It takes concentrated effort to combat hunger, especially when it’s real

Posted on December 3, 2014 by Christopher Cudworth

Food BulkThose of us who run and ride tend to understand hunger in terms of managing how much we eat for fuel and performance. We eat to run and ride and swim, or else we hit the wall, bonk or sink. Yet if we eat more than we need for fuel, or eat the wrong kind of foods (carbs, sugars and certain kinds of fats) it means we slow down and/or gain weight.

So it’s a balance of wanting to eat and then fighting off hunger pangs even when we don’t need to eat. Then there’s comfort eating, or pigging out for stress relief. The whole hunger issue for athletes can be complex.

But take a moment and think about the other side of the coin. There are millions of people in America for whom food security is a real problem. Recently it was documented by Sports Illustrated that there are hundreds of thousands of genuine athletes who are homeless, for example. Homelessness is related to poverty, which has a close relationship with hunger in America.

Hunger games

Cynically, some politicians and commentators view hunger through an ideological lens that says poverty and hunger are the product of an inferior spirit or laziness. Such issues can be very complex, especially when religious or political leaders throw ideology around in any sort of  literal way. For example:  John 6:35 NIV  “Then Jesus declared, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never go hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.”

If taken literally, that passage makes it sound like all you need to do is pray and Jesus will shovel food your way. But of course that’s not the entire meaning of the passage at all. The “bread of life” is as much about spiritual hunger as it is about material needs.

Material and spiritual hunger

Food Cart TooInstead the bible instructs believers on a consistent basis to regard material hunger as a spiritual mission of great importance. Matthew 25:35-40  “For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat. I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink. I was a stranger and you invited me in. I needed clothes and you clothed me. I was sick and you looked after me. I was in prison and you came to visit me.’ “Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink…”

And of course Jesus responds that whatever we do for the least among us, especially the hungry, we also do for him.

But it is not the religious alone who help the hungry in America. Nor is it left to politicians  alone to decide who gets fed. There are people whose convictions lead us down a practical and righteous path to save people from hunger on a daily basis. Such is the mission of the Northern Illinois Food Bank, whose staff and a large group of volunteers gathers and distributes food to thousands and thousands of families each year. Here’s why (content from the NIFB website)

“Nearly 600,000 people each year in our 13-county service area rely on Northern Illinois Food Bank and our network of 800 partner food pantries and feeding programs. While in FY14 Northern Illinois Food Bank provided the equivalent of 50 million meals to our hungry neighbors, the sad fact is it’s not nearly enough. According to Feeding America’s Map the Meal Gap study, each year our hungry neighbors are at risk of skipping 70 million meals, simply because they don’t have enough food for three meals per day.”

Making it happen

Food Sign HeaderTo make all that happen takes tons of volunteers and hours of packing and moving food through the organization’s facilities in Geneva, Illinois. It is estimated that to staff the work of the volunteers would take more than 80 full time employees. At an annual salary of $40,000 for such manual labor, the budget of the Northern Illinois Food Bank would need to expand by $3.2M.

While creating jobs might be a great way thing to do, that money would have to come through donations because NIFB is a non-profit organization. And as noted from the incredible need for food in northern Illinois, the money and food donated now goes directly into feeding families in need. Even working families have trouble making ends meet. Often their wages are insufficient to provide food security.

Pitching in

Food Blue HandRecently a group of volunteers from a chapter of BNI (Business Networking International) joined the effort at NIFB headquarters. Our assignment was to move bulk cereal into bags, seal and box them for distribution. 25 BNI members and children formed a team, one of six or so groups working at the NIFB that night.

Within the group we were divided into assignment teams and got our instructions. For two hours the movement and conversation was frenetic and fast-paced as more than 100 boxes of 12 bags each moved through the clean room assembly line. Hair nets and aprons were the dress of the day, and age did not matter. Everyone had an opportunity to pitch in at their skill level.

My personal assignment was sealing the bags, a test of dexterity made challenging by the fact that the machines had a tendency to melt right through the plastic if you paused too long in the double-seal process.

Hands on

Food Blue GloveIt brought to mind a number of challenging manual labor jobs over the years. It took full concentration to double seal those bags and keep ahead of the new bins of unsealed cereal bags arriving by the minute.

I could not help thinking back to a moment during high school when the vocational school had us take tests to see if we were suited for manufacturing work. There were dozens of little screws and bolts and washers, and I sucked at repetitive work. My coordination is good but my concentration could wander back then. Plus I wondered if there was some intimation of academic failure at work. With a D in Spanish at the time, I was worried the school thought I was an intellectual dolt.

Concentrated effort

Now I’ve learned to dial in and that was the modus operandi for the night. Don’t let distractions take your mind off the task at hand.

