Photos from the Madison Open Water Swim, an event often used as a practice for Ironman Wisconsin
As a Sherpa to a multiple Ironman and Half-Ironman wife, I’ve had tons of opportunity to study the Ironman dynamic from the inside out. And having done enough triathlons and duathlons to know the ins-and-outs of the sport in general, it is right now difficult to imagine how anyone can expect to race much this year.
That’s clearly a disappointing thought to thousands of athletes from pros prepping for big races to impatient amateurs around the world.
But the dilemmas of conducting triathlons in the era of social distancing are real. Because once you enter the Ironman arena at any race conducted in its original form, you are all in. There is no such thing as social distancing either for spectators or participants. The racked up bikes in transition are testimony to the shared space necessary to pull off a triathlon race. So are the tight crowds of people queued up in wetsuits waiting their turn to dive into the water.
The idea of standing six feet apart through all this is daunting. Of course it is possible if staggered starts are implemented. But imagine the logistics of communicating all that before the race and on race day morning. As if race directing were not difficult enough?
I’m not so sure that some triathletes are even capable of reducing risks for others. Not after watching a male triathlete paused at a water station at Ironman Wisconsin. He had his broken shoulder tied up with a black plastic garbage bag and was preparing to get back on his bike despite the blood trickling down his arm into his arm warmer. He was in shock, as far as I could tell, and after watching him lurch onto his bike with the help of a dumbstruck teen volunteer, I called ahead to the race managers to strongly suggest they get him off the course before the next set of daunting hills because he could have killed himself or someone else.
That’s the problem with tough athletes. They don’t always think of the safety and health of others. Some don’t even think of their own health.
As for this pandemic, most of the sport is likely hoping the Covid-19 deaths abate and that Coronavirus cases settle out by mid-summer. But experts have warned that a second wave could begin all over again if people let down their guard. We’d hate to hear that an Ironman race was responsible for starting up an epidemic all over again.
That’s not all that likely, but it would not look good for a sport sometimes accused of being self-indulgent to put personal preference before public safety. So what can we expect from Ironman and triathlon as a sport? What might the “new normal” look like?
On the Run Out at the Naperville Sprint Triathlon.
Logistically, there are two main factors pertaining to the race structure itself. The first is the size of the transition area, which would have to be massive to abide social distancing. Allowing six feet of distancing between bikes and stations is a massive challenge And then there’s the swim timing. But requiring athletes to go off separately with chips is not that big a hassle because it’s already done in some circumstances.
ITU races that allow drafting on the bike are certainly a different kind of challenge. Not only is it beneficial to stay close to one’s fellow races during the bike and run, it is almost a requirement in order to stay competitive. Thus draft-legal racing may be impossible until it is determined that the Coronavirus risk is low enough to justify a return to normal race expectations and demands.
As for the crowds attending races, clearly new rules would need to be instituted in the short term. Cultures around the world have shown commitment to social distancing, so could it be possible to hold a race and expect people to stay far apart? Seems like a stretch and frankly, an odd risk. And for what? So that a few can enjoy their sport.
Ugh. That sounds selfish just writing it.
The swim warmup at the Madison Half-Ironman.
While this is no time to be forcefully negative, it also does not pay to be naively positive. People are dying by the thousands from this disease, which if nothing else is a lesson in the power and force of evolution on our planet.
This pandemic is also a lesson in theology. The idea that human beings are “specially created” creatures apart from the rest of nature has been blown asunder, and forever, by the fact that this virus and many thousands of others are threats to human existence because the infections we face on an annual basis are known to jump from the rest of the animal world to infect us. So much for the creationist contention that God spares human beings from such humble roots. Our gut bacteria alone proves that we’re biologically dependent and derived from the raw stuff of creation.
It is also the spirit of Ironman that is now faced with the cold logic of micro-organisms that can take over our systems like a wave of wetsuited maniacs flailing through the surface of a calm lake. Like generations of humans before us, those of us that love the sport will have to adapt, adjust, and accommodate, or the sport itself will die.
Which only provides more proof that we’re all in this together.
My son Evan Cudworth was planning on attending The Burning Man event in August again this year. But it likely won’t happen. Even that brand of social distancing––rocking out in the Black Rock Desert–– is not enough social distance to reduce the spread of Coronavirus and the deadly Covid-19 infection that is killing people Right and Left.
Some people choose to mock the Burning Man ethic as an impractical response to the world at large. Certainly it could be characterized as one big rave in the Utah desert. But I’ve listened close enough to my son’s experiences to appreciate there is great value in that communal choice to indulge in creativity in an escape from reality.
In my son’s case the reasons for attending Burning Man has shifted and changed over the years. From his mother’s death from cancer in 2013 to his life in New York his move to Cleveland and then to Venice, California, he has had plenty of angst and life choices to burn through.
Which is why an event such as Burning Man can be a spiritual experience. And when that last day of Burning Man comes along and the flames climb up the massive man of the world effigy it is a cathartic opportunity to release whatever one feels necessary to let go. And at the same time, join in that endeavor. While not a religion, Burning Man parallels the dust-to-dust, heat and fire, water and wine and psychedelic substances upon which so many religions are based. Wasn’t there a Burning Bush in the Bible, after all?
Events such as Burning Man tend to teach us that we’re not alone. Not in our need for release of joy and pain. Not in our odd or strange thoughts and fantasies. The one good thing the Coronavirus is now teaching us is empathy for the human experience. Because none of us is alone in the trepidation of a pandemic.
