Why stepping out is the only way to travel.
I have seen some remarkable things while out running. I have watched sea lions mating, wrestling, or arguing, or—humanlike—all three at once, at the end of an abandoned pier under the Golden Gate Bridge, and I have surprised cows on a country road in New Hampshire, and Matthew McConaughey on the path around Town Lake in Austin, Texas (both the cow and McConaughey were shirtless). I have run up the steps at the Philadelphia Museum of Art just like Rocky (and every other middle-aged mook in the world), and I have come upon, by happenstance, the Vietnam Veterans Memorial on the Washington Mall, at which point I slowed to a walk and descended into it, hoping my bare legs and sweaty shirt would imply no disrespect, and then ran off again, feeling newly and powerfully blessed I was able to do so.
If I'm in a city, I head straight downtown, or if in a state capital, I orient on the building with the golden dome. If in a university town, I head toward campus, and when I get to the campus, I look for the football stadium, and try the doors. Sometimes I get lucky. (Note to football historians: A game-clinching 100-yard touchdown was scored against Yale, by myself, versus fierce if imaginary opposition, at 7 a.m. on September 7, 2006.)
I am drawn to historical markers like a moth to a flame, sweating onto plinths while I read about battles and long-gone settlements, and I have come across hulking remnants of the industrial past, like the General Electric plant in Schenectady, New York, and felt an odd reverence. I have also conducted expeditions into my own history, running by my college dorm and the summer rental where my earliest memories were staged, and once I undertook a six-mile mission to my father's childhood home, in Dallas, only to find it had been replaced years earlier by a Greco-columned mini-mansion. So I stood in front of the site, put my hand on a tree old enough for him to have known it, and then, like he once did, I headed off to the northeast at a deliberate pace.
I have also ended up in ugly industrial strips, like the one north of Charlotte, North Carolina, and stumbled through a wasteland of shiny empty office towers next to lonely 1950s-era houses in Cobb County, Georgia, which must have been zoned by libertarians on acid. I have had to end my runs and come back before I made it anywhere interesting, and I have kept going to get that fantastic view, only to come back so late I arrived at a cocktail party still sweating into my dress shirt, telling everyone about my serendipity.
I tell you all this to explain why I am not (yet) crazy from all the traveling I do. I average 25 trips a year, and more and more I feel like a hamster in a Habitrail. I scurry into an entry tube, also known as an airport, and then proceed through other tubes, a.k.a. buses and taxies, and P.F. Chang's and smart new brewpubs in renovated downtowns, before arriving, in every instance, at the exact same rest cube furnished with the same paper-wrapped soaps, thence to sleep before reentering the tubes and speeding off to my next, predictable nodule. Like a hamster, I enjoy only the illusion of freedom, but unlike a hamster, I can put on running shorts and break through the tube walls.
It's not always easy, though. Outside of certain older downtowns—New York, Chicago, San Francisco—pedestrianism itself is kind of a throwback, the sort of thing done by people who also re-enact Civil War battles and play "base-ball" under 1850s rules. If God had wanted us to use our legs, say 21st-century planners, he wouldn't have given us four-lane highways and drive-thru windows. So on those mornings when I step out of the hotel entrance, and run up the inbound driveway, I feel like a felon: a hamster gone rogue.
A few times earlier this year, I used the Internet to plan my runs before heading to the airport, checking on favorite routes that others have logged, and even connecting with local runners willing to guide me personally. And that has its significant pleasures, because nobody knows the terrain like the people who've worn their grooves into it, but I also experience the loss of the possibility of getting lost. There's nothing quite like the chill of realizing I'm somewhere I haven't anticipated, with only a vague sense of how to get back, a slight but thrilling sense of unease now as rare as an urban corner without a Starbucks.
Better, I now think, to just go. That is, after all, the great advantage of our sport over all others—we don't need a ball or a team or a field or even, according to some, shoes. We just need to stand someplace, imagine ourselves in the center of a circle, pick one out of the 360 degrees available to us, and head thataway. What the Habitrail designers want, ultimately, is control: They want you to go down this street into that mall past that sign. And, stuck in cars or trains or even on downtown sidewalks, people have no choice but to obey. Once, at a Disney World hotel, I asked a hotel clerk where I could run, and she said to take one of their shuttles to a nearby resort with attractive running paths. I nodded and smiled and turned away to head outside and run on the access roads, dodging buses, breaking through tubes, a member of the Rebel Alliance.
If I didn't, I'd travel all over, and never get anywhere.
05 October, 2010
Breaking Free
29 September, 2010
Inverno
I've recently made a number of stellar purchases in preparation for winter. I know, I live in Texas -- what exactly do I have to get ready for, right? I know our winters are mild compared to other states', but I love winter, and I love winter clothes. So we probably won't have a white Christmas this year -- that doesn't mean I can't indulge in a few cute, cozy accessories, does it? ;-)
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| Patagonia Lined Beanie Hat |
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| Timberland Mountain Athletics Route Trainer |
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| Columbia Fast Trek Fleece Jacket |
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| LL Bean Maritime Lined Windbreaker |
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| Mountain Hardware Perpetual T-Shirt |
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| Salomon Tiana Fleece Hoodie |
19 September, 2010
Mizzle And Mariposa
I went for the most glorious ride today. It was cool outside, between 65 and 70 degrees, and overcast; I simply couldn’t resist. Besides, I was looking for an excuse to wear my new cycling kit. After the mile ride to the gate, I was warmed up for my trek to the “Y”, where FM 2722 and FM 3169 intersect. A few minutes into my ride, it began to rain. Not too hard, just enough to put a smile on my face. The ethereal hills rolled past me; their cloaks of mist inducing memories of England. Images of lush green hills draped with fog filled my head. Drops of water continued to touch and trickle down my face as I pedaled up and down the winding road, energizing, refreshing, motivating, and encouraging me. I watched the pavement turn a darker hue as the water accumulated, noticing objects on the road like sticks and rocks, and how they seemed to appear prettier when wet; more like decoration than debris. Then my eyes latched onto something more beautiful – a dead butterfly, perfectly lain on the shoulder of the road. I slowed down as I rode by to get a better look. Black wings filled in with orange. It was so lovely; I felt as if someone had given it to me as a gift. I looked up to see where I was in the course of my ride, so I might remember it later. I made it to the “Y” and pulled into a small lot for a short break, about 20 seconds or so, and drank some water. I remounted and proceeded to cross over to the other side of the road, with several passers-by looking at me and no doubt wondering why I was riding in such weather! This half of the ride entailed slightly more coasting and less pedaling, so I attempted to take advantage of it by soaking up everything I saw. Again, I found myself examining the pavement in search of more treasures, when I spotted it – another black and orange butterfly. I wondered if this was really happening; what are the odds of seeing two identical butterflies on a bike ride, in the same position, on opposite sides of the road? Then I looked up and realized, it was this precise part of the road, on the other side, on which I saw the first one; they were across the road from each other! It was magical and it was all I could do to keep from grinning from ear to ear the rest of the way home. I wondered about the butterflies. Did they know each other? How did they die? And how did they come to rest in such a peculiar, similar manner? I will never know the answers to these questions, but there is still pleasure in asking them.