Yet I could not help thinking about that food and who would eat it. Granted, it was only Reese’s Puffs cereal. You could make all sorts of judgments about whether that’s the right way to feed the hungry. But then you’d point the finger right back at yourself, because we all have want and need of different types of food. Some of us even munch energy bars made from real stuff that constitutes fake food. So it’s a confusing mess here in America.

There are many types of food handled by hunger missions in America. Nutrition is not cut short if at all possible. Considering how much food is donated and how much money is raised to cover and distribute it, these types of questions aren’t really practical to answer when you’re bagging dozens of bags of Reese’s Puffs. Still, my brain kept working…if there were 500 puffs in each bag, and I packed 200 bags, that makes 100,000 individual Reese’s Puffs out the door and into the hungry mouths of people all over northern Illinois.

I like Reese’s Puffs. I’ll still eat them if I see them again. But we were a little tired of the peanut butter and chocolate smell. By the end of the night, a bit worn out from that marathon of packing puffs, I paused to think that I’d learned a few things about endurance and concentration over the years. Much of that dedication to task was learned through the concerted effort of running and riding. It teaches us to stick with the job until it’s through.

Looking the other way

But of course it will require a lot more concentrated effort to assuage hunger in America. Our nation has a bad habit of looking the other way and even attacking its weakest citizens when it comes to wrestling matches over political power and authority. The Rush Limbaughs of the world consistently set out to confuse real issues with false pretexts. Based on his many assertions that there is no hunger in America, such a man would have us think that everything that besets the hungry in America is a result of their poor nature and character.

Yet that’s not what we find in scripture. Luke 6:20: “Looking at his disciples, (Jesus) said, “Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God.”

Which means it is all our responsibility to create that kingdom of God here on earth. It is not our job to sit back cynically and mock the poor or find political motivations for their need. It is ours to pitch in and help, and let answers to the spiritual questions be defined by our willingness to first help, and then help again.

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Being a pro is never as glamorous as it seems

Posted on December 2, 2014 by Christopher Cudworth

By Christopher Cudworth

A few years ago it all came together for me. With plenty of time to ride my bike I racked up 4000 miles over the spring, fall and summer months. I was running some too, and my weight dropped to 163 lbs. I was fit and people noticed it. I could ride with people who normally dropped me after a couple hours and it was fun being the rider who did most of the pulls.

There have been several other periods in life where the training and racing schedule came together. In high school and college that was a given. As a participant in cross country and track there were plenty of weeks nearing 100 miles of running.

Semi-pro

New BalanceAfter college I tried to capitalize on all that training and racing 24 times in one year. There was sponsorship from a running shop to help me along. That included shoes, race fees and travel expenses. It was fun and it was work. Every weekend for months there was a race to run. Sometimes the competition within our team was enough to make the races really hard. We once took the top 9 spots at a 10k race. Which looks good on paper and on the awards stand. Not sure it made many friends for the running shop…

Flirting with the idea of being a pro was always alluring, but in my case, also naive. As I’ve talked with real professional athletes over the years, it has become obvious that being a pro is never as glamorous as it sees.

Professional perspectives

You may recall that when Lance Armstrong announced his comeback, former teammate George Hincapie wondered why Lance would even want to go through all that pain and trouble. Being constantly on the road racing a bike and staying in hotels actually sucks, Hincapie observed. Even the top riders in the sport admit that it’s true.

Yet there’s a pull to that kind of pain and suffering. There’s also a pull to the eternal youth of being a pro. Athletes have a hard time retiring because there’s a sense that nothing they do after their pro career is done will feel the same way. In that respect even being a retired pro is no glamorous deal. Sure, to some extent people idolize you and treat you as something special. Yet when you go home you’re still the guy or gal who stubs their toe and spills coffee on the counter.

It ain’t easy

Being a pro athlete does not necessarily make life easier once you step down from the podium. Lance learned that the hard way on at least three fronts. The adulation he clearly craved was missing. But then came the loss of credibility as well. Finally, the bar from all forms of competition is clearly painful to him.

These patterns hold true even for us mortals. People who build their identity around their professional careers have a hard time giving up the reigns when the time comes to “retire.” That is why some people choose never to do so. Working may not be as glamorous as sticking your toes in the Florida surf for your remaining days, but some people prefer to keep working.

Those of us who were never pro athletes saw those dreams disappear earlier in life. Yet there’s a considerable amount of striving that remains to be done in life. There seems to be a little bit of “pro” desire in all of us. Hence people run marathons and slap that sticker on their car that says 26.2. For those miles your commitment is on full display. Yes, you’ve paid for the privilege but for those miles you are indeed a “pro” in the sense that your training is being applied in a clear athletic endeavor. We’re all pros in that sense. And even that is never as glamorous as it seems from the outside looking in.

