has made a career of going around persecuting gays newly exposed for being gay themselves. The things they hate most in themselves they rabidly hate in others. Repression is denial. Denial is a lie. Liars sooner or later get caught in their deceptions. It’s all so unnecessary.

So get this: the Target boycott is a massive deception of false morals. Certainly Jesus would have had considerable passion for transgender people. He had compassion for people with epilepsy and other convulsive diseases that were so massively misunderstood back in Bible times. It was thought that people who were mentally ill or suffered from congenital disease were possessed by demons. Surely transgender people would have had a difficult time in ancient repressive societies.

Modern medicine has exposed so many of these ancient beliefs as tragically false. And modern genetics can now explain every type of condition known to the human race. There is still not a “gay gene” identified, but there certainly is certainly a genetic process at work in the transgender identity of people born with organs of both sexes.

But men like Franklin Graham don’t want these people to have the same rights as others. He wants them quarantined and ostracized in society. His vicious, zealous beliefs are the work of a twisted soul. He’s an ideological freak. A radical. Anti-Constitutional. A mean bastard.

But there’s hope for this world. People that run and ride and swim are so over all of this sexual fears stuff. We recognize that body parts are body parts. Men have them. Women have them. Some people have both. Big fucking deal.

And what about sex? Some women are attracted to women. Some men are attracted to men. Big fucking deal. Franklin Graham? Go fuck yourself.

The United States Constitution once categorized black people and other minorities as 3/5 of a person. This egregious law was based on fears about blacks and other races. It was actually this brand of thinking that empowered Adolf Hitler to murder six million Jews, and people in his country went along with it. Because it conferred them with power.

That’s what the Target boycott is all about. It’s a pitiful defense of a worldview that is outmoded, dangerous and anachronistic. And it’s about fear of losing power over society. It defies even biblical virtue, because punishing a company for your religious beliefs is very much in keeping with the Pharisees and other legalists against whom Jesus fought so hard. He called them hypocrites and a “brood of vipers” for their power-mongering ways.

Instead Jesus’ goal was to bring people to a life in God. None other than Pope Francis, the modern day leader of the Catholic church, has stated that laws that do not lead to the love of Christ are obsolete.

So what are Franklin Graham and his brand of so-called Christians trying to prove? That they know better than Christ how to interact with the world. And they’re wrong. So fucking wrong. If there is such a thing, they can all go to hell.

SEEK JUSTICE.

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That moment when…

Posted on April 27, 2016 by Christopher Cudworth

IMG_1850Athletes bear the extra burden of things to remember when getting ready to run, ride or swim. Forgotten items and preparations can lead to that moment when…

TMW: You realize your favorite running shorts are in a heap of wet laundry at the bottom of the washing machine.

TMW: 10 miles into a bike ride you look down and realize you forgot to put air in your tires.

TMW: Both water bottles are sitting back on the kitchen counter and you’re about to meet up with the ride group at the prescribed time.

TMW: You empty your bag at the locker room and realize the only swim goggles you brought are dark and the pool is dark and you are about to enter a very dark world for 3000 meters.

TMW: Your shoe comes untied at the mile mark of a 5K in which you’ve prepared for weeks to set a PR.

TMW: You thought you grabbed the sun-block arm sleeves when what you grabbed were actually arm warmers, and it is 84 degrees outside.

TMW: You signed up online and trained for a race and the race organizers seem to have no record of your entry. Anywhere.

TMW: Lying in your warm bed with your partner facing the very real question of whether to have sex and risk being late for your training or walking around all day wishing you weren’t an athlete at all.

TMW: Any tree starts to look like a bathroom, but you didn’t tote any toilet paper.

TMW: You step out of the Porta Pottie to realize a bit of leakage has stained the crotch of your cycling kit and there are 40 people waiting in lines to witness that moment.

TMW: It’s time to change a flat tube and there are no replacement tubes in the pouch under your seat because you had a flat the last ride and forgot to refill.

TMW: The favorite flavor of your PowerBar, Clif Bar or NUUN is empty at the store.

TMW: You set a PR only to find out the course is short.

TMW: You set a PR only to find out the course is long.

TMW: You set a PR and no one really seems to care.

TMW: You’re too exhausted from training to stay at a really fun party. So you go home and then can’t get to sleep because you’re too wired from the party.

TMW: That extra drink tasted really good and the next morning there are 86 miles to ride on a windy, sunny day on a course with lots of hills.

TMW: You are 80% done with your swim workout and really have to pee, but on principle you refuse to do that in the pool.

TMW: The walk from the locker room to the pool feels extra cold and you realize you are getting a cold or the flu, but swim anyway.

TMW: At the finish of a race you realize that things would have gone much better if you’d trained more/less/harder/easier/something. Because that’s how it always feels.

