Urban Running Girl inventing new ways for cool gals to keep warm

Posted on April 25, 2013 by Christopher Cudworth

By Christopher Cudworth

Shrugs from Urban Running Girl fit over the shoulders and offer rollable cuffs to cover the hands on really cold days.

Shrugs from Urban Running Girl fit over the shoulders and offer rollable cuffs to cover the hands on really cold days.

Deborah Cape is an apt name for someone who perfected a super new way for women runners to cover that transitional time when the weather outside is too cool for a tank top but might warm up enough once you get on the move.

The type of garment she creates is called a “shrug” and is designed as activewear. But more than a few women may find it just as comfortable in other transitional climate situations, such as a too-cool office space or around the house.

A shrug above

The term “shrug” comes from the fact that the garment covers just the shoulders and arms, perfect for the warmup or cooldown session, but also great for keeping warm during the entire workout.

I know. Smart, right? The idea makes so much sense it almost jumps out at you once you see one. Like arm warmers for cyclists, the shrug is a tuckable and convertible garment yet highly wearable piece of fabric that women runners can grow to love.

“How about shrugs for men?” I asked Deborah during our interview about her products.

“Well,” she admits. “I wasn’t sure there was a market there as yet. But if there’s a demand then yes, we might do that.”

Her ingenuity got its first tweak a few years back when she saw other garments designed for temporary or transitional wear and began thinking about what runners need out there day to day, because Deborah is a runner.

One thinks of a shawl, for example, but a “running shawl” would blow in the wind. The shrug, as it was designed, is designed for sleek aerodynamics and transitional warmth, combined.

Shrug design

Once the idea was conceived, Deborah set about making the design. She cut out some fabric in the shape she thought was needed, then conceptualized with an actual clothing designer and finally a pattern and test garment was produced. Following a few tweaks for fit and flow, the Shrug from Urban Running Girl was born and ready to sell.

The website describes the many ways shrugs can come into play in daily life.

“You can wear it with your favorite t-shirt or tank top without adding an extra layer around your torso like a jacket or a long sleeve shirt will. When you’ve warmed up enough, it’s easy to take off and tie around your waist, and unlike a jacket it won’t weigh you down. A shrug has no zippers, buttons, or touch fasteners that may rub against leggings when tied around the waist, potentially damaging the material.”

Cool beings need shrugs

That all sounds pretty good, does it not? A shrug works like running tights for the shoulders and arms, where tension from cold or sudden chills can wreak havoc on muscles and tendons if you’re not wise about the chill.

Deborah notes that a shrug can also be worn during many other activities including cycling, yoga, warmups at the gym, dance or walking.

One wonders what the sporting world will do now that shrugs exist. Plaster logos on shrugs for athletes male and female? This is a garment begging for commercial uses. They might make interesting “team flair” for pro basketball players during warmups. Why not, those guys wear every other kind of whatzits now to warm up, compete and play.

A Shrugfest

The market for shrugs seems well on its way, Cape admits. “I’ve been told that NIKE has a product on the market that’s like a shrug, and it’s sold in pair with a tank top. But it’s much more expensive than my product of course,” Cape says. “And the Urban Running Girl product is a bit more practical. I designed mine with rollover cuffs so that you can cover your hands on really cool mornings.”

Deborah Cape’s goals for her product are perhaps a bit more modest than those of a global company like NIKE. She’ll be content knowing that women find her product comfortable, practical and purposeful. “I’ll like it if women are using my shrugs just to watch a movie–movie theaters get pretty cold!–or inventing their own purposes,” she says.

One starts to imagine other purposes for shrugs, such as sun protection during gardening or other outdoor activities. You really can’t shrug off any potential ideas with a product this novel.

On the move

Runners and cyclists will find shrugs easy to remove and either tie around the waist or stuff into a cycling shirt or fuel pack.

Urban Running Girl makes its shrugs out of tech fabric designed to wick moisture and stay comfortable in all kinds of conditions. Colors include Sky Blue, Black, Amethyst, Orange and Hot Pink, of course. And that last one’s a great idea for fund raising, wouldn’t you think?

Urban Running Girl Shrugs are $32.99 (Canada) when you order direct from the website at www.urbanrunningirl.com. Shrugs come in small, medium and large and chest sizes up to 38.

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Is there life beyond testosterone for those who run and ride?

Posted on April 24, 2013 by Christopher Cudworth

By Christopher Cudworth

Is less testosterone really such a bad thing?

Testosterone fuels our muscles and our minds.

Testosterone fuels our muscles and our minds.

Every time one of those commercials for male testosterone comes on the radio it strikes me that guys of a certain age may be worrying about all the wrong things.

Read between the lines and you can guess that male sexual performance is hidden somewhere in the messaging. But “energy” and “drive” are such nebulous terms they could apply to just about anything. Business. Creativity. Hell, taking out the garbage.

The problem with obsessing over testosterone levels is that you don’t know what the net effect of your testosterone boost might be. Will it genuinely improve your energy or turn out to be a distracting yank on your system?

