Some thoughts from the running track about cycling

Posted on May 6, 2015 by Christopher Cudworth

HurdlesOnWetTrackSo, yesterday I signed up for the Galena Duathlon. That would be the race that has more vertical mileage than horizontal.

And what did I do to prepare? Why, I went to the track last night, of course!

If we’re smart, that’s where we all go to test our fitness. Because even if the training is not specific to running hills, you still need to know how fast you can run at a steady state near race pace to help your mind get ready for the effort of racing.

Those of us old enough to still have cinders in our butt crack from years of running on less-than-all-weather tracks know one thing is true: track is where honesty lives.

Fun and humbling

It’s both fun and humbling to do a track workout. My companion Sue is not so convinced about the fun part. She’s more convinced about the humbling nature of track work. Yet this winter during our many repeat interval workouts on the indoor track at the local high school, she saw definite improvement in her leg turnover and speed by doing intervals together on the track. Her form improved. By indoor season’s end, she was running 3-4 miles of ladder and interval workouts at her 5K pace or below.

That’s a pretty cool result, wouldn’t you say? And yesterday on the outdoor track she replicated that pace. I told her that’s a really good sign. Perhaps it helped that she was wearing my faithful Timex watch, which I lent to her because her Garmin battery died? She’s got way more gadgets than me. Hee hee.

On our own

IMG_8605Meanwhile I did our workout of 6 X 800 using my internal watch. Built on years of pacework on the track, starting from middle school through the current day, my pacing sense is fairly consistent. But the workout called for increasing our pace as the session progressed. I ran the first 800 with Sue in just over 4:00. Then came the drops, and through three repeats I could feel my legs start to loosen enough to deliver a faster pace.

I was clipping along by Number Four and Five, and with one 800 to go, I called out to Bob Hammond, the Experience Triathlon track coach managing our workout: “Sue has my watch,” I told him. “Could you just give me these two laps?”

The first passed in 1:35 and the second in 1:36. 3:11 for the 800. 6:20 pace.

That’s exactly my goal pace for the first two miles of the upcoming duathlon. Given that I felt no strain during the 800s workout, I’m on track (no pun intended) to handle that effort in the first stage.

Provisionals

Of course it is really hilly out in Galena. It’s unlikely I’ll be running 6:20s. But in order to race at your relative fitness, you must know how it feels to run at your race pace in order to manage your effort. Because then comes 16.8 miles of cycling, again in the hills. Followed by 4.2 more miles of running with a brick in your legs.

Strava Hill plot

click to enlarge

So to begin preparing for the bike segment, I rode out to our local hill called Johnson’s Mound to do hill repeats earlier this week. It was really windy on the way west to the forest preserve. I’d ridden 50 miles the day before and could really feel that in my legs. But as you roll along the lactic acid flows out of your muscles and you prepare for a new round of anaerobic goo. It’s what we do.

Johnson’s Mound sticks up like a lone boob from the Illinois landscape. It’s a kame formation laid down by glaciers 10,000 years ago. Once farmed, it’s now a park with a winding road that circles its backside and then launches up the north face in a series of four semi-switchbacks. It really resembles those climbs on the Tour de France, and there is a 9% grade I believe at one point. Several seasons ago I led a friend into the preserve who did not know about the hill. As he climbed with me I heard the definite use of a French word that begins with an F and ends with either a Q or a K with an ER added on the end.

Rite of passage

It’s a tough little hill, and I first ran it with my high school cross country team back in 1971. It was a rude surprise to me then. Since that time I have run up Johnson’s Mound hundreds of times. Way back when I was racing fit at 31:00 10K pace, I would train on Johnson’s Mound to prepare for hillier races. I knew that I was ready for a good effort when I could run from the woods entrance around the main road and up to the top of the circuit in 3:00 or under. That meant I could race under 5:00 pace even in the hills. That strategy once delivered a 20:00 flat four-mile at a very hilly race in Glen Ellyn, Illinois where I got beat by two seconds in one of the most thrilling race finishes in my life. You don’t win them all, but an honest effort feels almost as good as winning. And that one felt honest.

Modern pain

Strava Ranking on Johnson's Mound this year

Click to enlarge

This time riding the same circuit on the bike I came round at just under 2:30 in four out of the six repeats. There’s a Strava segment on that stretch of park road that tells you how you compare to other riders. There are tons of riders here who use , for hillwork during training season. The All Time fastest climb belongs to a pair of excellent riders named Nathan Troia and David Ross. They climbed the segment at 39 seconds. My best All Time is 1:22. And that really hurt. So they’re some 40 seconds faster than me on that climb.

Truth be told, there are plenty of CATEGORY 1, 2 and 3 riders in our area, so I’m not too upset that that on that segment I rank 93rd overall. I’m kind of a marginal CAT 4 rider, and that’s only when I’m really fit. Otherwise I hang out and CAT 5 and try to stick with the bunch finish.

New Goals

I’ll be out to improve on that approach this year, starting with a new goal of getting up that climb in under a minute. That will mean 1) I’ve likely lost some weight and 2) I’m ready for challenges like the Horribly Hilly 100 in Wisconsin and other rides mapped out for the year.

I’m built a bit like a climber. Of course, I’m also built a bit like a runner. So there’s this strange balance that goes on between your speed in running and the muscle needed to be a fast cyclist. In some ways they’re the same, but in many ways they’re different.

In any case, together they add up to greater fitness overall. There’s a definite benefit of general aerobic fitness. It’s called cross-training in everyday nomenclature. Not an effort is wasted, in other words. The flats help the hills, and the hills help the flats. In between lie the peaks and valleys of mental preparation, and how bad you really want to succeed.

It’s a fascinating landscape, this world of running and riding. In the end, it’s a topography of the mind.

werunandridelogo

Posted in Christopher Cudworth, cycling, running | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Is drinking Coke an acceptable thing for those who run and ride?

Posted on May 5, 2015 by Christopher Cudworth

can-of-cokeOne of the first real dietary tips given by my cross country coach was simple: “Stop drinking soda.” That was back in 1972. Our coach sensed there was something bad in colas. He believed, for one thing, the carbonation contributed to sideaches. Possibly that phenomenon, which I experienced directly over the years of ignoring his advice, was the acid nature of the drink.

Whatever the truth behind his concerns, we largely abided by his advice not to drink Coke or ingest a ton of eggs during the season. These he suspected of introducing too much sulphur in the system. Another possible cause of sideaches? He also advised against fatty foods and eating donuts too.

That somehow did not stop me from accepting a small gift of a Cherry Coke and a chocolate-covered donut every morning before doing my paper route. It somehow seemed like those little vices did not count against the dietary advisory of our coach. After all, I ate them so early in the morning (5:30) they could not possibly be damaging to my system the rest of the day.

Dietary compromises

FRANK SHORTERIt seems we all make these dietary compromises in some way. Which meant that I developed a Coke-A-Day habit all through college and those 90-100 miles weeks. Somehow my system survived.

And then I read that Olympian Frank Shorter ingested flat Coke during his 1972 winning marathon. It runs out the deep sugar in Coke is a fairly good carbohydrate replacement. Minus the fizz, Coke is used by runners. Cyclists like Chris Horner have been known to crave a Coke during all those miles chris-horner_2659708kin the Tour de France. At that level of energy expenditure, it doesn’t matter what you shove into your system. Calories reign supreme. If it tastes good to boot, and takes your mind off the suffering with all that fizzy happy taste of Coke, then all the better.