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Tom Spadafora combines worlds of running, health and business

Posted on December 1, 2014 by Christopher Cudworth

By Christopher Cudworth

Tom Spadafora is president of the Fox River Trail Runners, a club based in the western suburbs of Chicago.

Tom Spadafora is president of the Fox River Trail Runners, a club based in the western suburbs of Chicago.

As President of the Fox River Trail Runners, a popular Chicago-area running club, Tom Spadafora sees plenty of healthy people in action at the races the organization sponsors in the Chicago area. The club itself has a membership of more 600 runners. Its Thanksgiving day Fox and the Turkey Trot race drew more than 2500 participants in 2014. All that makes Tom a happy man.

But what really makes him happy is helping people who aren’t so far along in the health and wellness process. His business Your Health Vision is in its 6th year of operation. Its mission is counseling people on diet, health and exercise. “There’s obviously a market for education about combatting obesity, finding a better diet and learning how to exercise properly,” Spadafora notes.

He earned his training in a yearlong study class that led to a health-coaching model he now uses in working with clients. “Some want to lose weight. Others want to stop smoking. It’s all about overcoming habits. But I counsel people to work on one increment at a time. That’s how we change behaviors and combat stress.”

Changing directions

As a former operations management director for a major retailer, Spadafora knows a thing or two about “moving the needle” when it comes to human behavior. In fact it was his own soul-searching following a downsizing in his industry that led him to focus his energies on health and wellness, a passion born out by his own commitment to running, but one that also appeals to his sense of compassion for other people. He laughs, “But it started with me. I also decided I was not going to go work for someone else again.”

It all comes down to motivations, he observes. “All my training for this role came through a sales organization,” he explains. “And it turned out that the things that make people better salespeople are really basic. It shouldn’t be surprising that getting people into better health helps them professionally as well as personally. So I took those philosophies of coaching and applied it to the model of health coaching full time.”

Money matters

One of the surprising facets of his health coaching business is that he finds people bringing up their finances as a source of stress. His background in operations enables him to sort through these issues with his clients and get them the resources they need to simplify that component of their lives.

Tom Spadafora

Tom Spadafora (right) poses with fellow Fox River Trail Runners at a summer event.

“Every successful athlete or business person has a coach,” he contends. “They help you understand that you have it within you to improve something in your life. It’s all a matter of getting that motivation up into your brain and out into the world. Then change can occur.”

Some clients want it handed to them. Spadafora calls them to account. “I’m not going to tell you what to do…” he responds. “You’re going to own it.”

Getting psyched

If that sounds similar to the approach of a professional psychologist, so be it. “I ask people to give me one thing to work on that they really want to do. I tell them not to be afraid to shoot for the moon, but we’ll work on it with small steps.”

“It generally takes about 3 months for people to see and understand the progress they’re making,” he says. “That’s a pretty good time frame and you can almost always track the flow by then whether its weight loss or to stop smoking.”

He particularly enjoys seeing people motivated by their progress. “I get so jazzed by people who didn’t know they could reach their goals,” he enthuses. “It’s often the case that people don’t know what they don’t know. You give them those tools and it all makes more sense to them.”

Tom Spadafora is a RRCA (Road Runners Club of America) Certified Running coach. 

No doubt Spadafora solves a few client challenges in his own head before broaching the subject of how to change behaviors. His own running takes him on the road for hours at a time. Last year he also organized an indoor running program in collaboration with a high school so that his club members and clients could have a place to train out of the cold for three days a week. Spadafora is usually there himself, circling the track at 6:00 pace doing intervals with a training partner or two.

It’s all part of the picture for Tom Spadafora, whose company Your Health Vision offers a health handshake with the world.

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Racing toward a slightly different conclusion

Posted on November 28, 2014 by Christopher Cudworth

By Christopher Cudworth

CopsA few weeks back I posted the photo shown in the featured image with a joking comment that it was good the police had the porta-potties protected. One of my conservative “friends” on Facebook went ballistic. He shot me a terse lecture about respecting the police with a warning that I should thank them for their service, not ridicule them.

As it so happened, I had already done that. I politely stopped during the running of the Naperville Marathon and Half Marathon to thank them for working for the race.

Taking note of the assault rifles hanging on front of their bodies, I also regaled them with a story about the time my family and I had were on an archeoastronomy trip in southwest Colorado. Early on the morning of June 21st, we rose before sunrise and drove through the cool desert night to arrive at Hovenweep National Monument in southeastern Utah. Our goal was to arrive before sunrise and station ourselves at an ancient native American (Anasazi) astronomy site to witness a solstice event that has been taking place for an estimated 1000 years.

