My December 2024 Running, Walking and Swimming Report

It's sometimes difficult, when outside events are imposed on me, to maintain my own set of standards and routines of running, walking...and especially swimming: December 2024 was a case in point. On the 18th I underwent a prostate biopsy, recovery from which involved a temporary withdrawal from at least the running and swimming...at this final date of the month (and year) I have yet to resume the latter.  But for December as a whole, I'm pretty satisfied with my state of progress in the three areas.  I participated in four  races, running in the Season of Hope 15K, and doing the Depot Parkrun 5K three times, speed-walking it once.  This was my first full month of retirement, yet although you might think this would enhance my training, I actually had more control over my activity with my work structure, counter-intuitive as it may seem. Now I need to set up and assert my own routines: it's a process, both for me and for my loved ones.  This self-discipline regarding running, walking and swimming is something that I need to develop and take personal responsibility for...with expected medical procedures in the near future, though, I'll still need to be reasonable about it all.  In January, apart from the weekly Parkrun 5Ks, there will be a marathon/half-marathon event on Sunday the 19th and a 15K on Saturday the 27th.  The degree to which I participate...and train, for that matter, will come down to those factors of self-discipline and my ongoing medical situation.  I'm realistically optimistic about the long-term picture, although circumstances may be limiting in the short-term.  I'm continuing to see walking and swimming take more significant roles in my life, and my recent switch to the nearby YMCA with its much more accessible swimming pool bodes well for the future...

My Favorite Songs of 2024

Back in July this year I noticed that I hadn't been keeping up with this year's new music, much less listen to the "hits" as they had their "rotations" of radio play.  So I listened to some albums, the best of them being The Smile's Wall of Eyes and Green Day's Savior. They're both very good, but as far as standout tracks are concerned, only three made a deep impression on me...that was in July: click HERE to read the article I wrote about it on July 9th.  I never did go deeper into current album releases, what with tragedy and medical crisis permeating my life for the remainder of 2024.  But those three songs remained strong and meaningful for me, and now that I can instantly call them up to play with my Amazon Music account, I have listened to them many, many times over the past few months.  So there won't be any long list of my top favorite songs of 2024: just three.  At #3, it's Read the Room by The Smile.  As I wrote back in July, this is a British alternative rock band composed of Radiohead's Thom Yorke and Jonny Greenwood, along with drummer Tom Skinner.  Wall of Eyes is their second album...and they must all dig their little group because they just released a third studio album.  Read the Room has cryptic lyrics...that's all right since many of my favorites over the years were pretty difficult to understand as well.  It's the musical counterpoint going on here that drew me to it, especially during the complex instrumental ending.  At #2, it's impossible not to understand the words to Green Day's lyricist and vocalist Billie Joe Armstrong's powerful The American Dream is Killing Me, which pretty much sums up my own thoughts as to the course of our society as it has largely degenerated over recent years.  Finally, my favorite song from 2024 is also from The Smile: I Quit.  I quickly found myself attached to it not only for its incredibly blunt and pertinent lyrics about making a permanent transition and taking a new path, but also for its haunting and very complex music.  Below are some of the  words...  

Wild ghosts

Wild feelings

Leaning windmills

A dead drop

This is the end of the trip

A new path

Out of the madness

To wherever it goes

To wherever it goes

And wherever it goes

And wherever it goes

And wherever it lies

And wherever it lies 

I liked this song before learning of my son's passing and not long thereafter deciding to retire.  It reminded me of the ending to Lord of the Rings, when aging Bilbo Baggins utters the following line as he is about to board the boat to take him on to the Grey Havens: "I think I am quite ready for a another adventure!"  May your own new adventures bless you...sometimes, though, they come whether you're ready for them or not...

Looking Back on 2024 in My Life

As 2024 draws to a close, I look back in my life on both the good and the bad, the miraculous and the tragic.  In May, Melissa had her breast cancer diagnosis and quick surgery to remove the malignant lump...this followed by chemotherapy (her body suffered a bad reaction to it) and then radiation therapy, ending this fall.  By all measures, the cancer has been removed from her body, thank God.  But after pulling up into our driveway on July 18th following the second round of that chemo, the police were there to notify us that our beloved 34 year old son Will had died.  This would overshadow all of the good that 2024 had produced for us, and we're left with a big hole in our lives.  He was (is) such a compassionate and responsible young man...what a terrible loss for us and the world he graced with his presence for too short a time span.  Rebecca, my 29-year old daughter, lives in town and makes me proud with her commitment to her job as well as her close relationships with us and her partner. My own health seems to be going in opposite directions: in one direction I am gradually becoming fitter and more athletic while in the other I have just been diagnosed with localized prostate cancer, the treatment for which looms ahead of me in early 2025.  I do feel blessed to be in such an environment where it can be effectively treated and I am confident of the successful outcome.  And when I clocked out at 10 pm on Friday, November 29th, my retirement began after working for 37 years at the Gainesville Post Office.  I'm grateful that I had the opportunity to work there and have many good memories of my colleagues as well as the work itself...I am no disgruntled postal worker!  And I have enjoyed not having to deal with the traffic while driving to and from work since then.  For 2024, Will's passing dwarfs everything else, but in life sometimes you have to take the bad with the good, and that can be difficult...

Ran Gainesville's Depot Parkrun 5K This Morning

This last Saturday morning in December was unusually warm and muggy (64 degrees, 100% humidity) at the 7:30 beginning of the weekly, free (sign up online) Depot Parkrun 5K, just one of hundreds of similar events taking place across the USA and several other countries.  On such a day as this, when I'm going to run it (instead of speed-walking like I did last week), I know up front that I will be simply working to sustain a strong regular pace without attempting to set any personal best records.  So that's exactly what unfolded, with me settling into a slightly uncomfortable pace and enjoying the presence of some runners ahead of me who kept me honest with that pace.  At the end I had a time of 27:32...click HERE to view the results.  There weren't as many participants in today's race as usual, and that may be due to the fact that (1) the University of Florida is closed for the holiday season (2) many may be out of town who normally would be there or (3) folks are waiting for the special New Year's Day edition of the Depot Parkrun, to take place this coming Wednesday morning.  The organizers say to wear the pajamas you slept in the night before: dare I?...

Quote of the Week...from Mahandas Gandhi

Be the change you wish to see in the world.                          ---Mahandas Gandhi

Mahandas (or "Mahatma") Gandhi was the great twentieth-century lawyer who, with his pacifist creed of passive resistance, was instrumental in India's independence and had a lot of things to say about how best to live one's own life.  That in itself doesn't qualify him for my "quote of the week" feature, but the above quote...Rob Dial recently referred to it on a podcast...resonates with me.  In the first place, I can't exactly dictate to the world how I want it to be...well, maybe I can but I would be delusional if I thought it cared one bit.  But seeing how much of human behavior is imitative, I do have the power and authority to demonstrate by my own actions what I would like to see from others.  I believe that many of us are seekers, looking for examples in others to emulate and guide them through their daily existence.  Why not be one of the examples?  No, I'm no Gandhi, nor would I want to be, and I have a lot of stuff to work out in my own life and am far, far from any semblance of a perfect model.  But I'm alive, here and now, and that gives me enough to change with...

Wishing All the Best, Taking Blog Break

I hope that you and yours have been enjoying your holiday season this year.  Melissa and I have spent quite some time with our daughter Rebecca as well as with Melissa's family side residing here in Gainesville.  I found it probably the best thing to take a little break...for a few days...with this blog.  Maybe toward the end of 2024 or, starting next year, I'll get it going again...

Blessings and Hopes for this Christmas Holiday Season

On this Christmas Eve "Eve", I wish you all a happy holiday season and that you experience peace in the present and hope for the future.  Melissa and I both are still deeply in grief over the loss of our wonderful son Will, who tragically passed away this past July.  The holiday season simply isn't the same without his loving presence in our lives...we are grateful for our dearly beloved daughter Rebecca to be living near us to celebrate Christmas.  God Bless you all...

First Round Major College Football Playoffs: Boring Mismatches

The brand-new major college football playoff format, with a whopping twelve schools now vying for the national championship, began this weekend with four largely boring, lopsided contests...not exactly what the organizers were hoping for, I'm sure.  Notre Dame, Texas, Ohio State and Penn State stuffed Indiana, Clemson, Tennessee and SMU, respectively.  I was only surprised at the Vols-Buckeyes score, thinking that Tennessee had more in them than that.  On the other hand, unlike the NCAA major college basketball championship tournament that tries to stage its games at more neutral sites, this round took place at the higher-seeded schools' home stadiums, a huge advantage for them, to say the least.  The second round will all be traditionally-named bowl games: Boise State plays Penn State New Year's Eve in the Fiesta Bowl, then on January 1st its Arizona State/Texas in the Peach Bowl, Oregon/Ohio State in the Rose Bowl and Georgia/Notre Dame in the Sugar Bowl.  I'm not all that interested in who wins, but I usually pick out a team before each game I watch to root for anyway. I guess Georgia...until they lose...will be "my" team since I was born there.  I just hope the next games will be more competitive...