So Coke has a mixed history on my life, and it is likely true for many others as well. We love to work out and watch our diets, yet treats like this are a dose of temptation in a can, a bottle or a cold glass filled with ice. Coca-Cola is an evil sweet bitch of a drink. You can live without her, but you don’t really want to.

Jack and Maker’s and Coke and Rum and so on…

One of my favorite late night beverages is whiskey and Coke. Maker’s Mark. Jack Daniels. All subtle variations on a theme. Alcohol and Coke just go together.

It helps that Coke comes from a tradition of cocaine-laced beverages popularized in the late 1800s. The official Coke history doesn’t mention this colorful tradition but it is apparently true. But who needs cocaine when you can legally insert caffeine, another powerful stimulant, into soft drinks. That’s how it developed and the world has been abuzz with the love for Coke ever since.

Coke Habit

28.48%That caffeine thing caused a long break in my own Coke habit, as it were. Sometime in my early 30s I kept having prostate problems. My family doctor gave me the finger check and learned that my prostate was inflamed. “Let’s try quitting caffeine,” he suggested. “How much coffee do you drink?”

“None,” I told him. “I hate the taste.”

“Well how about soft drinks? Do you drink those?”

“Just one can of Coke a day. Sometimes Pepsi. Not much,” I offered. “My coach once told me to stay away from the stuff.”

“Well let’s cut it out and see what happens.You should also have frequent sex,” my doctor told me.

“Can you write me a prescription?”

Back at it

So I quit drinking Coke. Again. Just like back in high school. For two solid weeks I had caffeine withdrawal headaches. That’s how sensitive I was to caffeine. Yet my prostate problems did go away. I was sold on the idea that Coke and other caffeinated products were the source of my prostate discomfort.

I also cut out cold medicines with antihistamines, which often bear warnings such as, “Do not take if you experience enlargement of the prostate.” Which always made me laugh. Men don’t want enlargement of the prostate. They want enlargement of the penis. If cold medicine companies came up with a product to cure symptoms of the common cold and enlarge the penis, they could never keep those products on the shelves.

Side stitch DNF

Cudworth Running LCHMBut let’s go back to the Coke issue for now. Because I really did have a bad experience with Coke and running. While prepping to compete in the 5000 meter track race in the inaugural Prairie State Games, the University of Illinois cafeteria was opened to the athletes for three meals a day. It was hot that summer, and every day for lunch and dinner I downed a few Cokes. This was not in my normal meal plan.

The gun went off and my goal was to stay with two superior runners through at least two miles. We passed through in 9:28 and suddenly a deep sidestitch started on my right side. Within a lap it bent me over. The medics pulled me off the track and dumped me into a wheelbarrow full of ice. It may have simply been heat prostration that caused the DNF, but to this day I blame all that caffeine in the Cokes I’d been drinking.

Repeat non-performance

It actually happened many times over during my career that too much caffeine in my system brought me to a halt. It happened with Turkey Hill Iced Tea, which is rife with caffeine. I kept getting sidestitches and mentioned this to a South African doctor with whom I trained. He took one long look at me and asked me about my diet. Then he sputtered out his advice. “Quit drinking the fucking tea!” he nearly shouted.

And I did. And the sidestitches went away. Doh!

Zealot

cokesummercanAfter my own family doctor warned me that caffeine was the enemy in more than one way, I became a zealot for the anti-Coke habit. I told many of my friends about the relationship between a bad prostate and too many soft drinks. I even shared my anti-caffeine knowledge with female friends who admitted they had yeast infections or candida*. I was out to save the world from bad scenes Down Under.

*This would appear to have nothing to do with the pop song Candida by Tony Orlando and Dawn, but you never know. Most of his music was so saccharine it could probably cause diabetes or cancer. 

Some spritely time away

So for 20+ years I did not drink Coke or any other caffeinated beverage. All was good with the world “down below” and also my diaphragm. I avoided Coke and settled for that awful thing known as Sprite, which is pretty much sugar with bubbles in it. Yuck. Sprite is the default beverage in any soda machine where the rest of the products contain caffeine. I learned to hate the stuff. Sprite sucks.

But about two years ago the old Coke habit snuck up on me. I noticed while out drinking socially there were no ill effects from having caffeinated Coke with whiskey. Then I tried drinking a Coke without whiskey in it. No problem.

Relapse

IMG_4123So I began sneaking the occasional Coke into my diet. Then I purchased Caffeine-Free Coke at the supermarket. This was a wicked way of tricking my body into Coke-aholism. It’s the sugar, you see. It tastes like our best friend in the whole world.

But in fact sugar is almost our worst enemy. It stores itself as fat because our bodies can’t convert such thick levels of sugar into energy unless we’re literally running or riding our asses off at the time. Sugar also gives diseases like obesity and cancer a foothold in our lives. It messes with our metabolism and acts like a slutty virus in our cellular makeup, giving cancers a place to feed and grow.

Innocent sounding lies

Which is why it is so weird that we like to deceive ourselves into the idea that Coke is a harmless fun drink that never hurt anyone. Even some dietitians will probably tell you it’s fine to have a Coke or two when you’re training like crazy, but not when you’re in the zone of recovery or trying to watch your weight. We love these innocent-sounding lies because they give us room to play. So much of life is discipline and sacrifice for those who run and ride. What’s an occasional Coke going to do to destroy all that goodness? It’s one of the tarsnakes of running and riding that we believe our good habits will provide a countermeasure to the bad ones.

There really are plenty of other reasons not to drink Coke beyond the sugar and the caffeine. The website KillerCoke.org has nothing good to say about the phosphoric acid in Coke or the Aspartame in Diet Coke. These chemicals rot bones and are known carcinogens.

Extra weight

IMG_0124I’ve got about 10 lbs on my frame that appeared like Dark Magic over the winter. Recently while doing through prep for a colonoscopy it occurred to me that cutting out excess sugars would be a good idea. There is so much negative press about Coke that it should be obvious to all of us that quitting our soda habits could be the first best step to better health and fitness.

Yet there’s all that marketing and packaging and entire aisles at the grocery store stacked with giant bottles of soda. Truly it is insane that ENTIRE AISLES of soda are sold to the public every day. It’s like a massive sugary death wish if you think about. America’s obesity rates are through the roof. We’re a fat fuck race of soda drinkers whose sold purpose in the world, if you were to look objectively at the ratio of space in the grocery store, is to drink more soda and be stupid and happy doing it.

I once read a statistic in Harper’s Magazine that fascinates me to this day. It asked the question, “If all the Coca-Cola every produced were allowed to flow over Niagara Falls, how long would it run?

We’ll give you a few seconds to think about that.

shutterstock_70581703Now here’s the answer: 24 hours.

That’s all. That’s a testament to the natural yet strange phenomenon that is Niagara Falls. Because you know, they have the power in place to turn part of the falls off and on if they want to. That’s right: What you’re looking at with the Niagara Falls these days is somewhat of a man-made illusion. They can divert water away if they like. Not from Horseshoe Falls, perhaps, but it would have a significant impact on how we view that so-called natural wonder of the world.

It’s an apt analogy for the amount of Coke and other sodas flowing through our bodies as well. We could turn off that flow if we like. Yet somehow we enjoy the illusion of all that bubbly happiness flowing through our lives. It’s a wonderful deception if you think about.

But perhaps you’d rather not.

werunandridelogo

Posted in Christopher Cudworth, cycling, half marathon, marathon, running, Tarsnakes, We Run and Ride Every Day | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 3 Comments

Not So Original sins and #modernproblems for those who run and ride

Posted on May 4, 2015 by Christopher Cudworth

This morning my iPhone nearly ran out of battery life. As I lay in bed tapping the screen to look at the posts of Friends on Facebook the red indictor slipped from 12% to 7% and down to 3%. And I thought: “Is it a sin to let this thing die?”