Armed and dangerous

We were joined on the trip by a trio of armed federal agents wearing assault rifles over their shoulders. Their presence was deemed necessary because a few weeks before a pair of armed criminals had gunned down a cop in nearby Cortez and escaped into the wilderness near Hovenweep.

As the sun rose a sliver of light shone across a spiral shape carved in the face of a rock. Only once a year does the light reach that petroglyph. It once told the tribes who lived in the area that the time was right for planting. That was back when the desert was perhaps a bit more verdant and growing crops was possible.

Of course I didn’t tell all those details to the police working the Naperville Half Marathon. I simply told them that we appreciated the guards that morning in Hovenweep. The idea that there might be armed criminals roaming the Utah desert was the least romantic notion on our minds at the moment.

I asked my children that morning of the solstice event if they minded the presence of the armed guards. “What guards? What guns?” they asked innocently. That taught me that not everyone has the same sensitivities and sensibilities about guns. But how can we expect children to understand such concepts? Kids don’t necessarily understand what guns can do, or why they’re necessary. But neither do so many adults, who engage with guns at a childish level, believing as fact what they’re told that guns lead to a civil society and protect our freedoms better than rule of law.

Frontal assault

Because… why are assault weapons necessary for cops to carry? That was the point I was trying to make with my ironic post on Facebook about cops protecting the porta-potties. Of course their mission on race day at a marathon site is much broader than that. We all know what happened in Boston a couple years ago.

But then again, we need to keep asking questions about this growing militarization of society and the need for police to use grenades and tanks to do their jobs. That’s what’s happening, people. It’s an arms race and the police believe they are either going to win or die.

Thanking police for their service

Road signsI’ll never state that police presence is not helpful at races. At every race I’ve attended I’ve thanked police for their service. Frankly I get the feeling they sometimes see the frantic stupidity of it all and keep their mouths shut. Police have to look at society a lot differently than those of us who never work in public service. They see the ugly side of human nature every day. Domestic violence. Rape. Murder. Robbery. Car crashes. Vandalism. Heartbreaking cruelties even to animals and children. It’s hard for a policeman not to be a cynic about the very foundations of society. Bigotry. Racism. Protests against social injustice. Campus rape. Drunken driving. Bar fights.

Our police operate in a different universe, and on a daily basis that universe spins around while the rest of us go about our merry business. The police are no different from the characters in the movie Men In Black. The dialogue goes like this between J and K:

“People are smart, they can handle it.” 

“A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky, dangerous animals and you know it.”

Cops are also people. Yet the person who is a cop is also capable of dumb, panicky behavior. I was once leading a 10K in a northwest suburb of Chicago. The police officer driving ahead of me on the course approached an intersection and suddenly hit the brakes. Flying along at 5:00 per mile pace, I could not stop and wound up flopping over the back of the trunk of his car.

Obviously in the moment I was a bit upset. I yelled at him but his real goal was to make sure there was no traffic that was going to plow through the intersection. Ramping back up to speed, I waved and shrugged in thanks.

It was an interesting moment of human interaction. The policeman was doing his job but so was I, in a manner of speaking. (I was sponsored as a runner by a running shop at the time). I still won the race but had to tell the story of how the police car almost cost me the victory. If I’d hit my knee on the bumper, for example…

Not so easy

Nothing about being a police officer is easy. I have friends and associates who work in law enforcement. I also wrote an article about Conservation Police Officers and learned that they are not only responsible for wildlife but are also fully commissioned and trained state troopers. One of the officers interviewed had related that it was highly necessary to compartmentalize what he daily saw in his job and the need to come home and function as a father. The two worlds were dichotomous.

We hear the same thing from soldiers returning from war. The blood, gore and destruction are too much. Add in personal injury and massive disability caused by war injuries and it is almost criminal what we ask our soldiers to do, and we too often treat them like aliens when they come home. It’s an almost impossible split between war and civil society.

So when we blithely throw soldiers into action for political causes that are either ill-defined or unnecessarily aggressive, it should make the nation question why and how we view imperialistic violence as so necessary to achieve our national goals. The same goes for our police officers. Why is America so content to force these people to live with the threat of unnecessarily dangerous weapons?

Working with police 

As a former race director I have worked with multiple cities and numerous police officers. That’s why I stop to thank them for their service.

But the abiding concern I have for police officers is not the nature of their service or even the mistakes they sometimes make. I’m far more concerned that their jobs as civic peacekeepers have been made untenable by the proliferation of weapons in American society. My legitimate question depends not on some liberal agenda. And I am a known and proud liberal and progressive thinker.

