Enjoyed Watching Boston Marathon Yesterday on USA Channel

Yesterday morning America's premier annual long-distance race, the Boston Marathon, resuming its April running after 2020's event was cancelled due to Covid-19 and last year's was moved to October.  It started with wheelchair competition, and a little past 9:30 the professional men and women's races began following by a rolling start of the general field, beginning at 10...the spacing was done to keep the faster contestants from being bottled up by the slower.  The 26.2-mile course goes roughly west to (slightly north of) east, beginning in the town of Hopkinton and going through Boston, ending at the Public Library near Boston Harbor.  The race isn't open...there are qualifying thresholds to cross, depending on one's age and gender, and it's a fair assumption to make that I'm far from making the "cut"...I'm 65 and I would have needed to top a time of 4 hours 5 minutes.  Since my best marathon time (during a training run) was only 4 hours 23 minutes back in 2011 when I was 54 and I haven't even covered that distance since that year, I doubt I will be running in it anytime soon (even if I were 100 I would need to better 4:50:00 to qualify).  So although I haven't completely discounted running in a marathon again, Boston is purely for viewing.  Even so, I haven't followed championship running since 1976 when the U.S.A. had stars like Frank Shorter, Marty Liquori and Steve Prefontaine...the first two being hometown heroes where I live.  No, instead I like to watch the different runners and how they stride and carry themselves through the race, but also I enjoy the background geography with the streetside spectators cheering on the runners and the buildings and topography along the way.  Of course, as is the case with other sports like tennis and golf, what the runners are doing doesn't seem all that hard when watching them on the television screen, but in reality I'd have to push just to keep up with them on a bicycle.  I was able to see the winners finishing in each running race...the Ethiopian and Kenyan entrants dominated both the men and women's professional field with both races close to the end.  Naturally, of course, the TV coverage pretty much ignored the thousands of participants behind them.  The top runners for the men and women were Evans Chebet (2:06:51) and Peres Jepchirchir (2:21:01), both of Kenya.  Top rollers were Daniel Romanchuk from the USA (1:26:58) and Manuela Schär from Switzerland (1:41:08)...

Rob Dial's Podcast Discusses the Law of Attraction

Personal development coach Rob Dial has a podcast, titled The Mindset Mentor, on which he discusses different topics pertinent to his field in twenty-minute segments that come out each Monday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.  On a recent show he brought up a recurring them, the Law of Attraction, which states that the universe will accommodate what I want if I consistently demonstrate my certainty that it will happen and work my ass off (his words) to achieve it.  As a matter of fact, Dial says he doesn't even like the word "want" because it implies, even if to a tiny degree, the possibility that it will not happen. I have to be absolutely certain that I will get what I want in life, he emphasizes, and decries that so many focus on what they don't want...this attracts failure, not success.  Instead of saying I "want", say "I will have".   Dial hammers home that I tend to get what I focus on.  Everything that isn't in line with that I "want" will not happen.  And finally, not only do I work my ass off, an integral part of the Law of Attraction that too many do not practice, but I also don't ever give up. It may seem counterintuitive, but I have to always believe I will win...even though sometimes I don't.  He attributes all of this to the Law of Attraction, meaning that the universe brings success to those who combine attitude with action in the present...I have to be convinced that the opposite of what I want cannot exist in reality.  For me, although I understand what Rob Dial's saying here, I don't think I'd phrase it exactly as he does...maybe instead I'd say something like I am wholeheartedly focused and committed to success in whatever it is I want...and I don't have a problem with the word "want".  Still, the main thing is to fervently believe in what I'm doing...sounds pretty obvious, doesn't it, yet how many actually follow this in their lives?