Perhaps you have a few That Moment When ideas to share?

BE ORIGINAL. TRAIN HARD. COMPETE WELL.

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Naked, black and free

Posted on April 26, 2016 by Christopher Cudworth

Venge ExpertThe new Specialized Venge Expert is matte black in color. It has no cyclometer yet attached. When I ride like that, I feel free. Free to choose a route and not worry how many miles per hour I might be going. Or even how far. Free to accelerate for a while and not judge whether the speed I’m achieving is any better or worse than I perceive. It can be disappointing to think you’re going 28 mph and look down to find you’re going only 24.

And climbing. Now there’s latitude to focus on the full pedal stroke and climb well rather than judging my efforts and freaking out because the bike computer says 9 when double digits might seem so much better. Because, you know, one mile an hour is so crucial.

dresses-club-and-party-dresses-sophia-halter-little-black-dress-black-shop-moddeals-1The matte black surface of the bike is also understated. There’s nothing so calming, or so succinct, as plain black anything. They say every woman needs a little black dress. They are simple, understated and show off the form without playing up the potential faults.

I feel the same way on the Venge bike. It is my little black dress. Or my plain black khakis and Polo shoes with white soles. Fit to go out and see what happens. Black is cool.

Black persecution

Yet blackness has so often been maligned in history. The so-called black race of people have been chased across continents and enslaved, or wiped out on continents all across the globe, sometimes through colonialism. Sometimes by genocide. For all the empathy extended to Jews stemming from the Holocaust, black people have just as much cause for lamentation.

In Australia, the aboriginal people once treated as inferior still fight for equality. In Black people were once characterized in the Constitution as 3/5 of a person. This was in part to keep them from politically outnumbering whites, and also to impose a prejudice to keep blacks under control out of fear. Fortunately, black culture has outlasted such idiocy to some degree. Yet black people still cannot get respect from a large population of dullard whites dependent on false biblical translations and brute force to justify and impose their supposed racial “superiority.” These are the “white supremacists,” an oxymoron if there ever was one.

Character

Kimetto_Dennis1-Tokyo13-1Real athletes know that it’s the character of the person as well as the physical attributes that make them successful. We know that Kenyan and Ethiopian and Moroccan athletes thrive in long distant events because their cultures highly value success in these endeavors. Yet it’s not race alone that dictates that success. It’s training and hard work.

There was once much speculation about how the Japanese culture would always produce great marathoners because the country values sacrifice and self-discipline. Korean athletes also enjoyed international success for a while. It was once the same for Finland and the likes of Lasse Viren. The seeming dynasty of each of these distance athletes from 20-30 years ago somehow dissipated. It lost its character.

Black opportunities

Black athletes have only recently begun to excel in the sport of cycling, and the sport of triathlon is still pretty much white endeavor. There are cultural and economic factors at work in all these cases. A black athlete from the inner city of Chicago is likely going to have a tough time entering a sport like triathlon. Yet the elements are all there: the bike trails along the lake, and the lake itself.

I think about the freedoms I’ve been offered in life and realize that not every person has those same opportunities. Perhaps that doesn’t matter in the minds of some. But if you’re truly going to appreciate what people do overcome to achieve success, sometimes you have to look at the bigger picture. Take stock of what you have and what others do not.

I think about all those who achieved success despite the prejudices of the 50s and 60s, and how far the nation has now come in electing a black President. It was an indication that a significant majority of Americans has progressed in their thinking. That electing a black president was the right thing to do.

Black prejudice

And yet we’ve also witnessed seven years of clear obfuscation toward Obama, that began even before he got into office. That determination to make a black President fail was a naked attempt to resist equality. The excuse that has been given that it was Obama’s policies, not his race, that made some so determined to fight. And sure, political resistance is fair. Yet the blatant prejudice that has been unleashed in the current election process is an indicator that a prejudiced audience has been served along the way and wants access to even more power. It’s really no surprise that a worldview based primarily on ignorance and fear toward black people should eventually surface. It’s been there all along in America. It only took a grunting bully like Donald Trump to give it voice.

Black achievement and challenges

But the facts of black achievement also exist across the entire spectrum of the American experiment. It’s there in industry and commerce. In music and entertainment. In science and religion. In civil rights and social progress. To deny these achievements is to deny the existence of the American dream at all.

That is not to say black people are perfect. That is not the point here at all. Within the black community there is consistently harsh debate over subjects such as faith and the social contract. Some blacks have proposed that the homosexual “agenda” was specifically created to feminize black men.

So there is much irony afoot in this world. Because the oppression of blacks has direct parallels to the oppression of gay people (or for that matter, women…) and the struggle for civil rights in a white-male-dominated society.

But of course, all these beliefs come down to what one chooses to believe about gays or blacks or women; are these choices people make about who they are?