Instead my concern focuses on the natively conservative opening line of the Second Amendment, which begins, “A well-regulated militia, being necessary for the security of a free state…”

That makes me think deeply about what many police officers now face on the streets of America. It’s an arms race out there. While the rest of us occupy the streets one day at a time for a merry little run through neighborhoods or cities, the cops are out there literally fighting for control of the property they are commissioned to protect. Now we’re looking at the full militarization of police forces in America. It’s necessary because America has no commitment to live by the first line of the Second Amendment. Conservatives lie when they claim to support the police and then refuse to hold anyone accountable for the crazed and unbridled “militia” now wielding guns at will and at large. We clearly no longer have a well-regulated militia. The NRA is the absolute worst enemy of the police here in America. There, I’ve said it. Now deal with it. Because it’s true.

Shooting up with ammo

There have been more than 400 school shootings since the Newtown massacre. It’s also a lie to say that all these shootings were the premeditated acts of people who are insane from the start. The plain fact is that high-powered weapons make people insane. With the pull of a trigger, an average citizen can unleash hell on people sending them into panic and fear. It’s control that insane people with guns are after. They can’t control their personal lives so they use force to exert some sense of manic control on the world they’ve grown to hate. And it repeats itself over and over again.

In response gun advocates promote the insane idea that average citizens need to get more guns to combat not only criminals with guns, but the government itself. That’s the same as telling a heroin addict they need more drugs to cure their habit. We’re talking about addiction to the idea that war on the streets is the natural course of American history.

Armed with bigotry

Sure, the bigots among us like to blame black people for all the crime, and black on black crime is a problem. But many of those wingnuts shooting up schools and shooting at police on the streets are far from black. Race isn’t the issue with guns in America. Guns are the issue with guns in America.

The police are the people who pay the price on the frontlines. They’re being forced to become soldiers in order to survive the onslaught of insanely liberal gun laws. Yes, you heard me right. Conservatives typically love guns, but the liberalities with which they interpret the Second Amendment by completely ignoring the opening lines of that troublesome bit of law, are responsible for a lot of bullet holes in a whole lot of human flesh.

Irony lost on America?

That’s why it’s important to use irony when pointing out the fact that police are armed to the hilt and commissioned to do an impossible job. That dialogue from the movie Men In Black is absolutely correct. “A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky animals and you know it.” 

That especially applies to people who feel insecure walking around in public without carrying a concealed weapon. It applies to people who think the government is coming to steal their home or property. It applies to people who vote for Republicans on the sole grounds that the GOP is in bed with the NRA, and frankly taking it in every imaginable political orifice as a result.

It’s not that I disrespect cops or their service to America. It’s that I disrespect people who pretend to idolize police officers for their service without any consideration for the real reason their lives and occupations are at risk. Those people are deceiving all of us about the Second Amendment and what it really means to respect the police.

I have readers who love guns and who love to tell me that I’m nuts and anti-American for my so-called “liberal” stance on such things. But the unspoken and ugly truth of the Ferguson incident, the Trayvon Martin shooting and a host of other cop-versus-civilian shootings is based on the whole idea of a kill-or-be-killed mentality underwritten by the gross proliferation of guns in American society. You can play any conservative tune you like to cover it up, but the cops are the ones who really face the music.

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Nothing wrong with a taste of humble pie for Thanksgiving

Posted on November 27, 2014 by Christopher Cudworth

photo (3)The 18th Annual Fox River Trail Runners Turkey Trot was a cold one followed by delicious hot chocolate. That’s the way a Thanksgiving Turkey Trot should be, of course. With temps in the low 20s at best, and a snow flurry wind blowing from the northwest, there was no real incentive to go fast other than to get finished and get warm.

The race starts in downtown Batavia, Illinois and heads up the Houston Street hill. Basically that’s the biggest available climb in this river town. You run right up the west side of the Fox Valley, and it hurts. At least it hurt me. Without much of a warmup save for jogging to the very cold porta-potties, my chest felt cooked and my legs were suitable for carving if you like your meat rare with a side of lactic acid.

There were plenty of people to run with. More than 2500 to be inexact. The Fox River Trail Runners know how to put on a good race. There were plenty of turkey hats to commemorate the holiday race. A few reindeer and at least one greenish Shrek character made appearances as well.

And like most races it falls to me to wonder how in the heck I used to win these things. My best at four miles was 19:49, just under 5:00 pace. Today I ran steady 7:30s, almost to the minute. Seriously, finishing in exactly 30:00 is kind of a freakish thing to have happen.