A somewhat medical perspective…

An episode of the TV show “House” focused on what happened when a normally driven character lost some of his creative and professional drive when his testosterone levels suddenly dropped due to some organ failure. He was professionally brilliant but a total jerk before his testosterone levels dropped. Then he became a nice person during his testosterone dip and his partner was forced to consider the meaning of what she would gain or lose if she choose either the jerky genius or the milder, kinder man she discovered sans testosterone.

I won’t spoil the ending in case you’re surfing cable channels some night and happen upon that episode of House. It’s an interesting conclusion that makes you think about the relative merits of too much or too little testosterone.

Competitive athletes and testosterone

So many gals, so little time.

So many gals, so little time.

For competitive athletes testosterone in men obviously plays some sort of role in the desire to compete and win. Nature outfitted the male gender with a sometimes overloaded capacity for testosterone production so that men could rise up and compete for mates. Take a look at what ram bighorn sheep go through, clopping heads together high in the mountains. Or those ugly elephant seals snorfing and stabbing at each other with tusks until they are quivering heaps of bloody flab. The male animal can get crass and dangerous with too much testosterone running through their veins.

NFL proves the point of testosterone madness

We have the NFL as testimony to the dangers of testosterone. It is rapidly becoming evident that thousands of former NFL players have suffered brain damage from competing in a sport that quite closely resembles those male bighorn sheep, clattering heads together in a ritualized way. Now that we know the truth about what helmets can and cannot do to shield ourselves from the drives of testosterone, we face the question of whether football can even survive as a social institution. Is a ritual of male human beings crashing into each other important enough to put the lives and minds of thousands of youngsters at risk beginning as early as 6 years old?

The scrawny kid in front did not belong in high school football.

The scrawny kid in front did not belong in high school football.

Some parents have begun to question the merits of football. My own father forbid his four boys from playing the game. We were all good athletes who could have found a place on the field. My oldest brother could have been a murderously good tailback or fullback. He was strong, agile and unafraid. My next oldest brother and I might have made decent receivers with good hands, and my youngest brother at 6’6” turned out to be an All State basketball player, but with a 36” vertical leap he might have made a fearsomely good tight end. Who’s going to outjump that type of receiver?

Wisdom of a father

But dad didn’t want us playing what he considered a brutal, dumb sport. In my case he literally took me to high school on the first day of fall sports at little Kaneland High School in the cornfields and shoved me in the cross country locker room saying, “You’re going to run cross country and if you come back out of there, I’ll break your neck. Because that’s what would happen to you in football.”

He was right. I stood 5’11” at the time and weighed just under 130 lbs. Skinny didn’t describe me. I was scrawny. But tough. And I’d won the local Punt, Pass and Kick competition and thought football sounded kind of cool. But deep down, not really. I knew nothing of the real game and did not really want to learn. Schoolyard football had resulted in one brutal concussion when I hit a cement ditch after a tackle sent me flying.

A running career begins

So I became a runner, and a year later the cross country team went 9-0 while the football team was 0-9.

Running proved the ideal antidote to my personal overload of testosterone and the resulting anxiety and sometimes even depression that came with it. Running soothed my soul and poured out the excess energy. Sure, like any teenager lust and distraction were an all-around issue, but running kept me as level-headed as could be, and for a skinny kid it provided feedback on self worth and the sense that if you worked hard at something you could achieve it, and even win at times.

Hardly academic

The frantic battle with testosterone lasted through college when serious dating led to serious sex and my closest buddies and I learned that getting laid did not hurt your performance as some proposed, but actually helped. The feeling of being relaxed and loved is far better than being anxiously driven and manic. I set PRs for the mile and 5000 following bouts of sex. Testosterone is plentiful enough in the young to fuel both drives. That’s one of the tarsnakes of testosterone. It isn’t too choosey about what it drives us to do. It can make us heroes but it can also trip us up. Just ask Bill Clinton or any of a number of Republican politicians who rail against the lusts of society only to be caught in their own web of lies about sex, adultery and human failure. Testosterone can kick your own ass.

Growing into ourselves

As men age their testosterone levels change, and with that comes the need to engage in strength-building and fitness activities to maintain health, wellness and appearance.

As men age their testosterone levels change, and with that comes the need to engage in strength-building and fitness activities to maintain health, wellness and appearance.

But as men age, and some women too, the body’s natural hormones mellow a bit. Some men lose muscle tone and don’t feel themselves as a result of low testosterone levels. Some doctors thus prescribe testosterone to help these functions. Steroids are known to produce the same result, pumping up muscles and creating a feeling of euphoria that makes you feel like you can conquer anything.

Yet some of us recognize that a little less testosterone can be a good thing. The ability to concentrate, have patience and not feel like you have to prove yourself every second can be a bit liberating.

Growing perspectives

It may mean that you don’t care that much if you get dropped on the Saturday ride. Your pace per mile running slips from an 8:00 average to something closer to 9:00 per mile. It all raises the issue of what really matters in a life, a career and our avocations.