This past weekend my wife and I dug through the basement to start extricating unnecessary possessions. She plucked out some boxes of old bank records and musty photos. I dug out a large box of newspaper clippings from writing I’ve done the last four decades.
That collection included years of articles on all sorts of topics, too many to even delineate here. I kept the most valuable and took digital photos of the rest as the actual clippings really aren’t useful to anyone. The pile of paper was two feet high and four feet wide. I gathered them all back into the stinky old cardboard box and carried it out back to conduct my own little Burning Man session, dumped them into the fire pit and tossed the box back on top.
I reached under the cardboard box and lit the flames. I didn’t want to have any second thoughts. Then I stood back to watch it all go up in flames. Thousands and thousands of my own words curled red at the edges and then blackened into ashes. There were dozens of articles I’d written about track and cross country meets, the exploits of runners younger than I, in most cases. In the late 80s into the early 90s I covered the local teams and became part of their story as I told it.
I thought about how much I burned for recognition while doing all that writing. It was not free from the drive and pull of ego, that’s for sure. In some ways I inserted myself into the lives of others through those efforts. Attending those meets. Talking to athletes as well as coaches and parents. Of course, that’s what writers have to do. One of my favorite writers Hunter S. Thompson was the original “Gonzo Journalist” who entered the story to get it right.
But sometimes we writers also get it wrong. During one of those cross country seasons one of the best runners on a local team had a particularly poor performance after leading the team all season. I made some harsh references to the kid, and it turned out that he’d contracted mononucleosis. His season was done. One of the parents on the team pulled me aside and suggested that I’d gone a step too far. And I agreed. That is one of the tarsnakes of being a journalist of any kind. You always stand a chance of being wrong.
After that experience, my days of coverage of the local sports teams soon ended. I’d accepted a job in the marketing industry and moved on. Yet like so many lessons in life, I learned that my judgment of another person’s character and skill was misguided. So I left that part of me behind. The sportswriter. As I watched the pyre of newspaper stories burning in front of my eyes, I catalogued the many other stories that I’d written over the years. Many of them now reside only on my phone. But others I just let go. Forever. And it’s okay.
Having cleaned out my father’s house after his death, I realized that much of what we keep may have significance to us, but not many others. So I’ll keep a record of my existence, but not try to keep it all. That’s why I embraced a Burning Man of a different kind.
My competitive career as a runner was coming to a close the time by the time I got married at the age of twenty-seven. We conceived our first child in December after a June wedding that year. By then, I’d already considered whether engaging in hard training was a good idea on the advent of having our first child.
Still, I raced fairly well that first year of marriage, winning a few mid-sized races, breaking 20:00 in a four-mile road race and a ten-miler in just under 54:00. That said, the Running Unlimited Racing Team for whom I’d competed the previous year was disbanded. I tried shifting my talents to the Vertel’s squad in Chicago that spring, but despite the fact that I knew the store manager well, I was relegated to the “B” squad with less-than-inspiring Bill Rodger’s racing tops rather than the new Nike singlets given to the elite runners representing the shop, such as Kevin Higdon.
I thought that a bit harsh given my performance the year before, winning 10 or 12 races out of 24 entered that year. That included a 4th place finish a minute or so behind Higdon at a Melrose Park 10-miler in which I outkicked a bunch of guys that I’d never beaten before.
But my early season results in ’85 weren’t quite as stellar, and as every runner knows, a reputation often depends on the last good race you’ve won.
Thought never more than a journeyman distance runner, a sub-elite at best, I still had pride in what I’d accomplished. So it hurt to be told, in essence, that it looked like I was washed up. Even those Oakley glasses could not disguise the fact that I wasn’t racing quite as fast as the year before.
There comes a time when it doesn’t make sense to punish yourself in training if the time and commitment, the demands and the attention just aren’t there. That fall I did make one last surge in training and was quite fit and prepared to race the Twin-Cities Marathon in Minneapolis-St.Paul. Perhaps I thought it best to cap off a running career with a genuine marathon attempt. That distance was never my focus. The only regret is that I didn’t race a marathon the weekend that I ran workouts of 15 + 10 + 10 miles leading up to a 25K (15.5 miles) into which I jumped when the runner I was escorting at the race, Bill Rodgers, offered me his race number because he didn’t feel well.
I ran a 1:25 that day, and could have cruised home at 6:00 pace and ran a 2:25 pretty easily given the high level of fitness. But alas, that effort exists only in a dream.
A last-minute mistake
Because before racing the Twin-Cities Marathon I made the fatal mistake of trying to get in one last long run the weekend before the race. I bonked at 12 miles and crawled home exhausted. I felt wiped out all week long and arrived at the house of the friend where I was staying a bit fearful that I’d blown my chance.
It was cold the morning of the race, perhaps 33 degrees. I wore only a tee-shirt and singlet, shorts and some racing flats. I was shivering before the gun went off but settled in to run with a group led by Don Kardong, the fourth-place Olympic marathoner known for his writing in Runner’s World. I’d broken out my Running Unlimited top to wear over the red Miami 10K tee shirt that I loved. It gave me a bit of courage to think of myself in context of the previous year. And for a long time in that race, it worked.
The group I’d joined was rolling along at 5:20 pace. I felt good for twelve miles. But somewhere past that point we turned into the wind and my 139 lb body on a 6’1″ frame began to chill to the core. I’d not worn enough clothing to combat the wind chill coming off the downtown lakes. Perhaps my last minute long run the weekend before did not help either.
