What it’s like to lead and win a race

Posted on January 22, 2016 by Christopher Cudworth

SteeplechaseI don’t win any races outright anymore. Age groups, maybe. But not the whole race.

But I used to win quite frequently. So I thought it might be interesting to share what that’s like, and what it can actually teach those of us who never wind up in first place. We’ll discuss pacing races in both running and cycling, for there are major differences.

Expectations

First off, lead runners typically work in a fashion that prepares them mentally and physically to win. That means there is empiric data at work in both training and racing. For example, most 10K races at the regional level are still won at just over 5:00 pace per mile. My personal best at 10K was 31:10, exactly 5:00 pace. From high school through college and beyond, 5:00 pace was a gold standard for running competition. Your goal to win races in high school cross country was to run sub 5:00 pace for three miles. We’d train 50-60 miles per week with speed work done on the track and grass at race pace or below. Come race day (and we raced 18-20 times per season in those days) the goal was always to go through the first mile in 5:00, which would put a runner near or in the lead.

From there, the experience was mental as much as physical. To lead a race, you must run with confidence in sustaining your goal pace. Only by doing that consistently enough in practice can you expect to race along at 5:00 pace (or any other) and not blow up.

There are competitive factors to consider as well. If you take the lead, you take a risk that your competitors can or cannot keep up or overtake you. I well recall that flush of anxiety with competitors on my heels. But to succeed, you run to expectations, not fears. That is how you take and keep the lead. If a competitor is faster in the early phases of the race, you may adjust your pace, but sometimes it takes just as much confidence to stick by your own expectations and “lead from behind” and overtake them in the last mile.

Extensions

During college the racing distance in cross country increased initially from three to four miles. In track we moved from two miles to 5000 meters, or 3.1 miles. That meant an increase in base training mileage was critical to building strength and endurance for the corresponding longer distances.

We trained from 70-90 miles per week in college, and raced four miles close at just above 5:00 pace. That meant we ran 4:45-4:55 mile intervals in practice, usually 4-6 of those as racing prep.

The adjustment to four miles was, at first difficult, but additional physical maturity helped compensate for that. My times over four years racing at four miles dropped from 21:16 (at age 18) to 20:16 (age 21.) Post collegiately I raced 19:49 for four miles on the road.

Yet college cross country had a cruel treat in store. After four meets, the racing distance shifted to five miles! That meant you’d race the four miles you were now accustomed to pacing and had to add on a mile. But the other surprise was fascinating. We raced through four miles at the same pace and continued on to five.

I admittedly led and won only a couple college cross country races, one at four miles and one at five. The mental enterprise of taking the lead in a cross country race at that level is as much capitalizing on opportunity (and a “good day”) as it is a product expectations. In track, where distance runners are spread over three or four events, there was much more opportunity to take a lead and hold it than in cross country, where all competitors were concentrated together.

A race within the race

Instructively, that meant you needed to learn to construct and win a race “within a race.” That simply means that when you are not the absolute leader, you must become the leader of a group or competition inside the race as a whole. With team competitions on the line, this was not hard to do. You might group up and run as a pack, or you might single out competitors with whom you typically ran from week to week. These are known as “rivalries,” and they can be tremendously motivating.

There is also the empiric measure of your race as dictated by time. When you know you ran 26:15 for five miles the previous week, the goals are simple. You break down that pace and determine what times you need to hit to run faster. Then you tune out the other music and run to your best ability. That is constructed a race within a race, and is a most useful skill for everyone that is a runner, or a cyclist.

For every triathlete, the “race within a race” is almost always the dynamic. Within 50 meters of a mass swim start, you lose sight of 99% of your competitors. And out on the race course with the bike, you are not allowed to pace or draft anyway. For that reason, confidence in your own goal pace is critical and the entire definition of “taking the lead” into your own hands.

But there are things to be learned about racing by looking at how bike races on their own typically roll out. So we’ll get to the difference in racing a bike right now.

Dependency

“Leading a race” is an entirely different prospect in cycling. None of the dynamics are the same in comparison to either competing in a triathlon. In fact, a rider that takes the lead in a bike race is often nothing more than a sacrificial lamb for the rest of the pack. That’s how bike racing actually works.

That does not mean there are not moments when strong cyclists take the lead. But few in a typical bike race can simply “ride away” from the gun and hold off the pack for 30-60 minutes, much less five or six hours, without being reeled back in. Sometimes that conclusion comes late, with only 500 meters to go in the bike race. The peloton is an immensely unforgiving creature.

So bike racing as a pure sport is still more often a collaborative rather than a solo effort when taking the lead. A group of four to five riders may make a breakaway in a criterium or road race and share the load of riding in the lead. Only the absolute strongest cyclists can manage a solo breakaway. When that happens with a rider like former pro Jens Voigt, the effort can be inspiring. But Jens was from Mars, not Earth.

Circumstance plays a huge role in cycling, and you’d better learn how to read it or learn from hard lessons along the way. While racing in the Elk Grove Criterium, on a bike course that featured a tight hairpin turn, I’d raced the entire 40 minutes catching back onto the lead group through the hairpin. Stunningly, I found myself slingshotting to the front of the pack come off a turn past the grandstands. I wasn’t trying to take the lead. We were suddenly going into a wind that had picked up in advance of a coming storm, and heading for the last hairpin turn. I accelerated thinking it would be an advantage to head in first and not have to catch back on with an energy-sapping sprint going into the last lap.

And to my horror and instructive peril, I came out of that turn with cyclists whipping by me as if I was going backwards. That’s because I’d already hit the gas too many times during the main part of the race. I had nothing left in the tank. I was left pedaling solo as the group plundered on. I rolled in 35th overall.

That was the wrong kind of “lead” to have built. The real “leaders” of that race had done two critical things right during the event. They’d “led” from just behind the first people going into every turn, and positioned themselves consistently for smooth transitions through the hairpin. They saved their energy for the last lap.

The same strategies can be important in distance running as well. On windy days, it typically does not pay to race ahead and bear the full brunt of the wind for lap after lap in a track race.

I once led a steeplechase race on a day where the wind blew 50 mph. I took the lead but my competitor brought gloves along and was literally hurdling the barriers sideways to cut down on his effort of jumping barriers in a gale. It was despicably ingenious. He nearly beat me. It was a nightmare. But I still won.

Confidence

Leading a race at every level obviously requires confidence. At that moment when you surge to the lead, you are making a statement. “I’m fitter than you. Catch me if you can.” In cycling, of course, everyone typically knows that an early leader is a liar. The pack quickly reels in those with too much enthusiasm and not enough training to hold off the peloton. In running, it takes some time to figure out if the leader actually can hold the pace.

In running, it takes some time to figure out if the leader actually can hold the pace. And there are codes to obey. If you’re behind in a running race, you tend to reel things in slowly. But if you get “gapped” in cycling, you waste no time getting back on. The longer you’re off the back, the more you’ll suffer in the wind going solo. If you hope to lead near the finish, there is no choice but to hit the hammer and catch a wheel. Otherwise, you are gone, gone, gone, my friend.

Which points out the fact that there are two kinds of confidence actually. One is built from the training you’ve done. That is confidence earned from practice and knowing what pace you can run or ride, and for how long. There is also racing confidence, built from experimentation and risk-taking in actual competition. It generally takes a few “failed” attempts in races to build full racing confidence. If that sounds contrary or ironic, it surely is. But until you’ve guttered home defeated and disgusted by your blowup, you might not learn the lessons you need to know, or find the motivation to overcome your previous malaise.

In other words, sometimes you just have to get pissed off enough at losing to finally get motivated enough to win.