Temperatures Rising, Affecting Distance Running Here in Gainesville

I'm currently adjusting the focus with my distance running, seeing how the temperatures are turning upward in mid-April and destined to go into the 90s during the subsequent months of spring and summer.  Races in Alachua County where I reside, aside from the weekly Saturday morning Depot Parkrun 5Ks, have dwindled to a precious few...and none seem to go beyond that distance.  I had been wondering whether the May Day Glow Run was going to resume this year, after the lengthy Covid hiatus.  It's a 5K race held in Jonesville, a little west of Gainesville, in the Arbor Greens subdivision off Newberry Road.  The gimmick with it is that it is held at sundown, and plastic glowsticks are distributed to the runners to carry around them while racing.  At last look, it's scheduled for May 7th but with registration closed (!!!).  Seeing that proceeds from the race go to a local Gainesville private school, you might think they'd get things straight on the website to get the funds flowing and enthusiasm encouraged...then again, I might either be out of town or at work anyway on that day.  In any event, I intend to run at least one Depot Parkrun event per month and hold the long distances to slow training runs (with intermittent walking breaks if called for) until the fall, when both cooler weather and longer races return.  Florida Track Club, of which I am a member, is holding track meets from time to time during these hotter months...unfortunately, they are all scheduled at times during which I am at work.  They're planning on a 10K event in October and a half-marathon in November...looking forward to both of them.  In the meantime, I'll pretty much be running around home...

Old Twilight Zone Episode Presents False Choices

My daughter Rebecca reminded me the other day that the free Pluto channel (available on Roku...in that sense I suppose it isn't free) offers episodes from the old Twilight Zone series.  I watched one of my favorites with comedian Shelley Berman delivering a great, very funny performance in The Mind and the Matter.  He plays the frustrated Archibold Beechcroft, who is fed up with all the people around him in overcrowded New York City as he struggles against the tide of humanity to make it to and from his office job at an (overcrowded) insurance company.  A helpful and sympathetic young colleague gives him a book, titled The Mind and the Matter, which leads Beechcroft to employ its principles of concentration to get rid of all the people...after a day of being around no one he decides it's too boring and then makes everyone around him just like himself.  After seeing how negative and cynical he is in the faces and actions of the other "Beechcrofts", he decides to make everything the way it was before and resigns himself to his hassle-filled, harassed existence.  But from the first time I saw this episode I realized that he had made a false choice...Beechcroft could have made it so that there were only half as many people...and made them to be from a list of those he liked the most.  But I guess it would have made for a much longer story, and besides, the moral of this episode is that we should learn to be more content in our circumstances. Of course, the dude could have just moved somewhere else or picked a different line of work.  I'm getting a kind of deva vu feeling about this article...I wrote about this episode before: I guess the topic of false choices needed a little repetition.  I imagine, in fact, that most of the time it's the little things done differently that, over time, can have a profoundly major effect on our lives...

Quote of the Week...from Dick Clark

Music is the soundtrack of your life.                             ---Dick Clark

Dick Clark, of course, was the host of ABC's long-running Saturday afternoon hit show American Bandstand, on which young folks dressed in the era's attire got down and danced to the hits of the season, with a special guest act present to perform (or lip-sync).  Although I usually had better things to do as a little kid at that time on the weekend, I also kept up with the hits on the radio and, starting with the year 1964, tied them in with the goings-on in my life.  So when I hear a familiar old song on the radio, it invariably associates itself with its time of greatest popularity...and where I was and what I was doing then.  Music...particularly popular music...has been an important element of my life, although in the last two or three decades I've found myself having to be more selective in finding songs that mean anything to me.  I've bought quite a few albums over the years and listened to many, many more and have a mental list of my all-time favorites.  In a few days I'll begin discussing them, in countdown format, one by one...I'm not yet sure how many albums I'll be including in this blog project.  But I know, like most of the others I've done, that it will be fun...including the assembling of my list.  One caveat: they will be my personal favorites and not necessarily a statement regarding their level of artistic achievement, so music snob/critics be forewarned...

Constellation of the Month: Leo (the Lion)

 

Leo is one the more easily discernible constellations, high in the southern sky in temperate northern latitudes during the spring evening.  It has a first magnitude star, Regulus (a double star 77 light-years distant), at Leo's southwestern corner...Denebola (36 light-years away), at magnitude two, is on the east end, representing the lion's tail.  You can get a vague idea of what Leo is supposed to picture: a crouching or sitting lion facing the right (west).  Leo is a zodiac constellation, meaning that it is a section of background to the projection of the solar system's orbital planes through which we see the planets, our moon, and the sun...faint Cancer lies to its west and expansive Virgo to the east.  On its southern side are five Messier deep space objects: M65, M66, M95, M96, and M105.  They are all spiral galaxies.  In my memory Leo stands as one of the very first constellations I learned and recognized in the night sky long ago, when I was seven and my father introduced them to me one evening in April of 1964...