Choices

I’ve been a runner since the age of twelve years old. That was a choice I made with some guidance from my father. That choice has greatly defined who I am and how I behave. At one point, I actually made the elective decision to back off the degree to which I was defined as that person. It was having consequences in how I interacted with all the people in my life, and my work. As much as I was defined by my lifestyle in running, it was still a choice.

Being black or gay or a woman is not a choice. Neither is being transgender. These are all facts of personhood. They are naked facts, in other words, not the kind just dressed up to look like facts. The rest is just opinions and dogma and traditions that need to be discarded.

When it comes down to it, we all need to be naked, black and free. That’s the only honest baseline there is.

SEEK JUSTICE.

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All bets are on the women in this race

Posted on April 25, 2016 by Christopher Cudworth

Somewhere in the middle of the pack of 2500 participants at the Naperville Women’s Half Marathon, a lone male figure came trotting past. He was wearing a number, so he was not a bandit. The small crowd gathered at an intersection paused in their clapping. One person said, “What’s up with that?”

Minutes later a man dressed in a North Central College athletic shirt wandered up to our cheer pack and smiled. “He lost a bet. That’s why he’s running in the women’s race.” But isn’t that an outmoded bet? What’s the implication anymore? That it’s an insult to run with women? That it’s men that are still superior runners, and that he’s a “girl” for losing the bet? Frankly, all bets are on the women in that one. He was firmly in the middle of the pack even running his apparent best.

Other than that, the only men who showed up in the race were the dapper male pacemakers dressed in tuxedo-style run shirts. Each male pacer carried a sign of their projected times from 1:40 through 2:30 and beyond. It was a nice service, but not entirely necessary. The women seemed to have a fine sense of pace on their own.

Few races have I attended where there were more police and volunteers working. In fact, security looked pretty high, with military grade vehicles parked at the start/finish line. These were flanked by generally smiling officers in flak jackets and thick chest protectors. If any threat was going to approach these women runners on a Sunday morning, it was going to have to face down a small army prepared and willing to meet it.

That’s likely how it should be at least one day a year. It’s a well-worn fact that women still face their share of stares and even street harassment while out running. But when you put 2500 women together in one place, and let them loose on 13.1 miles of streets in a comfortable Illinois suburb, the odds of male annoyances drops precipitously.

The interesting part about this race was the fact that the top 10 women all finished between 1:22:04 and 1:35. That’s between 6:00 and 7:00 mile pace. There are not that many male finishers in a typical half marathon that even manage those paces. At last year’s Fox Valley Half Marathon, a women runner named Tera Moody placed second in the overall race in a time of 1:17, seconds behind the male winner. One can do worse these days than bet on the elite female runners to compete for top overall placing.

At the finish line a woman named Jamie mused that the ultimate winner, Julie Favorite (her actual name) was perhaps playing it a little coy in her post-race comments about her victory. “She was like, ‘I didn’t expect to win.’ But she was the only girl standing in the 6:00-mile section at the start. What did she expect?”

And after all was said and done, she really was the favorite.

One can perhaps understand the self-deprecation. There seems to be a delightful realm of encouragement and etiquette among women runners. At least on the surface. Maybe not so much once the race is settled and done. “11th overall isn’t so bad,” the announcer said to Jamie at the finish. But, she observed, “My goal today was finishing in the Top 10, not 11th. I’m kind of mad! There were a lot of great runners in this race!”

 

The spirit of the day was supported participation. There were tons of tandem gals wearing matching race uniforms. Some ran for PAWS and a few for other causes. Many simply chose to sign up and run in the official race tee shirt. “I could smell the new shirts,” my companion Sue chuckled.

Not all women buy into the pink look so popular (or at least familiar) at so many women’s races. “Aaahhh,” Sue muttered as we approached the crowds of runners gathered near the pre-race Porta Potties. “Too much pink!” Patty Saccone was one runner that ditched the pink for a purple hat. “In honor of Prince,” she smiled.

With perfect weather conditions–– 50 degrees at the start and barely sixty degrees at the finish––with hardly any wind, there were few apparent medical needs. Just a number of old shirts cast to the curbs during the race.

The finish setup inside the stadium at North Central College was a nice touch. Competitors got to circle the last 300 meters on the track. The line of banners at the finish line featuring the logo of the Naperville Running Company made certain everyone knew who the lead running shop in Naperville truly is.

It was an impressive debut race and the organizers of the Naperville Women’s Half Marathon deserve a pat on the back. The proceedings went far better than the previous day’s Sly Fox Half Marathon in St. Charles, where a massive glitch in the course marshalling led hundreds of runners off course and cut a mile off the 13.1 Half Marathon distance. Not good. That’s a breach of The Basics when it comes to race management: Accurate Course. Porta Potties. Decent aid stations. The are the basics.

