Afflictions Again

Once again I am dealing with a small assortment of annoying afflictions that are causing some grief in my daily existence. Still, I am managing to function through it all, although without very much enjoyment. My running training has suffered somewhat, with my mileage taking a substantial dip. I still plan to enter the Ocala Half-Marathon, scheduled for Sunday, January 22. Hopefully, by that time things will have improved for me.

Cramped, Overcrowded Running Races

I am primarily a lone runner. I don't run in order to compete in races. Races to me are just a punctuation to my running hobby, nothing more, although I do tend to train up to an approaching event. So when I do compete in an occasional race, my reaction to it and how it is organized is bound to be different from others with a more competitive motive to their running. One of these differences is how I react to the number of participants in a race.

As such a solitary runner, I don't need that many accompanying runners to give myself the feeling of participating in a social, group event. For example, the two relatively low-key half-marathons I have recently run in had around 200 runners in each of them. But even with this small number, I found the races' starts to be overly cramped and constricting, even having to wait several seconds before even walking, then running very slowly (so as not to trip over anyone or be trampled), and then finally reaching the starting line. I ran my last half-marathon in well under 1 hour and 56 minutes, but left with the "official" time of 1:56:07, some of that time patiently spent just waiting to get to the starting line! And even after that was accomplished, I spent the first mile or two boxed in by slower runners. So who knows how fast I could have run had the field been much smaller. And the idea of lining up near the front at the race's beginning, which I had done before in earlier 5K races, doesn't work either: many slow runners seem to take a perverse pleasure in maneuvering themselves ahead of others at the beginning, even though they should well know that they are just impeding faster runners.

But having said all that, I still think that these races were worth running. And then I read about an upcoming March 15K (9.3 miles) race in Jacksonville: 10,000 runners are expected! Still, that's nowhere near the 24,000 who "raced" in the Walt Disney World marathon. Why run in such an overwhelmingly crowded event? I pondered about this a little while, and then it hit me...

It's the mob appeal phenomenon that one sees on Times Square at New Years Eve, rock concerts, major sporting events, mass protest demonstrations, etc. It is as if, after a certain threshold has been passed, the appeal of these events is not the nature of the event itself but rather in being in the midst of the gathering of a very large mass of people in close quarters pursuing the same agenda. That's why people will continue to sign up for overcrowded races that are a complete joke to run in.

The only reason I will ever participate in one of those mega-races with its thousands of runners is to play the role of tourist and engage in a lot of sight-seeing during my run. Otherwise, I think that I'll just stick to my more enjoyable (and much less expensive) jaunts around my neighborhood and vicinity...

Saban's Title Shallow to Me

The University of Alabama's head football coach Nick Saban is currently relishing his team's NCAA championship after they drubbed top-ranked and formerly unbeaten LSU 21-0 Monday night. They certainly looked like the best team in the country to me after they took total control over that game. But I still don't think they deserved to be in it.

You shouldn't see a season-ending title game scenario pitting two schools from the same conference, especially the same division within that conference. The teams within that division, in this case the SEC West, spend the entire season playing each other, along with a few teams from the East. That does not automatically establish the ultimate winner as the country's best team. LSU already defeated Alabama in the regular season. Alabama just won a rematch, and convincingly. So kudos to Alabama, the truly best team in the Southeastern Conference (although not its champion).

Oklahoma State, the top-ranked team elsewhere in the United States, should have been picked to play LSU for the national championship. So while Nick Saban added another title to his collection, I don't think it is truly merited. But...

If Mr. Saban, who wrote a book about character a few years ago, is satisfied with his victory, than I have a suggestion for him. He has truly reached the pinnacle of achievement in coaching college football. Why not now return to the pros and the Miami Dolphins, the team he completely abandoned after only two seasons in 2006, and restore his reputation to many as a man of character?

I know, I know, Nick, writing a book about character is one thing, as is demanding integrity and loyalty from everyone else around you. But yourself? Forget it!