 

The will to win

Let’s be honest about something. Competition is not a pretty thing. In nature, creatures get eaten if they have a bad day. End of story. And you can parse it any way you want, but human competition can be just as cruel and terminal. If you set out to win and do not accomplish that goal, you have lost.

That doesn’t mean you are, by definition, a loser. That only happens when you quit trying. And remember, victories can come out of some of the strangest circumstances. So never quit trying.

Motivation and the will to win requires that you want to do better than others, and better than you have done in the past. But let’s be blunt: taking the lead is a slap in the face to all those you have bested. That is why some angry people make really good competitors. They keep score and have scores to settle. They don’t forget who beat them last time, and care deeply that they don’t get beat again.

The will to win is therefore seldom a product of nice guys (or gals) finish first. You don’t have to be mean to others in order to win, but you might have to be mean to yourself now and then. You can forgive your own competitive failures, but you also must learn from them.

The next time you “take the lead,” whatever that may mean in your own racing context, there is no question what you want to do. You want to win this time. And nothing’s going to stop you. And that’s what it’s like to lead and win a race.

Authors note: All these rules apply to swimming in some context. But I have not yet competed in swimming as an adult. When I do, I’ll share those lessons too. 

werunandridelogo

 

 

 

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Still a jogger and a Fred in the pool

Posted on January 21, 2016 by Christopher Cudworth
Jimmy carter

Jimmy Carter was a “jogger” back when it as acceptable to call someone by that name. No more.

To whit, terminology can be harsh. Calling someone a “jogger” when they consider themselves a runner is a cold, hard, reality check. In this day and age, you hardly hear the term jogger at all. It’s considered impolite. No matter how slow you go in the Modern Running Era, you’re a runner. No insult there.

 

Likewise, it goes with calling someone a Fred on the bike. That means they aren’t quite up to the cycling meme in how to dress or ride. Or else they try too hard.

For example, the first time I showed up for a group ride on my new carbon fiber Felt bike, my cycling friends did not initially tell me that the sunshade insert on the front of my helmet was not cool. Later on, they made clear that only mountain bikers really keep those on their lids. They also suggested (kindly) that I take the reflectors off my bike wheels. Frankly, my conversion from a Fred into a cyclist took well over a year. That’s how it works.

Cruel kids

Flood pantsAll this hearkens back to the days when as kids, we are forced to learn what is socially acceptable. People of a certain age recall with dread the social stigma of being caught wearing “flood pants.” If you grew out of a pair of jeans or your mom shrank them in the wash, your pants might be too short for your legs. And kids were merciless about mocking you for it.

And now, Flood Pants are actually a “thing.” So go figure. Society is cruel and stupid.

Same went for wearing white socks with street clothes. That was cause for terrifyingly mean commentary about your family’s origin, especially that of the hillbilly variety.

How some of these critical views come into being is the why sociologists have jobs. Why do people feel such a need to criticize and categorize? Because we’re cruel, heartless bastards and bitches, for one thing. Both evolution and religion admit that people are soulless beings unless they are somehow slapped into shape by either failure or confession.

The Inquisition

The Catholic Church even produced a series of institutions collectively known as The Inquisition to draw confessions about heresy, witchcraft or whatever else they did not like. This was serious business, as evidenced by this excerpt from one of their dictums:

“It has recently come to our ears, not without great pain to us, that in some parts of upper Germany, […] Mainz, Koin, Trier, Salzburg, and Bremen, many persons of both sexes, heedless of their own salvation and forsaking the catholic faith, give themselves over to devils male and female, and by their incantations, charms, and conjurings, and by other abominable superstitions and sortileges, offences, crimes, and misdeeds, ruin and cause to perish the offspring of women, the foal of animals, the products of the earth, the grapes of vines, and the fruits of trees, as well as men and women, cattle and flocks and herds and animals of every kind, vineyards also and orchards, meadows, pastures, harvests, grains and other fruits of the earth; that they afflict and torture with dire pains and anguish, both internal and external, these men, women, cattle, flocks, herds, and animals, and hinder men from begetting…”

The illustration below is what happened to people who pissed off the Catholic Church. They’re pouring hot liquid down the throat of a woman accused of poisoning other people. Notice the guy standing in the background reading a list of the accused sins? He’s reading off a list of her sins. As if she’s listening right now. But like all religious zealotry, confessions are not really about saving the victim. They are about making the people doing the accusing feel superior.

Torture of Brinvilliers, 17th Century

A picture of the torture of poisoner Marie-Madeleine-Marguerite d’Aubray, Marchioness of Brinvilliers, in the seventeenth century.

Which is why the Catholic Church and every other religious zealot in history blathers on and so on. Zealots tend to talk quite a bit in run-on sentences. That way, if someone figures out they are full of crap along the way, they can always refer to the phrase before, and before that. That’s how all zealots run their enterprise. Keep talking and keep torturing those who oppose you. It’s a political strategy too.

The attempted founders of the New Inquisition in America are Rick Santorum and Mike Huckabee. If these two ran on the same political ticket all hellfire would rain down on the earth, and dogs would bark in fear and warning that the apocalypse was about to begin.

End Times for Joggers and Freds

05e05330882707.56058a87a8e35Which is actually what 50% of America seems to want these days. Tired of all the political mess created by fighting between Democrats, Republicans and Libertarians, much less the Green Party, people are practically begging for the End of Days to come.

In the meantime, they occupy themselves by forming angry packs and calling themselves True Christians, reading books by Tim LaHaye and listening to shows like Bible Times on Moody Radio.

Truth be told, much of this End Times theology has absolutely nothing to do with Jesus and everything to do with ending Social Security and Medicare because taking care of the sick and elderly is a really miserable thing to do. In this regard, the movement to end social programs bears much in similarity to The Inquisition, only without the whole burning people at the stake part. But give them time, they’re just getting warmed up. According to men like Ben Carson, legislation such as Obamacare and the theory of evolution are the work of the devil. 

Those of us Joggers and Freds like think we’re innocent in all this as we roll along in our happy travels through weather thick and thin. Yet we live in a time period that some so-called Christian believers consider The Tribulation. As it happens, some people are all too happy to enfold themselves in expectation of The Rapture and laugh at those of us who wear too little clothing and spend too much time thinking about Garmin or Strava stats. Those numbers can’t save your soul!

Such occupations are considered narcissism, and it is contagious. So perhaps the accusers do have a point.

thongTo whit (again) society does seem to be regressing toward a Ground Zero where the Anti-Christ is set to emerge as the leader of the sports world.

After all, consistent display of the human gluteus maximus is now almost commonplace. The region of the body known as the buttocks or ass, is now perfectly acceptable to show off in public. Truly, it was once was a cause for concern if your ass was showing. Now it’s a hobby to show it off, especially during events like the Tour de France. You can blame Borat for that.

This modern trend makes the issue of wearing flood pants or white socks rather amusing in retrospect. But that’s how human society works. It loves turning taboos intro traditions. What else can explain something the sport of triathlon, an event established by mashing three separate sports together like an endurance hash? Yet people seem to love it. But be smart about it. Take your time, especially in transition. No need to rush a multisport buffet. Who really cares what your End Time turns out to be? It will come soon enough.

No shortcuts

This all makes me worry a lot less about my humble status in the pool. It’s taken more than a year to swim long enough to even call myself a swimmer. Up until then you’re a paddler and a heavy-breather.

fat_man_in_kit_in_storeBut in deference to some social pressures, I do wear a decent length Speedo swimsuit. It is the color black, so that nothing underneath will show in outline. That, I agree, is never a good look. Women friends assure me they do not want to look at that. The rule holds true for bike shorts and running shorts as well. There are no shortcuts to impressing a woman. Even if you’re well-endowed.