Yet such are the risks of race directing. When it works, it’s wonderful. There’s nowhere to hide when the basics aren’t in place.

It’s great that women still get their own races, but these days the bets are off on whether they run any slower without men around. They can run and win the day just fine on their own.

SHOW RESPECT.

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The puzzling evidence of jumbo raisins

Posted on April 22, 2016 by Christopher Cudworth

JUMBO RAISINS.jpgI’m constantly trying to find ways to eat a healthier diet, interrupted only by the occasional peanut butter cookie dough smash Blizzard from Dairy Queen.

So yes, there’s a lack of consonance in my approach. That doesn’t make me a nasty person by any stretch, just a little flawed. Certainly I’m not as conflicted as this constant crazy parade of American politicians campaigning to ban same-sex marriage only to be caught on gay dating sites or confessed to clandestine relationships. Why can’t they admit their orientation and be healthy about it?

Because that’s not as fun or exciting as being an ungodly zealot in their unfortunate self-denial. That’s why. It’s puzzling evidence of the thing we call human nature, and most people just can’t deal with it.

I’m not in any sort of zealous denial about what I’m doing. I mess up my healthy diet all the time. Guilt seldom enters the picture or makes me want to go out and get elected so I can tell other people they can’t eat sugar or go to Dairy Queen. No, my conspiracies are all private, small and mundane. Because avoiding sugar is like avoiding air, for the most part. It just comes with the territory.

HEALTHY FOOD.jpgBut yesterday I made the mistake of going to Trader Joe’s on an empty stomach. And you know what? I did really well. Stayed to the outside of the opening aisle where the veggies and fruits all lurk. Picked out strawberries, raspberries and blackberries. Loaded up with spinach greens, carrots and some spicy hummus.

Then I drifted over to the nuts and dried fruits aisle where everything costs $6.00. I turned down the choice of getting banana chips because they’re apparently cooked in fat and covered with sugar. Someone told me that. Major disappointment in my life. Banana chips are fun to eat. Even my dog Chuck likes them. It seems like they should be good for you. Because. They’re bananas. In chip form. It seems like a straight-line theory. But it’s not.

Such are the deceptions of the world. But that wasn’t where my shopping day ended, passing up the banana chips. Next came a shock that was going to affect my entire belief system. It happened because I asked for help from a Trader Joe Crew Member (in their tropical shirt) to “find the raisins.” He walked me back to the aisle with the fruits and dried nuts (did I get that right?) and literally waved his hands at an entire shelf of raisins. That I’d missed. It was like some sort of magic trick or scene from a Disney movie like Flubber.

It’s often that way in the world. You can stand there looking at clear evidence of what you’re trying to see and completely miss the raisins right before your eyes. So I snatched a pack of dark raisins and threw them in the cart. Such is innocence.

When I got home and pulled out the empty jar I use to store raisins––the one with the happy red rim that looks the same color as a Sun-Maid Raisin box, and thus worth of raisin holding––my mind started to spin. Because when I emptied the raisins from the bag into the box, it appeared they had been the victim of some radical nuclear accident. These raisins were huge. Like, Donald Trump huge! I’d never seen anything like them. They looked more like figs or dates. They were raisins on steroids, or grown in some field watered from the cooling ponds of Fukishima. They were, in a word or two, quite frightening.

Jumbo, they call them. I looked up that word. Jumbo is defined as:

  1. a very large person or thing.

ADJECTIVE

  1. very large:

Enough said. These raisins made me rethink everything I believed about myself and the world. Like, maybe the Flat Earth people are right after all. And maybe Building Seven and the two World Trade Centers really did just fall in on themselves in perfect order, like we’ve been told the last decade or so. And maybe Ted Cruz is supposed to rule the world like he said back in his college days. Maybe all these things really are true.

David Byrne had it all right! It’s like that song from the Talking Heads, Puzzling Evidence. There’s puzzling evidence all around us! We’re being sold Jumbo Raisins like they’re everyday occurrences. We’re told it’s natural to want to run marathons, or complete an Ironman. Puzzling evidence!

You got the cbs…!
And the abc…!
You got time and newsweek!
Well, they’re the same to me!

Now don’t you wanna get right with me?
(puzzling evidence)
I hope you get ev’rything you need
(puzzling evidence)

Puzzling evidence
Puzzling evidence
Puzzling evidence

Read more: Talking Heads – Puzzling Evidence Lyrics | MetroLyrics

Because now, as we speak, the entire Ironman franchise is owned by Chinese interests. That’s going to mean that if you compete in any Ironman event, you’re going to be nothing more than another product MADE IN CHINA!

Puzzling Evidence! Hardened in your heart.

It’s all a conspiracy! It’s a worldwide plot to suck us all into believing what they want us to believe. Jumbo Raisins indeed. Puzzling evidence…

You got your CBS, and your ABC…

SEEK JUSTICE.