Walked Gainesville's Depot Parkrun 5K This Chilly Morning

After a cold front passed through our area in northern Florida yesterday, the temperature plummeted to 38 degrees (76% humidity) on this Winter Solstice Saturday morning here in Gainesville.  I was ready for the weekly Depot Parkrun 5K, starting at 7:30, regardless.  You see, I had a recent prostate biopsy done and felt that doing an intense run might be a little bit too much too soon thereafter, so I instead stayed dressed up...complete with jacket...to do a speed-walk there.  Other than feeling that I should have worn gloves to protect my painfully cold hands during the race, I enjoyed it and...while not walking my fastest 5K...still managed to finish under 40 minutes again.  I didn't walk today trying to set a personal 5K walking record since, as mentioned before, I was recovering from that medical procedure.  But it would be nice if sometime in 2025 I could get my speed-walking pace down to a twelve-minute mile: it's possible but I'll need to work at it.  I'm glad to be inserting walking into my races: it's also more conducive than running to just immersing myself in the immediate surroundings, noticing many more sights and sounds than I would normally perceive were I only running instead. Not that I've given that up, though...just not today.  For today's results, click HERE...

Quote of the Week...from Peter on YouTube

 All right, here we go...very last corral of the very last wave.  Let's see how this ends up going, shall we?

                                          ---Peter, on his YouTube channel titled The Manor Runs

I don't know Peter's last name, only that he has a small YouTube channel about his running experiences.  By far the most impressive posting is Peter's recording of his entire six-hour-plus-long experience running the 2022 New York City Marathon: all 26.2 miles through the city's five boroughs.  I've grown to consider it as the best of many available virtual NYC Marathon YouTube videos because he doesn't get hung up on how fast he's running or whether somebody (or himself) takes a walking break here and there over the course of the race.  He made the above quote to lead off this lengthy video, in the midst of the crowd standing around just before the race's start in Staten Island.  The "wave" mentioned in it refers to the divisions of runners (more than 50,000 total) into staggered starting times, and "corral" refers to the expected finishing times of the runners (Peter was in the slowest corral). His words are applicable not just to marathons, but to any endeavor in which it's mandatory to get out of one's comfort zone and into a bit of a stressful situation that holds no set promise for its outcome.  Peter's marathon was pretty slow, and was definitely a bold move on his part.  His finishing time was a couple of minutes slower than my 2011 Ocala Marathon result...back then I slowly walked the final seven miles with a painful, strained IT band below my knee.  Dealing with stress is not so much a matter of eliminating it, but rather determining how we react to it.  Self-improvement podcaster Rob Dial, on a recent show, divided the three types of stress: eustress ("good" stress), hypostress and hyperstress.  When we bravely do something new that might bring with it fear of failure...especially public failure...that's a healthy stressful situation from which we can grow,,,that's eustress.  Hypostress is that stress produced by lack of stimulation, typified by boredom.  People prone to feeling this type of stress tend to gravitate toward daredevil, risky types of activity like gambling, jumping, climbing, speed activities and the like.  And hyperstress is the type that the word "stress" generally means to most of us, whereby the situation tends to wear one down and cause fear, worry and ultimately can weaken and even harm our bodies over time.  More eustress and a better strategy for dealing with the other two sounds like a formula for a happier, healthier life.  I wonder if Peter ever ran another marathon...his YouTube channel doesn't say.  You can watch his NYC Marathon video by clicking HERE...

We Enjoyed a Dinner and Concert in Downtown Gainesville

Tuesday late-afternoon/evening Melissa and I ventured to downtown Gainesville to have dinner and then attend a Candlelight Concert at the Hippodrome Theater. The concert's theme on this occasion was the holidays, including Christmas, Hanukkah and assorted Winter classical pieces.  The musicians were a string quartet: first and second violin, viola and cello.  Candlelight Concerts are spread nationwide with many different musicians providing shows themed around different topics, many of them tributes to famous musical artists, past and present.  I thoroughly enjoyed our holiday concert and felt a deeper connection with music and its complexities and textures...and the enormous training and skill exhibited by those proficient in it.  I break it down to three aspects: the actual music as it reaches my ears and I process it, the process of producing it on the different instruments (or with singing if that applies), and the written sheet music on which the musicians rely.  All three are closely tied together, yet they are at the same time very, very different to perceive.  We want to try out more Candlelight Concerts in Gainesville, and I kind of like downtown at night.  The garage parking is easy and there are plenty of nice places to dine.  We had dinner at Harry's and then made our way to the Hippodrome.  It seemed strange being there, since from 1987-91 I worked at the downtown post office but it's changed a lot: I felt lost much of the time I was walking around the area.  Oh well, I'll figure it all out... 

Weekly Short Stories: 1998 Science Fiction, Part 9

I'm continuing my slow reading slog through the year 1998, discussing the next two stories in the Gardner Dozois anthology The Year's Best Science Fiction, Sixteenth Annual Collection, which covers material published that year...

THIS SIDE OF INDEPENDENCE by Rob Chilton

It's off in the reasonably distant future...not at the end of the universe, mind you, but far enough off into it to when practically the entire human population now lives on small artificial worlds located in our solar system space, mostly between Earth and the Sun.  Earth itself is in the deep throes of a permanent ice age after the Sun weakened and "shaded" it...the planet is now primarily used for mining its still-plentiful natural resources and only a handful of people still live there.  A small group of these reside in Independence, in former Missouri.  The protagonist, from one of those space "colonies", is assigned to go down there and convince them to flee dying Earth for the safety of her adopted home world or others.  But old ways are often hard to change, as she soon discovers...

UNBORN AGAIN by Chris Lawson

This is a disturbing tale...well, they're almost all disturbing, aren't they...about revenge.  A professor of pathology knows she is coming down with Parkinson's Disease, but in her time the most effective treatment for it, using stem cells, is universally illegal.  Still, knowing the existence of a black market in them and their application to conditions such as her own, she travels to Hong Kong and gets her sought-after treatment...but it backfires.  The author makes a good point of showing why criminalizing things and making them underground contraband only removes needed regulatory safeguards that might have instead prevented disastrous results...like the one in the story.  This tale reintroduced me to the concept of "prions". That's the cool thing about science fiction: it teaches you stuff and often gets you to think the way a scientist or engineer does...

Next Wednesday: more from 1998...

Kudos to UF Football Team, Bowl Game This Friday Afternoon

The 2024 University of Florida football team accomplished what many, including myself, felt was highly improbable at the start of the season...especially after that horrendous opening day performance against the Miami Hurricanes: they had a winning season!  And, to top it off, they upset two ranked conference schools, LSU and Mississippi, during their ongoing three-game winning streak.  The quarterback position solidified under their star freshman D.J. Lagway and the formerly porous defense, which earlier on seemed incapable of stopping anybody, has matured over the course of the season into a cohesive unit working together effectively.  They're at 7-5 now and finished at 4-4 in the Southeastern Conference, easily the most difficult conference in the country...head coach Billy Napier should feel vindicated after many Gator fans were calling for his dismissal just a few weeks ago.  Florida has been invited to Tampa's Gasparilla Bowl to play against Tulane University.  The game is coming up soon: Friday the 20th, at 3:30 pm. That should bring in more TV viewers as the college football playoffs kick off that very evening when Indiana plays at Notre Dame.  You can watch the Gator game on ESPN2...

Back from Visit to Daytona Beach, Which Has Deteriorated Considerably

It's Monday afternoon and Melissa and I just returned to Gainesville from a two-night stay at Daytona Beach.  It was a good time for us, but I was more than a little dismayed by the deterioration of the beach.  There was almost no sand, and the level of the beach was around two feet lower, causing the ocean to come crashing against the walls for most of the tidal cycle.  The stairway access from our hotel to the beach was blocked since the stairs themselves were damaged from the tidal onslaught...we had to walk a distance down the street to find the next nearest beach access.  Apparently, this all came to pass a couple of years ago when a hurricane washed away the beach sand...now the ground there is hard and rarely dry.  We still enjoyed our stay, but I also noted that it seemed that virtually every hotel or condo on the ocean side of A1A had some extent of construction work going on the property, often with piles of building and electrical material just sitting out in the open...very ugly looking.  It was a little depressing seeing how this once thriving tourist community, once known for its beach that cars could drive down, had come so far down in such a short time.  One of the hotels we would often stay at in Ormond Beach seemed to be permanently shut down.  Looks as if we're going to be exploring a new place to stay on our next visit.  Hopefully the politicians will see the value of sand restoration and fund building the beach back up again.  As of now, you have to wait until low tide to walk down the beach and even then it's ugly, with rocks and debris strewn over its surface... 

Ran in Today's Depot Park Park 5K

This morning there weren't any longer-distance races in the Gainesville area, so I went back to good old Depot Park, a few blocks south of downtown, to run in their weekly, free (sign up online) Depot Parkrun 5K.  It was a pleasant 56 degrees at the 7:30 race time, but the 98% humidity was pretty intense and it made things more uncomfortable as the run wore on.  But I'm used to this mugginess and picked up my pace as I accumulated laps around the park. I had considered speed-walking this time, but next Wednesday I'm having a prostate biopsy and it may be a while before I'm running again.  In any event, it was a good experience today...click HERE to view the results...although I clocked myself finishing at 27:19, they put me in at 27:39.  Oh well, I don't think it's worth raising a fuss about...