Weekly Short Stories: 1983 Science Fiction, Part 6

Today I continue my look at the year 1983 in short science fiction with six stories from the anthology The Year's Best Science Fiction, First Annual Collection, edited by the late Gardner Dozois, first published in 1984, and featuring his picks from the preceding year...

CRYPTIC by Jack McDevitt

A physicist-turned-administrator is cleaning out the files left by SETI, the previous occupant of his new research facility somewhere in the American Southwest, when he discovers a computer disk containing cryptic data.  SETI stands for Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence, a real organization that examines the stars for non-random radio signals indicating other life...I know of them from interviews on the late-night Art Bell radio show while at my then-graveyard shift job assignment.  After meeting with the former SETI director, now long retired, the physicist discovers the somber truth of the information...and why it was hidden away...

THE SIDON IN THE MIRROR by Connie Willis

On a human mining settlement on the thinly crusted surface of a spent-out star...a truly unique sci-fi setting...a man with the special gift (or curse) of being able (or compelled) to closely reflect and imitate others around him has been sent there by his uncle after trouble on his home planet.  Ruby is a Mirror, and is regarded with suspicion and even hostility by some of the locals, who fear this ostensibly mild-manned man may turn violent on them...like the sidon, a native predatory species.  There is a backstory here of what happened on Ruby's native world, and it seems the characters have been transplanted wholesale to this one...I didn't quite get that.  What I did get was that it isn't Ruby whom the folks around him need to fear...it is themselves as they manipulate him to their own sometimes nefarious designs...

GOLDEN GATE by R.A. Lafferty

A man at a bar sometime off in the future attends their nostalgic Melodrama show and gets a little too involved in hating the villain, who seems in real life to be just an ordinary actor, but for Barnaby is evil incarnate...he must kill him.  In the meantime, Barnaby flirts with the club's owner and her two daughters while planning out his deed.  The twist to this brief story at the end changes its entire complexion...while at the same time making me scratch my head a little in confusion.  Also, it didn't quite seem to be a science fiction tale although the author is well-known within that genre...

BLIND SHEMMY by Jack Dann

In a future, decadent post-apocalyptic and technologically-advanced Paris, gambling is taken to extremes as a compulsive gambler goes there with his companion to wager his own body's organs.  But what seems at the start to be gambling transforms into a telepathic chess game as he and his partner first work out their differences with each other and then face the formidable opponents sitting across from them.  I think in a way we are all gamblers...some of us just choose more creative ways to express it.  I liked the way the story ended...

IN THE ISLANDS by Pat Murphy

Nick, a biologist specializing in ocean life, has a friendship with Morris, a boy living on an offshore island from Honduras.  It goes back to the time years before when Morris saved Nick's life from a shark attack in the area...it was also when Nick discovered Morris's special adaptability to living in the water.  This is a poignant tale reminding us that people aren't necessarily what they seem on the surface...but that doesn't mean that their often hidden natures are bad: just different enough to present a danger to themselves should their secret be revealed...

NUNC DIMITTIS by Tanith Lee

Here's yet another story...the third one I've found in this one anthology so far, that stretches the bounds of what defines the science fiction genre.  It's about an immortal vampire woman whose devoted servant of many decades informs her of his impending death. He sets out to find a replacement for himself, and his chosen candidate reflects his own memories as to how he became devoted to his "Princess" so long before.  The story's title roughly means "permission to depart"...

Next week: more from 1983 and the Gardner Dozois anthology covering it...

Major League Baseball Finally Starts...Should I Be Happy?