Does it matter if you’re the fastest? While I won many races during my running career and people remember that to some degrees, that is not how most people judge you as a human being. Instead they look for steady commitment to meeting obligations, completing work enthusiastically and on time, and showing respect and concern for others. Those are qualities that take development in many respects. They also happen to be qualities that a testosterone-driven man can overlook under the influence of one of nature’s most powerful substances.

Competition for our souls

We run and ride for fitness and health. Some choose to compete and some do not. The lesson in this analysis of testosterone is that it matters more how you compete and why than it does how often or hard you compete, and whether you win or not all the time.

Winning is always relative, you see. Even in nature we find that the cost of defending a harem is sometimes death. The bull elk gets his ass kicked sooner or later. That type of domination doesn’t last forever. But if you believe our souls are eternal in some ways, it matters just as much is how you’ve lived as how much you’ve competed and won.

It’s not that competing and the cost of competition are bad things by nature. When my college cross country coach was limping across campus next to me at a reunion, I asked about his recent back surgery, the result of years of bashing around on the football field. “I wouldn’t change a thing,” he told me. “Not on your life.”

One suspects a lot of male warriors feel the same way. To compete is to feel alive, and being horny and crazy and drinking too much and maybe shooting your mouth off and getting into fights are all a part of life that some people would never trade.

But if you’ve passed your genes along a few times and don’t mind a new role in life other than bashing heads with other males, there just might be meaning for men beyond testosterone.

As for me, I’ll run and ride to that.

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Your running shoes are being manufactured by imprisoned Martians

Posted on April 23, 2013 by Christopher Cudworth

By Christopher Cudworth

A bin of Martian-made running shoes shows the diversity of products these other-earthly beings have made.

A bin of Martian-made running shoes shows the diversity of products these other-earthly beings have made.

A true connoisseur knows of whence I speak. A new pair of running shoes can set all the right and wrong nerves quivering with anticipation. You try on several pairs and even buy one or two, then take them home in a box where you set them aside until you can find the time to really take a look at what you’ve bought.

Running shoes deserve this sort of attention. Especially these days. With prices now set well over $100 for even the most basic shoes–of which there really are none anymore–it is forgivable for a shoe slut to cast admiring eyes on the product, taking in the elaborate gluing and stitching that goes into modern running shoes.

Like jewels

Some pairs of shoes are like expensive jewelry, seemingly honed from materials drawn deep from the earth. Other shoes are more like an industrial miracle, fabricated by a hidden band of Martians somewhere in Site 52. That’s actually where many of our running shoes do come from these days. If a shoe says Made in America what that really means is that those shoes are being manufactured far underground by a somewhat bored group of nearly immortal space beings, Martians mostly, that knows how to heat form rubber and slap on logos with the best of them. That kind of technology is what enabled them to survive underground all these years on Mars.

Sponsoring the Martian Marathon

 

Which by the way will be the site of the Martian Marathon. You can register for the race at http://www.martianmarathon.com. Entrants get a complimentary oxygen tank and a hazmat racing suit to fend off violently dangerous ultraviolet rays, especially those in the red spectrum, which have been known to otherwise melt unprotected human flesh. Of course, given the gravity variance on Mars a person who normally weighs 100 lbs. only weighs 38 pounds, which means the marathon distance will be expanded by approximately 62 percent. Please remember to adjust your split times.

Site 51 is now a shoe factory

The government had to give the Martians something to do, you see. The technology they otherwise have to offer might be too advanced for us human beings to utilize at this point. A leaked document on the Internet proposes that the Martians offered us a technology to create cars propelled by a group of magnetic cords wound up like DNA that could allow vehicles to go 500 miles without need for gasoline, natural gas or even hydrogen. The advanced magnetic engine would completely eliminate fossil fuel usage in America.

Trouble is, the Martians proposed their new brand of new cars during the Bush-Cheney era, and that would have dropped Dick Cheney’s energy stock values too low. So Cheney had the Martians locked away deep under Site 51, consigned to making fancy running shoes as punishment for their transgressions against Cheney’s precious Halliburton stocks. So the Martians got sent deep into a cave to make something Dick Cheney would never consider wearing, which is running shoes. As a compromise, the Martians then offered to fix Dick Cheney’s busted up old heart to which Cheney replied, “Leave my heart out of this matter. That’s been my policy for years and I’m not going to change it for some namby pamby bunch of Martians.”

Martians play jokes on runners

The Martians are a little bitter about the whole thing, as you can imagine. So they’ve been playing some interesting little jokes on the running community as a whole, including introduction of all those minimalist running shoes and the really stupid-looking models with 5 toes showing. It is reported the Martians are literally lying on the floor laughing their high-pitched Martian laughs, barely audible through the Methane tanks through which they breathe, yet audible just the same. They think it’s really funny that Earth People are waddling around the streets running as if they’ve just had a Martian probe stuck up their ass. The Martians conduct constant YouTube searches for minimalist runners because it just sets them off, laughing uproariously. Here’s one of their favorites, in which some guy sits there holding up the goofiest looking shoes on earth, talking about them as if they were products sent down from heaven.