Quote of the Week...from Rob Dial

Everything that comes into your brain is brainwashing, in some sort of way.  I'm gonna be in control and intentional about my brainwashing.                    ---Rob Dial

Brainwashing is one of those terms pervasive in popular usage, almost always used with negative connotations.  It's not scientific, either, but does sound impressive when used.  Rob Dial, a personal development podcaster, on a recent show made the above quote in the middle of his twenty minute monologue.  This one pertained to the notion of self-care and how we speak to ourselves.  He wisely noted that many of us are too down and negative with our self-talk, treating ourselves much differently than someone for whom we are trusted with their care and well-being, such as a child or family member.  Dial maintains that how we speak to ourselves will "brainwash" us in the direction of our internal conversation, and we have the choice and power to make ourselves who we want to be, since our brains have the malleable characteristic of neuroplasticity.  I get Dial's point although I feel unqualified to affirm it all based on neurological science.  People have the choice...and therefore the responsibility...to assert to themselves the kind of person they want to be.  Cut it with the hopeless, self-bashing self-talk and replace it with an encouraging, accountable narrative that builds instead of destroys.  Easier said than done since it often involves ingrained habits, but you have to start somewhere...

Not So Enthusiastic About Coming High-Speed Internet and AI

My own neighborhood, the adjacent one, and other parts of Gainesville are currently undergoing a transformation of sorts, with 8G optical fiber cable being laid down into the ground.  The process seems to involve digging up a lot of residents' yards...hopefully, with us our cable runs behind the back fence and will necessitate no such intrusion...but that's "hopefully".  The trucks, workers and orange cones have been interfering with traffic, though, regardless where they're digging.  The idea is that 8G will be oh-so-better than what we have now, speeding things up on the Internet monumentally.  I'm not so sure that's such a great thing, though, since the more connected and "fast" we get in our digital revolution, the dumber people seem to be getting (I cite the recent election results).  And with the advent and exponential development of artificial intelligence, I see folks abandoning what little independent thought and mental training they have to the all-knowing AI gods.  Hey, I use AI, but I'm not like the dude on the commercial leaning back asleep in his office who clicks on his AI app to write a top-notch, detailed report for him...but this admittedly funny commercial I fear is destined to become part of the not-so-funny mainstream.  I'm seeing a lot of Facebook posts that look as if AI "entities" wrote them...when are we going to get to the point when "they" begin, on their own, to support certain politicians and political creeds?  Or is this already going on?  As you can see, I'm not skipping so gleefully into the coming brave new world of super-high speed Internet and pervasive, nanny-like artificial intelligence.  On the other hand, I'm hedging my bets: if you're an AI reading this, I'm really a nice guy who's on your side...

Weekly Short Stories: 1998 Science Fiction, Part 8

It's time once again to examine more short stories (or novellas) appearing in the anthology series The Year's Best Science Fiction, edited by the late Gardner Dozois...this volume, Sixteenth Annual Collection, covers material published in 1998.  Although at times I can be pretty critical about various aspects of the digital revolution...particularly the Internet...I think it's wonderful that I can purchase and read at my leisure thick volume after thick volume of such an anthology series, all available by just reading off my cell phone on Kindle.  Amazing to a baby boomer like myself.  But back to those stories...

STORY OF YOUR LIFE by Ted Chiang

A protagonist/narrator here is a linguist who is telling two concurrent tales.  In one she is talking to her recently deceased daughter, recounting different revealing times in their lives.  In the other she is assigned to learn the extremely difficult language used by a visiting advanced alien species.  Aside from a lot of linguistic material here, there is a rather deep examination of two different ways of seeing the world: the causal perspective seen by humans, and the teleological, holistic one perceived by the aliens.  A very complex and interesting story...

VOIVODOI by Liz Williams

Genetic research has gone out of control in this near-future story set in Krakow, Poland, as a girl's brother is sick and infected with a disease, and with it comes ostracism.  But where it all ends up poses the question: what exactly is pathological, if the "sick" have their own unique adaptation that allows them to survive...and even thrive?

SADDLEPOINT: ROUGHNECK by Stephen Baxter

This novella (the above two were short stories) is one of those old-fashioned space colonization tales.  It throws together excessive nationalism (Japanese on the Moon, others nationalities on other Solar System worlds), a sinister, interfering alien presence (the Prion), the Earth as a nearly dead iceball..and a wily, entrepreneurial American bent on turning Lunar drilling and development into a tidy profit.  And then there is a biophysics spin: is there life that perceives reality with time going backward?  Baxter clearly knows a lot of science, and you're bound to learn a lot from this story of rockets, comets, Moon plants, misplaced nationalism...and so much more...

Next week I continue looking at the year 1998 in short science fiction...

Struggling to Keep Up with Current Alternative/Indie Hit Songs

I've probably written similar opinions on earlier posts, but I have to reiterate that the popular music scene for me has drastically deteriorated over the past few years.  It used to be that I could turn on my radio and current, ongoing hit songs in different genres would be in the regular playing rotation.  Now the only way I see to get that would be to subscribe to a paid online service...broadcast radio as far as I can see only rotates current hits in country & western and the insipid "Hot 100" songs that I generally cannot tolerate.  Hard rock and alternative music are only available on stations promoting a "classic rock" format...focusing on bygone music...and the one station, WHHZ/100.5, that I've enjoyed (at times) listening to over the past twenty-plus years, has reverted to earlier hard rock hits...nothing in the present to look forward to.  So I'm still exploring ways to generate a rotation of ongoing alternative/indie song hits, so far to little avail...then again, I could delve further into my Amazon Music app...yeah, that's probably the way to go.  My "top songs" of 2024 are a tiny group of three...I'll present them a few days from now... 

Still Working Out Parameters for Study, Reading and Writing

Following up on last Thursday's article about studying in coffee shops as my retirement is now in its second week, I'm still looking for "The Place" to set up my studying.  Still, so far I've managed to cover my daily goals, mixing reading, studying foreign languages and, of course, writing for this blog.  I'm finding myself usually spreading it all out over the course of the day at home, although here my attention span isn't quite as strong and I'm more likely to be distracted as opposed to be sitting somewhere in a public place.  I've been diligent with the language study, continuing as I earlier stated with taking a few sentences from a specified article and writing each of them down, taking turns in Spanish, German, Russian and Chinese according to the Google translations.  Since unfamiliar Chinese characters can be problematic since their pronunciation isn't readily apparent, I have begun using ChapGPT to provide transliteration of my articles into the Pinyin Romanization writing system, which I print out and use.  Since I am at intermediate "Level B" stages in all four languages, I still have quite a task in front of me with thousands of words in each to internalize before I can more comfortably understand them...and with listening comprehension consistently lagging behind the reading (I also daily listen to radio/podcasts in each of the four).  But more than anything I enjoy the process of learning: it's fun!

Following College Football Playoffs Despite Lack of Experience Playing the Game

American-style tackle football...complete with helmets and shoulder-pads...is a sport I've never played (or wanted to).  Yet in high school physical education class I played my share of flag football games, generally not enjoying the experience.  I think that's due in large part to the fact that the coach's pet students tended to be picked as the team captains who almost invariably assigned me on offense to block, even though I was a very scrawny kid who happened to run faster than everyone else and never dropped a pass when it was rarely thrown to me (or when I could make an interception),  On defense I had more latitude, free to run around and anticipate the other side's plays...I pulled off many a Velcro flag in my old "glory days".  Still the rules between tackle and flag football are essentially the same, for the most part, and I have always enjoyed sitting down in front of the TV to watch a good contest.  Yesterday the major college conference championship games were in the spotlight, and it was a pleasure to see Georgia "upset" Texas in overtime, as well as bits of the Penn State/Oregon and Clemson/SMU contests.  And with the blowout that Arizona State put on Iowa State making the outcome apparent early on, I was impressed with their tenacity, especially of their running back.  So today, for the first time the twelve-team format for the championship playoffs has just been revealed with the selected teams, seeds and pairings.  I had wanted Miami and Alabama to make the playoffs, but the way things went both got shut out.  I'm looking forward to following the action, which begins with the first round on December 20-21...

Ran Gainesville's Season of Hope 15K This Morning

I like traditions in running races and get a little sad when I see one end.  One tradition that is still continuing is the Season of Hope 15K/5K race in early December...I've run the 15K (9.3 miles) race now four times.  Organized to benefit Tyler's Hope, a non-profit organization for research into the movement disorder called dystonia and help for those so afflicted, it takes place on the Hawthorne Trail in southeastern Gainesville, starting and finishing where the trail passes by Boulware Springs Park (off SE 15th Street).  I ran speed-walked an extended version of the same course last month with the Florida Track Club's Tom Walker Half-marathon, so I'm familiar with all the slopes and hilliness it provides.  The temperature here at sunrise had spiked downward to freezing but had risen by 9:00 race time to the low forties...by the race's end it had gotten into the low fifties...all with low humidity.  On the way to the race my car horn got stuck under the frozen conditions and I had to pull off the road to try to turn it off.  Eventually it shut itself up and I made it to Boulware Springs Park, only to discover that it was already packed because of another race using its facilities at the same time: Girls on the Run 5K.  The organization Girls on the Run is very positive and uplifting for school-age girls, and one thing they do regularly is hold a 5K run...only today it competed head-on with the Seasons of Hope event I had signed up for.  Once I parked, though, I eased my way through the unexpected crowd of humanity there and did my race without any problem.  Although my left Achilles tendon...which had seemed a little sore a few days ago...seemed to ache early on, I kept with my plan to alternate nine-minutes of running with one minute of speed-walking while also speed-walking up the steepest up-slopes.  This worked to perfection, and being able to listen to my favorite songs on my Amazon Music service helped as well.  I kept to my racing strategy until after about six miles when I decided to just run out the remainder of the race, hills and all.  I finished at 1 hour 29 minutes 19 seconds...some four minutes faster than last year's time and my fastest 15K finish since 2015.  Click HERE to see the race results. As with the marathon I did a couple of weeks ago, I had no problem with running low on energy...the low temperature again helped as well.  As for that Girls on the Run organization, I thought it was sweet how they staged volunteers up and down the course to cheer on their runners...they cheered for us "Season of Hope" runners as well!  I hope the Tyler's Hope organization continues this fine racing tradition and I wish Girls on the Run great success in the future...I just wish they can align their event scheduling better next time around...