In any case, a former college teammate and roommate saw me at sixteen miles and noticed that my lips looked blue. He pulled me off the course and suggested it would be wise to pull out of the race.
And in that moment, a competitive career that began at the age of twelve and lasted through the age of 27 was by-and-large completed. For fifteen years I’d trained year round and logged thousands of miles. I’d won a number of races over the years, and had lost plenty as well.
It was time to give it a rest. I never seriously trained and raced that hard again. My son was born the next year and a daughter followed not long after. Being a father made me realize there were other priorities in life.
Call me dad
I did keep running for health and sanity. From that first long workout as a freshman in high school, I recognized that running did good things for my anxious brain. Thus through the stress of being a young dad, struggling to make a place for myself in the world of work, and trying to create works of art and good writing along the way, it was running that fueled and fomented those attempts.
Once in a while I’d get fit enough to give some race a go, but it was always bittersweet to step to the line without much chance of winning. That might seem egotistical or even narcissistic to some. But once you’ve been a competitive runner with some success in life, there is only one way to compete, and that’s all out.
Or else you go about running with a different gauge. And even as I’ve taken up triathlon and had some age-group success, I don’t worry about the results much and they surely don’t define my self-worth or self-image like they once did.
That’s a transition we all likely face in one way or another. For some, it’s becoming a parent. For others, it’s advancing age that dims those competitive instincts.
And for some, the battle and the journey never ends. To each their own, I say.
I’ve been seriously riding and racing bicycles since 2007. That when I bought the carbon fiber Felt 4C road bike. I showed up to the group ride that first day wearing a bike helmet with the visor still attached. My wheels still had the reflectors on them.
I was a FRED, in other words.
I don’t know if the term FRED is an acronym or not. There may be a snide abbreviation hidden in there. But in any case, being branded a FRED is not a compliment.
FRED lumps
It means that while you may be riding a bike, you don’t know what riding a bike is really all about. A FRED may wear a pair of spandex shorts, yet somehow they look far lumpier than they should. In places where lumps shouldn’t show, they do. And the lumps in places where they typically do show, well those look awkward too. On men. And women.
FRED colors
A FRED will often have a cycling shirt that is a massively plain blue or red or yellow. Or they may have a brightly decorated graphic cycling shirt from some ride across one state or another, but they’re still a FRED. A devoted FRED can even make a cycling kit with a beer logo on it look lame.
FRED fears
Mainly, being a FRED is a question of harboring repressed aspirations. FREDs never seem to care how fast they get anywhere. And if engaged in a pace line, the gap they maintain between their own front tire and the rear tire of the rider in front of them is completely devoid of draft value. It has only FRED value. As in, “I don’t want to crash.”
Admittedly, that’s a reasonable attitude. None of us LIKES to crash. But to eternally avoid the proposition in order to go willfully, carefully and annoyingly slow is a FRED move to the max. You have probably been effectively stalled behind FRED people driving their cars on the road. They roll along at the precise speed limit or slightly below. This is known as going aggressively slow.
FRED laws
I’m not here to judge the whole FRED thing. I don’t particularly care how people look or act while on their bikes, as long as they don’t damage the prospects of safety and respect for the rest of us. And most FREDS would never do that.
In fact, in that category of behavior, FREDs are probably far superior to far faster cyclists when it comes to respect for traffic laws, stop signs and even stoplights. A FRED will never zoom through a Four-Way Stop because it is not in their makeup. But that’s exactly what makes them a FRED. No risks allowed. Fuck that.
My own FRED tendencies were borne more out of naivete than any calculated attempt to cast judgment on the world by engaging in assertively law-abiding ways. The first few times I tried to join a group ride my bike was so heavy and clunky I simply could not keep up. I only went slow because I could not go any faster.
FRED cures
When I got the Felt 4C I could instantly keep pace for most of the rides I joined. So I rode with the Saturday group that covered 60-70 miles at 20+ every week. Then I rode with the Wednesday bike shop group ride that consisted of both men and women and averaged a clean 20MPH every week, like clockwork. Being part of those rides, along with shaving my legs and purchasing a most excellent club kit made me feel far less like a FRED.
That doesn’t mean my FRED days were entirely over. I once came out of the porta-potty before a criterium and had forgotten to effectively shake my dick before pulling up my bib cycling shorts. It put forth a healthy dribble and there I stood with a big dark stain on the front of my blue spandex shorts. Horrifed at my latent FREDness, I quickly grabbed my bike and rode off to do warmup laps and hope the stain dried out. It did.
FREDness returns
One can go years without feeling that sort of FREDness and then something happens that lets it creep up on you. Perhaps you forget cycling socks before a group ride and have to wear clunky running socks with your bright yellow shoes. Or you get a selfie back from the group ride and realize your bike helmet was crooked on your head the whole day. Or you get fat. Yet while being fat is a typical sign of FREDness, it is not guaranteed. Anyone that has been ridden off the back wheel of a fast fat guy knows that not all Fat Guys (or Gals) are FREDS.
It is not the job of other cyclists to eliminate FREDness in this world, but some are kind. “Hey brother,” they might say kindly at first, and point to their head. And if that doesn’t work, they might say more pointedly. “Fix your fucking helmet.”
That means they don’t want to be seen with you if you don’t. The same goes for finishing a ride with a big drib of brown chocolate GU on your chin. Or wearing your sunglass earpieces under your bike helmet straps. People that aren’t FREDs tend to notice these things. But they won’t always tell you.