Here at We Run and Ride, we just want to keep you up to date on the latest developments in running and riding gear. Next week, we’ll fill you in on the fact that underneath their shiny latex swimming suits, whales, dolphins and seals are actually as hairy as grizzly bears. Scientists are working on ways to make underwater shaving kits so the animals will no longer need to squeeze into their constrictive underwater swimming suits, which really hurts their fertility, hence the fading populations of cetaceans in general.

That’s all the serious news for this week, folks. Tune in next week to learn about a woman who invented a jogbra that can act like a high-powered slingshot if a female runner finds herself in a scary situation. The product is called the Boobsling and is available for $19.95  at the Seen On TV website. You don’t have to thank us. We like reporting this stuff.

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Respect for fitness getting traction in the corporate and industrial world

Posted on April 22, 2013 by Christopher Cudworth

By Christopher Cudworth

Letting our bodies and minds get out of shape does no one any good.

Letting our bodies and minds get out of shape does no one any good.

At one point in America’s economic history, manufacturing made up more than 40% of our economic output. Coming out of World War II, America made more stuff than any other country in the world. We were the builders, the makers, the industrial bakers driving the world’s economy

Now our economy has changed. Manufacturing constitutes about 10% of our GDP, but that’s still a huge amount.

Respect for manufacturing

Through my work as a copywriter in B2B marketing communications and public relations, it has been fascinating to have the is actually going on. You sure can’t tell much about any sort of manufacturing business from the outside looking in. There are secrets and even magical creations going on behind those flat industrial walls. Once inside and walking through a factory it is quite a trip learning how companies invented the things they make, or perfected them somehow. There may be noise, smells and flakes of metal flying around. There may be machines lines up for shipping, and giant wooden crates waiting to welcome them.

The fact about manufacturing is that even the dullest-sounding products usually have a fascinating history or manufacturing process. Business owners who walk you around their factories speak with pride of how the products they make, fix or sell have come to be. Some have long histories. Others were just invented. Either way the engineering or technical requirements of those processes required sharp minds and a determined focus to make them come true, much less market and sell them to the appropriate customers. If you visit enough factories it makes you realized that there is a somewhat alternative America going on in which business runs itself. That’s why businesspeople can grow to hate the government, which imposes regulations and requirements on business that complicate the already difficult tasks of making and selling products.

Many business owners are generous people. They give to local communities and donate their time to lead committees or boards of non-profit organizations to make things better for the world.

A different reality

Then again, there are businesses that are not so nice to workers, or simply don’t have a clue about what real safety and good working conditions mean.

I once worked for a paint company in college. It was a summer job and you don’t expect glamor or glory in those circumstances, but this job was both dull and dangerous. The routine of loading and unloading gallons of paint from a conveyor belt was dull. The task of switching pipe flows between 35,000 gallon tanks of turpentine and latex was very dangerous. One day I made a mistake in the order of valves being turned on and off and got coated when liquid latex poured out of the tanks at a rate of about 1000 gallons per minute. That earned me a trip to the industrial shower where I was stripped naked before the floor managers so they could see that I washed down all the latex. If it had dried and sealed off my pores, it could have meant death

Back out on the floor, my co-workers were busy making fun of my mistake when one of them got so distracted by the teasing he drove the Clarke floor cleaner right off the dock. The front-heavy machine tipped nose first onto the railroad tracks and the driver got catapulted clear over the tracks.

It was a manic summer, as you can tell. The floor managers never knew who was coming and going, or where the employees were assigned. When things got slow one week he put me in charge of chipping out paint layers from beneath the giant color tanks at one end of the production floor. I’d punch in every morning and disappear behind the tanks to chip away with a flat hoe all day long. It was quiet and somewhat satisfying work. In 5 days I’d cleanly carved out a wide section about 30 X 30 ft., chopping through layers and dumping the dried paint into a wheeled dumpster for disposal. One felt a sense of pride as the work proceeded. Then the next Monday the foreman was walking around the tanks and spotted me there. “What are you doing here?” he asked, looking around at the excavations.

“You told me to clean up back here, so that’s what I’m doing,” I told him.

“Well,” he said, looking a bit flustered. “We need you back in production. Leave this alone and come with me.” And it was back to moving cans on and off the production line.

All that summer I gazed worriedly at the constant blue haze in the upper reaches of the factor. Those were turpentine fumes, I knew. It scared the hell out of me that workers would retreat to the lunch room and light up cigarettes during breaks. What if one of those flames ignite the entire place? The explosion would have gone up like a mushroom cloud.

An old problem that never seems to go away

I think about those working conditions in light of the explosion at the fertilizer plant in Texas. The last real inspection was apparently in 1985 or so. That’s 28 years ago. 28 years of workers apparently working in conditions no safer than those of the paint factory where I worked.

The real damage of my time there became apparent that fall as I entered the junior year of my college cross country career. My lungs did not respond to regular workouts well. I had depression and an occasional queasy feeling in my stomach. I’m convinced the industrial grade environment of that paint plant had lots to do with the difficulties of that year. Of course some of it was my own existential angst of being a 20 year-old with a bad beard and ugly glasses. But not all of it.