There are many such pending sins waiting for our consideration in the modern world. While not categorized or canonized like most sins in the Bible, they still seem to count as some sort of sin in this #modernproblems world.

So let’s start our own bible of Not So Original Sins.

#1. Wearing running shorts over tights. 

Runner asks, "Do I look stupid wearing shorts over these tights?" HIs friend replies, "Yes but I just realized I'm doing it too."

Runner asks, “Do I look stupid wearing shorts over these tights?” HIs friend replies, “Yes but I just realized I’m doing it too.”

This trend began back in the early 1980s when decent running tights were first being perfected.

Somehow, someone decided that running tights were too revealing or showed too much of the human figure in terms of fat balance versus muscle balance. Thus began the sin of wearing running shorts over running tights. This, my friends, is definitely a sin. One must never, ever do this. And to wear this outfit at a race is in effect a mortal sin that could get you banned from the running community forever. At least by those who actually care about the distinction between performance versus appearance.

I know. People do wear shorts over tights every day and at every race. But people also commit adultery, steal and cheat and lie every day. They also break many of the Commandments laid down in the Book of Leviticus, including the claim that you should not mix fabrics in your clothes. Which simply proves the Bible is actually a confused mess that people don’t know how to read.

But that does not mean you should go around wearing shorts over your tights. We’ve advanced in our understanding in many ways the last 2000 years. This is one of them.

The reason wearing shorts over tights is a sin is because tights were invented to keep you warm and also make it possible to run faster in cold weather by eliminating baggy, wind-catching clothing. Those of us who ran well before tights were invented were thrilled at this technological advance.

Before that, we actually tried wearing nylons under our shorts during really cold and snowy weather. We also tried long underwear.chafed in spots you don’t want to think about trying to keep warm during two national cross country meets held in November. We paid the dues so you could enjoy your running.

So you can thank us for doing the suffering that led to the invention of tights. So to see someone throwing shorts over tights is a basic affront to Runners With History because it defeats the original purpose of their invention. Call me a running snob if you like. I was there. I Chafed For You.

Um, yeah.

Um, yeah. Like that. 

However, a word of caution to those who try to avoid the sin of running shorts over running tights. It is an even graver sin to wear too little under your tights, especially men who refuse to package themselves accordingly, whose nuts and member become the center of too much attention. Good fitting shorts and good fitting tights provide ample measure of profile management. Learn the art of concealing your junk or dispense with tights altogether. You don’t deserve to wear them. And camel toe…that’s an entirely different discussion. Talk amongst yourselves ladies, because men generally do not argue about that.

IMG_5128#2. Texting or taking photos while riding your bike. 

This is a sin because it endangers all other riders on the road, including yourself. Having one hand on your bars and trying to text or take photos one-handed equals divided balance and divided attention. Of course if you’ve never crashed and want some really great video, go right ahead, Your next text will read like this…

On a great riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiixiadpupaidfap

And a photo of your feet up in the sky is always interesting on Facebook.

#3. Drinking Cucumber Gatorade for any reason

If you did not know this flavor of Gatorade exists, I hesitate to even tell you. Because perhaps you actually like the taste of cucumber, and you might run out and buy such a flavor. But you must not, for it is a sin of large proportions. By accident two summers ago I cucomberlimepurchased two bottles of this stuff and put it in my water bottles. Thinking it was a benign flavor like Calm Lemon or something like that, I took a large sip while in the middle of a hard bike ride and spewed the cucumber-tasted Gatorade all over the road. Cucumber is not an acceptable flavor for a Sports Drink. You might just as well invent a flavor called Ass and drink that.

Not only did the Cucumber Gatorade result in my not drinking anything the rest of the ride, which was a risk at best, it also clung by smell to my two best water bottles. Forever. I was forced to throw them into the big green bin titled Recycling.

In 1000 years some three-eared archeologist with a research grant from the University of Phoenix will dig up those water bottles, take one sniff of the inside and toss them aside. “These could not have come from an advanced culture,” he or she will say. “They smell like Ass.”

#4. Driving less than five miles to meet up for a bike ride

One of the meeting places for group rides is 7.5 miles from my house. If I ride up there and ride 50 miles with my buddies and then ride back home it adds 15 miles to the ride. Yes, the entire purpose of our riding is to add miles in some respects. Yet those 50-milers can get a bit tough at times and it is all I can do to haul my sorry arse around at the pace my fellow torture artists prescribe. So sometimes I drive up there rather than ride. Because I’m lazy.

photo (50)And that’s a bit of a sin, I’ll admit. No one is perfect. But if that meeting point were under five miles away there would be no excuse to ride there. I know, what is an additional five miles of riding if you already are riding sixty or so miles? Well, some of this is subjective. You have to make a cutoff point somewhere, and the official point of demarcation shall thus be five miles. On a regular basis I meet my buddies now at a halfway point so that I don’t have to ride the extra 15 miles while they fall out of bed and ride a mile to the starting point. Because you know, every sin involves a compromise. And that goes for avoiding sins as well.

#5. Wearing Cycling Kits In Public or your Best Running Shoes to the gym

fat_man_in_kit_in_storeIt’s a fact that while riding the bike, cycling clothes are perfectly functional attire. But you shall never, and I repeat Never Ever, wear such attire to the gym. Don’t do it. Nothing looks more geeky than walking around in cycling attire when you’re not riding. So don’t wear it into Target unless you are legitimately returning from a ride (see Sin number four) because it also rather violates Part B of Sin #1.

People don’t want to look at your ass in bike shorts. Nor your bulging package if you have one. And if you are not a woman with a booty fit for Public Exposure, it’s not the best idea to traipse around Target or––God Forbid––Walmart in your bike shorts. This does great damage to the image of cyclists, which means people will see us as mere flabby humans when they encounter us on the road on our bikes. We must never let the illusion that we’re doing something important and valuable be breached. Thus you shall not appear in public wearing your bike kit except in situations where you are moving about with other groups of cyclists on foot. Then there is safety in numbers because people will naturally avert their eyes from such scenes.

IMG_3473But speaking of the health club, you must also never wear your best running shoes to the gym. Why waste precious cushioning in your shoes by pushing your feet against the leg press platform? That’s like begging for a biomechanical breakdown. Why would you do that? You typoically spend more than $100 on shoes. Why wear them out stomping around the club and squishing them flat doing squats. Makes no sense.

So there you have it, 5 Not So Original Sins and #modernproblems to avoid if you run and ride. And that wasn’t so bad was it? Now you know how to live a pure, moral and clean life without embarrassing yourself or causing the world unneeded angst.

And by the way, this is all just in fun. This is not meant to be taken seriously. Last Friday I posted a completely made-up article about a bunch of anal-retentive laws passed by Republicans and people thought I was serious. I wasn’t. Those weren’t real laws. But it does show you that the asshats in the Republic Party these days are so out of touch with reality that people can no longer tell truth from the morbid and strange fictions these idiots create in their laws. 

We Run and Ride will continue pointing out the nature of these sins in one way or the other. But you don’t have to believe or abide by everything you read.

werunandridelogo

Posted in Christopher Cudworth, cycling, duathlon, half marathon, marathon, running, triathlon, We Run and Ride Every Day | Tagged , , , , , , | 5 Comments

Republicans pass bill to ban gays, straights and transgender people from running and riding

Posted on May 1, 2015 by Christopher Cudworth
This photo features women trying to keep their uterus from falling out due to excess exercise.