Yesterday's NFL Playoff Games

This past weekend saw the first round of the NFL playoffs. Three of the four teams I was rooting for won, including both games yesterday. The outcomes of those contests were the most meaningful to me. The early game was between the Atlanta Falcons and the New York Giants, which is the team I am rooting for the hardest in the playoffs. After a slow offensive start, New York built up and expanded on its lead, winning the game 24-2. The later contest was between the Denver Broncos and the Pittsburgh Steelers, which is one of the teams I am rooting AGAINST the hardest. Once again, "my" team in this game got off to a slow offensive start. But then Tim Tebow began to throw bombs for long gains and touchdowns and, before anyone could catch their breath, Denver had amassed a 20-6 halftime lead over their heavily favored opponent. The Steelers did come back in the second half to send the game into overtime, but that went for naught when, in the first play from scrimmage, Tebow threw an 80-year touchdown pass to Demaryius Thomas to seal the victory. The final score was 29-23.

Denver plays at most-reviled (by me) New England next week, while New York travels to good old Green Bay (my #2 favorite NFC playoff team after NY). The other upcoming games feature my AFC non-Florida favorite Baltimore at home against Houston and San Francisco at home against my preferred New Orleans. More offensive fireworks are in store, I'm sure...

...Just one post-scripted comment here about Tebow and his detractors. I am thoroughly beside myself with wonder at the expressed ignorance of the so-called "expert" analysts (especially on ESPN Radio) who continue to run him down because of his relatively low percentage of pass completions. I saw yesterday's performance, in which Tim completed less than half of his passes. But many of those incompletions were thrown away as an deliberate offensive strategy, not at all a reflection on the quarterback's accuracy. I never hear anyone bringing this fact up. But at least some sports media talking heads are finally realizing the value of Tim Tebow's versatility in the pros: you don't know if he's going to pass, pitch back, hand off, run around the end, or run straight ahead. This confusing of the defense went a long, long way toward enabling what was almost universally considered to be a weaker Denver team to pull off the big upset yesterday over last year's conference champions.

Negative Presidential Political Rant

I don't like any of the Republican candidates for president. On the other hand, I am not very happy with our current president either. Barack Obama, in my opinion, broke his promise to the Florida people when he assured them late in the 2008 campaign that he would support NASA's proposed mission to the moon and later Mars. Instead, a few months after he took office, he thoroughly scrapped it. With Democratic control of Congress for two years, he could have done something to rescue the U.S. Postal Service from its financial problems, caused largely by an unfunded mandate passed by a lame-duck Republican Congress and signed by President Bush in December 2006. But instead he did nothing. He wasted too much time trying to reach compromise agreements with the opposition Republicans who clearly expressed that their primary objective was not to pass responsible legislation, but rather to make Obama's presidency a failure. When revolt broke out in Libya and dictator Gadhafi was hemmed in around Tripoli by advancing rebel forces, Obama kept our naval fleet, stationed just off the coast in the Mediterranean, from taking out the dictator's air force while he hemmed and hawed for two weeks trying to amass an international coalition. The result was thousands of lives lost as Gadhafi regained the upper hand and nearly retook the country; the bloody conflict then dragged on for several needless months. Obama displayed shortsightedness and naivete by trying to pressure Israel into concessions in order to resume peace negotiations with a Palestinian government that had NO EFFECTIVE AUTHORITY to carry out any resulting agreement. And I take issue with our president's extremism on the environment in the face of the urgent national need to develop our own, domestically-produced sources of energy.

There, I said it: I am not a happy camper regarding our president's record. I think the dude-in-chief has screwed up quite a bit, in fact.

But with all that having been said, I still think that Barack Obama is on the right track in general with both our domestic economic policy and with our foreign policy. Some of the problems he has had in office have come from the absolute refusal of the Republicans to even present an appearance of working with him to achieve a reasonable policy.

I don't think I have ever been so dismayed by the deteriorating level of politics within our government. Of those currently running for president on the GOP side (as well as the couple who have recently dropped out), I would say that they are all pathetic, lame jokes, except for the possibility that one of them may actually end up as our next president!

Scary stuff, scary stuff...

Blog Thoughts

Although I have more or less kept up with this blog on a daily basis, it has been many months, possibly even more than a year, since I actually surfed the blogosphere for interesting sites and articles. There is no doubt that the twin plagues on humanity known as Facebook and Twitter have drawn away many former bloggers, who see in these sites a more ready-made means of networking and sharing ideas. Truth be told, I have accounts in each of them, but never make any entries for others to read. Why?