After needless delay and posturing, Major League Baseball ended its owner/player contract negotiation standoff and finally began its regular season last week.  As is usually the custom during this brief initial period, some of the team-based baseball channels at the end of my TV dial are showing the games free as an inducement to subscribe.  Since I get off from work nights at 10, coming home gives me the only options of either watching western U.S.A. games or replays of one of our two Florida teams.  I happened to tune in one night to a San Diego-Arizona game that the Diamondbacks were hosting.  Through six innings I discovered that not only were the Padres blanking Arizona 2-0, but were in the middle of a no-hitter....how exciting!  I watched the seventh inning and sure enough, the San Diego starter put down the opposing batters easily...I couldn't wait to see what happened in the next inning.  But to my surprise the Padres manager had yanked his starter and replaced him with a reliever, one with some pretty mediocre stats at that.  And he promptly delivered a base hit, ending the prospects of even a combination no-hitter.  To my further surprise I discovered that the same manager had pulled his starter the previous game after six no-hit innings and replaced him with the same reliever, who had also quickly spoiled the no-hitter by giving up a hit.  I mention no names here because, maybe, that's the way the owners want it...capable but anonymous players they know can win them games, but without milestones and special accomplishments that might garner them more money during contract negotiation time.  And money seems to be what it's all about with Major League Baseball.  It costs an arm and a leg to attend these games in person and a pretty penny to watch them on TV, unless you're a Rays or Marlins fan.  And I have trouble, in this Internet area of widespread media access, even getting radio play-by-play.  The San Diego manager's rationale for pulling his two starting no-hit pitchers was that they didn't get enough spring training practice and he wanted to conserve their arms...I don't buy it.  These are special moments in a pitcher's career that they may never again recapture...the wear and tear they go through is over the course of a 162-game regular season in which they may get more than 30 starts...some many more.  No, I believe this was an underhanded attempt to suppress these players' resumes. But the manager's actions were also a slap in the collective faces of the fans, who need these special moments to keep their interest in the game strong. I totally get why complete games are so rare nowadays...but no-hitters? Are you kidding me?  So I ask myself: am I really happy that Major League Baseball is finally underway?

Power...and Limits...of Personal Affirmation, According to Podcaster

On his Mindset Mentor podcast recently, personal development coach Rob Dial discusses the idea of affirmations, that is, talking to oneself in positive terms and expecting this to become a major factor in their successful undertakings.  He starts out by bringing up that many of us go through our days saying to ourselves that we "have to" do this and "have to" do that, when the alternative (and better) saying is we "get to"...this allows us to explore ways to learn, grow, and benefit from what we had originally conceived of as a negative obligation.  Also, like Yoda in Stars Wars, we don't "try"...we either do or don't, there is no trying.  Think of the energy behind your words, he adds, along with the notion that how we fill out the powerful statement "I am ___" can go a long away to determining our direction and destiny.  Finally, Rob Dial emphasizes that statements of affirmation, while encouraging and positive, should adhere to reality.  The statement needs to be true, be in the present tense ("I am ___ing") and have an empowering aspect to it.  So I, a distance runner, wouldn't say "I'm so fast that I won the Olympic marathon in 2000" but rather something like "I am a distance runner, I am running several miles a day, and my progress is making me a runner who can handle the longer distances with more ease and speed".  You can apply this to anything...I thought Dial's ideas were pretty good, but of late, with him and James Clear's Atomic Habits book, my head is starting to really get crowded with self-improvement maxims. I probably just need to stick with a few and "run" with them...

Just Finished Reading Never by Ken Follett

Last year Ken Follett published his latest novel, Never, which quickly rose to the top of the best-seller list.  Stephen King, whom I follow on Twitter, highly recommended it and stated that it reminded him of what's going on in the world today, especially regarding the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The characters...including the world leaders such as the American and Chinese presidents and others...are fictional but the countries and situations are painfully real, much of it taken straight from news of recent years.  The story's focus is triangular: (1) in Chad in northern Sub-Saharan Africa, the CIA has agents there to find the ringleader of a notorious international group of extremist Islamist terrorists, (2) a young top Chinese intelligence official in Beijing must maneuver between the hard-liners in his government and the wayward North Korean dictator to further his country's interests, and (3) the U.S. president, Pauline Green, must react in a measured but careful way to the escalating events falling like dominoes after a North Korean rebel military group seizes control of the country's eastern part, including its nuclear missile facilities.  The story is chilling: you can have rational people running different countries, folks who more than anything want to avoid nuclear war and the untold carnage and suffering which it would release onto the world.  Yet within each country, both democratic and autocratic, there are people and forces pressuring those leaders into conflict.  I know, at this time in early April of 2022, that no atomic bombs have been used in war since 1945.  Much of this I believe is due to the deterrence factor with the two main sides, the USSR/Russia and the United States, very much aware that either of them can destroy the other many times over.  But now with nuclear proliferation and regimes like North Korea and Pakistan in possession of nuclear warfare capability, the danger of one of them triggering a nuclear conflict has escalated.  And once something begins on a limited scale, can the escalation process be turned off...and who will take the first step in that direction without surrendering to their enemy?  A tough book to read with an even tougher ending...