Quote of the Week...from John F. Kennedy

There are risks and costs to action. But they are far less than the long range risks of comfortable inaction.

                                             John F. Kennedy

John F. Kennedy was our 35th president and the last one to die in office...his assassination in broad daylight on a motorcade in Dallas was a national trauma and marked my turn of attention for the first time, at the tender age of seven, toward politics.  He was widely regarded as a bold leader whose tragic early exit from life has spawned much speculation over the years about what might have happened had he remained alive.  But this is the reality we're passing through and we have to deal with what's before us.  His above quote appealed to me because...and I'm writing from personal experience...I tend to stay in my passive comfort zone too much and must intentionally make myself get out and do stuff.  The fear...and it is a misplaced fear...is that others will note whatever flawed efforts I'm making and criticize or even ridicule them.  But I cannot learn and make progress unless I DO: not doing gets me nowhere except obscurity and weakness...  

Coffee Shop Visits as a Study Routine

As I progress through my first week of retirement, I think I'm starting some good habits to replace those which going to a forty-hours-per-week job automatically imposed on me. Maybe in future articles I'll spell out some of these, but right now I'll discuss one of them.  In my November 19th article a little more than a couple of weeks ago, I wrote about more consistently resuming the old habit I had of going regularly to a coffee shop (or someplace similar) and studying there.  There's something about a public setting that focuses my attention better on my tasks while not placing demands on my attention.  Mental drifting and external distractions not only interrupt my efforts, but they also dilute them when I'm devoting a bigger part of my mental efforts resisting them, and this place helps with that.  I'm writing this article on my old AlphaSmart word processor, completely disconnected from the Internet and which I later loaded onto my blog site. I take Google translations of past articles I've written, and print them out to take with me here.  Then I go phrase-by-phrase with each of them, temporarily memorizing it in each target language and then writing it down.  I cover a small amount of material daily this way but am training myself better to think in the languages I'm studying.  Now on to other activities I do here: reading, speculating and planning...

Weekly Short Stories: 1998 Science Fiction, Part 7

After skipping a week with this Wednesday blog feature whereby I post my reactions to short stories (and novellas) I've just read, here I am again with another installment.  I'm currently in the middle of reading the Gardner Dozois-edited anthology series The Year's Best Science Fiction.  This particular volume covers stories published in the year 1998 and is subtitled Sixteenth Annual Collection.  So without further ado, let's discuss the next two stories I read from it...

THE HALFWAY HOUSE AT THE HEART OF DARKNESS by William Browning Spencer

This story came out in 1998, comfortably after video games and the Internet had been established as features of our culture.  But this tale about rehab from virtual reality addiction seems sadly to be right on track with its timeline set in the immediate future.  A mega-corporation selling the virtual product...like a dope pusher...is trying to kidnap a recovering virtual addict, and only her counselor bravely stands in her way as he tries to lead her to safety and recovery.  In a way, this is a hopeful story but you have to read it to find out how...

THE VERY PULSE OF THE MACHINE by Michael Swanwick

This story is about the extraordinarily seismologically active volcanic Io, one of Jupiter's major moons.  We're a few decades into the future when humans travel to the outer planets.  Martha, the survivor of a crash on Io that killed her companion Julie and put herself on a survival trek on the dangerous surface to safety, begins to pick up her deceased partner's voice on the radio.  Where is it coming from?  This is an exploration about the nature of consciousness and whether it is limited to functioning, living brains...or maybe instead encompasses a much wider range of reality...

Next week: more stories from 1998...

Significant Medical Procedure Coming in Two Weeks

This morning I went to receive my presurgical consultation at the hospital.  Oh, that's right, I never got into specifics about my ongoing health/medical issue, but now seems to be as good a time to start as any.  Being a male in my late sixties, as often happens to some of us, I experienced (from routine blood testing) an elevated PSA score, which is used as a possible indicator of prostate issues, including cancer in that organ.  I recently underwent an MRI to better picture the situation and am scheduled two weeks from now to have a prostate MRI-targeted biopsy to analyze whether it is cancerous or benign...and if the former, how so specifically and to what extent.  I'm personally at peace with the entire process, except that the different procedures and consults seem to be so spaced apart in time.  Melissa has been my steadfast advocate the whole way.  I'm looking forward to a continuing healthy and active life for many years to come and this situation hasn't changed anything in that regard.  Sure, I don't want to hear bad news but I'm a big boy... 

The College Football Flag-Planting Nonsense This Past Saturday

This past weekend the seemingly harmless act of a victorious road football team planting their school's flag in the middle of their host's field right after the game has blown up into violence when a number of contests across the country ended up in violent melees between opposing teams long after the final whistle had been blown.  I don't claim to know much about this practice of flag-planting, which seems to only be done with rivalries and is part of an ongoing year-by-year kind of oneupmanship that, at least to me, seems to be a completely legitimate form of expression.  Yet this year during "rivalry weekend", the losing schools seem to have decided that their "safe space" was being unfairly violated by those mean old winners and fought back.  Ohio State reacted to Michigan, the two state North Carolina schools went at it, and Florida State took umbrage at "my" Florida Gators for planting their flag on their sacred football field in Tallahassee.  My first impulse in writing about this was to chide the flag-planters for poor sportsmanship...you're supposed to be gracious in victory, right?  But the thin-skinned nature of the losers is also poor sportsmanship.  Florida Gators coach Billy Napier went out on the field to meet and greet his counterpart on the FSU side Mike Norvell...the latter refused to shake Napier's extended hand and instead went on a bitchy rant in his face about the flag-planting: that's got to be more humiliating to Seminole fans than the actual so-called "offense".  People, sports is entertainment...please keep it all in context, okay?

Balancing Competitiveness and Perspective in Running

When I was attending high school and went out for the track team (11th grade, winter/spring of 1973), my conception of sports...and in particular running...was almost exclusively based on beating other athletes.  This was due in large part to the fact that everyone else...including my teachers and coaches...saw it all in the same way, making clear distinctions between the amount of regard and respect they demonstrated to their "star" performers and the rest of the less talented rabble (like me).  So I didn't "letter" that one time I went out for sports in school...yet the experience was transformative in that it opened up the aerobic athletic lifestyle that I maintained...either through running, walking or bicycle riding...pretty much for the past fifty years.  When I was a little kid I was one of the fastest sprinters around...I see this a lot when I'm at Depot Park on Saturday morning and get passed by a little boy or girl who only knows how to run all-out...almost always they quickly tire and I'm soon easily passing them in turn.  I don't run races to beat others, but rather to cover the distance and do it in a reasonable, hopefully progressively faster, time.  Sure, I check age group categories for the races that divide up finishers, but even with these as often as not the trinket awards they say they are going to hand out never get handed out (like with the recent marathon race). And besides, there's only just so much room in my house for "stuff".  No, not only do I not run against others, but it actually irritates me when I'm approaching the finish line and another runner is just ahead of me.  I would rather finish just behind him or her, and I feel it's kind of tacky-looking to pass them right at the very end...yet I would have to actually slow down in order to avoid that...yes, annoying.  A friend has suggested we get together for pickle ball, which sounds good.  Yet while it means virtually nothing to win a pickle ball match (a sport I've never played), competition is also an innate part of it all.  Sometimes it's hard to find a proper balance...

My November 2024 Running, Walking and Swimming Report

November was a pretty active month with running and walking...and maybe not so much with swimming.  At least, though, with swimming, there was a breakthrough as we rejoined our nearby YMCA, complete with their outdoor pool.  I've been there a couple of times, although I'm very far behind with my swimming form and endurance.  I think there's a large potential for great growth in this area, although we're also entering a season of coldness...even here in northern Florida.  I think I'll see if I can't get myself into a daily habit of getting out there for incremental swimming and pool time...well, almost daily since the YMCA is closed on Sunday.  As for the running and walking...

We had some good racing opportunities this past month, and since I was generally healthy and in good shape, I was able to participate in five events...three of them the 5K Depot Parkrun, along with a couple of long-distance races.  The first of these was the Tom Walker Half-Marathon on the western end of the Hawthorne Trail in southeast Gainesville...I speed-walked it all in 2:54:40.  The other event was on the eastern end of the same paved trail: the Mega Cupcake Marathon a week ago: I covered the 26.2 mile distance in 5:07:49 employing the Galloway run/walk method throughout that race.  I feel hopeful about possible future marathons after this one.  Yet I also know that I have a medical issue that needs to be looked into further and resolved...and it's more important in the long run than running races.  So in the month to come, I'll balance the two areas while staying mindful of the big picture...

Quote of the Week...from Fred "Mister" Rogers

Often when you think you're at the end of something, you're at the beginning of something else.       