This photo features women trying to keep their uterus from falling out due to excess exercise, a concern of Republican lawmakers.

It’s finally happened. The people who love to claim that government is too intrusive in our lives have turned their attention to the world of running and riding to prevent everyday citizens from running afoul of religious laws designed to protect them from sinful behavior in the whole universe, cosmos-y eternal thing we live in.

“We simply don’t believe being gay is good for anyone in the long run,” Congressman Dickie Chokes (R-Va.) said in a written statement. “And we take that statement literally. So we have written a bill that says gay people cannot participate in the sport of running in any way.”

In a separate section of the same bill, renowned Catholic Congressman Amy Builter (R-MN) claims, “Our bill will also ban men specifically from running too far, because it has been proven that such activities can lower the sperm count, and that is against the Will of God, because every sperm is sacred.”

In a special clause of Bill 69 introduced in the House of Representatives, bicycling more than 15 minutes will also be banned for any man deemed to be of reproductive age. “We have heard testimony from a number or men that have admitted to getting a numb penis

A team of athletes demonstrating why Republicans are so concerned about gender issues and running and riding.

A team of athletes demonstrating why Republicans are so concerned about gender issues and running and riding.

from riding too long on their bikes,” said Miranda Folsky (R-Ark). “If a man cannot perform for his wife when she is desireth to have a child, it should be against the law to pressure one’s scrotal area with such an activity.”

The new law has provisions that apply to women as well. “There are still concerns among some good conservative families that a woman’s uterus can fall right out if they run too far. We think it’s better to go back to the good old days and be safe rather than run the risk of having to scrape up uterine material off the streets of our good cities.”

The Bike Seat Provision in the bill calls for women who ride to wear a special pad between their bike seat and their person. “We’re concerned that women in the aero position could be receiving untoward stimulation to the clitoral region,” said a male Congressman who preferred not to be named (but sources say his name was Merle).

As for transgender people, multiple Congressman expressed concern about not knowing whether competitors are male or female by the style of their clothing. “I mean, it just makes common sense not to let people like that out on the street,” said Jason Hegerberderson (R-ND). “What rack will they shop at Sports Authority? Does a transgender person deserve the right to go running around town wearing men’s or

Is this cyclist violating the Will of God when it comes to sperm count?

Is this cyclist violating the Will of God when it comes to sperm count?

women’s clothes if they have both sets of something? It’s just not right. I know Nike and Under Armor would stand by me on this issue. There is men’s athletic wear and there is women’s athletic wear. The two should not be mixed. It says so right in the Bible. In Leviticus I think it was. Or Deuteronomy. One of those long names.”

Bill 69 is expected to pass unanimously among the Republican House members. A few Democrats may join in the vote as well. But Congresswoman Sarah Makharah (D-NY) said of the bill, “The only thing they left out is repealing Obamacare. This is the first bill they’ve introduced in four years that hasn’t had that in it. Frankly we’re all a bit stunned on this side of the aisle.

The lone dissenter on the Republican aisle may be Congressman Will E. Mays, whose original career as a lounge singer at a Washington D.C. club called The Switch Hitter calls into question whether his alter ego Billy Mayes, a drag persona who earned more than $100,000 a year singing both parts of the duets in major ballads, would cross the aisle to side with the Democrats.

“It’s my philosophy that all these problems can be worked out in the long run,” said Congressman Mays/Mayes. “Some of my colleagues may not agree with me, but screw them. I’ve been a runner and cyclist for 30 years and it has never kept me from performing any of my duties in this life.”

werunandridelogo

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On spring days and a sense of loss

Posted on April 30, 2015 by Christopher Cudworth

IMG_8455Heading into the outdoor track season my sophomore year at Kaneland High School in 1971, I was in a strange position. My father had announced to our family that we would be moving to St. Charles, a city ten miles away from our home in Elburn. That meant I would have to transfer schools at the start of the fall semester. It also meant that I would need to finish out the school year at Kaneland by commuting for the rest of the spring semester with a group of coaches that agreed through my father’s negotiations to pick me up each morning and deliver me to Kaneland so that I could complete my sophomore year without losing eligibility in track.

Every morning a different coach would swing by my house and pick me up for school. We left by 6:30 most mornings so there was little time to waste. However I was used to getting up early because in Elburn I had run a paper route that required me to start at 5:30 a.m. I remember talking with my mother about the fact that I missed the route and felt bad I was not bringing in the money I liked to make. “It’s okay Chrissy (she called me that…) you can take a break for a while.”

But that was not really the point. It wasn’t just the route I missed. It was the life I’d created. To the best of my ability I’d made progress in life out there in the cornfields of Kaneland and that little town of Elburn. We’d only moved there two years before. Leaving my home in Lancaster, Pennsylvania had been a truly painful experience. That was where I had developed steadfast friendships through elementary and middle school. But economics and some work displacement on my father’s part meant he had to go searching for another job. For a combination of reasons that were never fairly explained, we moved all the way out to Illinois.

Frankly I realize my father was just kind of messed up at the time. He’d come from a broken household where his mother died of complications from cancer treatment when he was very young. Then his own father suffered an emotional breakdown over those events, as well as the pursuant crushing loss of his farm and home due to the Depression. My grandfather wound up institutionalized for a while and my father was raised by a set of two aunts and an uncle. It was not the ideal upbringing.

So my dad likely had some unresolved issues going through his head. Perhaps it was a fear that his job loss would result in a similar situation to his father. With four strapping lads under his care, all with forceful egos to boot, my father probably needed some breathing room. So he moved to Illinois and brought us out there once he’d found us a place to live.

Fortunately I made good friends in Illinois, many of whom are still in my life.But at the age of 15, you don’t know how all that’s going to work out.

By the start of my sophomore year I was one of the top runners on the cross country team and actually was elected class president. Ill suited for that job, I did nothing more than help choose the class ring actually. But such are the learning experiences of life. I could lead with my feet but not very well with my responsibility.

Freshman year in cross country I’d made the varsity and we won the sophomore conference meet. Sophomore year I tied with another runner for most individual performance points and we won the Varsity conference meet for the first time in school history.

After a fun basketball season we began track the day after the indoor sports season ended. That meant countless laps run on asphalt around the high school and its parking lots. It was perpetually windy, cold and raw training around that school. Yet it made us tough.

The track itself was cinder in those days, and usually too wet or covered with March snow to do much training on that surface.

So the actual opportunity to go run on the all-weather outdoor track in Rochelle, Illinois one spring day was an excitement to us all. All weather surfaces were still about a 25% proposition across the state.

As I warmed up for the two-mile, I placed my gear amongst the piles of other teammate’s shoes and equipment. Then I ran my two mile race. It was windy and cold, and I probably ran something like a 10:20, shivering all the way, and then returned to the gear camp to put my stuff back on and get warmed before doing the high jump.

I looked around my gear pile and my shoes were gone. They were brand new adidas training flats issued by the school. Blue with white stripes. A privilege given only to athletes with varsity potential. And they were gone.

For the rest of the meet I looked around hoping to find out someone had moved my shoes inadvertently. But no, they had been stolen. Taken from me. The injustice of that loss crept into my head like a parasite. Anger ran through me. Then despair. Embarrassment. And worry. What would the coaches say?

They said nothing, essentially. “Well, that’s too bad,” one of them told me. “Because you’re not getting another pair. It’s not in the budget.”