Setting the bar higher

It makes me think that America would be better off if we set the bar for working conditions a little higher. If our employee collective in the manufacturing sector were encouraged to better fitness we might learn more about what better health can do for our nation. Fitness and health opportunities need to be dispensed to blue collar as well as white collar workers. Many corporations are seeing the benefits of healthier employees and encouraging employee fitness programs, even providing on-site training and health measurement. Cutting down the costs of health care by helping employees learn more and take better care of their health makes a ton of sense in the current structure of our healthcare system. But the movement needs to move all the way through our economic system for it to be effective.

Truckers set an example

I read somewhere that interstate truck drivers are taking fitness more seriously like this Fit For Trucking website. The rigorous demands of long haul trucking do fall under some health regulations. Drivers are on the clock and must pull over when their driving time is up. That’s a good thing. But that means those truckers have time to kill, and instead of retreating to the bar or the roadside diner, many are going for runs, lifting weights or riding bikes when they pull the rig over.

Those activities are bound to be better for the mental health of drivers away from their families and possibly subject to anxiety or depression as a result. Exercise is one of the first best steps to combatting mental health issues that can lead to physical problems ranging from heart disease to cancer to diabetes.

Industrial grade health problems

We have an industrial grade health problem in our country. Millions of Americans are excessively overweight, and health insurance costs have been going up and up regardless of what party is in charge. Yet when Michelle Obama goes on the road advocating steps to prevent childhood and adult obesity, she is sometimes ridiculed by oppositional press for her concerns about health and fitness.

During the Bush years the average annual increase for corporate health care premiums rose by 12% per year on a straight line average. Conservative blame Obamacare for raising health care costs, but the pattern started well before Barack Obama put provisions together in a package designed to force America to reckon with the neglect of millions of Americans who are uninsured and the gravitation of quality health care toward those with corporate coverage alone.

Cheers for those who run and ride

Those of us who run and ride are already trying to take care of ourselves through healthy exercise. Our efforts to stay healthy are also industrial grade and do contribute to the productivity and GDP of the nation. That is something to be proud of, and yet we need to be concerned that so many Americans simply don’t care how fat they get, how many cigarettes they smoke or how many drinks they imbibe while yelling at the NFL on TV.

The future of America is dependent on those who run and ride and walk their way to fitness. That is yet another secret of the still-industrial age, only it happens mostly outside the walls where everyone can see it. It’s time to claim our rightful place in the betterment of the nation. Run and ride with pride, people. You’re making America better one step and one pedal stroke at a time.

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Follow this chart or you don’t know squat

Posted on April 21, 2013 by Christopher Cudworth

This is what I’m doing to improve my butt muscle strength, quads and hammies.

Join me!

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If you run and ride, please be seated

Posted on April 19, 2013 by Christopher Cudworth

By Christopher Cudworth

BuckingHorseHow is your relationship with chairs? With seats? Car seats. Desk chairs. Everywhere we go, we’re sitting. But how well?

It makes a difference, you know. How you sit. One bad chair can ruin an entire season of training. Ergonomics are important. But so is texture of the seat and the type of desk it faces.

Too many options? 

On the way in to work this morning the seat of my new Subaru begged adjustment. But not really. Was it me and my body that was out of sync? Or the seat itself. It can be hard to tell.

The Subaru has all sorts of adjustments for how you sit in the vehicle. Up. Down. Back angle. Leg lift. Forward. Backward. Thank God it doesn’t go sideways or we’d probably mess with that setting as well. Can’t get comfortable? It’s not the fault of the car.

Which is the whole point of good seating. Many times it is our bodies that refuse to adjust, not the chair. Tight hamstrings. Knotty calves. Weak back or stomach muscles. Basically we’re a hunk of meat on any chair we touch. So what’s the cure?

Backing off

Some people just know how to sit with style, and look so relaxed doing it.

Some people just know how to sit with style, and look so relaxed doing it. Sheryl Crow shows how it’s done. Lance could have learned something from her perhaps.

If you’re fortunate enough to never have back problems, thank your body for being cooperative in at least one respect. For people whose backs are tweaky, creaky or sneaky, all it takes is one false move and they’re in agony. No more running or riding for weeks. It doesn’t take much. Even bending over the wrong way to brush your teeth can result in a near chronic injury.

It all comes down to muscle balance and strength maintenance. If you do strength work, yoga, Pilates, core fitness and have great sex on a regular basis you are probably less likely to have back problems or other ergonomic illnesses. But there are no guarantees. Even the strongest among us can go twang! at any moment.

Which is why chairs and seats and places to sit correctly are really important.

Working it

I once bought a chair for work at one of those office supply stores. The chair I tested felt great. The chair I assembled at the office never felt good at all. My back started to hurt so badly it was impossible to concentrate. Yet when I gave the chair to the guy in the office next door he loved it. No complaints. No back problems. No nothing. Was it psychosomatic? Did I just hate working there and the cosmos was trying to tell me to get out? Sometimes you never know. It’s one of those tarsnakes of being that we are destined never to resolve.