09 September, 2010
Something in the Heir
Creating a lasting legacy by following in a father's footsteps.
I was watching my father in the basement, jumping up and down and waving his arms. I was about 5, and he was too old for this nonsense. Propped open on the otherwise unused wet bar was a Royal Canadian Air Force exercise guide that was popular in the late 1960s. It instructed him to stretch and leap and bend for his toes, and then, finally, to jog in place, perambulating about the basement, his legs churning out of proportion to the good it seemed to do him. It was the first time I can remember seeing my father run. And I thought he looked like an idiot.
From that day onward, riding the wave of the 1970s running boom, he continued to run like an idiot all over suburban New Jersey, sometimes with me watching—on one disastrous occasion, with me following on my banana-seat bike as he did a 10-K—but eventually, with me openly mocking. I protected my chunky, uneasy self with a layer of sarcasm that thickened as I approached adolescence, and I gave my father his fair share of it. "Funny, Dad, you ran six miles, I stayed here eating frozen waffles, and lookie here, we both ended up in the same place!" He didn't react to these provocations. He just shook his head and went to shower.
Maybe he knew what was to come. On a certain evening in the spring of 1980, when I was 15, I shuffled over to him, my eyes fixed on the shag carpet, and asked if I could run with him in the morning. He didn't say any of the things that I expected, like, "Oh, now you want to come along. Guess you feel like looking like an idiot, too, huh?" He just said, "Sure. I'll wake you up at 6." And, damn if he didn't, too.
What had changed my mind about running? Around that time I had become painfully aware that I put my physical self, the five feet or so of it below the neck, to limited use. Mostly, my body transported my head from dining tables to classes to bed, stopping to occasionally point it at the TV. It was a waste of a body, and my appearance—pudgy, pale, be-pimpled—wouldn't have inspired anyone to disagree. Now, my father was no Adonis. Nobody in my lineage of stocky Jews has been, or will ever be, employed as an Abercrombie & Fitch model. But he had muscles in his legs that you could see and he could walk up stairs without gasping, which seemed impressive enough. I figured if he could do it...
So this is what I remember about that first run: My orange Keds slapping against the asphalt for all of half a mile while my lungs bellowed. I remember the gentle upward slope of the street feeling like the Matterhorn. I remember my father at my side, glancing at me occasionally, still not mocking, taking no vengeance, not then, not ever. I remember gasping that I was done, and then shuffling back home, wheezing and coughing, while he continued on methodically up the hill.
Recently, I asked my father what he remembers about that day. "You came along in a pair of sneakers and puffed as you ran," he said. "But you came the next morning, and then again. After a while, you asked for (and got) a pair of real running shoes. In a few months, you amused your adolescent self by running around me in circles."
This last part is true. My improvement was so rapid—I was 15, for God's sake, which is a gift even to those otherwise ungifted—that within a few months, on a beach in Florida as I remember, I literally did circles around my father while he ran straight up the beach, creating a pleasing spiral pattern of footprints in the sand. I was laughing like a schoolboy, which I was, and running like an athlete, which I had never, ever dreamed of being. Within the year, I was traveling with my father to 10-Ks and longer races around New Jersey, starting with him, then waiting around the finisher's area for 20 minutes or more for him to methodically plod his way in, still looking like an idiot, but now no less, or more, than I.
During the 30 years after that first uphill, half-mile slog, I have sometimes stopped running but always have come back to it, and now running and I are together for the duration. Like my father, I was never particularly good at sports that require specialized skills or strategy or joining a team or defeating one. And I'll never be quick or aggressive or coordinated, but I can be stubborn, also like him. I am no Adonis, but you can see the muscles in my legs.
As for my three daughters, they are not as cruel or sardonic as I was at their age—not quite. My eldest, Rosie, at 12, has a touch of my old stiletto tongue: "So, Papa, why do you like to get up and run outside with your friends instead of spending time with us, huh?" I snort a bit and shrug and head to the shower. Rosie says she hates running, and claims to be no good at it, but she has my bookish habits, and someday the four and half feet of flesh and bone and muscle underneath her capacious brain is going to clamor for some attention, too. And meanwhile, my younger girls, Gracie and Willa, ask me why I run so much, and I answer honestly, "because I love it," and then, dear reader, I bide my time. I'm waiting for one of the few valuable legacies I have to offer to be noticed and accepted.
Last fall, right before the weather began to turn, Gracie asked me if we could go down to the school playground and run. Maybe she was feeling some pent up energy; maybe she wanted to play with me the way I like to play. At any rate, we walked to the playground, and I said, "Ready?" and she said, "Ready!" and off she ran, her flat sneakers slapping against the suburban blacktop, me running alongside, and it could have been either one of us doing all that laughing.
25 August, 2010
Scuola
School is right around the corner, so naturally I've made the necessary purchases to ensure another successful semester. Check 'em out!
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| MyAgenda Day Planner 2010-2011 |
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| The North Face Jester Backpack |
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| Columbia Techsun H20 Sandal |
15 August, 2010
Bicicletta
It's been a long time coming. Check out my new bike and cycling kit below!
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| Miss Penelope Blue, 2010 TREK WSD FX 7.2 Hybrid Touted by TREK as the most versatile bike ever, the FX 7.2 offers the rider the best of both worlds by combining aspects of both road and mountain bikes. Sleek enough to ride on pavement, but tough enough to handle rougher terrain if you need it to. See specs below.