There are also no shortcuts to becoming something other than a jogger or a Fred, either. Not on the run, nor the bike, nor in the pool. One wishes there were, like those children’s games, an opportunity to land on a square and instantly slide to a better position in life. But we all know that’s not how it works. Why we ever teach our children that is impossible to understand. The more realistic aspect of those games is when you suddenly get sent to Jail or ushered back to Square One with a debilitating shake of the dice. We all know that happens a lot more in life than you might think.

Burned at the stake

Well, at least we’re not going to get burned at the stake for being a jogger or a Fred. Not publicly, anyway. None of us can really control the things that people say behind our backs. Trust me, those are the cruelest inquisitions of all.

In the meantime, we keep plodding and rolling and paddling along. Content in our jogging and Fredding and sputtering, we make ourselves into something we did not used to be. That might be a triathlete. Or it might not. You’ll have to ask your friends about that.

But don’t expect a truly honest answer. Honesty is the ultimate tarsnake. It waits like a test of internal balance for every innocent to come rolling by.

Runoverthetarsnakes2

 

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Matters of snow, and why snow matters

Posted on January 20, 2016 by Christopher Cudworth

 

Snow Bear

This bear sits on this chair in my yard year round. But he seems happiest in the snow. He’s a snow bear.

Ever the early riser, my companion Sue texted me at 7:00 a.m. when she’d gotten home from Master’s Swim. “Pretty snow out there today!”

 

Love it. We need snow. Snow matters. It moistens the ground. It actually insulates the earth. And it makes for interesting running and riding.

A few years back on the day after Christmas my brother needed a car and his was out of commission being repaired. So I drove my Toyota down and left it for him to use. Then I rode my mountain bike for the 15 miles back home. There was about four inches of new snow on the ground. My bike tires cut through the fresh layers like an icebreaker through arctic waters.

My new fluorescent green cycling jacket, given to me by my brother-in-law, who had once been a Cat 3 road cyclist, was perfect for the weather. Snow was still coming down, and the helmet cover that came with the jacket protected my head.

It was quiet, as you can imagine, on the day after Christmas. There were so few cars I rode up the center of a street for a while to get to the bike trail that would lead north along the Fox River home to Batavia. The river was largely frozen, but there were patches where the black water coursed heavily around islands. There were geese and ducks; mergansers and goldeneyes. Above the river, the perched shape of a bald eagle in a cottonwood.

 

Snow Footprint

There’s a pleasure in leaving footprints in snow.

Snow came down in big, steady flakes. At times, you could hear those snowflakes landing on the already fallen snow. The steady sound of my bike tires through the snow was gratifying. It is so fun to make progress on a fresh new landscape.

 

I was in no hurry to get home, but neither did I want to get off the bike. There is something that calls us once we get moving. Yes, it’s fine at any time to stop and ponder. But there are some rides and runs that are not meant to be interrupted. Perhaps it’s the idea of putting down footprints when you’re perched on the bike. Doesn’t seem right.

However there have been many moments running in the snow where there is nothing in the world that I’d rather be doing that placing those tracks in the straightest line possible. If you are lucky (or early) enough to be the first down a snowy street, there is a genuine feeling of liberty and individuality in making those tracks. You’re flirting with the rules if you run down the middle of the road. Take a glance back and you can see from whence you’ve come. That’s actually a rare experience in this life. Think about it.

 

Snow birds

Footprints in the snow from birds keep us company in winter.

Those of us who run and ride, in other words, know that snow matters. It marks the seasons just as the seasons mark us. On bike or on foot, we make our reverse tarsnakes in the snow, knowing full well they will soon enough vanish or be run over by the bigger vehicles that come along. Of course this year, I am armed with a set of clingon Yak Trax, those tools of motorvation that strap to your running shows. So I’ll likely give them a try today if the streets say so.

 

Then there are the plows, those beasts of burden that clear the streets. And we can be thankful for those too. Because running or riding on the snow every day does have its risks. Ankles and arches and knees bear the brunt of running on icy streets. You cling to the spots where pavement shows through because it’s that much easier to move.

And out west of town, where the plows really have to work when the wind blows, I will drive and keep binoculars at hand to spy on the winter birds; longspurs and horned larks and snow buntings, who feed on the roadside scrapings and scattered grass and farm seed. These are beautiful things, these birds, and only come to the roads when snow obscures the deep field leavings. And if I’m very lucky, I will stumble on the snowy owl that hangs out south of Dekalb, where the fields do not care if you exist or not. But the mice and voles love these places, and the owls too.

These are matters of snow, and why snow matters. Whether the layer be thick or thin, snow brings out those willing to make their mark on the world.

Runoverthetarsnakes

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Running and riding over tarsnakes of technology

Posted on January 19, 2016 by Christopher Cudworth

TarsnakesI truly admire all of you out there who can plug big miles on the treadmill. Just this morning my companion Sue texted me that she’d covered an hour on the belt, a triumph because she’d tweaked a glute muscle in last weeks’ early morning speed session. That injury likely came about because we’d ridden hard in a Computrain session on the bike the night before. One of the risks of indoor training is that you might not give yourself enough time to recover. It’s easy to remember a hard effort when you’ve cranked out 40 miles hard on an outdoor ride. Indoors you might remember nothing about the ride except the colored bars indicating percentage of effort.

The dry winter air doesn’t help either. It’s easy to get dehydrated and not know it.   And perhaps that was my condition going into last night’s workout. I ran a couple miles on the treadmill and it wasn’t much fun. To make matters worse, the television on the treadmill would not change channels. Perhaps I could have jumped over to another machine. Somehow I did not think of that. My program was already rolling along and my heart rate was up. I was in that weird focus where you’re not really thinking. You’re just doing. Nike isn’t so smart about some things. So I just kept going.

No shame

25 minutes on the treadmill is not a shame. I ran 8:30 pace once the body warmed up, but that was a chore. The temps outside were near zero and frankly my toes were cold after walking in from the car, and my feet were stiff. You really don’t want to jump on a treadmill and start running in that condition. The running motion on a treadmill is difficult enough to maintain without dealing with malfunctioning body parts.

Plus some weird thing happened to my right shoulder on the way driving to the health club. Again it was likely the cold that caused what felt like my rotator cuff to tweak. Honestly it might have been the product of a day spent on a writing project. That combined with a manic session of guitar playing between writing sessions might have tightened that shoulder ligament. All it took was a walk into the cold night air and “OW!” I was in pain.

No gain

So that took some of the verve and enthusiasm out of my training last night. I just don’t push it when something like that has happened. Often it’s a sign that other aspects of your body are off kilter as well. One of the thing you need to watch when you feel a cold coming on is your back muscles. It’s a strange thing, but something occurs at the cellular level throughout your body when a common cold approaches. There’s a tension to your muscles, and the middle of your back is one of the places that can occur. Of course, a violent sneeze never helps things either. It’s best to watch it when you feel like that. A back spasm can put you out of action for days. There’s nothing to gain in trying to fool your body into a hard training state when it needs to recover.

Rather than push myself through phases like that, I’ve learned to forgive my body and let things warm up well. The first ten minutes on the treadmill saw me covering just over a mile. Alright, it was time now to dial things up. You push buttons and make yourself go faster. How hilarious is that, really?

Fast company

I used to run very fast on treadmills. 6:00 pace or even 5:00 pace is rather fun when you can do it. Flying along in one place, feet kissing the belt as you go. But then there was that incident where a pretty girl walked up to ask me if I’d be long on the treadmill, and I got distracted, and fell to the belt, which slammed my shoulder and sent me flying feet first through the wall behind. True story. And I’m not embarrassed. Well, sort of. She was really cute. And I was pretty stupid.