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It’s the end of the world as we know it

Posted on April 21, 2016 by Christopher Cudworth

End of the World.png

 

And I feel fine…

Perhaps you pay attention to Rapture believers and financial doomsayers. Perhaps you don’t. That kind of thinking filters back to all of us in one way or another. The ads on Facebook often link to sponsored articles from people selling the End of the World As We Know It in One Form or Another. Click through and you find yourself in a Rabbit Hole of dire beliefs. Most often you’re being sold something. “Put all your money into gold,” the articles warn. “The coming economic crash will destroy all your paper investments!”

As evidenced by the language in the article excerpt posted above, a worldwide financial meltdown is frequently and readily predicted by both trustworthy and scammy sources. People get rich selling the notion that horrific consequences will occur when societies break down. The scammers include those faux religious types who wrote the Left Behind series of books that made millions bilking people into thinking The Rapture is real. But when you look behind the curtain, all you find is a bunch of money-grubbing bastards looking to steal $15 from your wallet.

Buy Gold

And yes, we’re told to Buy Gold because it’s the one substance on earth that supposedly holds value. I always laugh when I think about this. Imagine a shivering runner, cyclist or triathlete standing on the corner in some post-apocalyptic scenario. The light posts have all fallen down. The concrete is broken into pieces. Storefronts have collapsed and wild animals are running through the streets.

Yet here stands our athletic hero clutching the aero handlebars of a Specialized Shiv. In the other hand is a precious bar of 99.9% pure gold. This is their supposed salvation. With that chunk of gold, they can buy the last box of Power Bars and NUUN tablets at the local running store because it’s the last remaining business in town and we all know how important it is to support your local running store under all circumstances. I know I do. The angels bless me for it.

Nihilists and narcissists

There’s a fine line between all this doomsday thinking and flat out nihilism, which is defined as “the rejection of all religious and moral principles, often in the belief that life is meaningless.” Because those of us who run, ride and swim can’t fall prey to something so banal as basic nihilism. We all find meaning through our running, riding and swimming. Right? Don’t we?

There are some who would instead accuse us of narcissism. Which is just a step away from nihilism, if you think about it. Yet it’s a weirdly faceted distinction. If you only care about yourself, as the criticism of endurance athletes goes, then your “self” becomes a form of religion. So your self-obsession is in fact a denial of the notion of nihilism.

Then there are the cults of self that form around activities like the Ironman, which if you think about it is a combination narcissistic and nihilistic self adventure. It takes you to the point of self-destruction, yet you cross the line to the words, “(insert name here…) you are an Ironman!” You’ve survived, therefore you are. Life has meaning. Such as it is.

It’s a something

Well, things are getting interesting now, aren’t they? Because the cultlike hold that distance events have on our minds and souls extend through events like the marathon as well. But it it also true for people with the Half Marathon, the Half Ironman. The 10K and the 5K. To each their own test. That is how the story goes. These events lend meaning to our existence. They make us feel alive, anyway.

Yet we tend to forget that these self-defining adventures are different for everyone. For a mom coming off the post-partum effects of baby delivery, finishing a 5K can be a transcendent experience. It might not seem like much to those training for the Hell On Earth that is 140.2, but for the mom, it’s a something. You can’t deny someone their something. It’s not for you to decide.

The Flat Earth

It’s this collective “something” that keeps us all from falling off the edge of a Flat Earth. And in case you don’t know it, there are still people who believe that the earth is flat. They are dead serious about this idea. This comment from one of the Flat Earth Forums shows how the thinking goes : “If Earth really is like “globe” like your saying, then sureley people in south “Hemisphere” will be falling right of!    :)  if not so, then earth has to being flat………SO,,, please see for yourself if people in australia are faling of bottom of “globe!” Good luck to you round-earthers refuting this one!”

The Flat Earthers have formulated all kinds of supposed “proofs” that the earth is flat. They do this because they want to believe the earth is flat. It fits their notion of how the world works. To give up those notions is simply too frightening and too confusing a proposition for them to consider. This is true of many religious believers as well, especially those possessed of a literalistic view of scripture and a determination to defend it. It so happens that the material belief that the earth is flat and the literalistic religious belief that the Bible says the Earth is flat converge on a single point. That would be stupidity.

It’s the same with the Muslim faith and the belief that killing yourself to clobber infidels is the path to heaven where a large pile of virgins awaits your desperate prick. Or the populist belief that racial superiority is conveyed to one race of people over another. The opposite of nihilism is turning everyone into niggers with disposable souls. Such is American history, and the rest of the world for that matter. The real “ends of the earth” are right next to you. Those who decide the world should end for others have already fallens off the steep shelf of nihilism.