Back madness

Sit back and relax now Lance. Don't be so angry. You'll hurt your back. From the UK Telegraph. Lance Armstrong.

Sit back and relax now Lance. Don’t be so angry. You’ll hurt your back. From the UK Telegraph. Lance Armstrong.

They say that anger can concentrate its physical fury in your lower back. Think about that the next time you get really pissed off. Do you get a backache two days later? Sometimes it pays to think about what you’ve been doing leading up to back problems. Has anger entered your life somehow without your knowing it? There really is a connection, which is really spooky. Back pain is like some sort of evil horoscope. It can tell you lots about how you’re living and who you are, but it can’t predict jack about the future. Trust me on that one.

Which brings us back to being an athlete and sitting on chairs, seats and benches.

It’s how you sit that counts

If you’ve just run a half marathon or a marathon, or finished a weekend 20 miler and are feeling really, really tired from the effort, what is your first instinct? To sit down, of course. And take a load off. But look at what we often do. Find a picnic bench or a bleacher with no back support. We sit there slumped like a bag full of worms while our bodies cool down. Talk about no respect for the weary. Sure, we might lean over and put our arms on the picnic table and sigh, “That was a good run.” But even that posture is an insult to the fatigued body you now occupy.

Given little choice we tend to sit anywhere we can. But being aware of your posture at your weakest moments can save you lots of trouble.

And surely every cyclist should be aware of their ergonomics while on the bike. Riding 80 miles bent over a road bike is not exactly a prescription for relaxation in the lower quarters. So bike fit is crucial, and so is a well-constructed and well-positioned bike seat. The saddle of your bike is your only connection between effective riding and the entire universe below. Which isn’t all that forgiving. But you don’t need reminding of that.

So take a seat, but not just any seat. How you sit and where you sit and what you buy to sit in can make all the difference in how you run and ride.

So please take a seat. Wisely, if possible.

Want a tee shirt?

We Run and Ride. It’s a movement.

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Running and riding through the flood

Posted on April 18, 2013 by Christopher Cudworth
Flooded street in Downers Grove Illinois

Flooded street in Downers Grove Illinois

Okay. We got a little rain here in Illinois. Streets are closed. Backyards are watery wastelands. People took 3 hours to get to work. Such a contrast to last year’s drought, when parched, dry land kept rain at bay all summer. It simply would not rain.

Not so fast

No rain? Not this year. The downpours have been incessant. Last night the sump pumps in our house ran constantly. The groundwater pattern in our neighborhood points straight at our house. When digging postholes for the back fence, it was learned there is a layer of clay exactly 2 feet down. The water runs over that stuff. Right at our house.

That meant I needed to get up and fix a contraption of rain gutters to point the rainwater draining through a vent pipe for the boiler into the sump so it could be shot back out in the yard. The myth of Sisyphus got nothing on me, babe. That water just comes right back at me. That’s how the waterproofing company designed the system. Works almost as well as the economy. This year’s rainstorm is a stimulus bill so that the sump pumps stay employed.

I’ll go running tonight because the carnage is so interesting. Floodwaters have always fascinated. When the entire Oneota Valley flooded, the entire Luther College campus where I went to school was underwater. Months later the traces of the flood were still there. The extensive dike system built to redirect the river through town simply couldn’t contain the volume of water pouring down out of the limestone canyon tracts where water upstream gets funneled and pushed. Result: big-ass flood.

Flooding our memories

I recall running through that valley during another flood year. Our regular courses were underwater so we improvised, trotting next to the roiling floodwaters on a bank above the Upper Iowa. It was stupid and dangerous perhaps, but it was also memorable and fun.

People remember floods and the things that happen during them.

A few years back while riding in early spring our little band of Saturday cyclists decided to take a bike path next to a stream. The path was flooded with cold, clear water and suddenly we were pedaling into a school of carp wriggling across the path. Not able to stop for fear of falling over and hitting the drink, my front wheel plowed into the side of a carp. It’s giant body didn’t really give away, but the wheel glanced off. Everyone laughed at the thought of hitting a fish with a road bike.

Going through, not around

There have been a couple times during really long runs when I choose to go through a flood rather than around. If your shoes are sufficiently old and you’re going to get a new pair anyway, there’s no harm in running into the breach of a flooded street. Of course you’re reduced to wading. At that moment with your shorts filling up with cold water, the whole world might as well be flooded. You can see why really big floods take over the imagination of those affected. The recent tsunamis of ocean water that devastated entire islands in Japan remind one of the apocalypse or the Noachian flood.

If our world was still yet small in terms of communication, and we could not fly over New Orleans and see the devastation, or catch up on news updates when tsunamis take out entire cities, the legends might be big enough to someday make it into scripture of one sort of another.

The unlucky ones

This mudskipper digs a flood like some of the rest of us

This mudskipper digs a flood like some of the rest of us

Instead we’re stuck with the ugly little fact that even local floods are a real pain in the ass. They disturb our daily lives and affect our business. They prevent us from running and riding where we like to go and we stare in marvel at a car literally floating down the street. “Who’s the unlucky one?” we think.