So it is with some consternation that I step on the treadmill to this day. It’s just never been a big component of my training routine. If I can run outside, I do. Zero degrees isn’t that bad if you wear proper headgear and gloves. The body itself is never that cold. Not once you get moving.

There will be a few more treadmill running sessions before winter is done, and lots more on the Computrainer, I suppose. This is a mechanized world of fitness we occupy. You simply can’t keep up with others in terms of fitness unless you learn to run and ride fast in the same place. Modern problems, we must suppose. A tarsnake of technology.

Runoverthetarsnakes2

 

 

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I lost a couple followers

Posted on January 18, 2016 by Christopher Cudworth

 

Shoe 4

My goddamned new running shoes did finally arrive. On Saturday. But that was never the real point of the blog.

Last Friday’s post about my goddamned running shoes being delivered late from Saucony must have offended a few people. Three or four apparently dropped my blog. I sort of get that. Not everyone likes to read language they might consider “swear words.”

 

Of course, it actually is absurd to think like that. It’s a false brand of sensitivity, calculating in its way, but still false.Deeming one word an evil thing is the stuff of ancient superstition. Yes, one could argue that using the word “goddamn” is taking the Lord’s name in vain. But let’s stop and think about that for a moment.

Because I contend that the Lord’s name is taken in vain far more often by those using it to manipulate people into giving them money than I ever could by using the word “goddamn” in satiric impatience over a pair of running shoes being delivered late. Do you see? I was actually mocking a lack of patience, temperance and Christian gratitude. So the word “goddamn” was a perfect foil to illustrate a set of corrupted values. That’s how satire works. But people too often refuse to see themselves in it. They take symbolism literally, or wonder how the writer could be so deranged. And they miss the goddamned point.

Word power

So let’s go further. Theologically the word “goddamn” has essentially been cleared for use because it no longer means what it used to mean. People say “goddamn” with no real reference to the Creator or anything holy at all. It’s just a word, or words, used to express a patent form of ignorant frustration. And God cannot possibly really care about that. Not when there are so many other keen problems we face in this world.

 

Shoe 6

These shoes are pretty goddamned nice.

So we use the word “goddamn” these days precisely because it robs a term like that of its supposed taboo or power. In fact, with many such words, we find it necessary to abuse their original meaning in order to keep people from leveraging the supposed authority that goes with ownership of those words.

 

That’s exactly why black culture, for example, freely uses the word “nigger” as a playful pejorative (expressing contempt or disapproval). That is done precisely to challenge the perception that the original use of the word represents. Powerlessness. For a white person to call someone a “nigger” was to demean their person.

Yet John Lennon also wrote a song titled “Woman is the Nigger of the World.” You make her paint her face and dance… Artists are good us leveraging such terms to deliver creative insights.

Politicians, not so much. Nor bigots. Their idea of creativity is to shout such terms even louder, or to repeat them, type them in ALL CAPS or shout “Ditto!” when someone barks them on the radio.

So let’s examine a more creative and insightful dynamic. In line with celebration of a day in honor of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.,  let’s pause for a moment and carefully consider a phrase that really does mean something to this world.

Black culture.

By contrast with the word “nigger,” which is a negative epithet adopted by white culture to racially demean others, black culture persists in its honor and achievements despite visible and determined obstacles to that end. Black culture has simply refused to be silenced, and the world is a far better place for it.

It was barely more than five decades ago that performers such as Elvis Presley and the Beatles and the Rolling Stones borrowed, begged or stole from black artists to drive popular music forward. When black artists were finally enabled to fully explore their art in popular culture, the world began to grow in its understanding of who people really are, versus who they were forced to be.

Martin-Luther-King-Jr-Quotes-1001_thumbMeanwhile men such as Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., ever conscious of the forces of oppression and fear that dominate America (and beyond) to this day, remind us that the process of cultural growth is never finished. Dr. King said, “All progress is precarious, and the solution of one problem brings us face to face with another problem.”

So, let’s look at the nature of progress. It is universally recognized that as black athletes entered the world of sports, the quality of all those activities was improved. The empiric evidence is there in sports such as track & field. There is no argument that can dissolve that. And as the level of sports was raised, it forced white athletes to up their game or be left out. Yet the first response to men such as Jackie Robinson was prejudice and fear. (All progress is precarious). In other words, fear of competition. White people were genuinely afraid they would not prove superior after all.

One can also apply this paradigm to all facets of culture,  from music to science, art to the Olympics. On many fronts, black culture brings out the best in humanity. But it does so at great conflict because fear dominates racial discourse.

Backhanded compliments

Which means that what black culture continues to get in return for its contributions to society… is ever more fear and prejudice. People tend to hate change and the progressive front of black culture demands it. Which means that change brought about by black progress can be tough for certain groups of white people to handle. Even compliments towards black achievement can sometimes sound like insults.

Kimetto_Dennis1-Tokyo13-1For example, runners tend to make jokes about wanting to be as good as “the Kenyans,” or Ethiopians or Moroccans. But these are sometimes grudging (if ironic) allusions to racial advantage of some sort. So we must understand that so-called racial superiority is a slippery slope in either direction. Instead, it is hard work and intelligent use of those physical attributes that make people great. Dedication and discipline too.

I personally recall spending time in the company of world-class African runners at a race in Texas. The morning after the race, while American runners were crawling out of bed hung over from the party the night before, laughing at their own compromised state while slumping on the breakfast table, the Kenyan runners had already returned from a 10-mile workout, showered and were dining on tea and enjoying lean breakfast fare. That is how you become great.

A world of wiggers

I cannot help make a comparison between the symbolism of that moment and the way that white America engages with black culture. Our nation consumes the creative output of black musical artists (producing “wiggers” as a result) and apparently admires the personality cult of Oprah Winfrey. Michael Jordan essentially owns the world, and Neil DeGrasse Tyson is the scientific equivalent of Air Jordan.

Yet the problems of black culture are not so popular a topic of engagement. Young black men are incarcerated at a far higher rate in America than their white counterparts. In fact, the perception of young black men as thugs has led to violent, ugly confrontations. That kid-killer George Zimmerman in Florida invoked vigilante justice to shoot Trayvon Martin simply for being black, wearing a hoodie and being in the wrong neighborhood. Yet somehow this execution has given men like Zimmerman an audience to criticize none other than Barack Obama, America’s first black president, for publicly crying over the idea that gun violence is causing American families real pain. This is disrespect of the most egregious form: getting away with murder and bragging about it. Yet that’s how the KKK ruled the South for decades. Those forces have not gone away. Movies such as O Brother, Where Art Thou delightfully mock the backwards ways of Southern hatred, but those strains of belief are not gone from this world.

The fact remains: Zimmerman is a goddamned poor excuse for a moral center in America. And by proxy, his obvious and demonstrated hatred for black people is taken as an excuse for hating President Obama. Even before his election, Obama became the target of many verbal attacks about his intellect (either too smart or too dumb) and his “community organizing” which were dog-whistle complaints about his black origins, and they have persisted during his eight years as President. These attacks may not be as direct as shooting Trayvon Martin for the apparent crime of wearing a hoodie, but the attacks are just as real, and have been as calculatedly “set up” to mete out “justice” as seen fit. That is, to keep an uppity nigger in his place.

mlk-love-vs-hateObama haters love to deny this racism exists, claiming their objection to his Presidency is strictly based on policies, not the color of his skin. But even if that were true, hate of the man still persists in place of the racism, and the hypocritical effects are the same.