Not in the budget. That I could understand. I’d treasured those shoes and appreciated what they meant. That I’d earned them to some degree made the loss hurt even more. I’d only just begun running in them. The insides of those shoes was soft and welcoming. The padding far exceeded that of the black gum rubber flats all of us received on signing up for track. But now the shoes were stolen. Some asshole took them. I wanted to kill them.

We experience many kinds of loss in our lives. Of course the lesson in losing material things is that we cannot hold such things in too much value. They are just things after all. In the end, we lose all things. No turning back.

It’s funny how it works the other way around however. When we suddenly find something we thought had been lost there is often joy out of proportion to the value of the thing we’d lost. That is even how grace is described in the Bible (the Prodigal Son) in which the Lord feels great joy in having people return to appreciation and gratitude, humility and love.

When we experience loss beyond a pair of shoes it can be difficult to comprehend the meaning of it. Sometimes it takes years. We may be resting our heads or calming our minds when some thought about loss enters our mind. “That’s what they meant to me,” we say as we come to grips with a lost love or family member that died.

Sometimes there are people who seem to play a role in our lives and it doesn’t make sense why we lose them––at the time–– and then years later we come to realize that while valuable in many respects, the relationship was just not meant to be. These losses can be the most confusing of all.

In our running and riding and swimming we rehearse this process of loss and gain on a daily basis. Some of it is so temporal we almost discard it like a skin. It’s one of the tarsnakes of endurance sports that we court so much loss in order to feel that we have somehow gained.

Yet we credit the ongoing effort to a process of personal growth and improvement. It proves that you can’t really win in the long run without experiencing some loss.

The struggle to understand all this is perhaps the most poignant aspect of the human condition. We seek to avoid emotional pain, yet it also clarifies and refines us. We pray for deliverance from fear and angst, and yet our art and our motivations often emerge from these anxious, waking dreams.

Sometimes in life I’ve felt like I’m the only one who runs around thinking about these things, or in these terms. Yet I know that’s not the case. I think of my dearly loved son and daughter and our family’s losses over the last few years. Their mother and her father. All in the space of a year’s time. That all happened. We’ve healed in many ways and yet the fact of their absence is keenly felt. While life goes on.

My own father has been a stroke victim since the early 2000s. We can’t have a real conversational exchange because he cannot talk. We certainly communicate, but it struck me boldly one day while reviewing a family video to suddenly hear his lucid, passionate voice.

Some of these losses we see coming and yet try to avoid the consequence and pain they mean to us. We maintain hope in the face of such realities by reaching out to friends and those who love us. This sense of hope against loss is most felt in the spring season. For me, this season of renewal is both vital and yet bittersweet. The flowers we pick quickly fade. The rains fall and flow away. The grass emerges and we mow it. Bees buzz. Birds sing. Wintering butterflies stir in their chrysalis cradles. When is the right time to be born again?

And that’s all as it should be. But if you are someone who feels lost because of some sense of loss that seems never to resolve itself, my heart goes out to you. Know that deep in this cosmos of time and eternity, there is this thing called love that really exists. And you are loved. And that is all.

werunandridelogo

You are invited to read The Right Kind of Pride, my book about survivorship. You can find it here on Amazon.com.

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Training specificity in running

Posted on April 29, 2015 by Christopher Cudworth

During the post-collegiate year that I raced 24 times on the track and roads, I kept a detailed journal of training miles. My personal records that year were 14:47 for the 5K, 31:10 for the 10k, 51:30 for 15K, 53:30 for 10M, 1:10:57 for the half-marathon and 1:25:25 for the 25k. Not world class times by any means. Yet these were sub-elite times that enabled me to win or finish in the top ten in most of the local or regional races in which I competed.

No marathon?

I did not enter a marathon at the end of the season because my racing schedule demanded fitness for a series of shorter events all the way through November. The marathon was simply not the priority for many sub-elite runners at that time. We relished racing often and use the 10K as our chosen distance for a training foundation.

My racing schedule was based on a contract with a running shoe store that called for me to represent their team in 15 races per year. In exchange they provided sets of free or highly discounted shoes and running gear, and also paid my entry fees. All told the package added up to perhaps $700-$1000.

Consistency

Cudworth Racing Sycamore
With these priorities in mind I mapped out a training schedule that would allow for consistently good racing throughout the year. I took a mild break in July and traveled to Colorado that year to hike and relax.  But by August I was back in preparation for the fall racing season, which would see competition on seven out of eight weekends in September and October.

Peak weekly mileage that year was 95 miles, and my lowest week was 35 miles, when I was sick with a cold. Otherwise I kept mileage between 55 to 80 miles per week throughout the year. And here the interesting result: the average daily mileage turned out to be exactly 6.2 miles. The target distance at which I wanted to race.

Not quite big mileage

That’s not massive mileage by many measures. But again, some months I raced three out of four weekends, so my priorities were skewed toward preservation and recovery as well as distance and speed.

A few weekends I even raced Saturday and Sunday. This involved a 5K on Saturday and 10K on a Sunday, and once I ran a mile race (4:22) on a Friday night and raced a 15K on Sunday morning. I set a PR in that 15K, proving that speed is a great way to enhance your tempo in road racing.

Mileage with a purpose and training specificity

I also trained twice daily during peak base-building periods. This followed a pattern developed in college when we cranked up to 100 mile weeks, often putting in six to eight miles in the morning and another 10 or so at night.

A typical week of training during my personal peak year included the following:

Sunday: Long run between 15 and 20 miles

Monday: Morning 3-mile run and evening 6-8 miles

Tuesday: Speed workout. Usually 3-4 miles at sub-racing pace of 5:00 or below. Mile repeats or ladder workouts.

Wednesday: Morning run and afternoon recovery. 6-10 miles.

Thursday: Uptempo run with what I called “unlimited surges” of 3-4 minutes in a fartlek pattern where I pressed the effort but did not go into anaerobic in any way. Might be replaced by hill work as well.

Friday: If racing, recovery day. If not, sprint intervals and or short speedplay work of 5-8 miles.

Saturday: Race or mid-tempo run with group.

This schedule was complimented by weight and abdominal work. During the winter months I’d ride on a bike trainer indoors on really cold days, but not too often.

The year revealed an instinct for training specificity that added up to exactly the daily average of 6.2 miles. That’s not to suggest that a marathoner should average 26.2 miles in training, but longer training volumes are recommended for that distance.

The weekend I SHOULD have run a marathon I trained 15 miles on Thursday at 1:30, then came back Friday with an uptempo run at 6:00 pace on Friday evening. I was not anticipating racing that weekend as I was supposed to serve as a guide for Bill Rodgers during a race in the Chicago area. However he decided not to run and offered me his number. So I jumped in the 25K and ran 1:25: 25 for 15.5 miles.

Clearly my training had added up to marathon-level fitness that year.

But I still had races to run in October that year, and placed first in one and top ten in the other three. Earlier that spring I’d set a PR in both the road and track 5K distances. All those were the result of training specificity.

And there’s the wistful consolation that marathon fitness was there. But no regrets. Training specificity demands that you have a focus. Any other results are just a bonus.

werunandridelogo

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One hit wonders

Posted on April 28, 2015 by Christopher Cudworth

313113_Cycling-Tour-de-France.JP6_In the massive controlled chaos that is the Tour de France, it is accepted that getting a stage win in the race is considered a peak in a cyclist’s career. It takes so much work and so much talent to get to that point in a cyclists pro journey, the fact of crossing the line first in a Tour stage is a pinnacle seldom attained.