It is a sad fact of human nature that people in general often invest too much emotion into preciously held notions and prejudices. Many of these people I personally know and would like to maintain a modicum of goodwill with them. And since I write about sensitive topics like religion, politics, and social issues, expressing in no uncertain terms how I really feel about these topics, I am sure to deeply offend some, if not many of these small-minded folks. So I avoid Facebook. If any of them happen to stumble across this blog, well, let the reader beware!

I follow Twitter not because of its reading value, but rather because the terse notes expressed on it often serve as quick flashes of interesting items that I can then research further. As far as Facebook is concerned, I have "friends" whom I have rarely or even never met putting up messages about their personal lives that I really don't care to read. Would they consider me rude if I were to "break" our "face" friendship? And for those I do know, I am put off very often by the degree with which some of them express their personal goings-on and sentiments.

I have been rather selective in revealing to various people I personally know about the existence of this blog, which will be five years old in April. Yet of the ones I have told about it, very few have taken even a few short minutes to read it. You might think that they would at least have the courtesy to read something from it every now and then, especially since I obviously put much of myself into writing it and made an issue of telling them about it. Instead, my readers tend to be strangers who come up on my "WMI Blog" through searches of topics that I discuss in articles therein. I like their readership, but I would also like for there to be a larger number of regular readers scattered around the U.S. and the world: people who check up on my blog from time to time just to see how I'm doing and what I'm thinking...

I suppose, though, that the most likely regular readers of this blog would be bloggers themselves. If I value others reading my articles, then I should read theirs as well, leaving constructive and pertinent comments on them.

I sincerely hope that the concept of a free, widely available blogosphere will always be with us. Having a blog like this has done much to increase my confidence with writing, and it has further enhanced my ability to effectively express my thoughts to others in spoken form. In fact, I often find myself, in the midst of conversations, almost verbatim repeating sections of articles I've written.

I plan to keep this blog going on as long as possible. (Non-spam) comments are always welcome!

Underhanded Smear Ad Against Gingrich

I am noticing something with Mitt Romney that happened with George W. Bush. The candidate himself comes across as a congenial nice guy, while he apparently has a shadow crew of very nasty people behind-the-scenes taking care of his opponents with smear ads. On the other hand, I expect that both sides in the general election will be hard at work to personally vilify whoever is finally running for the presidency.

I already knew of Newt Gingrich's tarnished past, but apparently many Republican voters needed to be reminded of it in a widely-shown ad claiming that Obama wants Gingrich to be the GOP nominee because he'll be easy to beat. The ad's disclaimer at the end states that no candidate authorized it. Just some concerned citizens wanting to spend a "bucket"-load of money to enlighten the electorate with altruistic zeal, right? And smiling, sparkling "Max Headroom" Mitt had absolutely NOTHING to do with it. Yeah, sure. Here we go again...

I am already pretty sure as to how I will be voting for president this November, regardless which Republican candidate survives the absurd TV reality show titled "The GOP Campaign", with its cast of deeply flawed characters taking turns being in the lead and then falling back because, well, they are discovered to be human after all, apparently a disqualifying trait for a Republican nominee. The truth is that I have become very deeply disillusioned with how the political opposition has dealt with Barack Obama ever since he stepped into the White House in January, 2009. It is one thing to carry on a spirited public debate with your political opposite; it is another thing entirely to treat that opposite as an enemy to the nation who must be countered at every turn with no room for the necessary give and take on that our political process in Washington traditionally functions with. In spite of the fact, though, that the Republican Party leadership decided to stonewall practically everything that the duly elected Democratic president has proposed, the fickle and memory-impaired American electorate will quite possibly reward them this November for such callous irresponsibility with both the Presidency and control of both houses of Congress. Unbelievable.

Colmes, Santorum, and the Death Taboo

Alan Colmes, the token liberal commentator on FoxRepublicanNews, has recently apologized to former Pennsylvania senator and current presidential candidate Rick Santorum for bringing up in a critical manner how the latter handled the tragedy of his newborn child's death in 1996. The fact that Santorum handled the matter as he did, and the further fact that many think it to be peculiar behavior, points out to me how much the death taboo is so deeply entrenched within our society.