Because the sad fact is that Obama haters frequently align themselves with politically-motivated people who love to claim that America is a Christian nation. If that is true, in what way does this brand of Christianity respect the call to “love your enemies?” Instead, we’ve seen clear demonstrations in which politics and racism and religion are clearly wrapped in helix with Confederate or Tea Party or even Nazi flags. At what point does this confused mix of hatred and racism and selective religious belief get called into account?

Take Back America?

It does not. And that is why calls to “take back America” ring so goddamned hollow. That brand of hate-based fascism is not what America is about, at all. That is not America. The America that hates women’s rights, that hates blacks. The America that hates gay people, and scientists too (for evolution and climate change). The America that loves white privilege and doesn’t understand why that’s a problem. The America that claims to love creation and uses religion to despoil it, or take it over with a militia. The America that claims persecution when questioned about basic aspects of its theology. The America that denies birth control to women while decrying abortion. The America that loved the cynicism of lying to go to war, yet criticizes legitimate diplomatic resolutions for peace. The America that loves when our black athletes win Olympic Gold Medals yet doesn’t want black men marrying white women, or vice versa. The America that loves the second half of the Second Amendment far more than it values human life.

The America that is perpetually conflicted by its own violently racist history…without now accepting that social progress has been made on all these fronts if people would only stop trying to “take back America” by taking America back to a time when all these worthwhile movements toward progress were still only hopeful ideals.

Yes, I might have lost a couple followers this past weekend, and will lose a couple more most likely, because of this particular blog. Yet I accept the challenge to challenge all of your perceptions through this blog because that’s how I started how and plan to remain engaged in that efforts. This has everything to do with how I started out three years ago to provide “original thoughts about running and riding” because look around; racial diversity is a very big thing in our respective sports. We should talk about it.

And I simply refuse to accept that words like “goddamn” or “nigger” should be the end of dialogue on any subject.

 

 

 

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When will my goddamned new shoes get here?

Posted on January 15, 2016 by Christopher Cudworth

IMG_1850I ordered new shoes. They should have been here by now, goddamnit. They should have been here before I was born! New shoes are not supposed to be late. Never!

Don’t tell me I am spoiled or have #modernproblems. New shoes are supposed to teleport through time and space to get to me. I Deserve Them! Never mind that I wore the old pair too goddamned long and it’s my fault I need them so bad. Those are goddamned excuses to make me feel responsible! I’m not responsible for this! I’m not responsible for anything!!  

Was I responsible for the fact that the shoes they wore when mankind walked on the moon first_man_on_the_moonlooked like orthopedic boots? And that they had basic one-side-to-the-other treads on them that looked like they were drawn by a two-year-old? No. That was not my fault. So shut your goddamned trap about that. Not my fault.

And was it my fault that Jimmy Carter took up jogging and made liberals the laughing stock of the late 1970s? Because he wore those stupid shorts and ran sideways and then fainted when he was supposed Jimmy carterto be going forward? And that came to represent his entire presidency? Not my goddamned fault either. I’d still goddamn vote for him today, even though…

…the goddamned 1980 Olympics didn’t get held, and Craig Virgin got screwed out of a chance to win Gold and exceed the legacy of Steve Prefontaine, which he frankly deserves. Not my fault we skipped out. I was all for America going over to Soviet Moscow or wherever and kicking some Goddamned Soviet Ass. Now I sound like a goddamned conservative. And sonofabitch, in some ways I am.

But my goddamn shoes are still not here, and I want to run tomorrow. Not next week. Not IMG_3473a goddamned month from now. Tomorrow. My whole goddamned world is clogged up like a giant Shoe Shit waiting to come out my goddamn skinny runner butt. Until my New Shoes get here, the rest of my world is on hold. Goddamnit. God. Damn. It.

Because goddamnit, I was a Shoe Guinea Pig for the rest of you goddamned people. I wore shoes in the 70s and 80s that were not fit for goddamned human consumption. The government and Nike and Asics and New Balance and goddamned Osaga for fuck’s sake…all conspired and conducted running shoe experiments on us Old Schoolers so that the rest of you goddamned people can enjoy good shoes today.

Seinfeld_s7e22We paid our dues. We taped athletic tape to the heels to make that cheap rubber they used back then last longer. We literally wore goddamned holes through the bottom of the soles of our shoes because we cared not about biomechanics and gait balance. We were like the Seinfeld character Kramer driving around with his car on “E” to see how goddamned far he could go. All we knew how to do was goddamned run. And we were good at that.

So goddamnit I should not have to wait for my goddamned new shoes. Not one minute more. Get here. Goddamn. New Shoes. Goddamnit.

IMG_1850

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Training the untrained cycling eye

Posted on January 14, 2016 by Christopher Cudworth

VengeSomewhere during last night’s computraining session, midway through the third of five tw0-minute intervals at 85% intensity, a black vortex began to spin inside my head. The normal floaters that flit before my vision were replaced by a veritable snowglobe of flecks and spinners. Still, I kept staring at the green bar on the computraining screen that indicated my ideal pedaling zone. I was not in the red. Nor was I falling into the yellow.

He’d assigned me a load of something like 220. I don’t know what the means yet. All I know is it causes pain.

My body was giving me feedback to compete with the empiric and illustrated data on the screen. And that’s important, because when cycling indoors, you have no other measure to tell you whether you are keeping up with anyone else. The rise and fall of those indicator bars is all you can own. So you train your eyes on them. Like it or not, all your self-worth and hopes are tied to them. You are training the untrained cycling eye on them.

Sooner or later, your legs begin to fail. Which sucks. Because there is no reward for that. The computrainer senses your slowing cadence and the effort actually becomes harder. You ask yourself. Who invented this thing? Yet the sensation is very similar to reality. When you get tired in the real world, the pedaling does get stiffer. So you fight it as long as you can. But there are limits. And I stopped. Let the numbers fall to zero. Then started pedaling again. Everything is accomplished in increments, or it isn’t typically accomplished at all. Next time through you go a little farther. A little longer. It’s just like adding laps and pace in the pool. Throwing an extra interval onto the end of a workout. Don’t beat yourself up about it the first time. Increments. They tear us down, but they also build us up.

Getting back on the bike for indoor cycling after what amounts to two-month layoff thanks to my dead Felt (it’s a garage collision thing, you might recall) was not easy. Nor should it be. It’s a matter of history, record and reality that cycling never gets easier. You simply go harder. That’s an especially vicious truth when you haven’t been riding in 60 days.

You don’t get to begin where you left off. People wise to the ways of the cycling world know that indoor miles are a these days a requirement if you want to ride with the group come March or April. Everyone else is doing it. You had better do it too.
Here’s the thing. Hard as it was, and as much as I dreamed of quitting altogether during the 1.5 hour session, I did ride to completion. That required breaking the two-minute interval sessions into one-minute sessions with a rest in the middle. But I finished.

And by the third interval session that consisted of one-minute rides with breaks between, my legs were on the rebound. The reward was finishing most of the 30-second intervals at 150% at the end. So there was a takeaway.

Somewhere along the way, my rear tire starting balking and slipping on the trainer cylinder. Turns out the tires and tubes on the Waterford, my stand-in bike while I shop for a new one, are really pretty old. The entire bike was a gift from my brother-in-law, and it’s been an interesting bike to fix up a little and ride. But I didn’t replace the tires. The rear was flat when I pulled it down from the hook in the garage. So those tires need to be replaced.

The bike is a specific sWaterford 3etup. Fit for a Crit, it also has a nice Dura-Ace derailleur that shifts so smooth you don’t know it exists. On the road, the aluminum frame rides smooth and clean. The bike gives back what you put into it. Sure, it’s a touch on the heavier side, but on an indoor trainer that doesn’t matter, now does it?