---Fred Rogers

Fred Rogers (1928-2003) was perhaps better known as the Mister Rogers of the classic, beloved children's TV series Mister Rogers' Neighborhood.  Although the series spanned 31 seasons, I was a little too old to be in its target audience of little children when I began watching it in the early 1970's...yet I was drawn to the sweet spirit and attitude permeating the show, clearly transmitted and demonstrated by its host Fred Rogers.  I was digging around for a quote like the one above because today is my final one at work...I've been at the United States Postal Service for 37 years, all of them at the Gainesville processing plant.  And tomorrow I will be a retiree.  I'm happy to leave, but I'm also happy to have worked there: what a blessing!  And Mister Rogers' above quote speaks volumes with just a few words: it's definitely the beginning of something else in my life with the closing of this other chapter...looking forward to the new adventures!

Ran Today's Special Thanksgiving Day Edition of Gainesville's Depot Parkrun 5K

This morning the Depot Parkrun organization scheduled a special Thanksgiving Day 5K at that park a few blocks south of downtown Gainesville...and I ran it.  The temperature at 7:30 race time was 61 with a 100% humidity, warmer and muggier by far than last Sunday's marathon.  At first I was leaning toward speed-walking the event, knowing that another Parkrun would be held just two days later on Saturday the 30th.  I was also dealing with some pain in my left foot and a blister on a toe on the right foot, but at the last minute decided to run it instead...albeit not with any aim of achieving a personal best.  Starting out relatively slowly, I nonetheless caught up with and passed numerous runners who had started out too fast.  In the end I finished with a time of 28:25...almost two minutes off my personal Parkrun best of just two weeks ago but still, for me, a respectable result.  Although the humidity was a bit weighty this morning, I did appreciate the cloud cover and lack of glare...something to be thankful for!  Click HERE to see the results for today's event...

Kicking the Short Story Review Can Down the Road to Next Wednesday

Normally Wednesday is the day on this blog when I review the latest short stories I've been reading, but this week I fell behind on it...oh, well. I think that things would be better served by passing on it this time around.  I'm still reading the anthology The Year's Best Science Fiction, Sixteenth Annual Collection, featuring Gardner Dozois' selections from the year 1998.  Let's see if I can't come up with something by the time Wednesday rolls around again...

Some More About Last Sunday's Marathon

Since I wrote a couple of days ago about my second "official" running marathon experience, I realized there were a few extra items I thought merited mention.  One is the relatively involved amount of preparation during the days preceding the event.  This includes tapering down of running mileage and intensity, along with a stepped-up consumption of carbohydrates.  The latter is supposed to fill up the body's glycogen stores that normally would be depleted long before the end of this grueling 26.2 mile race.  So I did just that, easing up a bit on my training and stuffing myself with high-carb food.  I also conformed to the advice that I drink a lot of water, prehydrating myself for the expected race-day loss of such.  As it turned out I probably didn't need to prehydrate so much since I hardly even perspired the entire five-plus hours and actually had to take four different porta-potty breaks in the middle of the race.  But I should have ingested more electrolytes and stretch my legs more and better.  That may have largely contributed to my leg cramping issues during the final three miles, as well as during the first two hours following the marathon's completion.  I look forward to correcting these oversights for any possible future races...

During the run...four repeated out-and-backs on a 3.27 mile stretched of paved trail in the woods...I  imagined NYC marathon locations at different mileages on this largely undifferentiated run.  Also, I watched an old YouTube video that someone made going up and down the Hawthorne Trail and picked out a few landmarks to look for on the race course.  The Winnepeg YouTube running brothers, on their NYC Marathon video, scorned anyone they saw walking, because they seemed to entertain the misconception that this wasn't an acceptable option.  I, on the other hand, am an enthusiastic advocate and practitioner of the Jeff Galloway method of tackling long distances by alternating a set number of running minutes with one of walking.  Then again, I thought those two dudes were a little bit two much on the "alpha-male" dominance/pecking order side of the human psyche, reminding me a bit of some old overly competitive high school classmates that were totally into themselves and how superior they were to others (and me).  Still, they did give some good advice in parts of their video...

Right after I finished this marathon, I thought that this is too crazy...I'll never do another marathon again.  But the next day I was already figuring how I could tweak things to achieve a better outcome, both in terms of a faster time and in how I can withstand the stresses that this length of race...especially its ending...puts on my body.  But in the next two months I will be undergoing medical tests and, most likely, procedures that could well put an end to my running this season...or maybe not, I just don't know.  But there's other stuff I can do in the meantime if that happens...

Media Manipulation and Sensationalism: Turn It Off

We're definitely living in an age of media manipulation and sensationalism.  Although I tend to avoid news and opinion channels, the few times I drop in on any of them are loaded with messages of outrage and doom, regardless which "side" is expressing them.  The default position seems to be that the world is falling apart and it's those bad guys over there who keep saying and doing bad things, and we're so good because we vehemently react to them.  Whether it's mass media or a social media site like Facebook or YouTube, the lead into the featured story, is often (if not usually) captioned by some enticement at the viewer's emotions instead of a reasonable representation of what's to come if they keep watching or decide to click on the post or video.  I don't think this is going to get any better in the future.  I do think that when someone around me starts to rant and rave about something political or in the news, my first response...regardless whether I agree or not with their opinions...is to question where they receive their information from and how was it presented.  In the meantime, for people's general mental health I recommend a drastic tapering down of news and opinion input from mass and social media...regardless of the source...and to focus more on what good they can, in their individual daily living and decisions, do for the betterment of themselves, their loved ones, and community.  When it's time to vote, sure, inform yourself and do your civic duty...but you can't live on this crap 24/7...

Ran 26.2 Mile Marathon This Morning in Hawthorne

It has been a long time since I finished a marathon race.  As a matter of fact, I had only run one of them, the Ocala Marathon in 2011.  In that one I was doing well until an IT band injury forced me to walk (slowly) the last seven miles, finishing in a little over six hours. I'm glad I took a race volunteer's advice at the time and stuck it out to the end instead of just quitting it, but it has always bothered me that I never had a marathon race that I knew I could run.  Today I ran the Mega Cupcake Marathon held at the eastern end of the Hawthorne Trail, starting and ending in the town bearing that name just a few miles southeast of Gainesville.  The temperature at 7:30 race time was 39 with a 100% humidity, but it heated up by the time I finished it at 70 degrees and 40% humidity.  I had considered bundling up at the cold start of the race but, heeding the words of a couple of Canadian YouTube distance runners, I just wore the regular shorts and short-sleeve running shirt (and definitely stood out in the crowd).  The only problem I had with the cold was with my aching hands...should have worn gloves, dang it.  I also took some other YouTube advice with this race.  One, every 35-40 minutes (and before the race) I consumed an energy gel.  And two, I treated the first 20+ miles as a light jog, studiously avoiding going out too fast, a fatal mistake for many with this many miles to cover.  I also employed some Galloway Method walking, alternating some 1:30 of speed walking with 3:30 light running.  Thanks to Amazon Music, I was also able to listen to a long playlist of some of my favorite songs...that was cool.  Unfortunately, the gel packs got a little too gooey and got on my phone...have to better separate them next time.  This marathon course was pretty flat and was basically a 3.27-mile section of paved wooded trail, there-and-back for four laps.  I was doing fine until I was coming back on the final 3.27-mile stretch and my lower legs began to ache and ball up...I was hobbling at the finish line.  I believe I had negative splits for the race, which according to my watch should have given me a chip finishing time of 5 hours 7 minutes 49 seconds.  Click HERE to see the posted race results, courtesy of MYLAPS Speedhive. This race is essentially the same thing as the April race held at the same place...that one they call "Run Your Buns Off".  It's all very low-key and small-town...I dug the vibes and the nice volunteers, plus it was fun to wave and cheer on the other runners as we passed each other.  This morning they also held 5K, 10K and half-marathon races. Now let's just see how I recover from this punishing race... 

Congratulations to Florida Gator Football Team

The University of Florida football team has been through a lot of ups and downs this 2024 season with head coach Billy Napier on the "hot seat" in this, his third season in charge.  They played poorly against Miami and Texas (or maybe those two teams played extraordinarily well against the Gators), but have also been very competitive in the other contests.  And in the last two weeks they have beaten favored ranked conference opponents LSU and (today) Mississippi...I'm sure being at home helped a little.  The defense has improved immeasurably and they seem to have found a star quarterback in freshman D.J. Lagway.  So Florida is now 6-5 overall and finished their Southeastern Conference schedule at an even 4-4...they're qualified for a post-season bowl game this year even if they flub up against a clearly struggling Florida State team in their final regular season game.  Go Gators!

Quote of the Week...from Sheryl Crow

Hello, it's me, I'm not at home.  If you'd like to reach me, leave me alone!           ---Sheryl Crow

And so goes talented rock musician Sheryl Crow's wonderful late 90's song A Change Would Do You Good, maybe my favorite one of hers.  Of course, here she's mimicking a telephone answering machine...remember those?  And the message sounds a bit paradoxical, doesn't it?  I mean, how can you convey an intended message without actively engaging with the one who you'd want to receive it?  But that's not really what Sheryl was singing about, I think.  No, it's a blunt statement about someone being overrun by others' unwelcome intrusions on her time and life, no matter how well-intentioned they might be.  Or maybe I'm just imposing my own meaning on these lyrics...yeah, that's probably true.  I truly don't dig being completely immersed in complex social settings where all kinds of subtleties, intrigues and nuanced meanings are being communicated back and forth among various players, some of whom may or may not be trying to involve me in some way with their agendas.  No, give me a one-on-one setting where it's simple, mutually-respectful conversation and I can handle that pretty well.  Otherwise...well, read that above quote again...