Or less charitably, “Who could be so stupid to think they could drive across?”

At some level we’re all that dumb. We build houses on floodplains and barrier islands. We assume our rivers will stay put, especially after a year of drought. We ride our bikes and hit carp or try cutting through a flooded field on a run and find ourselves knee deep and stupid. We fail to recognize that water has both a mind of its own and no mind at all. That’s what the terrifying fable of Noah’s Flood is all about. We’re powerless before nature and don’t really understand it. It doesn’t matter whether the flood that floated Noah covered the whole world or not. The fact that a flood could be so unthinking is an illustration of the humility we should show all of creation.

Instead we run right past. Or ride. Or drive. And wonder when the next disaster will hit. Hoping it won’t be us. What a way to live.

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Are we really surprised about the Boston Marathon bombings?

Posted on April 16, 2013 by Christopher Cudworth

By Christopher Cudworth

One of two bombs explodes during the Boston Marathon

One of two bombs explodes during the Boston Marathon

It’s horrid. It’s tragic. One cannot really take it in as yet no matter how many online videos there are, or how many heroes rushed to the aid of others.

Those stories will unfold. There will be analysis. Discovery. And hopefully, justice.

But then we will be forced to confront the worst reality of all. This was a surprise that we could not see coming, yet no surprise at all.

The marathon phenomenon along with the joyful madness of the Tour de France are events just aching for an act of terrorism. Massive crowds. Unsuspecting people. Terrorism loves that kind of happy madness. It was just a matter of time.

Whether domestic or foreign terrorism, the message is the same. You are vulnerable. We made this horror happen. Now you must recognize us.

Rewards

That’s right. It’s a sad, sick little fact that for all its supposed symbolism, terrorism comes down to the desperate need for attention by one or two individuals who can’t find their place in the world. So they buy into some massive twist of logic that says killing people is the ultimate symbol of their worth. Some terrorists are promised lines of virgins in heaven. Others are promised glory in the eyes of their dissatisfied comrades, lurking in the fields and valleys where their cries of supposed anguish echo back to them. After a while, that’s all they hear. Their own twisted voices.

They fear the government, or hate yours. They take aim at idols from Martin Luther King Jr. to John F. Kennedy to John Lennon or Ronald Reagan. Terrorism is assassination of the ideals of others. But it is also this disgustingly personal act of placing one’s personal vendetta over the lives of others.

The violence connection

America somehow cannot seem to equate its own penchant for commonplace violence with the terrorist strikes that come along now and then. Right away on Facebook gun advocates proactively ripped into the politics of those who would connect the bombings at a marathon with those trying to limit access to other super weapons, in other words, gun control. The goal was to disconnect the violence of terrorism and the violence ripping through bodies in Boston with the violence we have on the streets of America every day. Yet the facts are uglier than even the proactive gun lobby could hope to conceal. Since the Newtown, Connecticut shootings alone there have been more than 3000 people shot and killed by guns in America. That’s as many as people killed as were murdered in the terrorist strikes on 9/11.

Day to day terrorism

That pattern parallels terrorism in significant respects. Suicide terrorists blow themselves up for many reasons. An Elton John song (I Think I’m Gonna Kill Myself, see below) with lyrics by the brilliant Bernie Taupin reminds us of the terribly confused logic that takes over in despair, and how violence becomes a tool of expression or a way of life that takes away all life. It’s one of the tarsnakes of terrorism that says the very violence that seems to hold America together and make it a proud nation is also undermining the very surfaces on which we travel through time together.

But in the end, it is also about some selfish ambition. Some need to own a gun and use it like a paintbrush, or to bomb a marathon with Expressionistic flair. It’s all part of the same sick terror people feel inside and are driven to share with others. Then blame it on the object of their arts. The guns. For “Guns don’t kill people, people kill people.”

Yeah, right. Bombs don’t kill people. People kill people. Bombs just do it better.

It’s a terrorist act. And also a social suicide. Trying to kill a society is the same as trying to kill yourself and others. We have also learned that in America more people have been killed by gun violence and suicides–violence against oneself–than in all our previous wars. Suicide is also way up among servicemen and women whose missions and recalls into tensely violent zones are breaking their wills to the point of killing themselves.

If you can’t make these connections about the net effects of violence, then you aren’t possessed of cognition, but of cognitive dissonance. As we’ve learned from the Boston Marathon, we can’t run away from the facts of our own confused logic. The massively violent nation that is America just got hit with a dose of its own internal dialogue. Whoever did it must have imagined some sort of scenario for themselves. And others. It’s how terrorism and gun violence and public bombings work. We can’t stop killing ourselves.

I Think I’m Gonna Kill Myself

I’m getting bored
Being part of mankind
There’s not a lot to do no more
This race is a waste of timePeople rushing everywhere
Swarming around like flies
Think I’ll buy a forty four
Give them all a surpriseThink I’m gonna kill myself
Cause a little suicide
Stick around for a couple of days
What a scandal if I diedYeah I’m gonna kill myself
Get a little headline news
I’d like to see what the papers say
On the state of teenage bluesA rift in my family
I can’t use the car
I gotta be in by ten o’clock
Who do they think they are

I’d make an exception
If you want to save my life
Brigitte Bardot gotta come
And see me every night

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When is skinny too skinny if you run and ride?