But the World is Flat…

Yet the concept of a flat earth works as an explanation of economic theory. A pair of economists including Thomas Friedman of the University of Chicago have proposed the idea that the global economy has flattened everything from communications to commerce to currencies. The oceans no longer separate us from each other and money flies across the face of the earth without hindrance. Capital especially follows the path of least resistance to profit. This is all proof that the World is Flat.

Yet a flattened world is the phenomenon that has caused America’s economy to sink inward. American capital chased cheap labor overseas and 80% of our manufacturing jobs went with it. And with our slow collapse have come threats that we’ll suck the world down a sinkhole of our own making. Hence, the dire threats about the end of the world as we know it.

Immediate concerns

Those of us keen on just getting along in this world, and worrying about our next workout, and not the collapse of the global economy or the Second Coming of Jesus Christ, must adopt some sort of belief system that says it just can’t happen. The End of the World As We Know It will surely be prevented by those who know better! They simply can’t be that stupid to let it happen!

But it does. And it probably will. And you and I will be left clinging to our Hoka One Ones or Saucony Triumphs, wondering about the right thing to do. Should we go for a run or huddle with the others in Les Miserables fashion, wastlings in a wasted world?

I say we all go a long run or a long ride. Let’s swim through the rushing waters of the apocalypse, and wave to John the Baptist standing on the river banks of the apocalpytic Jordan. We can pull the last $5 from the measly pockets of our running shorts or riding kits and wave them in defiance at the outcomes of the Book of Revelation and the Four Horseman. We’ll shake that $5 in the faces of all those economic doomsayers chirping on Fox News and CNN. We’ll waggle our sorry butts at their lack of veracity and go about our merry way running, riding and swimming all the way to economic and religious hell.

And we’ll say, in defiance: “I’m going to buy some fuel for the last half of the workout!” “And I’m pretty sure this section of river is a Strava Segment!”

That’s how we’ll roll when the End of the World finally comes. Because we can.

SEEK JUSTICE. GIVE FULLY.

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The tale of the Robaix and the Venge

Posted on April 20, 2016 by Christopher Cudworth

 

Robaix

Robaix

I had an interesting opportunity recently to do a direct comparison between the bike I now own, the Specialized Venge Expert, and the Specialized Robaix, the bikes we rode on our training rides in Arizona this past week.

 

To my shocked delight, the Robaix fit the minute I sat on the bike. We had obviously sent our heights and inseams out to Arizona Outback Adventures, the company doing the outfitting. Yet hardly did I expect to sit on the Robaix and have it be instantly comfortable. Not only that, the bike was smooth. Road vibration was almost absent during the rides.

Even the handlebar width felt great. At the end of the second day, I asked them to provide the bar width and it was 42cm. On my Felt 4C I’d been riding a 40cm bar. My new Venge has a 44cm bar. The bike fitter recently recommended a 40. So that middle ground was an interesting test. I had very little shoulder fatigue with the 42cm bar. In fact the only real adjustment made during 110 miles of riding over two days was to tip the seat down a touch to take pressure off my groinage. After that, things were perfect.

My companion Sue also rode a Robaix. This was her first extended effort on a pure road bike in some time. She rides a Specialized TT Shiv for her triathlons. The new bike was a necessary graduation given the demise of her Scott TT bike last summer after a woman stopped her car on a downhill in Sue’s lane while searching for the entrance to the prison facilities outside St. Charles, Illinois. That move forced Sue to ditch the precious Scott. It cracked the rear struts and ruined the bike. The well-dressed woman with the gold-plated cellphone in her bigass white Escalade with premiere trim didn’t have to pay a dime for blocking the cyclists in the opposite lane…because Sue hadn’t actually made contact with her vehicle. There is no justice in some aspects of life.

But all that is now behind us, to some degree. We were happy to be pedaling through the desert with the pleasant sensations a Robaix under our butts. The experience was somewhat revelatory. “I want this bike,” she mused at the top of one long climb.

And as it turns out, Arizona Outback Adventures sells their bikes after each season. So we might buy them. Seriously, I would add that bike to the stable because it is simple so comfortable.

 

Venge Expert

Venge Expert

 

That does not mean the Venge is not. I have only ridden that bike six or eight times now. It is twitchier than the Robaix, but nearly as smooth. It is designed for speed, not plush long rides. Yet the 30 miles I rode last Saturday felt effortless. The next twitch I need to do is turning the hoods in slightly. My bike fitter noted the angle of my wrists. It’s just the way I’m built.

So I’m excited about riding the Venge some more. It was fascinating to compare these two excellent Specialized bikes. Back when I bought the Felt 4C in 2007 I had originally gone in to purchase a Specialized Allez. I got sold on the Felt and don’t regret it. But this new passage is quite fun and rewarding. And worth the money.