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More cool stuff!
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| Bontrager Race Lite Water Bottle Cage |
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| TREK WSD Vapor Helmet |
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| Bontrager WDS Sport Gloves |
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| Bontrager WSD Sport Jersey |
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| Bontrager WSD Sport Shorts |
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| Bontrager WSD Street Shoes |
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| Canari Shell Jacket |
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| SportHill Invasion X Jersey |
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| The SockGuy Cycling Socks |
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| Bontrager Computer |
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| Cateye Head and Tail Lights |
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| TREK Dreadlocks Keyed Cable Lock |
05 August, 2010
On the Record
A veteran racer tries to beat his fastest time—and his younger self
The thought first struck me at mile seven, midway through the race. Okay, that's a lie. The thought was there in the starting corral, when I was bouncy and fresh, without a drop of lactic acid in my legs. Okay, still lying. It was there when my alarm rang at 4:30 a.m. And it was there when I was in bed the night before, trying to get to sleep: "...maybe, I could PR."
PR, or personal record, is a noun signifying an individual runner's fastest time at a particular distance; for example: "My PR for the 10-K is 40:06, but that was years ago, and I weep for the prospect of never breaking 40 minutes." Also, a verb referring to the act of setting a personal record; for example: "Maybe if the wind is at my back and the course is all downhill, I might PR today."
The first time you run a race: Congratulations, you've just PR'd! You've raced that distance faster than you've ever done it before, and the fact that you'd never done it before seems irrelevant as you admire your new made-in-China medal. But then you line up to run that distance a second time. You may improve your prior result and set a new PR, showing that you've become faster and stronger and reversed the flood of time itself.
Or, you may not, and the shadow of a scythe held in a bony hand will fall over the finish chute. Your decline has begun.
Beyond training, preparation, nutrition, and genetic gifts, the most important factor affecting performance in any given race is that ineffable ownership of the moment: It's your day, or it's not. At a certain point (usually after age 40) you will have a bad day, and then another bad day, and you will wonder if all your good days are behind you. How can you do better, if you've already done your best?
I ran three half-marathons in the past three years, setting a PR each time--1:35, 1:32, 1:30:29--and approaching 90 minutes asymptotically, closer and closer but never reaching it. That 1:30 began to loom over me the way the four-minute mile once did for the whole human race. At a half-marathon in June, I suffered and strained enough to nudge my PR down by 10 seconds, to 1:30:19. That 1:30 began to haunt me. In my mind, I turned the numbers sideways, like an emoticon, and it looked like it was laughing at me.
Then the organizer of the Chicago Rock 'n' Roll Half-Marathon called to offer me a bib. With nothing on the line (I hadn't planned on doing the race, so who cared how I did?), I had started fast, expecting to ease back from the blistering (for me anyway) 6:40 pace once it started to hurt. The first four miles went by with shocking ease, and I felt like Wile E. Coyote in that last moment after he runs off a cliff--any second I would look down and start to plummet. At mile five, as we left downtown and headed for the Lake Michigan shoreline, I felt an ache in my legs, as if the running gods were letting me know it was time to cut it out before somebody got hurt. But I didn't slow down, and the ache subsided.
I hit the halfway mark at 42 minutes and realized a sub 1:30 PR was attainable. And that's when I began to freak out.
The PR is such a solipsistic number, pertinent only to ourselves; your best time can be a failure to the guy finishing ahead of you. But the people we race against aren't on the course with us. We are racing our past selves: The teenager who ran on brand-new muscles; the schlub who gave up running after marriage; and the guy who was thinking about taking up biking instead. Most importantly, we're racing our future selves, so we can say, on this day, the best is no longer yet to come: It is now.
At mile nine my legs were aching again, my breath coming a little harder than I liked, but my pace was steady at 6:40, my legs were turning like pistons, and there were no warning lights blinking on my interior dashboard, although fuel was getting low. Curving ahead up the Chicago lakefront, I could see the path to the finish. And while imagining each stride ahead of me, the real possibility of a PR under 1:30 was followed hard by the dread that I would fail. If I faltered now--if I blew up or cramped or overheated or just plain quit, then in order to have another shot, I would someday have to run this far again, after many months or even years of further depredation.
I entered Grant Park on pace to finish in 1:28, with less than a mile to go. I focused on running that mile fast, but not hard, and I broke the distance into quarters: completing one 400 meters and then the next and then the next.
The race video shows me, a stumpy runner crossing the line, throwing my hairy arms up in triumph, and shouting, "I DID IT!" Because I had. 1:28:01, a PR by more than two minutes. The other runners in the chute looked at me funny, of course, as they had also "done it." The poor guys didn't have the ineffable triumph of being simultaneously me and better than me.
For the rest of my first day as a faster human, I bragged to anyone who would listen, and many who would have preferred not to, about my achievement. I half expected the phone to ring with an invitation to the White House. I wrote the time on the back of my medal with a Sharpie, and as I look at it now, I'm thinking: Man, wouldn't it be something to be able to break 1:28?
25 July, 2010
Ask Levi: Can I Use A Hydration Pack For Road Cycling?
Posted by Levi on April 28, 2010 in Road Cycling Articles
Today’s question is about wearing a hydration pack (i.e. Camelbak or equivalent) while road cycling rather than mountain biking…
Levi,
What kind of hydrating packs do road cyclists use? I’m trying to buy a hydrating pack to wear on long rides on a road bike. I've only seen backpacks for mountain bikers, I’m not sure if there is a difference.
Thanks,
Hydrating Henry
Hi Henry,
The reason you’re seeing hydration packs designed for mountain bikers is because, in most cases, mountain bikers are the only ones wearing hydration packs. Most road cyclists simply use water bottles, but some do use hydration packs, and if you look hard enough, you can find a good hydration pack for use on the road.
Road and mountain bikers actually use the same packs. They’re just marketed to mountain bikers since wearing a hydration pack while road biking can be considered “dorky.” (Don’t worry, I’ve done it, it’s alright!)
So you don’t need to find a hydration pack that proclaims “for road bike use.” You’d just want to look for the sleekest, least bulky hydration pack you can find. Typically there are some packs that just hold water and don’t have a lot of extra pockets for gear (which you don’t need when road riding as opposed to mountain biking.)