Thinking in Target Foreign Languages,

As my retirement date nears, I am looking for new ways to approach various interests and how to make progress in them.  One of these interests is foreign language learning.  One thing I have been hesitant over the past years is thinking in the target languages.  We all think in our own "best" languages, even sub-vocalizing in the process.  That doesn't mean that I instantly conjure up grammatically complete sentences in my mind with any level of sophistication regarding word choices.  But I do think in English, although more in a stream-of-consciousness mode.  The same can be true with languages I am learning, but I need to be intentional about thinking in them since the tendency is always to slip back into English.  I saw a YouTube video on this very subject...click HERE for a link to it.  Another thing about learning foreign languages has to do with the pervasive use of computers and the Internet in this regard.  In earlier years I would read texts and various materials in the foreign language, look up the meanings of new words and record my progress with pen and paper within a notebook. Now some of these language learning sites like LingQ and Anki will track my own vocabulary-building progress as well as providing convenient definitions and sentence examples...that's great! But ultimately, when it comes to reviewing what I've learned...or forgotten that I've learned...I think I need to return to my old tried-and-true comfortable method of writing down my progress on paper because engaging in it this way helps more to reinforce my learning.  Now to set up my system... 

Weekly Short Stories: 1998 Science Fiction, Part 6

Once again Wednesday has arrived, so it's time for me to delve into the next stories as they appear in the Gardner Dozois anthology The Year's Best Science Fiction, Sixteenth Annual Collection, featuring the late editor's selections from the year 1998. Dozois, who had a special affinity for novellas, included two in a row...somehow I managed to get through both in time to write about them in today's article...

THE DAYS OF SOLOMON GURSKY by Ian McDonald

Told in elapsing episodes starting in the present and spreading far into the distant future and throughout the cosmos, a scientist has developed a formula for resurrecting the dead and in the process runs afoul of a megalomaniacal corporate figure who reminds me too much of Elon Musk.  As the novella progresses, the narrative becomes too distant from our familiar points of reference regarding reality and technology...that's my own problem as a reader but it still was difficult to slog through.  The story's ending, though, was awesome...

THE CUCKOO'S BOYS by Robert Reed

Written some twenty-or-so years before the COVID debacle, a scientist comes across a way to transmit, virus-like, his own genes through a targeted female population to produce offspring cloned with his own version of what constitutes genius.  The experiment gets out of hand, becomes a pandemic...and he is left as a mentor to some of his now-teenage products in the face of the violent prejudice arising against them...

Next week: more sci-fi from '98...

Returning to My Old Coffee Shop Routine?

Back in the "old days" of when I first moved to Gainesville...namely the period from 1978 to 1985...I tended to spend a lot of time studying in local coffee/donut shops and diners.  I love to learn, although my knowledge is pretty spread out across the academic spectrum...perhaps a little too thinly, I might admit.  But I do like from time to time getting out and sitting in a public setting. I think my greatest progress in foreign language study has been from doing this, but sometimes I just read, speculate, or plan what I'm going to do in the immediate and near future.  Seeing how I'm retiring at the end of next week, it seems that the future is going to be much more conducive for this kind of activity.  Who knows, maybe I'll actually learn something in depth. I had been considering frequenting a couple of places reasonably near to my home...one sells bagels and the other donuts...but alas they both close at 2 pm, so for the mid-afternoon and later it's going to have to be somewhere else.  And of course, there are plenty of "somewhere elses"...

Why Not Have 30 Kilometer Running Races?

While I was contemplating which of the three offered races I would run in this weekend...along with the multiple distances for two of them...it once again occurred to me that there is a substantial, significant gap between two of the distances.  The so-called "classic" running races are 5K (3.1 miles), 10K (6.2 miles), 15K (9.3 miles), half-marathon (13.1 miles) and marathon (26.2 miles).  I've covered all of these in races since I returned to running in my early fifties, but that huge gap separating half from full marathons is very imposing: 13.1 miles!  Yet looking at it logically, there could be another distance offered that gives people the chance to either work themselves up to that marathon distance or find their own most suitable distance.  And that is the 30K race, 18.6 miles long and a fitting intermediary between the half and full marathons.  I wonder why this distance isn't ever offered...I think it's a shame.  I certainly would be one of the ones lining up to run in one of these..

About the Many Virtual NYC Marathon YouTube Videos

Back on November 3rd the 2024 edition of the New York City Marathon happened, complete with its 50 thousand-plus entrants and the meandering course covering all of the Big Apple's five boroughs...in many ways it has become the most sought after long distance running event, even more than the Boston Marathon.  For a year or two I've enjoyed watching point-of-view YouTube videos recorded by some of the runners, lasting the entire race.  Some runners were fast, some average and there was one excessively slow dude.  Each video revealed some of that runner's personality and background while also showing their experiences as they ran past exuberant, cheering crowds.  For the most part, I like these videos and even exercise to them at home.  But three weeks ago, one of the marathon runners, Matt Choi...who is one of those social media "influencers" who earn money making themselves visible while promoting their sponsors' products...was permanently banned from all New York City races because he violated their rules by having cyclists in the midst of the crowded race, filming him from different angles while interfering with and endangering other runners.  I know that if I were such a runner, having gone through the difficult process of just getting accepted to run the race, then paying the expensive entry fee and making arrangements for staying up there...and then struggling to complete the event...I would have been put out and insulted by this one person acting as if I was "in the way" of his own entitled project.  And apparently the New York Road Runners, the organizers of this race and many others in the area, agreed when they banned Choi.  The incident got me to thinking about all those videos...I've found about nine so far...showing the race and all those other runners alongside them.  Usually the videos show what it would be like from a runner's viewpoint, showing what lies ahead and with the backs of the runners ahead of them on the course.  I'm fine with that, but a couple of the video recorders have a tendency to move their cameras to face backwards, behind themselves showing the faces and numbered bibs of the other racers.  I know that were I in such a race, I definitely would NOT like someone with a camera set on me without my permission...yet these people seem clueless about any such potential objection from others.  This virtual filming of races seems to be a male phenomenon. I have yet to see such a video produced for the NYC Marathon...or any other race shown this way on YouTube, for that matter...by a woman: I wonder if this means anything.  The NYC rule-makers clearly prohibit certain kinds of devices for runners to film the race, yet one of them clearly was violating it (he was one of those panning behind him for stretches of time).   I for one enjoy this vicarious type of racing experience I can do from my own living room, giving me a sense of the race environment and surrounding locale.  But it kind of makes me cringe to see the camera pointed for lengths of time at people who clearly had not assented to it.  On one level, it's a major public event, but on another, there are some privacy issues not being properly addressed...

Ran This Morning's Depot Parkrun 5K Here in Gainesville

This morning here in northern Florida it finally began to feel like the fall season, belatedly now in mid-November.  The temperature at 7:30, when the  Depot Parkrun 5K started, was 51 with a 96% humidity...a little chilly but in all, quite pleasant.  I decided to run the race this time since I had speed-walked a half-marathon last Sunday.  I thought that maybe I could improve on my Parkrun personal best time of 26:51 and started out fast, finding a strongly-paced couple ahead of me to follow closely.  That kept me honest with my own pacing, but by the end of the third lap in this four-lap race, they began to pull away from me.  Still, I stuck to it and finished running hard, attaining that personal best: 26 minutes 31 seconds.  No doubt the cooler temperature helped a lot with my performance, and I'm looking forward to cooler times ahead as fall eventually morphs into winter.  Click HERE to view today's posted results... 

Quote of the Week...from Neil deGrasse Tyson

There is no greater education than one that is self-driven.            Neil deGrasse Tyson

Neil deGrasse Tyson is one of the best known astrophysicists today because of his communication skills and passion for making science popular through his podcasts and series.  I've quoted him extensively over the years, but I don't think I ever got around to the above quip, which I've heard others paraphrase (or maybe Tyson is paraphrasing them).  It's a great truth that I've lived over my life span, especially during my school years when I learned so much...but not so much from the officially-established curricula I was ultimately graded on.  I have always been independent in my scholarly pursuits, and the areas I have grown adept in aren't necessarily high on the academic totem pole.  I would like to add to Tyson's quote my opinion that another type of important education is the kind that comes from adversity, setbacks, disappointments...and even tragedy.  It's not as fun to point to this aspect of learning, but bad stuff does happen to us from time to time and it's how we learn to respond to it that often makes us stronger, more mature and, yes, better educated...

New Tropical Storm Sara Named, In Western Caribbean

In keeping with my earlier declaration that I would keep up with named tropical storms in this 2024 Atlantic Hurricane season, I'm reporting today on the latest one, Sara.  It's just been named, after forming an identifiable circulation and developing sustained winds now at 40 mph in the far-western Caribbean Sea, just skirting the northern coast of Honduras, Sara is headed westward, destined to make landfall at the country of Belize and then on through the southeastern part of Mexico before emerging in the southwestern Gulf of Mexico.  There the various meteorological computer models have it strengthening and turning toward the northeast...that is, toward Florida.  Great, that's all we need, a fourth hurricane.  It's not all happening at once, though: it shouldn't be until early next week when we'll have some more definitive information on how strong Sara will get and where it will go... 

Weekly Short Stories: 1998 Science Fiction, Part 5

It's Wednesday and once again time to examine some short fiction as I continue going through the extensive year-by-year anthology series The Year's Best Science Fiction, this volume Sixteenth Annual Collection covering the year 1998 with editor Gardner Dozois' selections.  Here are my reactions to the next two stories in the book as I read it...