FREDDIEness
This FRED enjoys a good Slim Jim now and then.
Being a FRED is possible for women, too. Showing up with floppy bike shorts over top of Spandex is an instant FREDDIE moment. So is having multi-colored flowers on your water bottle, or sporting a bell on your handlebars. These are nice things for a ride on the local bike path, but they are sure signs of FREDDIENESS too.
I know, I know. This is all cruel and snarky. But TED talks aren’t all roses either. It was high time we had this FRED talk. I’m only trying to save you the embarrassment of what all of us former and latent FREDs go through.
I’m not proud of the fact that I’ve been biting my nails since I was a little kid. Even as an adult my fingernails are sometimes a ragged mess if I collapse into the nervous habit of chewing on them.
I own a nice pair of nail clippers with both cuticle and nail trimmers. When used diligently, that instrument quells the instinct to gnaw at my nails. But it is particularly while driving that I not-so-idly bite my nails. If there is even a nub or rise where it feels uneven the desire to gnaw it down takes over.
Biting my nails is an anxiety relief mechanism. Most oral fixations are. Smoking. Eating. Even drinking. All compensatory attempts to assuage or gnaw at our feelings.
But now that instructions related to Coronavirus stipulate that we’re not supposed to touch our faces, much less gnaw on our fingertrips, the nail-biters of the world really have to consider the dangers involved in their not-always-secretive habits.
Anxiety cures
The best cure for anxiety, I have found over the years, is definitely exercise. Running in particular has been my go-to workout treatment for dealing with stress, be it perceived or real.
Of course, choosing to compete in a sport creates a stress all its own. That’s the tarsnake of sports as a rule. We’re supposed to have fun with that, not let it stress us out.
Before becoming a full time runner through high school and college, I played competitive baseball and basketball and did well at it. I lived for sports. And beyond that, there was tennis for fun, and soccer.
In my adult years I took up competitive cycling, even racing in criteriums, the ultimate nerve-wracking experience if there ever was one. Winging along at 25mph in a pack of not-so-sane cyclists takes nerve, to say the least.
Now I’m a triathlete, and with that challenge I have had to overcome the fear of open water swimming, a profound symbol for anxiety if there ever was one. Paddling into the blue when you can’t see the bottom can cause panic attacks in even the most calm athletes in the world.
But that’s the issue. A healthy amount of coping strategy is learned through competition in sports. Standing on the starting line of a road race with 3,000 other people milling around you is a keen lesson in knowing how to calm your nerves, or at least funnel them into effort rather than fear.
Stress and life
I have been through plenty of stress in life, particularly during the period when my mother and wife were both diagnosed with cancer, and my father was already a stroke victim. With all those health needs beckoning attention, I learned how not to panic when something went wrong, and it often did.
Thus I know how to recognize stress and how to compartmentalize fears when necessary. It was March 26, 2013 (seven years ago this week) when my wife ultimately passed away from ovarian cancer after eight years of cancer survivorship. We lived through treatments and tests. But the worst was nervously waiting for test results and spending anxious nights and days in the hospital after surgeries when the sound of a fart was greeted with joy by the nurses and doctors because it meant her digestion system was back in working order.
My high school track and cross country coach called me the week after my late wife was first diagnosed with cancer and said, “Your whole life has been a preparation for this.” What he meant is that competition in sports does teach you how to plan and cope with the unexpected. He made me think back to all those challenges, and it served me well when things seemed overwhelming.
My father took this photo and my mother wrote the word “Chris” on it. I won the 10K race that day in 31:52.
But that’s the issue with anxiety as a rule. It is the sensation that there is something to fear all the time that fuels chronic anxiety. It’s hard to describe to people that aren’t wired that way, but it is quite real.
The irony in all this is that given the anxiety surrounding the Coronavirus pandemic, more of society possibly appreciates what it’s like to live with native anxiety…how it feels to exist with a sense of fear lurking about the mind all the time. If that’s the case, welcome to the life of nail-biters the world over. We’ve been wondering when you’d start to see things our way. And let me assure you, biting your nails can be much more fun than you think. Perhaps you should give it a try.
Or maybe not. It’s a pretty bad time to start a bad habit like biting your nails.
The “dress” orthotics at left were what I’d been wearing after the originally prescribed running orthotics wore out. Then I upgraded to the thicker orthotics at right (top and side view) and now am trying the more moderate inserts at center, provided by Dick Pond Athletics. Cost: $65.
I’ve worn orthotics in my running shoes for a long time. Probably twenty-five years. The first pair was prescribed by a podiatrist with whom I had a working relationship as a graphic designer and produced the cover and illustrations for book about running biomechanics.
But for the first ten years that I knew the guy, there was no need for orthotics in my running life. Then my left knee started to ache with a condition known as chondromalacia, the wearing down of the cartilage under the kneecap. In my case the soreness was caused by rotational stress that was pulling the patella out of alignment resulting in the groove under the knee bone to wear and get inflamed.
It hurt like hell, so the podiatrist fitted me with orthotics and my knee got better. Years later I tore my ACL playing soccer and did some physical therapy that cured the weakness in my knee that probably led to the problems with the kneecap in the first place. But I’ve not been religious about doing those exercises and so the need for orthotics continues to this day.