Pace of life

The fact that I’m 10:00 slower over four miles than my racing peak is not really disturbing to me, yet it is a bit humbling. All you can say is nothing. If I was two minutes faster or four minutes faster what real difference would it make. The racing experience would not vary one bit. There would be tons of people around to run at the same rate. It’s like you’re just another chunk in the apple pie.

And that’s not such a bad thing. When my girlfriend came cruising in not long after I met her about 400 meters out and we ran in together. Coming back down the Houston Street hill we both put on the brakes.

There’s a lot of nutrition in humble pie, you discover. You’re part of the human race and not worried about any other sort of race; not speed or pace or color or clan. We’re all breathing oxygen and pushing blood around with our hearts. It’s a happy place to be if you give thanks for your health, the opportunity to run and the ability to do so. When it’s the main course, humble pie actually makes a pretty good meal.

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On commitments equal to our obsessions

Posted on November 25, 2014 by Christopher Cudworth
american-flag-on-the-moon

The wind was even blowing on the moon tonight. And it was cold.

The wind is so loud outside it sounds like the trains that pass through nearby Geneva, Illinois every day.

This wind has caused the snow to blow sideways all day. There is a skin of ice on the driveway. The streets are slippery.

There was a time when I would still go out running in such conditions. I was skinny then. Too skinny and determined to let a little wind and bad weather keep me in. Those were different times.

Business kept me busy today, as did the construction of a new website for my business, 3C Creative Marketing. Still a work in progress. But there’s big plans ahead.

Now that I work for myself there should be plenty of time in the day to fit in a workout, right? That’s how it’s supposed to work. You become That Guy who is always at the gym. Always out running in the noon hour on the best of days. Always always always.

Except I don’t actually want to be That Guy. That’s not how it actually works. Conscience toward the needs of clients should and does take over. Workouts get put on the backburner.

It’s not that those of us self-employed types always procrastinate our exercise. It’s that we’ve worked hard to get here. Put up wit uncertainty and wondered aloud (to ourselves) if this s0-called business plan is fully actualized.

But it is. And we do. Work at it. We also know there are commitments equal to our obsessions. So we run and ride and swim when we can.

No real sense beating yourself because you want to be a success in life in more ways than one. Sure the winter wind seems like an excuse. The gym will call tomorrow if it does not let up. This past weekend with 45 degree temps let the running and riding go well. So it is not guilt, but motivation that calls.

Or so we like to tell ourselves. Ah, maybe a little bit of guilt. Let’s admit it.

But not enough to go out in this weather. Time for some ab work and some dinner.

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Let’s hear it for cross country running. Best. Sport. Ever.

Posted on November 21, 2014 by Christopher Cudworth

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ylYPm7V2qCU

An anthology of cross country running from early history to present day.

This video was shared on Facebook by Craig Virgin, two-time World Cross Country Champion. He appears in the video. But so do a lot of other great runners of all abilities.

Now I’m going mountain biking. See ya later.

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The dangers in acting your age

Posted on November 20, 2014 by Christopher Cudworth

TrackOccasionally people will remark that I don’t look my age. While I appreciate the supposed kind intent of such comments, it also makes me wonder sometimes what they really mean.

What would it mean to them if I did look my age? And what factors are they basing their judgments upon?

We are harsh enough judges of appearances on our own. About three years ago the first real signs of age started to appear in my face. We don’t like them typically, but many are dictated by our heritage, our race and our family history. That and some hard miles in the hot sun, the cold wind and the freezing rain can conspire to age your face and body. Throw in a lifetime of typical worry, stress and challenges and the aging process takes hold in our appearance.

Weight of the world

Witness the manner in which most of our presidents age. They take office fresh-faced and eager and leave with a face worn from shouldering responsibilities the rest of us cannot imagine.

That’s why presidents don’t say much about the current president once they leave office. They know the job is difficult, and that being president of the United States or any other nation is perhaps the most thankless position of all. Your popularity ratings are dependent on the whims of an often fickle people that have long forgotten the good things you’ve done while remaining forever suspicious of anything you propose to do. You must also live with the fecklessness or pride earned by any of your predecessors and the people who served them. It’s no wonder age creeps up on presidents faster than the rest of us.

Thanks for that

Yet even at the basic level of a comment like “you don’t look your age” there is judgment at work. Compared to whom? Compared to what?

Chris 1985In the past year I have looked down at the skin around my quadriceps and knees to notice that it is not as tight as it once was. There are lines indicating sun damage and possibly reduced muscle size and tone underneath. My knees give away the fact that I have run more than 40,000 miles in my lifetime and have cycled nearly that much as well. Those tan lines that end at the lower thigh with my bike shorts are beautiful in summer but they also contribute to the autumn of my life. We try to warn our youth that too much time in the sun can harm them. But what did we do? We lived that way too.