 

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Get back you little sacrum

Posted on April 19, 2016 by Christopher Cudworth

DumpsterMoving all that stuff while cleaning out my father’s house this past weekend had a painful price. Yesterday the pain radiating from my sacrum was so intense it was impossible to jog across the lawn when the city worker opened the fire hydrant and started flushing water toward the couch I’d moved out to the curb in order to mow around it. I ran two steps and then stopped, catching my breath as the tightness clamped down.

That’s the cost of lifting six or seven gigantic tube TVs that my late father had purchased at garage sales. He paid three for four dollars for each of them, and had his caregiver load them in his Volkswagon Routan van to bring them back to the house on Patricia Lane.

As you can imagine, people were all too glad to sell my father these outdated TVs. It saved them hauling those 80 lb. dinosaurs to the recycling events where dozens of other people bring their tube TVs. My dad simply failed to realize the tube TV era had passed. He worked for RCA and Sylvania in his younger years and to him, the world of televisions remained ever amazing. He never owned a flat TV. I’m not sure he knew they existed. He was buying those old TVs to give to his sons as gifts. Some gift. Now my back hurts like hell. It was the gift that keeps on giving.

Last week I tried taking my father’s collection to two separate recycling drop sites. Both were full. So many people are trying to get rid of their old TVs there is no longer any capacity to take them all. What a symbol for America, huh?

As my friend Monte describes it, most of these electronics are packed up and shipped overseas where barefoot kids tear them apart to extract the precious metals and reusable parts. We can only imagine what happens to the rest of our TVS. The plastics and metal are probably dumped in some crevasse in the Himalayan mountains to block the Dalai Lama from his mission.

IMG_6979

Prepping

Monte knows about these things because he knows about many things. Whenever I need to know the meaning of life I call or write to Monte and he explains it, often in fine detail. Sometimes he theorizes and that’s the fun part. Other times he simply finds the links and lays out the potential facts. Then we discuss it. I’ll get to the point of how this all relates to running and riding in a moment, but first, let’s take a moment and consider what Monte shared recently about the fucked up situation in the Pacific Ocean. Here’s what he discovered:

Here’s what American and Japanese citizens have NOT been told. Fukushima (along with other TEPCO nuclear plants) was/were/are producing weapons-grade plutonium. 
The reactor wasn’t just producing energy with your run of the mill strontium and other nasty radiated byproducts/waste. The Japanese have been online producing weapons-grade plutonium — against non-proliferation agreements — out of sight from international inspectors. The US gave them the technology years ago.
So you remember right after the earthquake and tsunami, America steamed its carrier USS Ronald Reagan to Fukushima at full speed? And nuclear specialists dressed in astronaut suits were choppered into the site immediately? And many, many sailors aboard the ship became ill?
The ship and the nuclear specialists were picking up enriched plutonium rods to A) hide the evidence of the fact the plant was illegally producing weapons grade material, B) limit the radioactive fallout to nearby Tokyo, which would have been devastated had those rods gone unrecovered for any extended period of time. 
(Note the cover story here was the ship was covered in snow — snow that fell after the tsunami and therefore covered the vessel in nuclear waste until the snow was washed overboard. And now the entire vessel is contaminated, deep into the steel, in the pipes, its planes, etc. And it’s nuclear powered, so this ol’ tub has been reduced to a $6 billion floating tomb.) 
However, further reading provides this little gem, “The detection of war-grade plutonium residues sparked rumors of a nuclear strike on Fukushima in undeclared war by an unidentified power…”
So you see, my friend Monte is an intense buddy to have around. He’s a keen observer of world events, has a cynical eye and the intellectual chops to discern patterns where others see only flavors and colors.
He’s also talked me off more emotional ledges than Tommy Lee Jones in one of those movies where everyone is out of control but him. Monte was there for me through all that cancer shit with my late wife. He kept me sane in the face of some insane days. He’s helped me through job loss and through existential terrors of my own imagining. He’s nudged me through anxiety and depression, through joy and irrational dreams. Through family issues and fervent wishes. Through deaths and life encounters intertwined with the DNA of the universe, where there is no extracting yourself from the process except by holding on until the cords unravel and you can step out into the light, changed perhaps, but alive.
We share a love of the writings of Hunter S. Thompson and John Irving, and we thus hold mutually deep suspicions of the propaganda shunted on the public as fact and fictions accepted by the religious, political and Facebookers of the world. All are equally damaging to the public psyche.
MonteWehrkamp
He’s one of the smartest guys I know and does some of the craziest shit imaginable. He once drove all the way to South Dakota during fall hunting season even though he was sick as fuck and should not have left his own home. On the way back from his trip, a state trooper noticed him leaning exhaustedly on a gas pump at a rest stop. The Trooper insisted that he accompany Monte to a hospital right then and there. Where Monte stayed, for three days, because he was so goddamned sick the doctors would not let him leave. But you know, if you don’t try shit like that, you really don’t know your limits. Tell me you don’t believe the same thing. Because I know you do. You run. You ride. You swim. And do some fucked up shit in the process.
I helped talk Monte into getting back onto his bike a few years back. He rode around for a year on a hybrid and then bought a nice Jamis road bike at a local bike shop. Things were going swell with his riding, and it turned out to be a bit of a rediscovery process for this Friend of a Thousand Gigs. He had ridden like a maniac back in his Florida and Colorado days a couple decades ago. He’s also been a scuba diver, a bow hunter, and has been confronted by a mountain lion while sitting in a tree stand. For years, he has also faced down the idiocy of the American auto industry one direct response mailer at a time. I don’t claim to know which of these adventures was the most dangerous or soul-chilling, but it doesn’t matter. Monte is Monte. And I love him.
The cycling came about because Monte needed a little escape tool come mid-life and his bike turned out to be a great partner in that regard. It worked well until the day he was cut off by a band of workers piloting a beat up pickup truck. They cut in front of him on a section of bike trail through a parking lot in downtown Elgin. The near collision sent him sliding into a curb sideways, where both his wheels hit the curb at the same time. He popped off the bike at a weird angle and cracked his back on the sidewalk. Little did he know at that moment his sacrum had been fractured. Because in true Monte style he jumped back on his bike and rode home. With a broken back. A broken fucking back.
It hurt quite a bit (as you might imagine) but he kept on going to a friend’s house. Eleven miles he rode. He had a goal in mind. His (our) friend happened to be an emergency room doctor. The guy’s wife helped Monte off the bike and from there the story became one of treatment and recovery. Monte ultimately got back on the bike again, but complicatons from a previous hip injury (another entire story) have made riding difficult the last couple years. Secretly I bet he’s been riding nights on his mountain bike. Because that’s how he rolls.
So while my sacrum hurts a little bit from lifting TVs bound for China, at least my lower back does not have a big ol’ crack in it. I’ll leave that kind of work to friends like Monte, the real heroes in the sacrum saga.
Jojo was a man who thought he was a loner
But he knew it wouldn’t last.
Jojo left his home in Tucson, Arizona
For some California grass.
Get back. Get back
Get back to where you once belonged. 
GIVE FULLY. TRAIN HARD. COMPETE WELL. LOVE LIFE. SEEK JUSTICE.
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Triathlon according to Cheerios