DIVIDED BY INFINITY by Robert Charles Wilson

A retired accountant is in deep, suicidal melancholy over his wife's recent death, but at the brink of taking overdoses he always stops.  One day he discovers in the city a used bookstore that contains certain volumes, apparently written by famous authors but which he has never recognized before.  Meeting with the store's aged and eccentric owner, he is given a strange book titled You Will Never Die after that owner informs him that they are both immortal.  How it all works gets revealed as the story progresses...quite a brilliant foray into metaphysics...

US by Howard Waldrop

The tragic kidnapping of Charles Lindbergh's infant son in the early 1930's and its aftermath is treated here according to alternative outcomes of the event and how they might end up drastically affecting young Lindbergh's subsequent life course...told in three different narratives. There are always those punctuated events that have a drastic effect on history...such as the Kennedy assassination or 9/11...but each of us in our own more "ordinary" lives get steered in different directions by these types of things as well, occurring on a smaller scale... 

 

Next week: more sci-fi from the year 1998...

Retirement Affords Me Time for Language Learning

I am looking forward to the time afforded me after my impending retirement, time that I can use to pursue various interests.  Among these is language learning. Although I have studied a number of different languages over the years, I've reached the conclusion that in order to develop a truly adequate comprehension of any of them, I need to learn many thousands more words, which involves extensive reading and listening.  So I've pared down the languages I will be focusing on to three, all of which I've studied to a considerable degree already: Chinese, Russian and Spanish.  With the advent of AI and its usefulness with foreign language study, along with the many apps available...free or with subscription, I think I'm quite ready to make the final push in these three languages to becoming comfortable with them.  But I like the process of learning as well: should be fun...

Saluting Veterans

On this Veteran's Day in 2024, I salute all those fellow Americans who have served in our armed forces, some paying the ultimate price during their tenures.  Before 1973, young men, even if not voluntarily recruited, would be drafted in a lottery system, compelled to serve.  And during wars such as World War II, Korea and Vietnam, many were wounded or died...all coming out of the experience irreversibly changed.  After the draft was replaced by a fully-volunteer force, those who enlisted went through periods of relative peace and some of wartime...the Persian Gulf War, Iraq and Afghanistan were the most intense periods and produced the most casualties since the Vietnam era...but there were also Lebanon, Grenada, Panama, Somalia and Haiti.  And our armed forces are contributing strongly to the maintenance of worldwide stability today. When someone first enters the military, it may be a period of relative peace...but this can quickly change, so for all veterans who performed their duty during both times of peace and conflict, I appreciate your service and sacrifice.  Thank you!

Walked the Tom Walker Half-Marathon This Morning

When I signed up to enter Gainesville's top November running race, the Tom Walker Half-Marathon, I decided to try something new: speed-walk the entire 13.1-mile distance along the Hawthorne Trail southeast of town.  I wanted to see how my endurance would handle walking all-out for this distance as well as whether I could do it in less than 3 hours.  As it turned out, the answers were both a resounding "yes".  Although this course is pretty hilly and the weather was unseasonably warm and muggy, I stuck to my standard race-walking pace that I used for 5K races and extended it more than fourfold, finishing in 2 hours 54 minutes 40 seconds.  There were quite a few people in this race...206 finished.  I placed at #176 overall but that was of course due to me walking the whole course.  The Florida Track Club organizes this event and in their email not only warned participants to not necessarily attempt to set personal time records due to the warm and humid conditions, but also pointed to not having enough volunteers to run it as well as in previous years.  And that's true on both counts, especially regarding the fact that for most of the course there were no mile markers.  But for those who did volunteer, they were all very friendly and helpful.  For the first time in a distance race I used energy gels (three times) and they seemed to help.  I also had a playlist of favorite songs I listened to throughout this long, long walk.  How did I physically feel during the race?  While maintaining pretty much the same pace throughout...as well as up and down hills...I never felt winded or tired.  But my legs and feet began to ache early on and this intensified as the miles piled up, although it never got to the point where I felt like slowing down or stopping.  This was my 18th overall half-marathon finish (I began them in 2010) and my 6th with the Tom Walker Half-Marathon, tying my total with the now-defunct LifeSouth Five Points of Life event.  If you want to view the results, click HERE. I'm writing this later in the afternoon and, other than some expected leg aches, feel totally okay.  Oh, one other thing: deliberately walking in a race like this does demand a bit of humility on the part of the one doing it, because you know up front that most everyone will pass you and you'll be listed near the bottom of finishers without recognition that you chose to speed-walk it.  Since I'm beyond those concerns, I also enjoyed being not only more aware of the beautiful surrounding scenery in such a race, but also found that it made absolutely no difference to me whether I was walking on a flat surface or going up and down hills, no matter how steep.  I think that with today's results I might just try a full 26.2 mile marathon and see whether I can't walk the whole thing in less than 6 hours. But then maybe I'm getting a little ahead of myself... 

Volunteered at Today's Depot Parkrun 5K

Since I am planning to enter tomorrow's Tom Walker Half-Marathon, I thought I would take advantage of tapering down before that race by skipping my customary Saturday morning Depot Parkrun 5K, instead opting to volunteer there.  And since this weekly free race...runners and walkers are equally encouraged to participate...is completely run by volunteers, I do step up from time to time, although probably less than the organizers would like.  Today I was the finishing-token sorter, which is basically collecting scanned little laminated plastic barcoded cards and lining them up in numerical order...technical stuff that doesn't involve heavy amounts of interaction with others, although in the end I found myself conversing a lot with those around me.  It all went well, and I noticed that some of the usual top-finishing runners took it easy with today's event, no doubt because they...like me...plan to race tomorrow morning.  See ya there, although I'll definitely be spending most of my time way behind, at the back of the pack, testing my ability to walk fast for a considerable distance...

Quote of the Week...from Bilbo Baggins

I think I'm quite ready for another adventure.          ---Bilbo Baggins 

I'm not sure whether J.R.R. Tolkien's beloved elder hobbit, chief protagonist of his novel The Hobbit and a bit player in the Lord of the Rings trilogy, speaks the above quote in the latter series.  But in the final Lord of the Rings movie, The Return of the King, he utters it as his old friend Gandalf invites him on the boat that will take them to the fabled Grey Havens at the end of the saga.  And like Bilbo, I, too, am ready for another adventure...a string of them, in fact.  But let's start with what is immediately before me.  On Sunday I plan to speed-walk my first half-marathon race...I've run the previous 17 since 2010.  It's the Tom Walker Half-Marathon, which I've run 5 time before, including the last two years.  It runs along the Hawthorne Trail, leaving and returning to Boulware Springs Park off SE 15 Street in Gainesville.  I've been wanting to see how fast I could speed-walk this kind of distance and how my energy level would flow during longer races.  Well, here goes.  As for more adventures, let's just say that I'm looking forward to my retirement which begins after my final scheduled workday on November 29th...

A Brief Note About the Recent Election

Just a brief note on the recently transpired general election.  Yes, we are all on a runaway train...hopefully it won't crash.  Never before have I felt so alienated from those around me.  I feel that too many of my compatriots are in a state of voluntary self-brainwashing, comfortable in their own designed (by others) social and mass media feedback loops.  The funny thing is that, when politics is factored out of the equation, everyone for the most part seems pretty normal and coherent.  I know many wonderful people in my life who, for some reason, go off the skids when it comes to politics.  Oh well is all I can say, I guess it's part of being a human being in the year 2024.  On the other hand, I don't have to be in a state of voluntary servitude to media.  Just turn it off, or at least pause a moment before settling on a channel or posting.  This is just as important following such an election as it is preceding it.  As I mentioned in a previous article, I'm done with it all.  Sure, I plan to occasionally read up on the issues and candidates and vote in future elections, but beyond that, don't bother me about your political notions, which were probably spoon-fed to you by some mass-media hack or social-media agenda-driven foreign hacker...

Weekly Short Stories: 1998 Science Fiction, Part 4

As I (slowly) go through the Gardner Dozois anthology The Year's Best Science Fiction, Sixteenth Annual Collection, which includes his picks of short sci-fi-from 1998, I've once again encountered one of his several novellas...so there's just one entry below.  In 1998 I briefly tried running again, after some 22-23 years of having abandoned the activity.  Still, I had maintained a good level of cardiovascular condition through much bike riding over those years, and got to a three-mile/per run level of activity during the first few months of the years before I again lost interest...not to pick back up on it until 2007.  Anyway, here's my reaction to that story...

SEA CHANGE, WITH MONSTERS by Paul J. McAauley

After reading Arthur C. Clarke's novel 2061 (in the 2001: A Space Odyssey series) a few years ago, it was fun to see Jupiter's waterbound, ice-covered moon readdressed.  This time it was in greater detail, with of course a much different story line.  Here it's many more years into the future and humanity has explored and settled throughout the habitable solar system.  A recent war between Earth and those living on Europa has resulted in the former's victory and the latter's subjugation under their resented occupation.  The war involved Earth sending genetically-created "monsters" to Europa's seas to wipe out their indigenous life and starve out the people.  A local, mysterious monastery on the moon requests an investigation into what they say is one of the monsters still prowling around their premises.  When the investigator (the story's protagonist) arrives, she not only encounters prejudice from the all-male order there, but also more mystery than she had anticipated.  It's a good tale, and I blame myself and my current circumstances for not having been fully involved with it...