To ride the bike at all last fall, I played with the setup myself and had the seat height about right. Still, I asked the bike expert running our computraining session to give it a look. He did a little test with my heel on the pedal and it checked out. So that was good.

Because I figured I’d suffer enough without having the seat height completely wrong. Guesswork doesn’t really cut it long term in cycling. During the ride I sensed there is still something wrong with my positioning on the bike. There was no time to think about that. But you know how that goes. Fatigue comes quicker when doubts fill your mind.

The trainer guy came by again to chat during the session. I’d told him I’m looking at the Specialized Venge Expert for a new bike. Turns out he rides the top-level Specialized Venge himself. “You’ll love the Venge,” he told me. “Several guys on our team just got them. And for you, switching out the seatpost will be great for triathlons…”

Then he went on to explain how that works. The hip angle. The aggressive position. How it all works. It was fascinating. “Stop me if you’ve heard all this before,” he told me.

I hadn’t. Even if I had, his words were registering in new ways. It was inspiring, like sitting around the cycling campfire listening to sage pontificating on the merits of Ultegra. “That Venge will be great for crits, too,” he advised.

That’s what I’m after. A bike that pushes me in new or previous directions, and renews the cycling spirit. It was time. Now it’s just the money. That’s coming together too.
When the computraining session was just about over, we did yet another set of one-legged pulls. For me, that was like churning biking butter. Either my pedal stroke need major improvement or my bike position is completely f’d up. I was jerky as a reggae song and pretty out of tune. Out of shape. Out of juice. Increments.

That’s okay. You have to start somewhere. Training the untrained cycling eye takes time. Staring at the computrainer screen through drops of sweat is as good as any place to start. You’re not alone. There are plenty of others joining you in the Sweat Shop, as they call it at Mill Race Cyclery. They’re good people there. Serve every kind of cyclist from barely able to ride to racing like a sonofabitch.

In fact, there are many good bike shops near my home. Spokes in Wheaton. Prairie Path in Batavia and Winfield. Sammy’s in St. Charles. The Bike Rack in St. Charles. Performance Cycling...all over the place. I spend cycling money at all these places. They all carry different types of bikes and gear.

Many of these local locations also host computrainer sessions. It’s a revenue source for some shops during the winter months. Bike shops used to sell cross-country skis in the winter months, but sketchy Illinois winters make that a risky investment.

So this was the first time I’ve been to a true computrainer session, but not the first time I’ve ridden a bikIMG_8605e indoors in winter. Way back in the 80s when I was in peak running form, the winter months training in downtown Chicago could be brutal. We had a couple years of really cold weather years then, with temperatures reaching more than 20 below zero. So I purchased a MagTurbo bike trainer and set up a Schwinn in the living room of our Clark Street second story flat and pedaled while looking out the window at Lincoln Park.

It wasn’t computraining, by any means. There were no empiric measures to give you feedback. Just your gut instincts about effort and a Talking Heads tape in the cassette deck to keep you company. But I trained hard on that bike.

So last night felt a bit like going back in time. See, it turns out that suffering follows you around in life. All you have to do is open the door and let it in.

And speaking of which, we also got up this morning at 5:30 and did a running workout of 8 x 400 at 8:00 pace according to my companion Sue’s training schedule. She’s been transitioning to a midfoot strike in her interval training and her stride has become smoother. Granted, our legs were both a touch tired from last night’s computraining session, but that wears off after a couple laps. It’s how you have to roll if you don’t want the winter months to be a loss.

Runoverthetarsnakes2

 

 

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Dr. Laura Schlessinger and my Old Shoes

Posted on January 13, 2016 by Christopher Cudworth

IMG_1850I’m sure you’re all aware of Dr. Laura Schlessinger. She’s that sweet lady who helps people in times of trouble. If you have a problem, all you need to do is call Dr. Laura’s show and she’ll spread you like a layer of peanut butter all over the continent. Because Dr. Laura is national, you see, and is the author of books such as The Proper Care and Feeding of Myself.

So I had this guilty conscience going on because my Saucony shoes had gotten far more worn out than I should ever have let them get. And it was bugging me because it made me feel like there was some deep character flaw driving my behavior in wearing those shoes from August through December without casting them off like a pair of, well, Old Shoes.

I was thinking perhaps that I was reverting to (shudder) conservatism, which is rampant in people who don’t like to change anything. But even I knew that my mind would not resort to anythinCamerong so dark and subversive as that.

And then I realized with another shudder that it was perhaps my liberalism gone amok that caused me to refuse to change those Old Shoes. Perhaps I was nothing more than an aging hipster, aching for the time when running shoes were by nature thin and unsupportive. That’s how liberals think, after all. They care about the past only in that creepy, “Give me back my socks woven from Worm Skin” kind of way.

Or God Forbid, maybe I was falling into that desperate Middle Ground with people who like both the Lord of the Rings series and that awful but funny comedy Bad Teacher, in which Cameron Diaz plays a spoiled skanky bitch who through her own path to Self Discovery turns out to be a really great Middle School Guidance Counselor. Wait a minute, I thought. She’s just like Dr. Laura Schlessinger…

So the whole psychology theme was working as I tapped in the number for the Dr. Laura laura-schlessinger-7-lqShow on my cell phone and waited anxiously for the Program Director to answer my call. Quite suddenly, a stern voice came on the line and said, “No Dr. Laura does not sign nude photos of herself for fans. What else do you want?”

“I want to talk to Dr. Laura about keeping my Old Shoes,” I confessed, wondering if the call was already on seven-second delay. Is this the Program Hotline?” I asked.

“Everything about Dr. Laura is hot,” he informed me. “But what’s this about your Old Shoes?”

“I wore them too long,” I said, with a shaking voice. “And now my Achilles is starting to hurt.”

“Hold on,” he barked. And then the Hold Music began to play. It was that annoying but beautiful song MacArthur’s Park sung by Richard Harris. “Someone left the cake out in the rain…” he sang in that quivering falsetto..”I don’t think that I can take it…cause it took so long to bake it…and I’ll never have that recipe…agaiiiinnnnn….Oh Noooooooo!”

lauraschlesinger-2And like a Magic Spell from Heaven, suddenly I was talking with Dr. Laura herself.

“Tell me again how long you’ve been clinging to these Old Shoes…” she instructed me.

“They are Saucony ISO Triumphs,” I muttered with a quivering set of lips. “And they still look brand new. And I ran a race in them last weekend. And they have no cushioning left. And my legs feel awful today. And I think I hurt my knee.”

“Of course you did,” she snarled. “That’s your mind’s way of lashing out at your body. You can’t accept the fact that you’re addicted to running.”

“But I’m not,” I insisted. “I can quit any time I want. In fact, I quit almost every day.”

“Let’s talk about that,” she jumped on my sign of weakness.”It sounds like you’ve been a quitter all your life.”

“Well, not really,” I told her. “I actually used to win a few races. But then I got older and slower, and it made no sense to torture myself trying to keep up with runners 10 years younger without a job to hold them back. So I quit competing to raise a family.”

Dr. Laura“But there’s your problem right there,” Dr. Laura commanded. “You’re blaming your shoes for being old when actually, you’re the one that can’t accept reality. This is a clear case of projecting your problems onto other people.

Are you by any chance a…Liberal?” she inquired.

“Well, yes,” I admitted. “But I don’t see how that has anything to do with this…” I protested.

“And did someone hurt you as a child?” she wanted to know.