Posted on April 15, 2013 by Christopher Cudworth
At 6'1" and 140 lbs., my frame was wafer thin.

At 6’1″ and 140 lbs., my frame was wafer thin. Click for larger view. 

While wading through photos to put in a video for my wife’s Memorial Service this past weekend, it came to pass that I found a picture of myself when I was skinny. Too skinny.

As a competitive distance runner I carried not one white of extra weight. My body fat as measured countless times was less than 3%. Unless I was tan, my upper body looked pretty bleak. That was the price of competitive fitness.

But my gosh, I was skinny.

I could run forever, no doubt. And won some races, no doubt. But that photo of my standing on the edge of a Badlands ridge gave me pause. Should I have been that skinny?

Today I weight 175 lbs. In summer my weight drops to 163-165 during cycling, if I get the miles in. That’s still skinny by many measures. When I showed up at a ride after several weeks of training apart from the regular Saturday morning group ride, one of the fellows murmured, “God you look fit.”

So it’s a Catch-22. It used to be hard to keep weight on my frame. Now I’m like everyone else. Christmas is carbohydrate hell and it takes months to shed the handles above my hip bones.

I’m slowly changing my diet. It’s taking lots of effort and during the long leadup to my wife’s passing there was no way to really management my diet. I was on the seafood diet. See food and you eat it.

It is an interesting contrast to see that photo of myself on our honeymoon and really what a skinny twerp she married. It’s now okay in my mind to look more like a man who’s in overall shape than a man whose overall shape is barely visible against the hillside.

The skinny on being too skinny is that there’s a time and a place for all that. Being fit doesn’t mean you have to be invisible when you turn sideways.

 

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Reflections of yourself when you run and ride

Posted on April 12, 2013 by Christopher Cudworth
You can check out your riding or running form by taking a route past a long set of windows.

You can check out your riding or running form by taking a route past a long set of windows.

Lacking the services of a good running form or riding coach, there are still things you can do to learn how your form may be affecting your fitness and speed.

All it takes is a good long look at yourself in a window.

Even if you live in a small town there are usually a few places where you can arrange your run or ride to swing past a storefront where you can see a reflection of yourself in the windows. The best location I’ve found in my hometown not only has a long set of windows, they actually have a mirror finish so you can see yourself run or ride past in full living color!

What can you learn from looking at yourself in the window as you run or ride past?

Check Your Form

Look at your running form objectively. Find a window that can serve as a mirror and run right at it. Like what you see?

Look at your running form objectively. Find a window that can serve as a mirror and run right at it. Like what you see?

Runners can look at their overall body lean, their arm carriage and length of stride. It’s surprising how little some of us know what we look like when we run. Of course you could ask someone to record you with your smartphone or camera these days, and that would be really good information to help you analyze your stride. But there’s something about a rehearsed setup like that…makes you aware of what you’re doing and it is too easy to “fake it” rather than taking yourself at face value.

It’s better to make a pass by a window when you’re in full stride if possible. It’s not narcissistic to look at yourself that way. Well, maybe a little. The important thing is to be objective enough to assess your stride pattern and admit if you’re overstriding or understriding.

Critical to efficiency

The same goes for riding a bicycle. Cycling form is critical to efficiency. One of the first things you’ll notice in your riding form is how much or how little you arch your back. Cyclists often fall into bad habits when riding. These bad habits become chronic and can rob you of power. It is best to ride “low” with your body “perched” on the bike with slightly bent elbows, legs relaxed enough to spin rather than mash and your head carried at a healthy angle for both efficiency and viewing.

Bike fitting first

Much of this “form” comes from bike fitting, which is heartily recommended for anyone doing rides over an hour. Any road cyclist or triathlete can benefit from a professional bike fitting. Personally I would not recommend riding without a bike fitting. It just doesn’t make sense. Unless you’re a adept and knowledgeable and know the techniques of setting up your bike, find an expert.

Then when you ride by your favorite window to check your cycling form you will at least know how to adjust your form. If you hunch you’re back when you’re tired, the window can tell you that. Watch to see as well whether you’re just pumping your legs up and down or spinning the pedals. All these little things add up to better efficiency.

Making a list, checking it twice

Once you have a mental checklist built you can tell at a glance when you ride by a window if you’ve picked up any bad running or riding habits.

For runners, try to find a window you can also approach from the front. That helps you look at your footplant and your arm carriage as well. If your arms are flailing out to the side, or just one arm, it may indicate bio-mechanical deficiencies that start way down at your feet. That’s a lesson I learned years ago when seeing myself on videotape. My right arm flung out and I never knew it. Even world class runners like Bill Rodgers sometimes have these bio-mechanical quirks.

Your favorite window can get you started in understanding your own running or riding form. Give it a try. You’ll be amazed what you see.

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