To the rescue

So what’s the answer? Sure, some sunscreen might help. But for the most part it is too late in the game to rescue my knee skin. Or the rest of me. I’ve lived too much to reverse all that. The goal now is to push forward and keep the body rocking. Take care of yourself, but not to the point of letting other people’s expectations or limitations define what you can or cannot do. The best solution to all this is to keep moving. That’s what keeps us young. We can slather all we want on the outside of our bodies and try eat healthier. That’s what keeps us going and supposedly safe from the worst vagaries of sun, weather and bad tomatoes. It seems like the things they tell us to do one day to prevent aging are the very same things they tell you the next year not to do.

But keep moving 

1978to2013We keep moving because that is the single most important answer to the challenge of “acting your age.” What does that mean anymore? It means we’ve stopped moving. Stopped being vital. Stopped believing in ourselves. Stopped thinking. Stopped being creative. But if you keep moving, none of that stops.

The right idea

I simply refuse to believe all that bullshit that says people beyond thirty years of age have no good ideas. There are investment types who won’t even talk to brains beyond those years. To them nothing truly new or original can emerge from a seasoned mind. Plain and simple, that is the worst type of age discrimination. Throw out appearances for a moment and consider what it means when someone tells you that you cannot possibly have a new idea. That is perhaps the most dehumanizing comment you can make about anyone.

Business leaders like Steve Jobs and Bill Gates started thinking boldly when they were young. Yet they also continued their innovative leadership well into their middle years and even senior years. Only cancer could stop Steve Jobs from his mission to change the world. Yet his ideas carry on. Not because he was young when he died, but because he thought young when he died.

The dangers in acting your supposed age are encompassed by the fact that you will limit your potential in life if you do. My knees may look a little saggier from now on, but that does not mean they cannot help me run, ride or swim. To hell with quitting. That’s the only time you really show your age at all. At any age.

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The truth about vitamin supplements and what you need to put in your body

Posted on November 19, 2014 by Christopher Cudworth

VitaminsYears ago when I first started taking a multi-vitamin on recommendation of a doctor, I visited the pharmacist, who happened to be the father of a close friend of mine, and asked him what to expect when the vitamins kicked in.

My friend’s father had a profound stutter, so it took him a while to get the words out. But this is what he told me. “They’ll…..turn….your…..turds….dark…”

And that was my introduction to the benefits of vitamin supplements and what you need to put in your body.

So it struck me that we’re not really exploring the creative potential of vitamins. I mean think about it: If vitamins can turn your turds dark, couldn’t they be counted on to turn our turds all sorts of various colors? We could be crapping white turds or green turds if we liked. Heck, we could crap pink turds for all we know, and that would be a wonderful testament to certain fund raisers. If you really give a shit about breast cancer awareness, nothing will do more to remind you to eat healthy and avoid cancer-causing food than a bright pink turd sitting in your toilet bowl.

There could even be a social media campaign. I SHAT PINK! Buy some tee shirts with happy looking pink turds on them and we’re halfway home to real cancer awareness.

Before you accuse me of playing dark with a subject that causes so many women and men fear, panic and their very lives, may I remind you that I’ve been through all of that to the point of losing my wife to ovarian cancer. It’s one giant battle out there for research dollars, and there really is no governor on the tastefulness of it all. When SAVE THE BOOBIES is a campaign slogan about female breasts (and not oceanic seabirds) don’t stand there and lecture me about the bounds of grace and good taste.

Besides, what we’re really here to talk about is vitamins and what they can do for your health. My new multivitamin is by OneADay. And I’m sure there are vitamin experts out there who will call or write to inform me that these vitamins are not organic or have too much sodium or cause your pee to turn bright yellow (because they do) so I’ll just go on record in saying this is a total experiment on my part. It says 50+ right there on the label so they have to be good for me, right?

I didn’t know that we needed Vitamin K, for example. What the hell is Vitamin K? Is that a secret ingredient from the movie Men In Black? Are we all aliens or something?

There’s also something called Pantothenic in here. Here’s what WebMD has to say about that. “Pantothenic acid is a vitamin, also known as vitamin B5. It is widely found in both plants and animals including meat, vegetables, cereal grains, legumes, eggs, and milk.”

So in other words, if we were eating all those foods we’d get enough Pantothenic Acid and not need a Vitamin. If you looked at all the ingredients on the bottle you’ll realize that’s the case with everything you eat in a multivitamin. We’re simply not eating right. And I’ll admit that. I simply want them to invent vitamins that align more with what we do typically eat or drink in a day.