“Tons of people hurt me as a child,” I informed her honestly. “I grew up in the sixties. My parents and siblings and playground friends all beat the crap out of me. Pretty much I walked around hurt 24 hours a day. I got sick of watching people inflict pain on each other. But being a bleeding heart liberal is in my veins. I still believed Lance Armstrong was not a doper. I gave him the benefit of the doubt. I’m so sorry now. It turned out he was inflicting pain on everyone he knew…”

“And, he confessed to that fraud Oprah,” Dr. Laura hissed. “That woman doesn’t deserve the fame she’s gotten. She couldn’t psychoanalyze a frog if it crawled out from between her butt cheeks.”

Sensing I’d hit a sore spot with Dr. Laura about the whole Lance Confessing to Oprah Thing, I remained silent for a moment. “Listen,” she told me with her practiced charm and grand imitation of faux concern. “This thing with wearing your Old Shoes simply has to stop. What are you going to do about it?”

American Women In Radio & Television 2010 Genii Awards - Show“I already did,” I brightened, thinking she’d approve of the Proactive Me. “I ordered new ISOs from the Saucony website. They were only $105.00. But I didn’t pay for Express Shipping. And I didn’t buy this pair local. Is that bad?”

“It shows you’re not entirely committed to healing yourself,” she said, her lips aurally curled around the phallic metal protrusion of the microphone. “I think you need to go online right now and buy my book. Because I’m sick of people like you not having the guts to really make a change. In fact, you’re what’s wrong with our whole country. I bet you don’t even agree with the Justice Antonin Scalia’s Originalism interpretation of the Second Amendment, do you?”

“Well, no,” I admitted. “I think Constitutional Originalism is as bad as biblical literalism. Together they’re the source of all of America’s problems,” I contended. “It’s like our whole country is pretending anything old has to be better than anything new. Oh My God,” I blurted. “Does that mean I’m really a…conservative?”

IMG_1882“I bet you secretly have all your Old Shoes hidden in a closet somewhere!” she hissed. “You can’t bear to throw them out and you’re secretly blaming them for all your problems. I think you’re deeply conflicted,” she accused.

But at that moment, the traffic light changed from red to green. I’d been sitting alone in my car without moving through two full cycles of the turn signal, which now showed a bright green arrow. I smiled at the sight and responded: “Dr. Laura?” I said.

“What…?” she remarked in that authoritatively cynical voice of hers.

“Do you know what tarsnakes are? It’s when something you think is a problem turns out to be nothing at all. You just have to move on past it…like a pair of Old Shoes.” But she had hung up the phone. Dr. Laura was gone.

I pushed my foot on the gas pedal and rolled on through the traffic light. Just then the voice of the Program Director came over the speakers of my car. “Do you still want those autographed naked picture of Dr. Laura?” he wanted to know.

“No,” I told him. “You can keep them.” And I glanced back at that pair of Old Shoes sitting on my rear car seat. There’s nothing quite so cathartic as being able to leave your past behind.

Runoverthetarsnakes2

 

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Drawing on experience and the art of what you do

Posted on January 11, 2016 by Christopher Cudworth

 

Cudworth.Gallery.2016

With my painting Peregrine and Prey at Water Street Studios, Batavia. 

During my four years at Luther College, January Interim was like a pause during the school year. We took one course during the month and really dug into whatever we were studying.

 

Freshman year that meant a life drawing course. Six hours a day of doing figure drawing was like living n a zen world. It was wonderful, absorbing and a calm in the relative storm of that first year in college. In succeeding years I would travel to the Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology on an internship. My Junior year I created a massive mural for a nature center. And senior year I don’t recall what January Term was all about. I was in love and didn’t care about anything but that.

But that freshman year was memorable. We’d draw from 9:00 a.m. to noon, have lunch, and come back for three more hours of drawing in the afternoon.

Figure drawing is an intensive act. It requires full concentration and the discipline to actually draw what you see, not what you think is there. Whether drawing the male or female figure, the human body has many subtleties.

In drawing women, the lines of the female figure could be terrifically subtle; from hip through waist, around the breast and into the neckline. Men might have more profound edges. It all depended on the model.

When the drawing day was through, I’d head to the gym, change into running clothes and head out for base mileage run of 6, 10 and 15 miles in the hills around Decorah. The landscape was just as subtle and diverse as any figure I’d drawn during the day. Often we’d finish in darkness, the lights of campus drawing us back home. It was earth, organic and true. Often during runs I’d explore ideas for paintings or writing. That would be a process that holds true all my life.

 

Starlings.jpg

A recent painting titled “Starlings” was creating from observations of old buildings in Minneapolis, Minnesota. 

The opportunity to immerse oneself in artistic pursuits of such focus was important to me. Recently I’ve been able to recreate some of that focus by leasing space at Water Street Studios, an artist’s collective in my hometown of Batavia, Illinois. Painting in my studio involves quite a bit of focus too. It’s like you’re in another world.

 

Or another time. In a similar fashion, heading out for a run after a day in the studio painting takes me back all those years to Luther. And in similar fashion, it has been a challenge and a pleasure to immerse myself in art again.

 

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Bonfire, acrylic on board. 

There have been breaks from painting and drawing over the years. Some of these were by force of need, especially during periods of intense caregiving, when every ounce of energy went into that process.

 

Other times were breaks by choice when the process I’d created to make art was not satisfying. So I took a break and wrote instead.

The same has held true for running and riding. Naturally there are periods in our lives when training calls us to higher levels of intensity. We need it or want it more at some times than others.

This is true of love and life as well. All our pursuits are pieces of energy emerging from within us. As artists know better than anyone, that mark made on a piece of paper is both an expression and a commitment.

Perhaps you’ve been out running and looked back at your footprints in the snow. I’ve always gained pleasure from seeing footprints that are straight and sure. Toes pointing forward, not outwards. Most efficient.

 

Sidewalks

Sidewalks, an acrylic painting by Christopher Cudworth

There are moments in painting and drawing like that too. You draw on experience to create the art of what you do. Everything you’ve learned or are trying to learn comes together. A sweet spot in time. And that is satisfying.

 

Last Friday night I showed my artwork in the Resident Artist exhibition at Water Street Studio. Events like that are filled with both anticipation and trepidation. It is a test of sorts to display your work. Show how you think. Demonstrate what you can do.

 

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Nighthawk, a painting by Christopher Cudworth

My art seemed to be well-received. People toured the downstairs gallery and came upstairs to my studio to share their views on what they liked about my work. It was rewarding and encouraging. It motivates me to do even better. That is how you draw on experience and expand the art of what you do.

 

Every race you run or event you do is similar to an art show. You put it out there for the public to see and then stand around sharing that experience with others. It’s a delightful aspect of human nature that we appreciate the art of our existence. And draw on each other’s experience.

January can make it tough to want to make all that work. But if you view it as a calm during the storm of the year, or an Interim term to really focus on things you need to do, it can be a great way to start the year.

So get in there. Make art of what you’re doing.

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Exploring the dark side of the Sno-W Fun Run

Posted on January 10, 2016 by Christopher Cudworth

IMG_6007Midway through the 5-mile Snow Fun Run at the Grand Geneva Resort in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, an intense storm of flurries began to blow. It would have been quite romantic had it not been for the sting of ice droplets on the eyelids and cheeks of those caught in winter’s draft.

But the runners who sign up for the Sno-W Fun Run don’t care about any of that. The principal goal of entering the race is to reach the finish where tables neatly lined with shots await your arrival. A bit of snow is not going to stop anyone from that goal. The race is frankly secondary to the party that follows. And that’s this race has become a favored annual tradition. Not to set a PR in the brrrr. But to grab a drink at the finish and act anything but demure. All on the grounds of the former Playboy Club in Lake Geneva.

