Skipped Run This Morning, Attended Church Function

Normally, Saturday morning is the time for me to drive down to Depot Park, just south of downtown Gainesville, to participate in their weekly free Parkrun 5K.  Yesterday evening, though...following the viewing of the movie Conclave...I felt a twinge of slight pain in my leg behind the knee.  Not wanting to take a chance on aggravating a possible injury, I decided to skip the event.  No problem...I slept in and got some extra needed sleep: I can take it easier on the exercise and see how it goes.  Later today, Melissa and I went to the nearby United Methodist Church to attend a conference headed by Wesleyan scholar Paul Chilcote.  It was well-done and I felt a spirit of love and camaraderie there.  I did notice, though, a personal aversion to interacting directly with others.  It wasn't a matter of disliking anyone for any reason, but rather a physical reaction I experienced, as if I were somehow allergic to them.  Oh, one thing that kind of rubbed me wrong was Chilcote claiming at the end that he was an introvert...that dude apparently hasn't a clue about what the word really means.  Still, his message was welcome although I felt he invested too much time and emphasis on the official denomination and its founders.  Then again, I guess that contributed to how he got to rise like he did in stature within the organization.  That's fine: he's a good guy and I wish him well...

High-Level Sports Competition Breeds Fragile Athletes

The fragility of top athletes as they engage in their respective sports at the highest level has become a major issue, although it's always been present. I think there are two reasons for this: one, while it's possible to improve athletic performance by changing the human body through exercise, diet, medicine and supplements, we all still have very sensitive soft tissue that is prone to injury and inflammation.  During the last two weeks, Miami Dolphins quarterback Tua Tagovailoa was taken off the field twice...it appears now that he suffered a brain concussion in the first game against Buffalo, but that it was misdiagnosed, and he was wrongly cleared for the next contest against Cincinnati.  Then the injury became obvious after a hard hit, and he is now out indefinitely.  Before all this, though, Tua was already known as being injury prone...he was plagued by knee, ankle and hip injuries while playing for Alabama in college.  But although football is clearly a hard contact sport, in others like tennis injuries have come to dominate the headlines, often dictating who the eventual tournament champions will be.  Federer, Nadal, Williams...to be the best can put a heavy strain on the body, and for these champions who want to stay in the picture as they age, the prospects of career-ending injuries are increasing.  As a fan of a number of different professional and college sports, I've grown to follow the games less for who's going to win or lose, and more for appreciating the competitive moments in each sport, regardless of who's playing or my own preferences.  But maybe that's how I should have been following sports all along...

Quote of the Week...from Pete Hamill

Boxing is one of those leftovers from a more primitive past that should be finished off and killed. I don't love it anymore.                         ---Pete Hamill, a New York journalist and author.

The other night on Jimmy Kimmel, he had as a guest professional boxer Floyd Mayweather, Jr., who will be fighting against Connor McGregor of the UFC on August 26th.  Mayweather was all smiles and only seemed to want to talk about all the money he was going to make from this upcoming bout...I'd be thinking about something else if I were him...

Mayweather is at his career peak and has succeeded in large part to his skill at avoiding being hit in the head...but on the other hand he has inflicted much damage to his opponents over his 49-0 professional span, included 26 knockouts.  And knowing how much head blows contribute to the disease known as dementia pugilistica and seeing the tragedy of how Muhammad Ali's life was drastically impaired by his boxing-induced Parkinson's, I personally cannot fathom how anyone in this day and age could go out there with a clear conscience and cause brain damage in others over and over again...even if they were adroit at fending off their opponents' blows to their own heads...

Speaking of Ali, the last boxing match I followed was the October, 1980 event between him and Larry Holmes.  Unknown to the viewing public, Ali was already beginning to suffer the cumulative effects of his bouts and had recently entered a Mayo clinic with results showing slurred speech and lack of coordination...foreshadowers of his Parkinson's ordeals.  But the fight went on and Holmes pummeled Ali, with a TKO in the tenth round putting it to a much belated end.  Before that I had watched a lot of boxing over the years...especially Ali's fights...but afterwards lost heart in this brutal and debilitating sport after realizing how it ultimately destroys the lives of so many of these great athletes.  And quite frankly, I don't have much respect for the public followers of boxing either...and this includes the hybrid sport of UFC...their bloodlust to me rivals that of the ancient world's Roman Coliseum spectators of gladiator contests...

By all accounts, Floyd Mayweather is charming and likable and seemingly indestructible...but so was Muhammad Ali in his prime.  I've never watched Connor McGregor fight nor heard him speak, but he's in the same boat as Mayweather.  I read that McGregor stands to make $75 million off this upcoming fight and Mayweather a whopping $100 million.  But what good is all that money if down the road your mind is mush and your life a greatly shortened one full of disability and heartbreak?

Long Runs, Pain, and Injuries

This past Tuesday, around noontime, I ran eight miles, winding up and down my neighborhood streets. It was my longest single run since this past January, when I ran the Newnan's Lake 15K (9.3 miles).  I felt good at the end, not only knowing that I could have run for longer, but also that my body seemed to be suffering no adverse effects.  Other than a brief thigh cramp about an hour later, the rest of that day gave me a sense of optimism that I could start going on a couple of longer runs per week, which would put me in a constant state of preparedness for entering, running, and finishing any half-marathon race that might come along my way.  I strategized staging these long runs on Mondays and Fridays, so I had intended to run today.  Instead, I'm writing about NOT running today after experiencing a sporadic, unusual feeling on my right shin yesterday evening while at work...no pain whatsoever, but still something I want to monitor at least through today before I run again.  After going through that IT-band injury just below my knee in early 2011 and having to deal with plantar fasciitus in one of my feet two years later, I am learning to pay more attention to warning signals from my body.  Endurance running training inherently involves feeling sore and aching a bit, but some pains may indicate problems "down the road" and need to be addressed before complications can develop.

I'm still looking forward to going on long distance runs.  If things look clear on Monday, I'm trying out another one, maybe getting to the ten-mile level: the course is already mapped out in my mind and my running music is already downloaded on my mp3 player...