Here are a few suggestions for all you vitamin sellers out there on what to put in your products to make them a little more popular:

Vitamin W: Offers all the benefits of areal red or white wine, including the alcohol. Certain years of vitamins are more likely to be pleasurable than others, but don’t ingest the cork.

Vitamin P: With the popularity of legalizing cannabis it won’t be long before the active ingredients in pot make their way into daily vitamins. Of course this is already possible in Colorado. Rocky Mountain Highhhhh….

Vitamin Eh?: This vitamin contains all the healthful benefits of living in Canada. Caution, this vitamin may cause repeated use of the phrase “Eh?” when asking questions or answering them.

Foxnewsium: This acidic element is only safe in small doses and may still cause anger and a propensity to join the Koch-sponsored political movement called the Tea Party.

Niceassium: Helps with formation of a healthy, round buttocks. Recommended by Kim Kardashian.

Steel: You have iron in your diet, why not steel? These little chunks of metal fuse the other vitamins together to make strong bones and a very thick skull. Good if you value convictions over common sense in your politics.

Merthiolate (as opposed to Iodine): Your mother used to spread this merth stuff all over your open wounds when you were a kid and you never questioned it. Now you can take a vitamin and turn orange without all the pain. However, it may also poison you.

Aluminuminuminum: No one can say that word correctly can they? Anyway, if you don’t want to get your aluminum through a vitamin just chew up a bit of aluminum foil. That is, if you can take the feeling on your fillings.

Viagra: That is a vitamin, right?

Cialis: Yah, that’s another ticket for a rigid wicket.

mitch-mcconnellVitamin MC-BC: Skip the tricky birth control stuff. Vitamin MC-BC works for both men and women by making them all look like Mitch McConnell with whom no one in their right mind would breed if they knew what’s good for them.

Well, that’s about it for vitamin education today. Hope you all grew in understanding of what vitamins can do for you. I can offer you a franchise for my new vitamin company. I’m sure you’ll want to invest in it.

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The Polar Vortex is talking and the birds know what’s good for us

Posted on November 18, 2014 by Christopher Cudworth

It’s 13 degrees outside in Chicago today. The wind has the flags at my neighbor’s house fluttering madly.

SandhillCraneEasternMigration-791x1024But that is tame fare compared to yesterday’s reported migration of sandhill cranes over the City of Chicago. Apparently 5000 birds were tallied in just over an hour flying over the city toward the Jasper-Pulaski region where tens of thousands of wild sandhill cranes gather each year. Many of the birds funnel down through the eastern United States to Florida. A great number travel from points further west to Texas and the Gulf Coast as well.

The passing of sandhill cranes overhead is most definitely a mark of the pending winter season. These hardy, tall birds come back in spring before the ice goes out of area ponds. They find food in all kinds of conditions. They also know when it’s time to leave.
Sandhill Cranes, overflying White Rock, NMTwo Sandhill Cranes FlyingUsually they fly over a little earlier in the season. Often their migration takes place in the first week of November when most of us are out raking the final layers of leaves from our lawns. Sometimes the cranes are so far overhead you can’t see them in the sky at first. Then a pack of swirling dots appears. With wings fully extended the birds don’t even flap in many cases. They swirl their way south and east with primaries extended like giant fingers.

Such effortlessness is the envy of those of us who run and ride. There are very few times when we soar along without effort like a crane on the high winds. A couple years back a friend and I were cycling on a day when the winds reached 40 mph. It was tough going on the way out. On the way back the wind fell into line with the road we were traveling. We crested the rise on a bridge over I-88 and the downhill gave us an extra push of speed.

Our cyclometers showed the quick rise in pace, all the way up to 40mph on the flat. Then the world went silent. We were traveling the exact speed of the wind.

One wonders whether birds feeling these sensations or take them for granted. Cranes are smart birds but they certainly don’t sit around discussing their Strava segments. Then again, they don’t need Strava. They navigate using a combined set of anciently evolved senses that tell them when to leave and where to travel.  Some speculate populations of cranes in our region actually follow the glaciated ridgeline of the former breadth of Lake Michigan. In the span of evolution that 10,000 years that just passed means nothing to the cranes. Their collective memory is much stronger than a recent change in landscape. It takes a few millennia to adjust such things.

sandhill cranes-MIt is cold as heck here and hard to muster the will for a 4-miler. But the weather will moderate and it will be great to get out on the road again. We all take cues from nature in our choice of movement. The cranes love a strong northwesterly wind because it makes their job of migration easier.

As for me, I’ll take a calmer morning and wear my balaclava. The Polar Vortex is predicted to be strong again in the Midwest. It just might be enough to blow me inside to the treadmill where we’ll crane our necks looking at the rest of the folks trying to get away from winter.

Want to know more about cranes? Visit the International Crane Foundation site.

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