From what I have been able to gather, Mr. Santorum took the dead baby home for the sake of showing his other children that they had a little brother at one time. He "played" with it for a short period, and then it was over. That's all. Maybe I'm a little bit weird, but his reaction to me was completely understandable and compelling. Maybe it's those who seem put off by his behavior who bother me much, much more...

Death happens, people. We like to be surrounded by the living and would like to see those who are gone to be REALLY gone. But it is a simple fact of "life and death" that when one dies, the body usually is still there to be dealt with. I think Rick Santorum's way of dealing with his grief over his loss is more in line with not only how other cultures deal with this issue, but even other animal species. Let's not be so quick to try to demean this individual before we take an honest, hard appraisal about how much we ourselves are under the "spell" of this taboo against handling the dead...

My Preferences in This Year's NFL Playoffs

This coming weekend will see the commencement of the National Football League playoffs, with the teams sporting the best records receiving a bye until the following week. Although none of the Florida teams came even remotely near to making the playoffs, I still have some favorites. So in a downsized version of my "favorites" lists, here is the order that I prefer to see the teams do. The top is my favorite, down to the bottom,which is composed of the "bad guys":

1 New York Giants...I still appreciate them beating undefeated New England in the Super Bowl four years ago, I like the location (NY), I like their coach Tom Coughlin, QB Eli Manning, and offensive standouts Victor Cruz and Ahmad Bradshaw. Plus, even when they play badly, they still seem to function as a team.

2 Baltimore Ravens...I've rooted for them since back in 2000 during their playoff surge, powered by their incredible defense headed by Ray Lewis, that brought them their one Super Bowl win. They still impress me. Besides, they are in the same division as the Steelers, a team near the bottom of this list.

3 Green Bay Packers...Now that they are no longer a threat to go the entire season undefeated (thanks to QB Kyle Orton and the Kansas City Chiefs defense), Miami can breathe a sigh of relief (their 1972 unblemished record is still unrivaled). So now I can once again sit back and enjoy this offense, powered by its talented QB Aaron Rodgers.

4 New Orleans Saints...They're "kind of" close to Gainesville. And Drew Brees rivals GB's Rodgers with his talent.

5 Cincinnati Bengals...Just because they, like the Ravens, are a divisional rival to Pittsburgh.

6 Atlanta Falcons...Atlanta is another regional pick, relatively close to Gainesville.

7 Denver Broncos...I am not a Tebow fanatic, but he's got "spunk" and the team is fun to watch (sometimes). Plus, their first (and probably only) playoff game is against those doggone Pittsburgh Steelers.

8 Houston Texans...I couldn't care less about this team, one way or another. Whether I root for them or against them hinges completely on which team they are playing.

9 Detroit Lions...I would have them higher on this list, but they seem to have some serious issues with unsportsmanlike conduct. Can their coach control his players' antics?

10 San Francisco 49ers...With SF, it's the coach Jim Harbaugh and his arrogance, not the players, who is the problem, at least as far as I am concerned. However, I do like QB Alex Smith, unfairly maligned from last year.

11 Pittsburgh Steelers...I'm still harboring a decades-old resentment about the Steelers stealing the Dolphins' thunder with their "dynasty" of Super Bowl championships in the Seventies. There's only one way I'll root for them, and that's if they end up playing:

12 New England Patriots...All of Miami's AFC East rivals are anathema to me, since, after all, I am a Dolphins fan. However, I have been recently known to root for the spirited New York Jets for the last couple of years in the playoffs after Miami abysmally failed to qualify for the post-season. But New England or Buffalo? NEVER!

Brief, Intense Cold Spell Here

Winter has finally arrived here in Gainesville with drastically colder temperatures. Last night, accompanied by a very strong, cold northwesterly wind, it dipped down to the upper 20's. Tonight's low may dip to 21 or lower, a Gainesville record low for January 4th. Tomorrow's highs probably won't reach 60, and then at night it will dip down to freezing again.

It's funny, and a little sad at the same time: for most of the year, I complain about how hot it is. Then, the cold hits and I almost instantly wax nostalgic for the heat. Still, this cold spell does help me in that it keeps allergens out of the air, something that I unfortunately am susceptible to.

Not to mention the fact that it keeps the grass stunted in my lawn!