There are only 20-some chances for victory during each year’s Tour. Out of those twenty stages, there are only a few cyclists with a real chance for victory in each stage. These are the also usually the result of calculated attempts by team managers to set up one of the top team members for a shot at a stage win. It is very, very hard to win a stage of the Tour all on your own. You must be very talented. And very lucky.

Yet such victories are important because earning results for the team is vital to sponsors. No sponsor likes to pay millions to support a team and get zilch in terms of exposure. That’s also why there are solo breakaways, to gain exposure and camera time for team sponsors.

One Hit Wonders

The entire enterprise resembles the former setup of the music industry where record labels once vied for opportunities to get their artist a number one hit. When a hot little tune came along that people seemed to like, the hype machine would kick into gear. If you got lucky, the song would rise the charts in terms of sales and the group would gain popularity. If talent and timing held out, there might be a string of records that make it to hit status. When a mega-talent such as the Beatles comes along, the term One-Hit Wonder grows even more dramatic by comparison.

that-thing-you-do-1996-04-gOf course there are plenty of One Hit Wonders to testify to the fact that it is both a difficult and lucky thing to have a record climb the charts. The wonderful Tom Hanks movie “That Thing You Do” chronicles the rise and ultimate dissolution of a pop band from Erie, Pennsylvania. The song “That Thing You Do” is even an aberration of sorts. Written as a ballad, the song launched from first into fifth gear when the substitute drummer hammered into a faster beat and created a hit out of nothing.

Or, if you prefer your One Hit Wonders a bit grittier, you need to check out the movie or play called The Commitments. This movie makes you appreciate the grit and hard work it takes to make it, and how fast things can go wrong even when they’re going right.

Once hit, twice shy? No way. 

We can all relate, right? It’s the same with those who run and ride. You can be cruising along in your training only to pick up an injury at the last minute or crash into a tree. Just like me. Ha ha. Talk about a one-hit wonder. Wondering what hit me? One downed tree!

bike-wobble-1But you gotta get back on your bike and ride. That’s what I did after the bike wobble crash as well as the one-hit encounter with the tree.

Well, such is the case it seems with many a pro cyclist as well. That state of fitness allowing you to ride at the front of the peloton only comes along once in a while. Everything has to be right. The diet. Training. Even the weather can play havoc with well-made plans. Or you can crash out in spectacular style. God Bless Johnny Hoogerland. He got back on the bike and rode that very day the support vehicle drove him into a ditch and a barbed wire fence that did surgery on his butt cheek.

Johnny got back on the bike because that’s what one-hit wonders have to do. Keep on trying.

Singing a different tune

Those of us that engage in these sports of running, riding and swimming understand the ephemeral nature of real fitness. Yet that’s also why pro athletes are so amazing. They seem to have a different type of engine in them. Indeed, most of them amount to physiological geeks. They are born with certain traits that lend them the ability to train that hard and perform at a level most of us can only hold for a mile or two, if that.

120820055254-san-diego-rock-n-roll-marathon-story-top The comparison between athletics and music holds true in that respect as well. Most people with good voices have that natural ability. Yes, training helps tremendously. But if you can’t really sing in the first place, you’re not going to win American Idol or The Voice.

That’s what makes the early rounds of shows like American Idol so interestingly raw. Back when the show started, the early rounds were nothing short of cruel, taking advantage of hopeless dreams and crazed characters that actually thought they could sing. Let’s admit it: We all laughed at their efforts, especially the guy Simon called a Sugar Glider. Mean, yet funny. He looked weird and he could not sing. Yet deep down we know that when we sing in the car most of us sound just as bad, or worse.

So that whole American Idol thing was rather like taking an everyday bike path cyclist and throwing them into a Tour stage. What did we think would happen? Yet delusion and desire often go hand and hand. That’s the entire premise of reality TV.

Reality TV

Of course the Tour de France is also a form of reality TV. Pro cyclists such as Matthew Busche that chronicle their Tour experiences admit that while there are team plans and individual goals, it really comes down to being opportunistic and avoiding disaster. You either discover your strength at a critical moment or it fades away into obscurity.

The dramatic nature of such discoveries is still what makes cycling a compelling event to watch. Once in a Grand Tour while, whether it be the Giro de Italia, the Tour de France or the Vuelta a Espana, there are moments when riders break free into some sort of weird stratosphere where the legs are good and the lungs pull oxygen out of nowhere. It can be thrilling to watch. Like Thor Hushovd. 

Once in a while a rider gets into a breakaway and the brute strength of the peloton cannot catch them. Sometimes it comes down to a singular moment. Right down to the wire. That lone cyclist is pedaling for all they’re worth as the peloton like an uncaged animal thrusts and claws its way toward the finish line. But the rider stays away and raises their arms in victory.

europcars-thomas-voeckler-of-france-descends-the-col-du-galibier-during-the-ukeurosportyahoocom-1And once in a very great while a rider strings together a succession of one-hit wonders as did French cyclist Thomas Voeckler, riding on guts and pride to lead the Tour de France. Inspiring.

Who cares if they are a one-hit wonder? Riding 10,000 miles a year to represent a pro team in cycling requires total sacrifice. So does training at elite levels in distance running.

Equivalencies

It still makes me shake my head that a pro-golfer earns a million dollars for winning a tournament while a world class marathoner wins $100,000 for running a marathon, but there are a lot of things in this world that do not seem fair by comparison.

Cudworth Racing SycamoreI can only speak to competing at a sub-elite level, yet the commitment to race even at that level required everything I had to achieve results. Like a singer at the microphone, you pour your guts into every line with the hope that you will connect with that universal energy that carries you to your dream.

Those of us without rock star capability can still attain results that inspire. When we get out there and try our best it does not matter if we are leading a Tour stage or coming down the final 400 meters of the Boston Marathon ahead of everyone else. We can be our own One-Hit-Wonder and be proud in the reality of breaking out of our own expectations.

And if we’re really smart and really lucky, we even pull out a string of hits over time. So here’s to all of us One Hit Wonders.

werunandridelogo

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Who’s your biggest fan? I am!

Posted on April 27, 2015 by Christopher Cudworth

Race StartThe start of the Sly Fox Half Marathon and 10k in St. Charles, Illinois was murky and a bit dark. Skies were threatening with 100% chance of rain predicted.

Yet here were the stalwart runners crowded into corrals waiting to embark on a race that would be full of surprises. For one thing, it did not rain much in the next two hours, so at least half the participants got home before the skies opened up.

But the real surprise to so many participants were the hills. And lots of them.

In the Fox Valley in Illinois there are two reasons for hills. The Fox River is one. Glacial deposits are another. Without those two natural phenomena there would be no hills because glaciers 10,000 years ago pretty much flattened the entire eastern half of northern Illinois.

The women's race leader at four miles. She went on to run 1:27.

The women’s race leader at four miles. Bronwen Douglas ran 1:26:32. 

But if you hug the river there are climbs up the valley hills as well as rolling hills on glacial kames west of the river.

These provided plenty of interest for runners in the Sly Fox Half Marathon. The race started out on an equal sea level to the river. Then it climbed. And climbed again. But that was not enough. It still climbed some more, all the way to one of the highest points in central Kane County.

I watched the start of the race and then pedaled my mountain bike out to a spot on the course where I could cheer on the runners and look for my gal pal Sue to come past. It was gloomy out, so I decided to sing. Loudly. “You’ve got to love these hills…” I sang to each new group of runners coming past.

“No, I don’t,” one guy laughed.

“Who put these here?” a woman runner said.

“Thanks for cheering,” a few said upon hearing me clap and holler encouragement.

That was at the three mile point. But this was all my old running territory from high school. So I knew all the short cuts and showed up at the five mile point too.