Ran the Headwaters 5K This Morning in Gainesville

Gainesville has a relatively new municipal park, Headwaters, located on NW 45th Avenue between US 441 and Norton Elementary School...its name refers to the renowned Hogtown Creek that runs through the northwestern part of town.  Florida Track Club hosts an annual event there, the Headwaters 5K (3.1 miles), taking place in April.  I ran it last year, the first public race I entered since the Covid-19 epidemic broke out the previous year...and it was also the last one I ran before my thoracic surgeon, after ten years of annual testing, finally advised me to go ahead with open heart surgery involving both heart valve replacement and aortic aneurism repair.  That happened on 7/15/21, and today's race marks the sixth one I've run since recovery.  The conditions were perfect for running...well, I would have preferred a lower humidity...but the temperature was around 50 at 8 am.  There were plenty of folks there to brave the slightly hilly race through a very shady and pretty section of northern Gainesville...and the Florida Track Club people and volunteers were, as usual, the best with their friendliness and encouraging attitude.  We started on NW 45th Avenue near US 441 and went straight west, past Norton Elementary, to NW 24th Boulevard.  Then we turned north on it and went to NW 53rd Avenue, turning right again onto the cool, wide bike/pedestrian trail that runs all the way down to 39th Avenue...but we turned left at 45th and ran back to the park, where the finish line stood.  I deliberately worked from early in the race to establish a faster level of pace, and it worked!  My finishing time was 29:28, more than three minutes faster than that of last year's Headwaters run...and the first time in years I've broken 30 minutes in a 5K.  They were serving breakfast there following the race, but I wanted to get back home, wash up, and snooze a bit.  Click HERE for the race results.  I like the proximity of this race to my home and, already being an FTC member, it was free...I'd like to make it an annual tradition...

Quote of the Week...from Yogi Berra

Nobody goes there anymore.  It's too crowded.                       ---Yogi Berra

Hall of Fame catcher and slugger for the New York Yankees, the late Yogi Berra...who had a popular Hanna-Barbera cartoon figure named after him (not the other way around as I believed when I was a little kid)...had a Zen-like predisposition for making quotes that seemed self-contradictory: the above is a perfect example. Major League Baseball belatedly began its regular season yesterday after a prolonged management/labor contract dispute...thought I'd throw in something today "kind of" related to it.  Like some mathematical formulas I've encountered that at first look make no sense, Yogi's above quote actually is pretty profound...if you look at it more deeply.  I've concluded over the years that there is a large subgroup of the human race that is attracted, like swarming insects, to crowds...once a threshold is crossed they just keep on coming in droves.  That's why a place like Starbucks constantly has very long drive-through lines while other places like the Scooter's near my house go on and on without any line at all, even through their coffees and sandwiches are superior, in my opinion, with comparable prices.  There are local eating establishments that attract residents like flies even though their food and service are no better than with any other place.  I do not understand these people, and therefore...like Yogi...exclude them from my notion of "nobody", which he should have more accurately stated "nobody I know" or "nobody I think isn't a complete fool".  I've seen the long line phenomenon in stores as well...why is everyone in these long lines over here while, with a little walk over there exists a perfectly normal one that folks are avoiding?  Doesn't make sense, unless you conclude that there are "people" out there with a vastly differently perspective on things, including the idea that being immersed in a crowd justifies their existence...like a swarming insect, I suppose.  I guess the Woodstock experience, superchurches and other mass concerts are variations of this, as well as the thoroughly creepy Trump rallies that crop up from time to time here and there.  I don't know these people...