Tomorrow's Iowa GOP Caucuses

Tomorrow is the long-anticipated day of the Republican Iowa Caucuses, an event that supposedly will help to establish the eventual party nominee for president. Like it did back in 2008, when Mike Huckabee won it. Wait, he didn't win the nomination, did he? Oh, I see...

The winner of the Iowa Caucuses doesn't necessarily get the nomination. It's one's own prime time Fox News Channel show that is the prize for victory (that's what Huckabee got). And the runners up? They will probably be recruited as Fox Political Analysts, assuming that they aren't the one actually getting the nomination in the end.

The problem with the Iowa Caucuses, as I see it, is three-fold. One, it is just that: an open-hall statewide caucus, held at one special time in the various precincts, not a legitimate, secret ballot election spread out over the day to give voters more time to get to the polls. Although the Republicans have adopted a secret ballot system of voting, in practice this has not always been followed, nor is it legally mandated. As a result, participants will tend to be more ideologically-driven and fanaticial, not representative of the typical voter who actually has a life aside from politics or preciously-held hot-button emotional issues. Two, every candidate has their own excuses for not doing well in Iowa, should that happen. Some have played the double game of downplaying the significance of the caucuses while spending money and time there. The fact that true primaries in New Hampshire, South Carolina, and Florida are coming up soon thereafter will quickly diminish the significance of the Iowa winner anyway. Three, with almost instant nationwide polling and seemingly endless nationally televised debates, the focus on the campaign isn't as intense on individual states in the early campaign like Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina as it has been in the past. This is especially true with the current theory that the 2012 election will hinge on a very small number of key states like Ohio, Pennsylvania, Florida, and Michigan. So while the Florida Primary may be important in revealing a candidate that has Republican voter appeal there, Iowa won't because it isn't really a primary and New Hampshire and South Carolina are too regional in character to make a deep nationwide impression.

Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich are the leaders in this Republican run for the 2012 nomination. Maybe the most significant result of the Iowa Caucuses will be to convince some of the other candidates to drop out of the race, especially with financial resources drying up. But since they are almost all media-seeking egomaniacs with plenty of opportunities in nationally-televised debates and powder-puff interviews on FoxNews to keep their sense of importance hyperinflated, I don't see this dropping-out process beginning until after the true primary season has been underway...

My 2012 De Leon Springs Half-Marathon Experience

De Leon Springs is a rather small community in western Volusia county, Florida (most widely known for Daytona Beach). It is about 100 miles of a drive from Gainesville. There is a pancake restaurant called the Old Spanish Sugar Mill Restaurant nearby in a state park. Other than that, there is really nothing attractive to me about this place. But for some reason, going on 28 years now, this insignificant and relatively remote community has seen fit to offer a half-marathon race. Seeing an opportunity to run in an event a good three weeks from my long-planned Ocala Half-Marathon on January 22, I signed up yesterday and ran it this morning. The conditions were not hospitable: there was intense fog throughout the drive from Gainesville to De Leon Springs, and the fog and humidity made the race not enjoyable at all. Although the temperature was in the low 50's at race's start at 8 AM, by the end it had warmed to an unpleasant level. And then again, there was the race course itself...

The De Leon Springs Half-Marathon runs mostly down one street and back: County Road Three. The view is monotonous, to say the least: straight and flat, with trees, trees, and more trees. Add that to the fact that the race wasn't closed to motorized traffic and you have a frustrating situation. Still, no place is perfect and I approached this New Year's Day adventure with a positive attitude.

At the race's beginning I got a good-looking red, long-sleeved tee-shirt with De Leon Springs Half-Marathon on it. At the end I got a medallion (picturing that aforementioned sugar mill) to hang around my neck and show that I actually finished the 13.1 mile race. Other than that, I got very little...

There were a couple of spots along the race where Gatorade was offered; other spots just carried water. After the race was over, no Gatorade was to be found. I later saw some other runners walking to their cars carrying some fruit that was apparently being offered somewhere (but I didn't see any). But that's all O.K. because...

Running 13.1 miles is in itself a pretty grueling activity. To get all steamed up over the lack of creature comforts is to miss the point. In truth, there was enough rehydration offered to the runners, although it may not have been exactly what some of them wanted. I did have a beef with the shortage of toilet facilities but, having anticipated this possibility, I took care of "business" before I got to the race site.