Some hydration packs that are sleek and lightweight and good for road riding include:
* CamelBak Classic Hydration Pack
* CamelBak Hydrobak Hydration Pack
* CamelBak Fairfax Hydration Pack
To go even more low-profile, there is something new called the Camelbak RaceBak. It’s a small hydration pack built into an undershirt, so you can wear it under your jersey. It’s expensive, but great for road riding since it doesn’t stand out like a full hydration pack does!
I think you’d be happy with any of those hydration packs. But don’t forget, water bottles do work great for road riding. With two 32oz water bottles on your bike, you can carry enough water for about four hours of riding!
15 July, 2010
Mi Manchi
Mi mancano quegli occhi azzurri
Come tu mi baci di notte
Mi manca il nostro modo di sonno
Come non c'è alba
Come il sapore del tuo sorriso
Mi manca il modo in cui respiriamo
Ma non ho mai detto
Che cosa avrei dovuto dire
No, non ho mai detto
Ho appena svoltasi a
Ed ora,
Mi manca tutto di te
Non posso credere che ho ancora si desidera
E dopo tutte le cose che abbiamo passato
Mi manca tutto di te
Senza di te
Vedo i tuoi occhi blu
Ogni volta che chiudo il mio
Si rendono difficile vedere
Dove io appartengo a
Quando io non sono vicino a te
E 'come io sono solo con me
Ma non ho mai detto
Che cosa avrei dovuto dire
No, non ho mai detto
Ho appena svoltasi a
Ed ora,
Mi manca tutto di te
Non posso credere che ho ancora si desidera
E dopo tutte le cose che abbiamo passato
Mi manca tutto di te
Senza di te
Ma non ho mai detto
Che cosa avrei dovuto dire
No, non ho mai detto
Ho appena svoltasi a
Ed ora,
Mi manca tutto di te
Non posso credere che ho ancora si desidera
E dopo tutte le cose che abbiamo passato
Mi manca tutto di te
Senza di te
05 July, 2010
Fluid Dynamics
Do we really need to carry our own drinks when we run?
The two thin, tattooed Seattle runners stood looking at my empty hands with horror, as if each held a cigarette. "You don't carry your own hydration?" Alan asked, contempt dripping from his soul patch. Over the next seven miles up and down the Seattle hills, both Alan and Paul waved their hand-strap bottles about as they expounded on the advantages of on-demand hydration, the ecological benefit of forgoing paper cups, all the while demonstrating the erect, confident, nay, smug stride of a runner who just doesn't need to find that next water fountain, thanks.
Recently, as the weather turned warm, I decided to try a few of these water-carrying products myself. The first, the CamelBak Delaney Plus race belt holds a 24-ounce bottle in a rear holster, and was, like all such belts I've tried, perfectly fine until I ran with it. With each step, the heavy bottle flew up into my lumbar spine then down onto my glutes, until I pulled it out and carried it uncomfortably in my hand. However, the little bottles and pouches attached to the front of the belt made me feel, happily, like Batman.
Next up was the North Face E Race Boa, with its 1.5-liter reservoir and over-the-shoulder tube with bite-'n'-suck valve, a liquid-blasting howitzer. Even with the pack's "antislosh" technology (a web of cables that tighten over the reservoir), 3.3 pounds of water strapped to your back is hard to ignore. And the various clips and Velcroed straps made me feel as if I was tethered to it, rather than vice versa. It's overkill for most runs, but it would be fine for, say, a trek across the desert to an outpost of nuclear holocaust survivors.
After running with these two elaborate belt and harness systems, strapping the Ultimate Direction FastDraw Plus (the same 20-ounce bottle Alan and Paul had waved at me) to my hand made me feel like Goldilocks settling into the middle bed. I've brought it on endless training runs, schlepped it to the track on speed-work days, and even carried it through races. My bottle, filled with water or some artificially colored sports drink, strapped to my relaxed hand, feels like an extension of my arm. It's as if I had suddenly evolved a physical advantage, an eruption of Velcro and plastic from the palm, to become Homo sapiens bottlensis. And you there, with those empty, human hands... you don't carry your own hydration?
20 June, 2010
Summer Time
Summer is finally here! Spring 2010 was an eventful semester and boy am I tired! I enjoy the feeling of accomplishment as much as the next person, but I am definitely looking forward to a change of pace.
Some of my accomplishments this Spring include...
1) completing my second semester of graduate school (4.0!)
2) landing a job at the Aquarena Center as a Nature Interpreter
3) finding a church that I love (Oakwood Baptist in New Braunfels)
4) attending a weekly Bible study
5) being initiated into Kappa Delta Pi Honor Society
6) representing the College of Health Professions in the House of Graduate Representatives (student government)
7) being elected President of San Marcos Student Reading Council
Like I said earlier, I'm definitely looking forward to taking a break from academia. I love school, but every now and then it's nice to not have to worry about homework. Besides working at the Aquarena Center, I plan to do A LOT of reading. In addition to starting some books that have now sadly been in my possession for a year now without so much as having read one page, I would also like to review some of my textbooks from college, particularly my sociology books. There are many correlations between the information I learned as an undergraduate sociology minor and what I am now learning about human development as a graduate education major. The common thread between everything that interests me seems to pertain to the core of the human being, why we are the way we are, and what we can do to positively effect change in the creation and development of human life and existence.
I'm looking forward to thinking and growing in new ways this summer. :-)
05 June, 2010
Roll Call
How a rounded shoe rewards a walking runner.
The MBTs are corrective walking shoes that seek to engage and strengthen many of the leg and core muscles used in running, and their effect was obvious as soon as I put them on. The soles, shaped with the gentle curve of a rocking chair, immediately made me feel a few inches taller and a few beers less steady on my feet. As I took each step, my weight rolled over the sole's rounded rubber block, up and over and down, and I felt like I was striding longer and practically gliding from step to step. They seemed to offer a kind of power-assist, like Segways for the feet. Then we got on the monorail, and I almost rolled backward onto my rear when the train started. The Masai apparently don't have monorails.