Racing in heavy orthotics is an act of cross-purposes
Some of this is age, and some of it is weakness. But ten years ago I visited a pedorthist and got some sturdy orthotics that are heavy as heck. They work, but running is relatively clunky compared to the light-footed years in which I wore no orthotics and enjoyed the delights of featherweight racing shoes.
Late last year I noticed a digital podiatry machine at Dick Pond Athletics, the regional shoe store where I buy most of my running stuff. I asked the staff what it did, because I’d seen similar Dr. Scholl machines at drug stores and wondered if they worked. But what really intrigued me was the idea that the prescription wrought from standing on the machine could be used to print 3-D orthotics. They showed me a sample.
Those printed orthotics would cost $165 and I was cool with that and curious about what 3-D printed orthotics would feel like. But the staff person at Dick Pond convinced me to try out a set of orthotics that applied to the specific set of problems and imbalances the machine identified in my feet. “You might not need anything more,” she suggested.
I’ve worn those orthotics around in my regular shoes for months now. They work for day-to-day walking. I’ve also done short runs in them but remained skeptical whether they offered enough general support to keep my knees from hurting or my calves from tightening up.
In some respects that suggests I am addicted to the orthotics I already own. Breaking a habit that has basically worked to protect my legs is not that easy. But when we traveled to Tucson for a triathlon training trip I inadvertently left the “big” orthotics at home. All I had were the “light” orthotics from Dick Pond.
Standing with Sue before our big ride to Gates Pass and back the last day of triathlon camp. I’m likely looking at a bird in the trees, or perhaps wondering if age is catching up with me.
After our first thirty-mile ride a small group of us went out for a run. I slipped the light orthotics into my Brooks Glycerin running shoes and ran along fine. Three miles later I was both relieved and elated at how well those orthotics worked.
So this past Sunday morning I took them for a longer run, a seven-miler up and back on the Fox River Trail. And other than a sharp tweak in my calf at one point as I picked up the pace to 8:00 per mile, I was able to run all seven miles and it felt great.
For one thing, my feel feel lighter. I don’t have a scale to measure the weight difference between the big old orthotics I’ve been using and the sleeker shoe insert, but it might be a pound or so per foot. Over the length of seven miles, that adds up.
So I’m grateful I took the risk and grateful the Dick Pond gal encouraged me to give it all a try. It’s an experiment that seems to be working, and if you have an opportunity to have your feet tested like that, the outcomes are fascinating to see.
While conversing with a teammate from long-ago times at Luther College, I opened up the binder of results from our freshman year in cross country. Those mimeographed sheets are fascinating relics of a different age. But the photograph at the front of the book is also a document of changing times.
Or is it? Recently I was back on campus to watch a track meet and conduct some writing business with a retired Luther professor and the thing that struck me most about the collection of Division III athletes running the 5000 meters is that they looked no different than we did 40+ years ago.
The running shorts on the men for were suitably brief for competition. And among the women, it was booty shorts that could have served as “hot pants” back in the 1970s. The Luther women sported bun huggers, the even briefer version of competition track gear.
Junior year hanging in there.
Many of the men sported fairly long hair. A few tied it up in a man bun atop their heads. That would never have worked for me. My head of hair in college was so thick it would not even bind up in a ponytail. We wore it heavy and full. Mine just reached the shoulders.
Over the four years of college my hair started to thin at the forehead. By the time I graduated the woman I dated called me her “balding babe.” But I was not alone in that department either. The Norwegian and Scandinavian tendency toward bare noggins common to Luther students meant that I was in good company.
I don’t particularly miss all that hair. It would often freeze thick like an ice blanket on the walk up from the fieldhouse to the cafeteria on cold winter nights after a running workout. My hair was so thick it was never really fit for styling all that much. I just grew it, combed it, washed it and dealt with it.
Senior year with a receding hairline.
These days I don’t even use a guard on the electric shaver. I just buzz off the sides of my head and shave the top so there are no fuzzies left. I get rid of the hair on my the back of my ears and in the insides too. It’s all about efficiency these days. My head is what it is. I rarely think about it until moments like these.
Hats are critical to my comfort and health. They keep off the wind and the sun, the rain and the snow. My wife said to me recently, “You wouldn’t be you without a hat now and then.”
Hair today, gone tomorrow. That’s a symbol for so much of life.
During an eight-mile bike ride through Saguaro National Forest on a triathlon training trip, I watched a black bird with white “windows” in its wings launch from a branch and flap its way down a cactus-lined gulch. It was a species of bird known as Phainopepla. It looks like a black cardinal, and it is unique to the desert southwest.
And it seemed aptly symbolic of the mood in America.
The phainopepla is a desert species of bird.
Whenever I visit Arizona, I can’t help thinking about the ecology and how so much of our romanticized American history is set in this region. Western movies, books and TV shows love to use the desert as a backdrop for human drama. As a result, little about the true beauty of the environment ever really comes through. Western lore focuses on the supposed glory of gunslingers blazing away in shantytowns and saloons, of cowboys driving cattle across the “range” and of Indians succumbing to the combined fury of Manifest Destiny, smallpox and cultural destruction. I’ve yet to hear a truly cogent explanation of how that was all romantic in any way.
The American plague
That decimation of the native American population was the original American plague. Disease and social conflict always go together. Some of that social pressure seemed to land right in our laps as we sat aboard an airplane heading down and then returning home from three days of biking, running and swimming in Tucson, Arizona. We left the very night that the term “social distancing” surged into common usage. At the airport we bore witness to people changing behavior in real time. The procession of travelers passed by with a cordiality seldom seen in today’s society. Everyone seemed to understand that this was a turning point in our present-day culture. But mostly, people were freaked out.