“All downhill for half a mile here,” I chortled.

“Thanks for telling us,” a group of women smiled. I kept up the banter and people smiled and waved. “Nice to see you again,” someone called out.

Runners (including my gal Sue in pink socks) cresting one of many hills on a gloomy day.

Runners (including my gal Sue in pink socks) cresting one of many hills on a gloomy day.

My gal Sue came running past, looking and feeling good. “Nice downhill from here,” I told her. “Thanks,” she laughed.

Then I pedaled on up to the seven mile point and waited for all my newfound friends to arrive again. The leader came whipping past with a 400 meter gap to second place. “Looking good!” I cheered. “Love the tempo.” He ran 1:17. Not bad on a hilly course. (Eric Viverito, 1:17:09)

That’s the life of a distance runner. You have to be your own best fan at times. Cheer yourself on despite your own stupidity. I recall a similar style course in La Crosse, Wisconsin that I raced. There was a half-mile long hill we had to climb. At the top I recall having absolutely no feeling or strength left in my buttocks. Fortunately there was a long downhill on the other side. But it’s a strange thing to be maxxed out completely during a race. I finished in 1:12 that day. That night we drank like crazy people with the college guys from La Crosse. One showed up at parties as Naked Man. He wore nothing but an apron, and somehow found a way to lose even that during the evening. The next morning we all got up and ran 10 miles hung over and laughing at the exhaustion we felt from the day before, but no one complained.

Which is why it’s so fun to get out and cheer on other runners. And at the eight mile point I parked my bike again and yelled crazily for the runners I now recognized, and they recognized me. “Dude, you’re everywhere!” one called out.

“For you! Run faster now! Only five miles left!”

The race leader at the eight mile point. He ran 1:17.

The race leader at the eight mile point. He ran 1:17.

It was the same at the 10 mile point too. By now people were expecting me to show up. It was fun seeing their smiling faces as they approached. “Way to work that hill!” I called out, because they were climbing a 300 meter stretch that was once part of my high school cross country course from four decades ago.

Sue came by looking relaxed and smooth. I rode with her for a bit and she was on pace for a good time.

So I rode ahead and caught up with two gals that could have been twins. Well, one of them might be having twins. At three months she already had a healthy baby bump. “I’m pregnant too,” her friend piped up.

“Then I’m cheering for all four of you,” I laughed.

At the finish it got colder and started to rain. I didn’t catch up with all my new friends but saw some of them in the beer garden. “Thanks for cheering us on!” several yelled over the crowd noise.

It’s all part of being a runner or a cyclist. Who’s your biggest fan? I am. Way to go all of you.

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Dropping a few pounds in London.

Posted on April 24, 2015 by Christopher Cudworth

IMG_7127The exchange rate between the United States dollar and the English pound is a bit lopsided these days. You really don’t want to know what you’re spending in London. Not in dollars anyway. If there was a mile race between the pound and the dollar, the English pound would start out a lap and a half or more ahead. That’s really not fair.

Perhaps it would be a bit more fair if the English pound were actually forced to wear one of those sets of armor that knights once wore in medieval times. That’s right, I just wrote the words “medieval times” because there really is a fine line between legend and reality at play in Great Britain.

She GivesThat’s how the royals actually kept things in line. The illusion of control was actually just as important at times than the actual fact of having everything in good shape and good order.

Generally the peasants went along with kingly rule so long as the royals did not abuse the privilege of their stature.

Off With His Head! And Again. 

We know of a particular incident in which the Duke of Canterbury or some other official of the king’s court once levied one too many taxes on the good people of England and 10,000 peasants gathered from the countryside and stormed the Tower of London looking for the royal sot who was raping them for pence and pound.

Knights and UsIt happened that at the moment the peasant mob arrived at the castle, the gates were very much unlocked. Either someone forgot to lock the gate, or else the commoners held the sympathies of the guards, and the mob waltzed right in looking for the Duke and calling for his head.

They honestly left the king alone because he was only a kid of 14 at the time. They knew he was not responsible for the lying ways of the treasury demanding more money from the peasantry for the royal treasury. So they searched the castle until they found the money-grubbing Duke and hauled him off toward Tower Hill where they lined him up on the chopping block and gathered a crowd to watch justice be served. Off with his head! But unfortunately it took a full eight whacks of the axe to remove the Duke’s head. Apparently the peasants were not too practiced in such an endeavor.

And that, my friends, is where the Monty Python part of English Legend must step in to help us tell the rest of this story. Because we can imagine that after the first whack of the axe that did not remove the Duke’s head, he might have raised his voice in protest and shouted at the crowd. “And for that I will raise your taxes again!” Then the axe would fall yet again. And still the Duke’s head was attached. So he’d scream. “And AGAIN I SAY!”

With each successive (yet unsuccessful) whack of the axe the Duke would shout “And AGAIN!” until at last, having hung by a spouting thread of a bloody throat, the head of the Duke would roll down the hill and come to rest at the feet of a peasant child. Who, surprised to see a face with no body staring up at him from the ground, would mutter kindly, “Can I help you sir?”

And that’s how the Monty Python Version of British History typically plays out.

Not far from reality

See, stories like that really never are far removed from the real thing. That’s what makes English Legends and Monty Python’s movie The Holy Grail so darn funny. Because whether it’s hapless knights or obnoxious French palace guards rapping their helmets and shouting, “I fart in your general direction,” the humorous truth is never that far from the serious reality of what has gone on in history. We honestly can’t tell the two apart sometimes. 

Funny money

So we must consider the fact that currencies such as pounds or dollars are themselves quite funny things. The value of an American dollar against the English pound is supposedly how much you can buy with the “value” of each respective currency. Yet you can’t spend a dollar in England the way you spend a pound, or the other way around. So there’s no opportunity for direct comparison between the two.

So you face a choice when you get to Great Britain. You can exchange your dollars and get about 50% of that value in pounds at some skeezy booth where the attendant almost can’t help laughing at your pittance dollars against the pound, or you can use your credit card and pretend you’re actually spending dollars when in fact the people at your bank back home are watching your account shrink before their very eyes as if it were some horrid science experiment gone wrong.

Yet that is a much better strategy if you don’t want to get depressed.

It’s a sweet illusion that when you swipe your VISA through the credit card machines the conversion genie does the math for you. The magic of credit or debit works whether you’re buying a four-pack of Stella Artois or a pack of souvenir drawing utensils and art supplies from the Tate Modern Art Museum. Which is exactly what I did. And it cost me 58 lbs. Or about 90 dollars. Magic!

Stinky dealings

All this stench of money conversion comes out in the wash eventually. And that brings up the other smelly task you’re forced to do when you return from a vacation and have not had time to wash your running or cycling clothes while on “holiday,” which is what the British call vacation.

In fact a conversation very much like this occurred between Sue and before our last run around London yesterday morning

“Phew. I stink,” I said.

“Yes,” she replied. Then politely added. “I must stink too.”

On such pleasant exchanges are relationships formed and made. We put up with each other’s little stinks on occasion but mostly run around having fun and talking about cool shit and messing with robins in Hyde Park by using my UK birding app to make them think there was a new male singing on their territory. Mean, but fun to hear a merry little robin talking to us in person.

Running around London

Yesterday morning as we ran a merry little loop along the Thames, many other runners were traipsing about with serious expressions on their faces. That’s because Thursday was Vrigin Money logo with time clocktheir first day in town to go for a run and shake off the jet lag in advance of Sunday’s Virgin Money London Marathon. That’s the actual name of the race this year. The Virgin Money London Marathon.