I mentioned that I didn't really enjoy the run, for the various reasons given. Late in the race, although I was generally passing the runners in front of me with only one "competitor" passing me, I felt weak and sore. But much to my astonishment, as I crossed the finish line, I discovered that I had completely wiped out my previous half-marathon personal record time by more than two and a half minutes, officially finishing at 1 hour 56 minutes 07 seconds (here is the race results website). So go figure. It seems that lately, some part of me pushes me harder than I had intended. The result has been faster runs without the fun I am used to having.

I think, all of this event's shortcomings notwithstanding, that it is pretty dang cool that such a tiny town as De Leon Springs would hold such an event. Kudos to them! I suppose, though, that they would do a lot better with the runners' opinions of them were they to provide more toilet stations, not just at the starting and finishing points, but also at intervals along the race course (I saw none along the run). I have read a couple of very negative reviews about this race from 2011 and it seems that this scarcity of facilities was a very big deal to those individuals.

So now I go back to shorter training runs in preparation for the Ocala Half-Marathon. I wonder what the weather will be like on that race day morning three weeks from now. Last year it was around 26 degrees when the race began...

My Personal Top 20 Favorite Songs in 2011

I go by the name Billy Irwin, not Billy Pilgrim. Still, at least musically speaking, since 2009 I have become quite "unstuck in time" regarding my favorite songs for each year. The reason is quite simple, really: for the past three years or so, when I become interested in a particular act, I amass its collection of songs from years gone by and then discover some gems often residing deep within albums, some of them recorded and released long ago. In January of 2011, I started with my continuing exploration of Radiohead's music. Then, as the year progressed, I followed, in succession, Spoon, Arcade Fire, and Gorillaz. Finally, toward the end of 2011, I rediscovered The Police and their incredible five studio albums from 1978 to 1983 (with consistently, eerily appropriate lyrics for the times we now live in). Scattered throughout the year, I listened to my old favorites Sufjan Stevens, Regina Spektor, Beck, and Metric. Plus, I acquired the latest Linkin Park album, the cerebral A Thousand Suns, which I highly recommend. There was only one song on my year's favorites list that I actually heard by listening to broadcast radio: DeVotchKa's 100 Other Lovers. So, at least temporally speaking, my 2011 favorites are spread out a bit over the years (even going back to 1982). Well, here goes my list:

1 To Binge by Gorillaz
2 Soft Rock Star by Metric
3 Neon Bible by Arcade Fire
4 100 Other Lovers by DeVotchKa
5 Last Living Souls by Gorillaz
6 These Are My Twisted Words by Radiohead
7 Rebellion (Lies) by Arcade Fire
8 Stylo by Gorillaz
9 Darkness by The Police
10 My Mathematical Mind by Spoon
11 Man Research (Clapper) by Gorillaz
12 Goodnight Laura by Spoon
13 Earthquake Weather by Beck
14 Windowsill by Arcade Fire
15 The Ghost of You Lingers by Spoon
16 Rehash by Gorillaz
17 Blackout by Linkin Park
18 Revolving Doors by Gorillaz
19 Little by Little by Radiohead
20 Don't Let It Get You Down by Spoon

My personal choice for musical artist(s) of the year? That shouldn't be too difficult to discern, just looking at the above list. It's Gorillaz!

Change of Half-Marathon Plans

I have decided to do an about-face with my immediate half-marathon plans. Instead of running around my neighborhood and its surroundings on my own for 13.1 miles on Saturday (12/31), I am entering the DeLeon Springs Half-Marathon for Sunday morning, New Years Day. Although this will entail a bit of a drive (DeLeon Springs is a few miles from Daytona Beach in western Volusia County), I will enjoy the benefit of having the preceding night off from work. So, I will be able to rest up some before heading off to run this event.

Although doing this ends the idea of running a half-marathon each calendar month, I am instead running in a public race. Sounds like it will be a lot of fun, assuming, of course, that it doesn't rain. Then again, that might turn out to be fun, too...