Over the course of those long days in the parks, the wedge of rubber that forms the curve directly under the center of each foot was a weighty reminder that the MBTs are supposed to be good for me. Indeed, there were times when I had to walk a long distance quickly—say, to go claim my SpeedPass ticket at Big Thunder Mountain—when rolling in the shoes, and engaging all the required calf and ab and thigh and back muscles, started to seem like an obligation.
Sometimes I just didn't want to stride like a warrior, which led to guilt that I was letting the shoes down. When one of my daughters desperately needed a Slushee, I actually broke into a run. But running, with my foot hitting the ground mid-sole rather than at the heel, meant that all my weight came straight down on that wedge of rubber, so each step was like rebounding up off a rubber rock. Still, I bounced along until I heard a nearby child ask her mother if the bald guy bouncing down Main Street USA was Tigger after a shearing.
On the last day, as a control for the experiment, I wore my 10-year-old Teva sandals—just a flat foam slab held on by velcro straps—for our trip to Disney Hollywood. After four days of the heavy MBTs, my feet were glad to be free, and, as it turns out, being nearly barefoot has many of the advantages of simulated barefootedness, plus you can wiggle all your toes. The MBTs are, at the end of the day, interesting shoes, but they tend to feel more like work than pleasure. Still, every now and then I like to put them on, grab my imaginary spear, and stride off to herd my children.
20 May, 2010
Non-Profits Profit Everyone
After doing some online research, I've comprised a list of non-profits that I am either interested in affiliating with or simply struck a chord in me.
Below are non-profits in the Austin area I am already involved in or hope to be at some point in the future.
1) Goodwill Industries of Central Texas
http://www.austingoodwill.org/
2) Girl Scouts of Central Texas
http://www.gsctx.org/
3) United Way Capital Area
http://www.unitedwaycapitalarea.org/
4) YWCA of Austin
http://www.ywca.org/site/pp.asp?c=9oIILUOtGlF&b=374495
5) YMCA of Austin
http://www.austinymca.org/
Below are some additional non-profits.
1) Campfire Boys and Girls of Austin
http://www.campfireusabalcones.org/
2) Big Brothers Big Sisters of Central Texas
http://www.bbbs.org/site/c.deIELMOrGpF/b.4947955/k.5C/Big_Brothers_Big_Sisters_of_Central_Texas.htm
3) Boys and Girls Clubs of America
http://www.bgca.org/
4) Girl Scouts of America
http://www.girlscouts.org/
5) Boy Scouts of America
http://www.scouting.org/
05 May, 2010
Feel the Squeeze
Sizing up the benefits of compression socks.
I've been putting on socks with general success for 42 years, and the Recovery Sox are the first I've run across that require instructions. A small tag tells me to gather the sock at my heel before pulling it up to my knee. Turns out I needed the guidance, as getting these skin-tight knee-highs over my calves was like forcing a snake to swallow a raccoon.
I'd just finished a six-mile tempo run and was facing a long flight with my three young children that would culminate in a Thanksgiving meal with my parents. So I needed all the support I could get, not to mention, to quote the Recovery Sox package, "an upward flow through the lower legs helping to get unoxygenated blood out and replace it with fresh oxygenated blood." Because the last thing you need if you must face down your mother's noodle kugel after three hours in economy class is a leg-full of unoxygenated blood. Sure enough, they were quite comfortable, even comforting; squeezy, if I may coin a word.
Compression socks were created to help diabetics improve their circulation, and now they've become popular with runners and triathletes looking to boost blood flow and run faster. Eager to enjoy these benefits myself, I wore the Recovery Sox and a competing product, Oxysox, for both training and recovery. The Oxysox have a suppler, more tightly woven Lycra, making them easier to get on and giving them a grippier feel through the ankles, while Recovery Sox hold more firmly to the upper calf. With a bicolor pattern on their feet, the Oxysox also look slightly hipper, though that is a relative term in this context, as you'll learn if your wife finds you walking around in underwear and black knee socks.
I enjoyed running in them, as long as I didn't get too warm, which made them itch. I tried to corroborate a few scientific studies that suggest compression socks can aid running performance. But without being able to eliminate any other variable—the weather, my mood, how much food I ate off my kids' plates the night before—I couldn't establish whether they helped or hurt. Nonetheless, I have become addicted to wearing them postrun until preslumber. I've ridden the train and sat at my desk and, yes, performed my radio show with my calves in a warm, private embrace. On the outside a mild mannered radio host, but secretly: Jennifer Beals in polyester leg warmers.
Why? Because squeezy is good. That's why some runners enjoy wearing tights and a few even put them on in early September. Compression technology may just give us an easy excuse to enjoy the pleasing massage of what are, in fact, support hose, while shielding us from the uncomfortable connotations of being infirm or elderly by a few paragraphs of scientific-sounding performance claims. In the end, who cares what these socks are called—they're cozy and they make you feel happier to have legs.
20 April, 2010
Non-Profits - What Are They?
What is a non-profit?
"Non-profit organizations are a crucial part of our society, providing help to the needy, education for a lifetime, funds for good causes, and leaders in the community."
A non-profit organization (abbreviated as NPO, also known as a not-for-profit organization) is an organization that does not distribute its surplus funds to owners or shareholders, but instead uses them to help pursue its goals. Examples of NPOs include charities (i.e. charitable organizations), trade unions, and public arts organizations. Most governments and government agencies meet this definition, but in most countries they are considered a separate type of organization and not counted as NPOs. They are in most countries exempt from income and property taxation. Ownership is the quantitative difference between for- and not-for-profit organizations. For-profit organizations can be privately owned and may re-distribute taxable wealth to employees and shareholders. By contrast, not-for-profit organizations do not have owners. They have controlling members or boards, but these people cannot sell their shares to others or personally benefit in any taxable way.
While they are able to earn a profit, more accurately called a surplus, such earnings must be retained by the organization for its self-preservation, expansion and future plans. Earnings may not benefit individuals or stake-holders. While some nonprofit organizations put substantial funds into hiring and rewarding their internal corporate leadership, middle-management personnel and workers, others employ unpaid volunteers and even executives may work for no compensation. However, since the late 1980s there has been a growing consensus that nonprofits can achieve their corporate targets more effectively by using some of the same methods developed in for-profit enterprises. These include effective internal management, ensuring accountability for results, and monitoring the performance of different divisions or projects in order to better benefit from their capital and workers. Those require satisfied management and that, in turn, begins with the organization's mission.