See how all this money talk is converging now? Yet what a wonderfully, almost tragically ironic name for a business focused on money. Virgin Money. That Richard Branson sure knows how to titillate and tease every subject, doesn’t he? It never ends with him.

No such thing as virgin money

Actually Virgin Money is not so strange a concept as it might seem. Back when a long line of kings were in charge of the currency in England they often had to address problems with the condition and reality of their money. Coins wore out back then because originally they were little more than hammered bits of metal, silver and gold and copper. After 200 years of use these coins would lose some of their weight (because people clipped them and melted down the shavings) and the images would wear off.

Of course this pissed off the kings to no end. But the kings were no innocent party in money laundering either. We know that Henry VIII worked on the cheap by sneakily coating a large batch of copper coins with silver to fob them off as the real thing. Trouble began when the silver began wearing off because people could see the wear on the very image of King Henry’s visage. That’s why the citizens all called him Old Coppernose. It wasn’t a compliment.

Forgeries

MoneyThere was plenty of forgery to deal with back then as well. The Royal Mint was an important function of the stability of the state. Because if you could not control the quality and quantity of the money you issued, the entire economy could collapse. In fact the entire nation of England actually ran short on coin stock for a while and resorted to stamping money from other countries such as France to make it their own. “It spends the same,” seemed to be the reasoning. And doesn’t that sound familiar today? The illusion is more important than reality when it comes to money and currency. 

If Richard Branson himself were actually King of England these days, one wonders what he might do to revise the currency system. After all, Branson has a knack for turning stodgy precepts on their heads. Heathrow Airport was full of his sassy little Virgin Atlantic planes, and there is a Virgin line of health clubs in London. One can just hear the campaign if he were to be named king. “We’re all Virgins now.”  Or, “Keep Calm and Grab a Virgin.” That would work. 

Virgins here and there

Virgin this. Virgin That. When people step to the starting line of the Virgin Money London Marathon who knows what they’ll find? Will they be asked to bend over and receive Virgin Timing Chips up their Virgin Asses? That would be fun to watch. Thousands of runners bent over with their shiny little ass cheeks glowing under the London Sun. And those first few miles adapting to the feel of a chip up their ass? You talk about good television. Who wouldn’t pay to watch that? It all has a Pythonesque feel, you might say. 

End of the World

Or perhaps, as some tightass religious types would have us believe, that would be a sign of the End Times and the Second Coming. If you signed up for the London Marathon and your big number is 666, watch out. You could be the Anti-Christ.

Craig_VirginBut think about this. Wouldn’t it be great if America’s Craig Virgin were still racing and actually won the Virgin Money London Marathon? The headlines on the British rags would be fantastic! 

VIRGIN WINS THE VIRGIN!

VIRGIN IS VIRGIN WINNER!

DON’T STOP NOW, SAYS VIRGIN!

VIRGIN’S THE WORD!

Well, I’ll stop with the Virgin jokes now. Craig has probably heard them all. But on chance that he has not, perhaps you can submit a few more Virgin headlines in the comments below this blog. Because I know that Craig Virgin actually reads this blog and he’ll really enjoy all of us using his name to make naughty jokes. Trust me on that one. He’s no Virgin when it comes to a bit of randy humor.

A good dirty joke is worth its weight in pounds

What runner or cyclist doesn’t enjoy a good dirty joke to lighten up the run or ride? It helps pass the time when the training gets long or dull. I’ve known runners and cyclist to draw a good joke or story out for miles at a time before delivering the punchline.

None of us seems to be virginal in that respect. Although once in a while we find someone with a delicate set of ears in our midst, who blush at mention or commentary on sex or the particular attributes of the other athletes passing us by. There really are many kinds of virgins in this world, including some marathoners that will drop a few pounds to run the Virgin Money London Marathon.

They’re everywhere

They were all over Hyde Park and Kensington Gardens this week in their runner garb. Londoners know to watch out for those who run and ride. And this weekend, with so many foreigners flipping into town without a clue how to look for oncoming traffic, there likely will be a few close calls before the race gets going and takes over the streets of London for a day.

IMG_7618It’s all part of the thrill of competing in a strange place on streets that don’t look like yours. There may even be a few spots where runners skirt some cobbles laid down by kings 500 years ago. London’s like that. It’s rather like an exchange rate for time, this place. You go in thinking you’re going to be running in the year 2015 and find yourself next to a stolid stone wall holding graffiti from a peasant revolt.

Perhaps that what the London Marathon truly is, after all. The guidebook for the Tower of London has a section titled “THE PEASANTS ARE REVOLTING!” which says a lot about how the royals and much of British society must really think. The headline could have been said something like THE PEASANTS REVOLT but that would not have contained the same subliminal message, now would it? 

Which brings us full circle to the Virgin Money London Marathon. Because most marathons resemble some sort of peasant revolt. We take over the streets blocking traffic and throwing cups all over the place. We shit in porta-potties creating a stink to high heaven. The lead pack goes charging forth while the laggards and those thick of frame or lame with training bring up the rear.

IMG_7483It’s all apparent how and why this grand parade comes about. An excess of pounds and age slows down the mob so that by the time the fit and fast are through, there is nothing to do but sweep the streets and mop up the mess as the last of the peasants completes their bloody rounds. It goes to show you that some things never change. Pound for pound, we’re all the same in the end.

The the King or Queen walks to wave their hand at the crowd, then secretly shake their head in wonder and return to the castle for another year. “I’ve have to raise the price for this mess,” they mutter to themselves. Because that’s how it all works.

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Why it pays to travel with two smart women

Posted on April 23, 2015 by Christopher Cudworth
We played a game of chess in the park.

We played a game of chess in the park.

From the moment we landed in Great Britain it was my benefit to be in the company of two very smart women. Sue is a great organizer and her daughter Sarah is a pragmatic person and now experienced in the ways of life in England given her four-month study in Oxford.

Between the two of them, there were very few stressful moments here. Occasionally we’d run up against a train schedule versus a show across town. Other than that, navigating the Tube was simple with both of them to figure out where we were and where we were headed.

It helps that the Tube or Underground is a clean, modern, well-maintained public transit system. Same goes for the National Railway, which we rode out to Bath through an English countryside that looked marvelous even at 110 mph. That speed doesn’t look that fast when you’re moving. But when you’re stopped and another train whooshes past and is gone in a flash, the effect is impressive.

IMG_7670Even at that pace it was possible for me to study birds like the red kite (a species of raptor) floating up thermals on the English hillside. And the nice thing about taking the train is that it allows time for personal and collaborative contemplation. All of us had reason for consideration. Sarah had reason to review an amazing four months in Oxford. Sue was musing over a well-earned break from project management.

I was thinking about all sorts of stuff, including the state of my body and mind and how finally getting away on vacation was a wonderful thing after many years.

There were spiritual consideration as well. These met with a perfect expression at Bath Abbey, a towering chapel rebuilt many times over the last 1000 years. Alongside the main chapel there was a series of diptych paintings and weavings by Sue Symons. These were so wonderfully conceived and executed, and followed the entire life of Christ from start to finish. The creative, emotive work in each square inch of these portrayals was a miracle unto itself. By the time we reached the final pair my eyes were filled with tears.

You can tell when it’s time to go home. This morning Sue and I went for a short run along the Thames and she did a few quick one-minute repeats in advance of her half-marathon on Saturday. Sarah swung back across town from an overnight with some of her college buds who were still in town. Thus we wrapped up a smart trip made wonderful and easy by the companionship of these two smart women.

God Bless. And see you stateside.

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