After all, this was a new brand of accountability, driven by this newly invisible threat that selfish actions could lead to death for ourselves, and for others. And that was an unusual burden for people on this continent. Americans are not used to being held responsible for their selfish interests. We’re largely isolated from most of the world’s problems. The last three years of xenophobic American history have only exacerbated those instincts.
Even the patented notion of American exceptionalism has transformed from JFK’s “Ask not what your country can do for you…” to “We own this place, and fuck you if you don’t like it.” We’ve also seen the trickle down effect from a self-praising president to the cult-like Christians praising him as a gift from God. This was conceivable evidence of the most perverse form of religious ardor, and principles be damned.
And then came the plague.
Loners and wanderers
Times of crisis force self-analysis. I kept thinking of the lyrics from the Talking Heads son Life During Wartime.
Transmit the message, to the receiver, Hope for an answer some day I got three passports, a couple of visas, You don’t even know my real name
High on a hillside, the trucks are loading, Everything’s ready to roll I sleep in the daytime, I work in the nighttime, I might not ever get home
Perhaps we were selfish by getting on an airplane that Thursday night. We were certainly not alone. People were traveling despite the warnings of the contagion. Yet some of the information shared by the media implied that healthy people were at no greater risk than a common cold. So let’s be honest about all of this.
These are confusing times, and it has been impossible to get straight and true answers from those most responsible for managing this pandemic. They have lied to protect the reputation and political prospects of the president. Lied to prop up the economy in the face of crippling stock market drops. Lied to insinuate that previous administrations are responsible for this mess. Lied to shout racist threats against China. Lied to brand the virus a “foreign” threat as if that would keep it at bay. Lied to justify the firing of the entire United States agency created to combat this type of crisis. Lied to suggest that the virus was a “hoax” by Democrats to harm the President. Lied to avoid calling it a pandemic in the early stages. Now they’re lying to Americans by proposing to send out $1000 checks while committing billions in corporate welfare to industries that willingly glommed up profits while the getting was good, and now want handouts for bad planning. Trump even lied by refusing to block travel to and from countries where his own profits stood to lose money. This entire Coronavirus response has been an exercise in transactional governance for the benefit of one person only: Donald J. Trump.
Taking a flyer
The day after we returned I listened to a travel expert lamenting the massive hit being taken by the airline industry, and how 750,000 jobs now depended on government support to keep the entire domestic flight dynamic afloat. So the messaging we’re receiving is conflicted. On one hand, it is vital that we all stay home to keep the plague from peaking too suddenly and overwhelming our fecklessly fragmented and profit-obsessed healthcare system. On the other hand, the airlines and bars and restaurants need people to patronize them or people will lose their jobs and millions will go hungry.
Being honest about it
So I’d be intellectually dishonest given the “tell-all” nature of this blog to deny that last Thursday through Sunday, we took our trip and engaged in three days of desert training with a group of twenty other athletes. We shared meal preparation but washed our hands religiously. None of us was coughing, sniffling or showing any symptoms of Coronavirus. And while there is evidence that we can be asymptomatic virus carriers, it was our vow upon returning home to isolate and pay attention to social constructs. That is one of the tarsnakes of our lifestyle. No one is better at restraint and deprivation than a group of endurance athletes. We live that way on a near-daily basis. Self-isolation will be no real problem.
Saguaro National Forest
The training trip itself was a model of social distance and isolation. We rode our bikes far up into the foothills the first day and back down again. The cool winds coming off the range to the north were fresh and far removed from the town resting in the desert basin. Then we ran in the bright sun and swam in an outdoor pool with light rain falling on our heads. And that was Day one.
Mt. Lemmon
The second day we climbed back on our bikes and pedaled twelve miles to the base of Mt. Lemmon. The road curls up through the passes until it emerges on a wide outcrop called Windy Point. That’s where the mortals like us turned around. The gods among us swept all the way out to Summerhaven, which happened to be closed. So no one got their prized oversized cookies. But many of the cyclists who rode that far were cooked by the time they returned to our houses.
Windy Point on the southward facing slope of Mt. Lemmon, fourteen miles into the climb.
My wife caught me two miles into the journey and pedaled on ahead. Her morning indoor rides have armed her legs with endurance that I have not yet built. I knew that would be the case. So I rode alone for the most part, passing the occasional rider and being passed by locals buzzing by with mountain legs as well. The scenery is stunning but in many ways the ride requires a head-down effort during the steepest sections of road. Then we soared back down with our disc brakes whirring, not daring to go so fast as those experienced on such roads. We topped out at 30MPH while other zoomed by at sixty. Behind us, some idiot in a sports car spun out and bounced off two guard rails. The front and back end of his Honda were torn off. He could have killed someone.
Like I said, it is the plague of selfishness that endangers us most of all.
Gates Pass
For the final day we rode the bike trails across the breadth of Tucson and turned toward Gates Pass. The climb is not that long, but the peaks lined with saguaro seem to measure every pedal stroke. The final 400 meters is a steeply pitched section of road that make your legs ache and your lungs churn. That is why we ride. To feel like an inside-out human being. It exposes the raw self and requires honest effort lest one grind to a halt. Perhaps its looks bad to be smiling in times like these, but in truth, that’s the most important thing we can ultimately do for each other. Keep sharing experiences and smiles even if it’s done across the Internet or during a long series of isolated miles.