05 April, 2010
The Numbers Runner
Inside one man's GPS obsession.
My first unit, a Forerunner 201, served me well but erratically, and I treated it as I would a beloved old race shirt, sometimes running with my wrist raised to the heavens in the hopes that being two feet closer to the satellites would help its reception. In comparison, strapping on the latest version, the 405, is like putting on a Spandex speed suit. It's much smaller, has excellent reception, and transmits data wirelessly to a computer. But its touch-sensitive rim, meant to reduce the number of buttons sticking out of its smooth fuselage, is a mixed blessing. By my count, changing it from running to bike mode takes 12 individual button presses, rim touches, and strokes, so you end up prodding and massaging the watch like a temperamental cat you're trying to get to swallow a pill.
Since everybody in my running group now wears Forerunners, we fuss over, coddle, and talk about them like a group of dowagers taking their dachshunds to tea. If the watch gives us a pace readout that feels too slow, we speed up in an attempt to change its mind. We've even finished a three-hour run and then slogged around the block one more time because the GPS didn't register an even 20 miles.
There's always a danger when the run starts to serve the data, rather than the reverse. I was running up Heartbreak Hill in the 2007 Boston Marathon and checked my Garmin to see how the implosion of my lungs was bringing down my overall pace, and a nearby runner said, "Don't look at your watch! Just run!" Which struck me at the moment, and since, as physically impossible.
Even though the 405 sports a whole host of new features, in some ways I prefer the old 201 brick on my wrist. Sure, the new Forerunner is much more innovative and accurate, yet the enormous screen of the 201 tells any passersby that I'm a hardcore running geek, somebody who can't enjoy a jog by the lake without knowing not only my average pace but my gain and loss in elevation. I'm someone who doesn't know what I'm doing, but damn it, I want the world to know that it isn't for lack of data.
20 March, 2010
My Latest Obsession
For those who know me, it's no news that I'm still trying to figure out what I want to be when I grow up. My mom is always telling me that I need to figure out what my passion is and then do that for a living. That's a nice thought, but I'm not likely to make a decent living holding babies, playing with animals, riding my bike, hunting, fishing, dispensing soup in a food kitchen, or talking about Jesus to homeless people. I mean, I know anything is possible, but that doesn't mean it's probable. The truth is, graduate school is helping me figure out who I am and what I want. And all along I thought you were supposed to already know those things before starting grad school. I thought I did. But leave it to me to do things backwards.
The more I live and learn, the more I realize how messed up things are (things referring to a multitude of issues). I want to change them. I want to make a difference. I want to make this world a better place. I want to ease the burden of suffering carried by so many. After all, if I don't, then why am I here? Surely not for myself. If I die, I want to know that someone's life is better because I lived. And the only way to make this happen is to MAKE IT HAPPEN. Sitting around thinking about doing something is pointless if you don't follow through. You might as well be dead. I mean seriously, WHAT ARE YOU DOING? If your answer is nothing, then you're not living - you're just existing. It sounds harsh, but the truth usually is.
I've always known that I wanted to help people - I just wasn't sure how. This year I've discovered the beautiful world that is the non-profit industry. I feel silly because I'm discovering something that's been under my nose my entire life. All I can say is, the pieces didn't come together for me until recently. I'm still interested in going into ministry, but the way I look at it, I'm in ministry as long as I'm focused on God and sharing Him with others.
05 March, 2010
Foot Loose
In a funky pair of shoes, a runner comes to terms with his toes one day at a time.
Day 1: I arrive home to find the Vibram FiveFinger shoes awaiting me. They look like green rubber gloves, with individual toes and none of the padding or protection found on regular running shoes. I wrestle them on--getting each toe into its little rubber home tests the limits of my podiatric dexterity--and run with my daughters around the block. Streetlights cast the rubber a sickly gray hue, like the feet of the undead. Gracie, age 7, shouts: "Lizard Man! Lizard Man!"
Day 3: Tony Post, head of Vibram USA, calls to discuss the "barefooting" movement, a kind of below-the-ankle nudism. The theory: Our feet evolved over millions of years to be efficient tools for bipedal propulsion, and then we immobilized the poor things in rubber, wrecking our natural gaits and atrophying our muscles. In the FiveFingers, Vibram makes a commodity out of the state of nature, an $80 shoe that simulates not wearing shoes. Tony says that regular training with these minimalist kicks can lead to increased stamina and lower injury rates--once you get used to them.
Day 4: I pad out a cautious four miles. At first, I enjoy a childish, barefooted freedom, yet that gives way to unease. I hadn't really been aware that I had toes, but there they are, all 10 little darlings, in corpse-colored hot pockets. I vacillate between splaying them out to grab the ground and lifting them up to spare their delicate sensibilities. Later that day: Pain! My feet throb. My lower calves quietly groan. I go down stairs like an old man.
Day 6: I join my running group for a five miler; there's laughter, derision, comparisons to Aquaman. But I'm getting the hang of the shoes, finding a gait that protects my heels from the impact. And then I step on a sharp rock and squeal like a little girl.
Day 8: For my 10-mile long run, I return to my Brooks Adrenalines. They feel heavy but comforting. It's like my toes have moved back in with their parents.
Day 11: Speedwork day. Back in the FiveFingers I zip around the track as if I've been freed from eight-ounce ankle weights. I run pain-free and fast. My friend running behind me (ha!) says that my gait has changed. Indeed, I feel as if I'm running more on the outside of my foot, rolling the point of impact forward to the toes, where I can actively push off.
Day 13: The acid test: a tempo run. I move at a 7:30 pace down streets, across parking lots and college greens, over sidewalks and roadway medians. Surprisingly, everything is beautiful, and nothing hurts. My calves have adjusted, my soles are toughened, my feet feel protected but active, my gait natural. At six miles, though, my toes begin to ache, my legs start tiring--time to call it a successful run. These odd-looking shoes are worthwhile training tools as long as I don't run too far in them. I walk through my hotel lobby, past people who studiously avoid staring--something I've grown accustomed to while wearing the FiveFingers. When I get to my room, I realize that in addition to the green prehensile footwear, my white Dri-Fit shirt is now spotted with bloodstains from my chafed nipples. The Lizard Man lives.