One Last Shot at a December Half-Marathon

Now it's getting to the end of December and I am wondering whether I couldn't fit in one half-marathon run anyway, in spite of the fact that I missed that Jacksonville race on December 18. No, it wouldn't be an official, public race. And no, I wouldn't "get" to spend forty-plus dollars for the privilege of running in it: it would be free. I would simply step out of my front door and run my own personally designed half-marathon course around my neighborhood (and some adjacent locations) as I have done many times in the past. So that is what I am thinking of doing...

Saturday, December 31, as far as my employer is concerned, is my official "New Years Day" holiday. And so I am off from work and free to stretch out a nice, long run into the afternoon. If I am to accomplish this run and continue my string of "one half-marathon per month", it will be that day...or no day. Actually, it's pretty nice that my work situation gives me this one last opportunity: a heavy December work load was the primary reason I wasn't able to run that Jacksonville half-marathon earlier this month.

I suppose that it was inevitable, anyway, that I would live through months without the opportunity to run public half-marathon races. From April through October, this event is pretty much closed off to me, due to the fact that I live in generally-hot Florida and they just don't schedule long-distance running events for most of the year. And I have a job and don't have the luxury of just hopping on a plane whenever I get the whim to run in a race more remote (although I think that would be a cool thing to try at least once). So, after the more local events are through in March, I'll either have to run my own private half-marathons or tone down my running to a shorter distance.

Soldiers For Jesus

There is a curious, tight bond between evangelical Christians and the militarism of the United States in the past few years, especially that aspect which involves mortal combat in Iraq and Afghanistan. On one level, it makes some sense: Christianity promotes, at least in theory, the idea of selfless sacrifice. And soldiers either patrolling a hostile, foreign environment or engaging in open fighting are definitely putting themselves in harm's way, an act that could be realistically regarded as selfless. But they are also killing people whom Christianity regards as being lost, i.e. those who don't accept Jesus as their savior. If a believer, a TRUE believer in Christianity and its doctrine of eternal life after death being possible ONLY by accepting Jesus as savior, enlists in one of the armed services and goes overseas to fight and kill the "lost", then isn't that a sort of blasphemy? Isn't that soldier condemning, according to his or her own confessed belief system, the fallen enemy to eternal damnation? So I ask, isn't there something wrong with that?

There was one instance during the life of Jesus on Earth when an armed conflict was taking place around him and he had a chance to weigh in on it: the very time he was being arrested by the Roman soldiers. His disciple Peter reportedly instantly went into a state of intense combat, in the process lopping off the ear of one of his adversaries. The reaction of Jesus to this was not to encourage and praise Peter in the spirit we nowadays go about "supporting our troops": on the contrary, the Lord of the Christian faith rebuked Peter and ordered him to stop fighting. And then he healed the soldier's ear. H-m-m...

There is still a minority of Christian thought that still holds true to the pacifist teachings of Jesus, but they are just that: a minority. Most Christians, especially within the evangelical churches, hold on to this strange two-pronged, mutually-incompatible worldview: on one hand, they invest so much time and resources to take the Gospel in missions projects throughout the world in order to save as many souls as possible. On the other hand, they have no qualms about non-Christians dying in war at the hands of their believing sons and daughters.

I just don't get it...

Back to Double-Digit Running

Today marked an unexpected triumph in my attempt to return to last year's endurance level in running. Well...maybe not completely to last year's level: I was then training to last a 26.2 mile marathon run. This year, I just want to be able to run in various half-marathon events that interest me. I did well in one in November, even setting a personal time record, finishing under two hours. However, I missed the Jacksonville race I had planned to run on December 18. Next month's Ocala Half-Marathon is something that I have been looking forward to running in for a long time: last year I completed the Ocala Marathon but due to a leg injury had to walk for the race's final seven miles. I want a more pleasant running experience down there among the rolling hills and horse farms. Then, in February I want to run the Gainesville FivePoints Half-Marathon again.

With the intention of getting used to running up and down hills for that upcoming Ocala race, on Christmas Eve I embarked on a different training course that involved some easy hills, instead of just my flat neighborhood streets. I ran 3 miles then and felt pretty good. Christmas, my "off-day" regarding running, saw me run a couple of laps around my block. Then, this afternoon, after gorging myself on food (and many carbohydrates) the day before, I set out on a more ambitious run that combined my neighborhood course with the hilly NW 53rd Avenue path. The end result was that I ran 10.21 miles in a typical time (for me) of 1:35:27. At the end of the run I felt like I could have gone further, but stuck to my recent "rule" of letting the half-marathon races themselves be the tests of my distance endurance. The temperature throughout the run hovered around 70 degrees with the humidity around 50% (very close, in fact, to the conditions during my memorable 20 mile Christmas run in 2010).