Next Wednesday, we'll see if I can't come up with another installment in this weekly series...

Rafael the Latest Storm in 2024 Atlantic Hurricane Season

Tropical Storm Rafael has been born in the western Caribbean and, this morning so far, carries 60 mph sustained winds as it strengthens into what possibly could be a Category Two hurricane after it enters the Gulf of Mexico in a couple of days.  That should concern anyone living near the Gulf Coast, but so far the predicted trajectory, a composite of numerous diverse meteorological projections, has it aimed toward the Louisiana coast.  Plus, the cooler waters in the northern Gulf should eventually weaken it.  Still, Rafael could be the source of a lot of rainfall toward the end of this week, even in Gainesville where I'm planning on entering a long-distance race on Sunday.  It seems this 2024 hurricane season that these storms seem bent on messing up my races: the sooner it ends the better... 

Thoughts While Watching NYC Marathon Coverage on ABC Today

I was sitting here a little while ago, surfing the TV channels, when I noticed that ABC was covering the New York City Marathon in its afternoon lineup today.  They were at the finishing line in Central Park, the camera looking down on participants as they trudged on through after a 26.2 mile grueling course that goes through all five boroughs of the "Big Apple": first Staten Island for the briefest time, then across the Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge and to Brooklyn for a long stretch, then relatively briefly through Queens, followed by a long bridge crossing over the East River to Manhattan, on briefly through the Bronx and then back through Manhattan to the Central Park finish.  The featured finishing times were really slow, going over seven hours, and the "runners" for the most part looked pretty out of shape, probably because they were.  Still, I liked the fact that this particular marathon doesn't impose strict time duration limits for the race and are fine with people walking it.  Taking ten hours to complete a marathon does strike me as being a little excessively long, but I think the organizers know what they are doing...especially when one "chamber of commerce" type person, interviewed on the ABC show, shared how all the runners (more than fifty thousand) and other visitors for the event greatly stimulated the local businesses with all their spending.  I thought yes, that sounds like the New York City I knew when I visited there back in 2010...they sure do love our money! Still, I'm quite comfortable with a course limit of, say, seven hours as being reasonable.  Here in Gainesville we had something like this for years with the great Five Points of Life Marathon, and in nearby Ocala's own marathon.  That gave speed-walkers a chance to participate, as well as more elderly runners and those practicing the Galloway run-walk method.  Here in Gainesville we have three marathons offered annually, all taking place on the remote Hawthorne Trail southeast of town, away from the city bustle...so there's absolutely no problem with shutting down street traffic during the races.  Yet the organizers on their websites have set unreasonable time limits of five hours for the finishers...although they seem to have begrudgingly posted slower runners' finishing times in the past.  I have run one official marathon, the one in Ocala (2011), and during it had to walk the final seven miles with an IT strain, with a time of six hours, four minutes.  Yet earlier that month on my own neighboring training course I ran a marathon in four hours twenty-three minutes.  At this stage in my life I've stopped caring whether or not anyone believes...without a posted "official" time as proof...that I completed a marathon distance run.  To me it's now a matter of the experience and my own expectations of myself.  I don't need cameras showing me grinning crossing the finishing line or crowds of people cheering me on in order to derive pleasure and meaning from my activity.  I'd like to try a marathon race at some time in the near future, but the organizers around where I live seem elitist and unaccommodating.  I still do the half-marathons around here, but the atmosphere toward anyone but-the-fastest tackling marathon-distance races held in the Gainesville area seems hostile and elitist...

Ran Gainesville's Weekly Depot Parkrun 5K This Morning

Today, the first Saturday morning in November, the day before we turn our clocks back an hour to return to good old Standard Time (with late afternoon darkness), I got up and made it down to Gainesville's pretty Depot Park to engage in yet another Parkrun 5K there.  And, again, I decided to run it (instead of speed-walking) in spite of the 100% humidity and 64 degrees...not exactly pleasant conditions but not unbearable, either.  There weren't as many folks there today, and many chose to walk it...I totally understand.  But in spite of the mugginess, I somehow finished 12th, with a time of 26:56, just 5 seconds slower than my fastest Parkrun finish...click HERE to view today's results.  I always enjoy the positive, encouraging atmosphere there although with the shared pathway with dogs and little kiddies straying this way and that it can be a bit of a challenge to just avoid colliding or tripping over others.  But that all goes with the territory, as they say, and I enjoyed the overall experience.  Next week I plan to volunteer during the Parkrun, as the next day on Sunday the Florida Track Club is holding its annual Tom Walker Half-Marathon, which I usually run...although I'm considering speed-walking the 13.1 miles this time around.  That is, assuming we don't get slammed by the next hurricane in the meantime...

Quote of the Week...from Groucho Marx

Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong remedies.                                                    ---Groucho Marx

Sounds like Groucho, doesn't it...of course, he was the cynical, talkative member of the renowned comedy group of brothers that produced a string of very funny movies during the first couple of decades in the talking movie era.  Yes, the quote is funny, but it's also so, so true.  Yet, I think in today's world of widespread gaslighting...outright lying about reality to trash one's opponent...Groucho, if he were around today, might consider extending it with another witty barb.  Here in Florida we're closing out our second week of early voting for the 2024 general election, and next Tuesday is the official Election Day...all before the losers start crying foul.  I voted a few days ago and, for me, that's it.  Done. I have my own life to live, and if anyone else wants to rant and rave and riot and march and whatever, then they can be my guest...just (with a nod to the late Chris Cornell of Soundgarden) keep it off my wave...

Possibility of Tropical Storm Activity Next Week

In keeping with my earlier plan to keep up to date with developing tropical weather disturbances this 2024 Atlantic hurricane season, I'm reporting only a potential so far out in the Caribbean and Atlantic just north of Hispaniola, a low pressure zone that different forecasting models predict will develop some time next week.  These range from having it attain hurricane strength and threatening Florida to it only becoming a depression and entering the Gulf of Mexico.  In any event, the more northern waters in my Gainesville latitude are much cooler now as we enter the month of November and should interfere with any intensification if any storm comes our way. Still, I'm not all that enthusiastic about having to follow yet another threatening tropical system...

Weekly Short Stories: 1998 Science Fiction, Part 3

Here's another installment in my weekly review of short stories as I read them.  The year I'm currently covering is 1998, and the anthology I'm reading is The Year's Best Science Fiction, Sixteenth Annual Collection, and featuring short stories and novellas from 1998 that series editor Gardner Dozois, also a sci-fi writer in his own right, selected.  I got through two tales this week, so here are my reactions...

TAKLAMAKAN by Bruce Sterling

Taklamakan is a desert area located in central Asia, specifically in Xinjiang, China.  It's the setting for a "black ops" spy operation in the future as a pair of operatives...one a humanoid alien...infiltrate a heavily-defended (by myriad robots) complex in that desert.  Sterling's stories often reflect a cynical view of the "world order" with multinationals and militaristic countries vying for power.  It's the same here...what they find once inside reminded me a little of the premise behind the Matrix movie series.  And the author's depiction of the robots and their "ecosystem" is nothing short of staggering... 

THE ISLAND OF THE IMMORTALS Ursula k. Le Guin

I looked it up: the archipelago and specific island in this story are apparently fictional...maybe that's for the better as the protagonist is on a quest to discover the rumored immortal people dwelling on that island.  Yet while everyone there seems to confirm this, their utter lack of enthusiasm about the notion of people living forever is quite a shock.  That is, until he discovers what is behind their immortality...and where their "eternal life" eventually lands them: quite a surprise ending.  A sobering tale by a legendary author in the genre...

Next week: more about science fiction from 1998...

Anybody Else Following the '24 World Series?

 This past Saturday, if you looked hard enough among all the TV channels featuring college football games, you might have discovered that Major League Baseball's vaunted World Series had begun.  I'm curious: without first looking it up, do you even know who's playing?  Or, for that matter, have you ever followed baseball?  When I was a little kid, I collected (along with my father) baseball cards we cut out of the back of Post cereal boxes.  I knew of Mickey Mantle, Willy Mays, Roger Maris and Yogi Berra...to name a few...but at the time (1962, I was around six) I didn't really know anything about the game itself.  You step up to home plate, swing at the ball the pitcher throws at you with your bat, and try to make first base.  But I had never played the game, and to be perfectly truthful, at my more advanced age of 68 I still haven't.  Oh sure, we would have weeks in school physical education class when softball would be the sport of interest, but even our version of that game was modified a bit.  Nevertheless, I came to enjoy following it, especially with the beginning of the 1969 season...that was the year the "Miracle Mets" astonished everyone and won it all.  Then, over the years I'd sometimes keep up with what was going on...and sometimes the World Series would pass by with hardly a notice.  I do notice one thing: whereas before I would be more interested in the teams, now I like to sit back and observe the process of the unfolding game.  This 2024 season saw a traditionally familiar matchup in the World Series: the American League champion New York Yankess vs. the National League's pennant-winning Los Angeles Dodgers.  Before tonight's contest...played in Yankee Stadium in the Bronx...L.A. had won the series' first three games, largely through the home run heroics of their first baseman Freddie Freeman, and were aiming for a series sweep.  And wouldn't you know, Freeman stepped up again early on and delivered yet another home run, putting them ahead.  But the Yankee bats woke up finally and pounded out 11 runs, handily winning this contest.  So tonight they'll be at it again, and without all those college football games to compete against for viewers' attention...