20 February, 2010
Occhiali Di Colore Rosa
Most of us spend our days waiting for a future that is not here yet.
We hunger for the moment when all of our external desires will come to fruition so that our "perfect life" can begin.
Day after day, we strive for more better and different, looking at what is lacking instead of what is working.
We complain about the inconveniences of everyday life, whether it be our bodies, our bank accounts, our government, our families, our partners or lack of one, and on and on.
Seeing through a distorted lens that says "It shouldn't be this way," we have forgotten that we are a bit blind, overcome by the trance of the modern age.
05 February, 2010
Group Therapy
Social runner Peter Sagal connects with the Nike Plus.
For the past two years or so, I've done most of my running with the same group of guys. So they were a little put off when I showed up for a recent run wearing an iPod equipped with Nike Plus. "Bored with us?" said Arden. Well, it is true that he is an accountant, and Chris is a pathologist who enjoys telling us about the things he's removed from people's bodies, and in general there is a surplus of lawyers, but no: I've come to rely on their company, encouragement, and occasional hectoring to get me out the door. They have acted as pedometer ("That's got to be six miles by now, right?") and pace coach ("God, that was slow") and even entertainment, because believe it or not, some of those things that Chris has pulled out of bodies have been rather surprising. Somehow, the Nike Plus is supposed to do all of this, too.
For a simple two-piece system designed by geniuses for idiots like me to use, the Nike Plus can be temperamental. On my first run I had to spend several minutes getting the sensor in my shoe to talk with the receiver attached to my iPod. Even then, the recorded distance was always a little off--my 3.1-mile treadmill run measured 3.2 on the Plus. To correct this I calibrated the unit to a measured quarter mile. The result: It recorded the group's nine-mile run as 9.2 miles. Better, yes, but I still wouldn't use it to target artillery.
Once I plugged the iPod into my computer and iTunes uploaded my data, the Nike Plus Web site transformed me, via the magic of Flash animation, into a tall, lean, athletic avatar that smoothly pulled a graph line across the screen to describe my recent run. The slick graphics made it easy for me to review each workout, compare one run to another, find suggested maps of local runs, and, of course, buy Nike products. And the coaching component even made a video game out of my training, presenting basic plans for popular distances--5-K, 10-K, half-marathon, marathon--that I could customize by dragging around the workout bars that look like Popsicle sticks to change the schedule or distance. Perhaps the most interesting aspect of Nike Plus is how it serves as an online running community where I could engage in virtual conversations, complete virtual challenges, and presumably have virtual dry heaves.
Like anything else on the Internet, Nike Plus is probably deeply rewarding to those who commit themselves to it, but again, like so much else on the Internet, it still doesn't quite replicate something that already exists out here in the meat matrix. Arden, Chris, and the lawyers may not be particularly animated, and they smell in a way that, fortunately, digital technology cannot reproduce, yet I think I prefer even their teasing to the praise of the Nike Plus's virtual companion in my ear. Although the voice mimics the friendly young mother next door who still places well in community triathlons, I can tell she's got high standards, and she's wondering why I'm not meeting them. I was also taken aback by the celebrity cameos: I jumped a foot when Tiger Woods appeared in my headphones to congratulate me on my "fastest mile ever." Thanks, buddy.
Despite its simulated vibe, Nike Plus does make it easy for runners to connect with a larger group. I have often thought, like many others who have had a midlife rebirth as a serious runner, that in fact we are made to run and that our supposed transformation is a return to an original form. But apparently, the same primal hominid brain that's reawakened by our loping across the asphalt veld immediately starts looking around for the other members of the tribe. That's the hunger that the Nike Plus is sating, however artificially: We're not just born to run, we're born to run in packs.
20 January, 2010
In Christ Alone
In Christ alone my hope is found
He is my light, my strength, my song
This Cornerstone, this solid ground
Firm through the fiercest drought and storm
What heights of love, what depths of peace
When fears are stilled, when strivings cease
My Comforter, my All in All
Here in the love of Christ I stand
In Christ alone, who took on flesh
Fullness of God in helpless babe
This gift of love and righteousness
Scorned by the ones He came to save
‘Til on that cross as Jesus died
The wrath of God was satisfied
For every sin on Him was laid
Here in the death of Christ I live
There in the ground His body lay
Light of the world by darkness slain
Then bursting forth in glorious Day
Up from the grave He rose again
And as He stands in victory
Sin’s curse has lost its grip on me
For I am His and He is mine
Bought with the precious blood of Christ
No guilt in life, no fear in death
This is the power of Christ in me
From life’s first cry to final breath
Jesus commands my destiny
No power of hell, no scheme of man
Can ever pluck me from His hand
‘til He returns or calls me home
Here in the power of Christ I’ll stand
05 January, 2010
Into Thin Air
How a decidedly earthbound runner learned to fly.
Running would be a much more pleasant sport without all that gravity. After finishing the Chicago Marathon (88°F, high humidity, no wind, and snipers, though I may have been hallucinating the last one), I felt like the pavement had been pounding me instead of the other way around. As I dragged myself across the line a half hour after I had hoped, my hip flexors and knees begged me to reconsider the advantages of indolence and an early death from heart disease.
So wouldn't it be nice, as Brian Wilson might have put it, if we could wake up and run weightlessly? When I was a kid, I devoured endless science-fiction paperbacks depicting a future in which maglev belts allowed us to leap effortlessly over our domed cities. Now that I've arrived at the age of 43 with aching joints, I'm a bit disappointed that there's still no way to break free of gravity. Or...is there?
A factory showroom in Waukesha, Wisconsin, isn't the kind of place you'd expect the future to be hiding. Yet inside this squat cement-blocked quadrangle lives a treadmill tricked out with more steel piping, pumps, and electronics than the rig Ripley used to battle the monster in Aliens. It's called the G-Trainer, and as the world's first and only zero-gravity treadmill, it promises one of training's Holy Grails: effort without injury. Alter-G, the company behind the G-Trainer, created it for rehabbing athletes and for runners looking to break free from the surly bonds of Earth.