When we swam in the pool one last time the afternoon sun flickered in the water and our arms grew tired enough to be satisfied and call it a day. A weekend. A trip. But was it selfish of us? All we can see is that we were riding on the cusp of Coronavirus Reality. We flew back home the next morning while washing our hands at every stop along the way. The plane was 3/4 full and everyone avoided rubbing up against the other.
Standing together apart
Now we all stand together by staying apart and wait to see what happens. There are young kids partying half-naked on the beaches in Florida while old folks cower in stuffy retirement homes hoping the virus doesn’t arrive through the front door. These are strange times indeed. So it’s important that we all be honest with others and ourselves as we lurch forward into the Wild West of not knowing what the ever-living fuck comes next.
Recently I received an email form a former Luther College teammate that lives in China. Jim Nielsen and I were cross country runners beginning our freshman year. But we also shared a love of table tennis and despite having tired legs from all those miles of training, we often played each other in the Ylvisaker freshman dorm recreation room. Those matches were fun and intense. We even took second in the college doubles tournament. But most of all, we ran miles together in cross country.
Jim Nielsen competing in a race in China.
Jim has continued running and has completed a marathon in every decade of his life since college. He’s training for a race this year in June, but it may be canceled due to the Coronavirus epidemic. But Jim is an eternal optimist, a man of strong personal faith and keeping relationships going as he loves people. He wrote me during the current quarantine period in China:
“Greetings form China! Just signed up for your blog, we run and ride.. Should have been following sooner but I am currently near the end of a 14 day quarantine in China after coming back from the states but through Korea. It is affording me lots of time to read, study, research, watching movies and just enjoy catching up on the past.
I am still running and in fact am training for my last marathon this summer, the Lanzhou Intl Marathon in Lanzhou, Gansu China, in early June. I have run at least 1 marathon every decade since I was 20 so if I can accomplish this it will be my 5th decade since I am 62, as you would know.
Funny thing is when I knew I would be quarantined for 14 days and confined to a hotel room, I thought, oh no, I will lose all I have gained in my serious training to date. The first hotel I was in I was the only one on the 9th floor so I ran back and forth in a 70 meter hallway. I was able to get in a run for 1:37.17 going 182 times up and down the hallway. Then I was moved to a government approved hotel with lots of other people quarantined. I proceeded for 3 days to run at least a 5 k but after the third night the police cameras caught me (there are cameras all over China). I was scolded and told if I continue I will get another 14 days. But with 3 more days to go I will be able to go to my home.
I WILL obey!”
Jim’s photo of a race starting line in China.
Jim was a devoted trainer even in college. His recollections of those years are keen and insightful, often bringing up aspects of our experience that some of us have forgotten. I offered to feature him in this blog, and this is what he wrote back.
“That would be quite flattering as I was at my very best 3 minutes behind your very best while at Luther. It was just so heady for me to be a part of a team with you guys who were clearly national class runners for the three years I ran with you.
I felt my role was best at the national meet when I was literally yelling, cheering you guys on and then watching what seemed to me each of you passing 20 or more guys at the end of the race to get us to second place, beating three teams that beat us in regionals. I will never forget Kent’s (our Coach Kent Finanger) railing on you guys after regionals like I had never heard from him before.
I think the rest of us thought that you guys had already peaked out. And then Duke runs the race of his life leading all the rest of you to do the same. We thought for sure Dani had peaked after a sensational season where he rarely lost and then he comes back with a strong race. As I recall, what did it for us was I think there was only 13-17 seconds between Duke at 24:59 and the rest of you 5 at 25:16. Didn’t you run a 25:12? . Maybe it was a bigger spread but not much more. Of course there was no way any team was going to catch North Central I think almost 100 points ahead of us. I just love recalling the whole thing. It was a highlight of my whole time at Luther!
I did a J-term in California (where I took a gap year during your junior year) planning to run the Mission Bay marathon where Craig Virgin (Illinois stud) won it in his first marathon attempt. I was up to running about 100 miles a week and ran my best 10k in 34:19. But running road races in cross country flats I wore down the bursa sack in my knee and that ended my best hope to qualify. I never got back in that kind of shape.
But of all my marathons there were only 2 where I finished as strong as I started and could say they were fun. And both of those I felt like I was almost walking the first 13. But as you well know, running equal or even negative splits is the best way to run most any race but especially for the marathon. So, my goal is to finish in less than 5 hours which is hardly worth writing about. I am just glad I can still run cause it is so much a part of who I am. I guess credit goes to Kent and his Fitness for Life mantra. I’m a firm believer to this day.
Jim being interviewed after a race in China.
My biggest highlight in running personally was being part of a team of 7 that ran across the united States in 1985 from Boston to Los Angeles covering 3400 miles. We did it in 5 weeks not running on Sundays to speak in churches as we were raising money for a mission. There were three of us of the 7 that ran about 20 miles a day for the 5 weeks. I was in super shape after that but also quite burned out and had a blood sugar problem for awhile almost hypoglycemic.
I asked Jim to respond to a few questions about his running and life in China
What has it been like training in China all these years? Has life changed considerably?
I have been blessed of late to be running with a colleague of mine and we run together maybe once a week. Before I started running with Catherine, a 52 year old women, she had never run more than 5 or 6 miles. Last fall she completed a half-marathon and smoked me. She is really fit and a competitor in the Chinese way of just beating you but not talking about it like we do in America. If she had grown up in America I really believe she would have been a top runner. I love to coach, motivate people to run and just be fit. I have never been an upper body kinda guy but my semi professional soccer son, Jacob, got me doing plank and crunches about 5 years ago and baby, “you should see my 6 pack abs…well maybe 4 pack…lol Its what I like to show all the girls!?!?!? It sure has helped my running though. If only I knew that at Luther.