Even the repeat race winner Ryan Giuliano seemed chill and relaxed on his way back past the pack runners on the out and back course, which follows IMG_6025a serpentine set of roads through pretty Wisconsin landscape. The roads are smooth and clean when not coated with snow. It even appeared that several new surfaces had been paved even since last year.

Which allowed Ryan to bring a victory home in 26:31. That’s a relatively pedestrian pace for him or any other runner capable of 5:00 miles. But his time was far better than last year, when a heavy, wet snow had fallen the week before the race. The roads were thick with ice and slush then, and there were very few places where actual pavement showed through.

But again, the philosophy of the event, which reaches back for 36 years, is the worse the conditions, the bigger the party! And what a party. People don’t even change race clothes before piling into the brats and burgers served at the finish. That’s after walking a 12-table gantlet featuring shot cups filled with schnapps, fireballs and flavored alcohol of one kind or another. Which means that more than a few people start the party more than a little happy. It just gets goofier and happier from there.

The official festivities take place starting at 5:30 p.m., when 50-60 willing women compete in a dance competition titled the Sausage Dance. And in good Wisconsin fashion, the Grand Prize is a large, meaty sausage fit for a porn queen.

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Winning contestants march off the floor following the epic Sausage Dance.

But to be fair, this year’s Sausage Dancer winner wasn’t dressed like anything like a porn queen. Her Pajama Party wardrobe was quite modest. Yet her moves were great. But here’s the deal in any case. No one cares what you wear during this event. If you want to get half naked and be a bit of a lush for the night, no one is going to stop you.

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She seems lost. But that’s the point.

The tone is handily set by a pair of tinily clad Playboy Bunnies wearing black bikinis who pose for photos with everyone and their mother. We mean that literally. There were whole families at the event.

And given that many running outfits do not consist of that much attire in the first place, there were plenty of people wandering around with their buns hanging out. It’s how the event rolls. You can’t really tell the difference between what people intend to show and what they don’t know is showing.

There always remains a strain of people with propriety. I sat next to someone’s grandmother, who when asked if she was getting up to witness the male dance competition said with some amusement: “No, I value my eyesight.”

See, Wisconsin has a bit of a wild reputation in these categories. If you know where to look, there are actually swingers all over the state. They have their temples of happiness such as the Don Q in Dodgeville,

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Brunch is served the next morning. Same theme.

which features theme rooms fit for the Sybaris. There are cheap mirrors on the ceiling and bad shag carpeting coats the floor. Wisconsin kitsch is a combination of bad taste and contagious celebration.

Apparently plenty of people in the Dairy State thinks there is nothing better than an opportunity for some cheesy sex in a hotel featuring a giant grounded airplane out front. That plane is literally signed by none other than Farrah Fawcett. Only in Wisconsin.

Just up the road from the Don Q Inn sits the House On the Rock, a structure which despite all cultural claims was pretty much designed as a shag shack for a horny psuedo-architect and collector of all things useless yet perversely interesting. And that’s Wisconsin in a nutshell. Pun intended.

But it doesn’t take a shrine to have a little shaggy fun. I personally attended a party years ago with 50-60 runners following a half marathon in LaCrosse, Wisconsin. Pretty much everyone in attendance, male and female, lost most of their clothing before the night was through. That collective gesture was not specifically about sex. At least it did not start that way.  The gathering seemed more about losing inhibitions than getting laid. It’s a fact: Runners sometimes train so hard they lose their grasp on propriety. Or they should. It seems there’s a little Playboy Bunny in us all. IMG_6026

But let’s be clear: the Grand Geneva where the Sno-W Fun Run is held is not some cheesy joint in a throwback part of the state. Instead, the hotel features a beautiful spa and two amazing golf courses, a ski resort and even a family water park where you can throw the kids in the water forget them for several hours. Or days. Whatever floats your young married boat.

Debauchery is relative, you see. For young couples with kids, even 15 minutes together holding hands by a pool can feel like the height of luxury. As it happens, there are plenty of young families each year at the Sno-W Fun Run. And at one point during the race a child paused at the mile mark waiting for her father to tie his shoes. She turned around and shouted, “C’mon, Dad!” The entire race around her erupted with loud chants, with everyone yelling “C’mon Dad!” in a fit of half-crazed commiseration. It was classic.

 

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That is Cher in a Bunny Outfit. Or is that Sonny?

So kids are welcome, but it still feels a bit like Devil Take the Hindmost. The resort is, after all, the former site of the Playboy Club where Hugh Hefner and his bunnies once frolicked with the likes of Frank Sinatra and Sonny and Cher.

 

The resort has been updated over the years of course. Yet the basic framework of the hotel with its sightlines assembled in the Prairie Style of architecture by Frank Lloyd Wright is inviting and peaceful.

Navigation of the resort hallways is not so plain and clear. The resort’s system of up and down staircases and labyrinthian halls are confusing when you’ve had a few drinks. But FLW might have liked it that way, cause he was sort of a bastard by all reports. Wright did not seem to give a rat’s ass if people did not like the often confusing elegance of his designs.

So there are signs posted in the hallways that say something like, “Oh, you’re lost? Don’t worry, famous people that stayed here got lost too.” In other words: “Tough shit you drunken fool. Deal with it. Beauty is sometimes complex.”

IMG_6024In order not to get too lost, some of us choose to exit the main party room and settle in at the main lodge to ordering drinks and munch on after party appetizers.

There you can flop in soft chairs and laugh at groups of people wandering past in strange getups. With this year’s theme a Pajama Party, there were some classic treatments and also a few gals that would have frozen to death in three minutes if they had stepped outside in what they were wearing.

But that’s a Playboy tradition, you see. There are likely dozens of permanently frozen bunnies buried out there on the golf course. Once a year, some golfer hits a ball into the thickets only to find the bony hand of a former Playboy Bunny sticking out of a shallow grave. “Look, I think it’s Miss November 1965!” he’ll say to his golf partners. Then everyone tees up and heads to the next hole.

The Playboy tradition does not die easily, however. That’s why it is an annual tradition that the chosen accent for almost every female costume is a set of bunny or kitten ears. As the evening wears on, some of these accessories inevitably fall into the wrong hands or turn up on the heads of bald men and business types. It’s a bit frightening but fun at the same time.

And that somewhat explains how a massively spectacular pair of blue sparkly bunny ears attached to a black mask came into my possession. They were sitting in an unopened plastic bag on the bar with no one tending them. So I quickly asked the bartender, “Whose are these?” He just shrugged, because that’s what bartenders do in such situations. And I said, “They’re mine now!” And took off with my prize.

From there the pictures got strange, and I felt the haunting presence of all those dead and buried Playboy Bunnies haunting the grounds of the resort. They invaded my soul halfway through that second Long Island Iced Tea… along with a stiff shot of Lemon something in a cheap glass. Of such imbibements are bad dreams made.

Meanwhile, we hung with close friends and made new ones out of shared acquaintances. And at one point, I actually took the bunny ears off. Because people were blinded by the crazed look in my eyes inside that mask.

IMG_6023Then it was time to go to bed and hope the spins would not take hold of my brain after the alcohol. And before falling off to sleep, I briefly prayed that I would not dream of becoming an oversized disturbed rabbit. Or would I?

I’m not saying whether it actually happened or not. All evidence to that effect has been destroyed. Unless you count the photos, which more than one person have compared to that creep rabbit from the movie Donnie Darko.

This just proves there is a murky force within us all that needs to come out once in a while. It helps us get through the part of January, or our own dark side. Whatever that means.

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