To slip said surly bonds, I stepped into the device through a plastic apron that formed the pressure chamber around my lower half, zipped myself in, and started to run. The touch screen in front of me held the familiar up and down arrows that control the treadmill's speed, along with buttons labeled "minus 1%" and "minus 10%" controlling something called "effective body weight." I subtracted five percent, and hidden compressors hummed as the plastic chamber stiffened and inflated with additional air pressure. Immediately, it was easier to run, as if somebody had turned on a tailwind. I pressed "minus 10%" a few more times, and since my body was the only thing blocking the air's exit, I was pushed upward. With the meter at minus 50 percent, I felt like I was soaring, and my legs skipped over the belt. I kept increasing the speed of the treadmill until I was running a 5:30 mile, which, by the way, I can't do. At this point I may have giggled like a girl.
I set the machine to its highest setting, negating 80 percent of my weight. Any more pressure, I was told, and I might pop out like a champagne cork. Despite the sensation of running with so little weight on my feet, I was working far harder than I thought I would be--my arms pumping, my lungs bellowing, my legs seeming to spin in blurred circles like the Road Runner's. I soon found myself cruising at a 5:15 pace. I was the Six Million Dollar Man, better, stronger, faster...then my time was up. The chamber deflated, and I returned to Earth, all 170 depressing pounds of me.
Given my brief time with the G-Trainer, I don't know if I could gauge its long-term benefits. I do know how frustratingly earthbound I felt on the track a few days later. I could remember how it felt to turn my legs over so amazingly fast, to channel all my energy into forward propulsion. You might think that $75K to fly across the ground like an elite sounds exorbitant. But stuck back down here, my knees whining again, it seems like a bargain.
30 December, 2009
Birthday Cake & Eggnog
It's funny. For the last month, all I could think of was getting back home. I was home for Thanksgiving, and it was awful to have to leave and go back to school for another month. Knowing that I only had a few more weeks and then I would be home-free for a month was the light at the end of the tunnel. Now that I'm home, I realize the light was a ruse. It really wasn't a light at all. I feel like I jumped from the frying pan to the fire, home being the fire. It seems like nothing has stopped going wrong since I got here.
It makes me wonder if I'm cursed. Perhaps I have a cloud of negative energy following me around. I guess I shouldn't be surprised. The month of December has never been a pleasant one for the Scott clan. As far back as I can remember, it's always been a pretty miserable month. I know what you're thinking- it's my attitude, right? I just need to be more positive thoughts. If I do, things would go better. Well, I hate to break it to you, but this is what happens when I am positive. I shudder to think what would happen if I was indeed negative. Perhaps WW III? Every year, the holidays suck at my house. And yet, every year, I find myself excited and hopeful and dare I say eager for the holidays to arrive. My anticipation sets in at a different time each year. This year it hit in August, no doubt because I moved to San Marcos that month and was homesick for my family and animals. Despite the irregularity in which I experience the sudden onset of this anticipation, it's a given that it will happen.
I've given some thought to the situation and this is my analysis thus far. I am a sensitive person when it comes to sensory perception. I'm not sure how I would rank compared to others, but I have a feeling that I am very much above the average person. This sensitivity is two-fold. First, my senses are stronger than most peoples', particularly my senses of smell and hearing. If I had to rank my senses in order of strength, it would be as follows: 1) smell 2) hearing 3) touch 4) sight 5) taste The second part of my sensitivity is the correlation between my sensory intake and my emotional responses to it. Certain smells, sounds, sensations, and sights evoke extremely emotional responses within me. That being said, I believe I am probably in somewhat of an emotional "overdrive" when it comes to the holiday season, as related sights, smells, and sounds abound. These things cause me to experience a sense of elation when I encounter them, and this takes place regardless of what is happening to me personally at the time.
Another dimension of this is the creative aspect of my personality. A friend of mine and I were talking a while back about depression, as he and I had both struggled with it. He pointed out that people in the performing and visual arts- artists, performers, entertainers -struggle with depression more than others. It's true. I have yet to meet an artist, dancer, musician, or actor who didn't struggle with depression. He went on to explain that people who are creative have the ability to experience things within a much broader emotional spectrum than others, which is beneficial in terms of producing creative works. The flip side is that the emotional highs and lows a creative person experiences can be difficult to handle. Between my ultra-sensitive senses and my creativity, I suppose it's only natural to be so affected by something as simple as the sound of jingle bells.
That being said, it just so happens that, for whatever reason, December seems to be the month when everything that can go wrong does. From breaking up with boyfriends to the septic tank exploding to the stomach flu, December has always been a bittersweet month for me. Despite the crummy stuff that's happened over the years, the sight of green and red everywhere seems to trump it every year, and I find myself holding out that maybe this year is the year Christmas will be normal. So here's to disaster and the smell of cinnamon.
PS- I turned 28 this month. =D
25 November, 2009
The Little Grad Student Who Could
Tomorrow is Thanksgiving...
I am at home, ready to spend the next few days with my family, all of whom I have missed terribly this semester. I feel like this has been the hardest semester in my academic career thus far, but perhaps it's because so much time has passed since I was in college. Well... technically I graduated 5 years ago, so that's not so long ago. But it feels like quite a bit of time has passed since my freshman year ('00-'01). That was a hard year (finding my feet). And my senior year ('03-'04) was hard too (dealing with a major break-up). Now that I think about it, most of college was peppered with struggles and strife, usually caused by lack of money or the boyfriend. Yes, things probably would have been a lot less stressful if I had had a bit more money and a bit less boyfriend drama going on. I would like to say that now that I'm in grad school, my problems are much more sophisticated and mature -- but they aren't. :-) I'm broke once again (when have I not been?), and yet again, I'm fretting over boys (mostly over one, a little over a few). A job would have helped tremendously in the money department, but I was afraid I would be sacrificing my grades, so I decided to go without. I'm hoping and praying it was worth it. My goal is to graduate with a 4.0 -- a fairly lofty aspiration for someone like me (I have a tendency to procrastinate). Speaking of school work, I have a lot to work on over the break- two major papers, two presentations, and two projects -- and they're all due over the following two weeks. The downside to this is that I won't get much sleep between now and the end of the semester. The upside is that my last day of class is December 8th. ROCK ON. I suppose one of the perks of being a graduate student is that the semester ends a week early. All I have to do is get through the next two weeks and I'll be golden.
PS- I turn 28 in 24 days. Hmmm...