My initial goal for today's run was to succeed in running 7 miles. But carb loading is a pretty awesome thing: I felt crummy and short on confidence at the beginning of the run. But as it wore on, incredibly I seemed to have more energy, and the confidence surged. So I tacked on those extra miles at the end. I feel ready to run that Ocala race, although I'll have to wait until January 22.

Merry Christmas

I hope all of you are enjoying your Christmas Day this year. I am currently in the middle of a three-day stretch of being off from work. I think I've pretty much generally taken the time off from a lot of other stuff as well, including writing blog articles! But things are good, and I'll pick back up in a day or two...

Unseasonably Hot December Weather

Last year, on Christmas Day 2010, I was a bit bummed out at the unseasonably warm weather: 70 degrees in mid-afternoon with high humidity. Today, a couple of days from Christmas, it's mid-afternoon (at this writing) and 80! The really sad thing is that this has been the typical weather pattern here in northern Florida during December so far: cooler temperatures have been the glaring exception. Maybe in some mythical place like South Park, Colorado, where even Al Gore is distracted from his pet issue of global warning in favor of another pursuit, the weather is bearable. But not around here, no-sir-ee...

The deciduous trees around my neighborhood have shed their leaves and gone into their own "flora" state of hibernation for the winter. If they only knew...meanwhile, weeds are sprouting up everywhere and growing with reckless abandon. My seasonal allergies are beginning to resurface as well. The grass in my yard has been growing, making an unplanned (and undesired) lawn mowing session necessary in the near future. And there seems to be no relief in immediate sight to the heat...

Melissa mentioned to me that she heard the weather in January and February will be much colder. I would just like chilly, moderately cold temperatures. But instead I'm either suffocating in the warmth or freezing, similar to that old classic Twilight Zone episode The Midnight Sun.

Still, I guess I shouldn't complain. After all, hot as it is, I am still getting a kind of reprieve from the stifling summer weather. Or should I more accurately say, from the stifling spring, summer and fall weather...

Where's Al Gore in the midst of all this? Dude, don't leave us in our hour of need! Stop chasing after that dangblasted ManBearPig, get off that cartoon show, and get back to cooling our planet back down!!!

Wish Thinking Was Like Changing Channels

Sometimes I wish my mind operated more like a television...well, in at least one important way, that is. It's all in the way that one channel switches to another, something that I have always taken for granted since my literally infantile days of TV watching in the late 1950's.

When I am engaging in a bout of channel surfing and, say, I change from South Park on one channel to an old James Bond movie on another, I'm not still seeing Stan standing there next to Sean Connery. Goldfinger isn't getting his heavy, Oddjob, to throw his razor-edged hat at poor, unlucky Kenny. And conniving Cartman isn't on the golf course switching golfballs to play a trick on Goldfinger. The change from channel to channel is abrupt and complete, with the old show completely obliterated on my screen in favor of its replacement. And that's how I wish my mind worked as well...

...with the one caveat that I am still consciously aware of the real world around me and able to react to urgent situations, I wish that I had more control over my train of thought. And maybe other people already do: NO, I'm sure they do, because...

A few months ago, my wife got hold of a questionnaire that supposedly enabled the respondent to determine whether or not he or she had adult attention deficit disorder. The scoring was such that the highest (most extremely attention deficit) number was "20". If you received "15" or higher, the advice was to get to your doctor as quickly as possible (why, to get drugged?). I answered the questions with unswerving honesty and got a "17". Wow, that was a bummer...

I have a great memory, but that isn't exactly the same thing as being able to keep my thoughts on track without wondering off in other directions. I am too easily distracted, and even when I purpose to think about a particular subject, it is often difficult to put other thoughts out of my mind. And I am completely averse to drug treatment, even if it is prescribed as the result of an official diagnosis by a respected and licensed physician. Who knows, maybe that's a mistake on my part. So, I suppose at least for a while, my thoughts are going to continue to be a bit like South Park superimposed on Goldfinger!