What is your work in the country?
In 1992-1993 my wife was the primary teacher and I taught part-time oral English and was the primary caretaker of our then 2 year old son. That was a top University in Nanjing, China called Southeast University. In 2013 and until 2017 I taught economics, banking and human resources at a private school called Sias University. It is a tier 3 school which means the lowest level, not like private schools in America. Chinese students take a test called the Gaokao, which is like our ACT or SAT except on steroids. Their life after high school is literally determined by this test. There is so much pressure from parents and society to do well that they hate it, literally!
At my current Tier 1 school, Lanzhou University I teach Listening and Speaking English to top level non-English major freshman students. They take an English reading, writing and listening test when they first come to school and that determines their level. I also teach two sections of Cross-Cultural Communication which is my forte as I worked with an organization for 12 years that researched and specialized in the study of the 24,000 ethnic groups in the world.
How has your life’s philosophy been honed by running? Your faith?
Let me just say that the day I can no longer run I think will be a tough adjustment for me as it is part of who I am. I think even before Kent’s philosophy of Fitness for Life was “preached” to us by him I was already sold. I was almost raised by my half-sister who was a high school PE teacher and tennis champion in the state of Iowa. She had a profound influence on me. I was pretty much gifted as a natural athlete (I don’t say that to boast but most sports came pretty easy to me, except gymnastics and diving) and it is funny but running was my least gifted sport. I played basketball in high school and would have played tennis but my school was the best in the state. I actually was going to play b-ball at Luther and my roommate was Randy Kemp , who either started or was a 6th man by his senior year.
I have to say that running for me is not only physical but also helps the mental, emotional and spiritual aspects of my life. As you know well, there is not anything you cannot work out after a gut busting 10 mile run, or whatever distance. And when those endorphins kick in who needs drugs!! The body produces the best, natural drug. Running, in a way can become addictive but I have also run with guys, as I’m sure you have as well, that have no life apart from running. It’s their life and almost all they have to show for it is running. That’s the bad side. It has become a little obsessive for me at times but then an injury or a slump can get me back to earth real quick.
I love the many ways Jim carried on his running. But in closing he also had some amusing recollections of college days
Jim Nielsen as a Luther College sophomore (upper left in glasses)
Well, I’ve ranted and reminisced enough. I have time since in my quarantine here I’m it total isolation for 4 more days with lots of time. But those times at Luther, I can still recall them all. Sure were special – BFS sessions, streaking on the campus and barring the dining room door as our teammate was running through the other side – remember that? And then Jim Holt and I innocently sitting in the back of Damian’s Lincoln with Steve in the front and being stopped by Wisconsin police who pulled us over for drinking and speeding.
As soon as Steve got out of the car they threw him up against the hood like he was a criminal (he did look pretty scruffy after that carthage meet sophomore year) Turned out to to be one of my best races at 28:14. You should .have heard smooth talking Damian work his way out it! lol
Lots of great memories! Well, thanks for reading.
And thanks for sharing, Jim. Running pulls us all together somehow.
The cold blue depths of a swimming pool can be deceiving.
Yesterday during swim training I paused in the middle of the workout to don fins and do some kick work. After a dozen or so lengths swimming on my back, I stopped to remove the fins and one of them popped off and sank to the bottom of the pool.
I looked down at the fin on the bottom of the pool. It was directly below the 12 FT marker on the pool wall. I reasoned that I could easily dive down and get it. After all, I’d grown up diving to the depths of the Meadia Heights swimming pool. Why shouldn’t I be able to do the same as an adult?
But when I tried, I got no farther than six feet under the water before giving up. Getting twelve feet down seemed impossible. At that point the lifeguard was making her rounds and I asked, “Do you have anything to fetch a fin from the bottom of the pool?”
She looked at me funny. Then she said, “Exhale first, blow out all your air, and let yourself drop down to the bottom. That should work.”
I tried that strategy too. Then I got out of the pool and jumped back in hoping to sink far enough to finish the job. Then I realized. “You dummy. The ROKA swim shorts you’re wearing are keeping you afloat.”
Once those were peeled off, I slipped into the water again, this time determined to dive to the twelve foot depth and get my fin. It sat down there still as a deceased tuna, mocking my inability to reach the bottom.
I got determined, took a deep breath and began swimming with all my might down toward the bottom. At about eight feet down my ears felt like they were starting to implode, and I genuinely wondered if my eardrums might burst. That scared me. But I finally grabbed that damned fin and let myself float back up to the surface just in time, because I was running out of oxygen too. In all, it was not a feeling of triumph, but of relief.
I tossed the swim fin on the side of the pool and looked over at the guard, who gave me a bit of fake applause, clapping her hands close together like a silent seal. I laughed.
Later on I mentioned the incident to a fellow swimmer in the locker room. He related that he’d once dived to fifteen feet in the ocean and thought his head was going to explode. “You have to pop your ears like you do in an airplane,” he said.
That’s sane advice, I responded. But a better plan is never to let another swim fin drop to the bottom of the pool. At least not in the 12 FT depth. If there’s something worse than being six feet under, it’s surely being twelve feet under. I can attest to that.