Posted on April 18, 2016 by Christopher Cudworth
Swim Cheerios

SWIM

It’s been a couple weeks since I actually went grocery shopping. No need to stock up on food before last week’s triathlon camp. It would only go bad. And this week my brother was in town aswe were cleaning out our parent’s house, so we were on the go the whole time. No time for grocery shopping. We ate on the run.

 

So this morning with an empty pantry, the only options left for breakfast were a few packs of oatmeal and a faithful box of Cheerios. Those Cheerios are at least two months old. But I’ve kept the box closed and sealed. They were fine with a little milk added, and a touch of honey.

Bike Cheerios

BIKE

Cheerios are billed as heart-healthy. They’re also Gluten free, as if that matters to me. All those promises on the box are not why I buy Cheerios. They are simply a great default cereal when everything else is gone. Like today.

 

I often eat them with raisins added. But again, we’re out of raisins here at the Cudworth Ranch. So it was plain old Cheerios this morning. And they were good.

Cheerios have been around since I was a kid. That’s getting to be a long time ago. But like many dedicated parents, we used to feed them to our children during church. A little bag of Cheerios is a great way to keep a child occupied.

But one Sunday morning my son was munching away on a bag of Cheerios when he let loose with a fierce sneeze. The bits of soggy, wet Cheerios in his mouth shot forward a full three rows. They landed in the hair of a teenaged girl three pews ahead of us.

Run Cheerios

RUN

That meant her huge pile of blow-dried 80s hair looked like it had a constellation of Cheerios stuck in it. I started to laugh. The guy next to me was losing it. His wife was jabbing him in the ribs with her elbow to make him stop laughing. That only made it worse.

 

And then it got much worse, and even funnier. The girl happened to stroke the back of her hair at that moment and discovered the gross substance stuck to her hair. Her expression was priceless. Now both of us immature guys lost it in the back row. My wife was both chagrined and angry with me, but she could not help laughing either.

So I like Cheerios for many reasons. They are both tasty and entertaining.

In fact, while eating breakfast this morning I created a trio of Cheerio athletes for your entertainment. I like these characters so much I am thinking of creating a tee shirt out of them using a new app I discovered. And if it comes out well I’ll show it to you.

Because that’s what I do. Cheerio, everyone.

SHOW RESPECT. LOVE LIFE.

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