Just Finished Reading Atomic Habits by James Clear

Atomic Habits is a 2018 motivational self-help guide written by James Clear.  The use of the word "atomic" in the title reflects two points the author is trying to make here: habits that are very small and potentially very powerful.  Clear discusses how he came about his philosophy of habits when, one day during high school baseball practice, he was hit in the head by a bat, nearly losing his life after slipping into a coma and then gradually making a full, painstakingly gradual recovery.  He claims that people mistakenly pursue goals when they should be instituting and stressing systems, with forming the identity that they want being paramount in importance.  Also, by changing a multitude of small habits over time, revolutionary change is possible. There are four elements to habit formation: cue, craving, response and reward...they can apply to both desirable and undesirable habits.  The trick when trying to form good habits is to make the cue obvious, the craving attractive, the response easy and the result satisfying.  Conversely, when facing bad habits, the strategy is to make the cue invisible, the craving unattractive, the response difficult, and the result unsatisfying...the author gives examples to illustrate how to approach both good and bad habits this way.  And how does one start a new habit?  According to Clear, it's crucial just to get something going...if you're starting to run then put on your running shoes today...tomorrow you can continue the process, maybe jogging for a minute or two.  It's not so much how much you do at the beginning...of course eventually you'll be doing much more...but to get the notion of regularly responding to the positive cues and performing something to make the habit real.  Then once you're "in" it, it is much easier to extend the habit in the direction you are seeking.  Atomic Habits continues chapter by chapter with helpful suggestions about habits...it can get a little cumbersome, all the information here, but James Clear does make it more manageable by outlining the main points at the close of each chapter.  I liked this book, one reason being that it confirmed some of what I had already been doing in my life...for example, I already employ his notion of "habit-stacking" by combining a new habit with one I already have.  I think this book can be useful to anyone...Clear's main intention is to help you become the person you want to be...

Weekly Short Stories: 1983 Science Fiction, Part 5

Today I continue my reactions to stories appearing in the anthology The Year's Best Science Fiction: First Annual Collection, edited by Gardner Dozois and featuring his picks from those first published in 1983.  That was the year that...at least in my mind...marked the music video explosion, although MTV had been in existence since 1981.  Ted Turner decided to run a competing weekend music video marathon show on his Superstation, and I was hooked on it.  This was a period of great experimentation in videos, and although they weren't always good, they usually were interesting...unlike much of the crap that's put out today (well, that's just my opinion).  But back to those stories...

HARDFOUGHT by Greg Bear

This novella starts its narration out from the viewpoint of a young human woman, Prufax, in the distant future when humanity is in a life-or-death war struggle against an ancient race, the Serexi.  The adversary is gas-based with a completely different chemistry, and the story jumps to their perspective as well.  The problem I have with stories like this is that much of their mystery is in the deliberately cryptic way the author unravels their circumstances...eventually we discover exactly who...or what...Prufax is and how humankind has reached this state but, in the meantime, we're struggling to understand what the author is talking about.  Still, Greg Bear is a "hard" science fiction writer, and you stand to learn some interesting facts reading any of his stories...

MANIFEST DESTINY by Joe Haldeman

I'm not exactly sure why this story has been placed within the genre of science fiction...it's more of a historical western with a little prophecy thrown in.  A bold young man is determined to make his fortune in Mexico, back in the 1840s when they were at war with the United States.  He receives a fortune teller's message that he cannot die in Mexico...that's fine for him since he plans to live there for the remainder of his anticipated very, very long future life.  I myself anticipated the story's intended surprise ending, being cognizant of American territorial gains in that era, especially that often-overlooked 1853 Gadsden Purchase...

FULL CHICKEN RICHNESS by Avram David

I vaguely remember reading another story like this one, involving the same species of bird (not the chicken).  At a locally-owned burger joint, presumably in the U.S.A., they serve a great chicken soup...the protagonist thinks he remembers somebody very similar to the owner/cook from his European travels and decides to check him out to see what he's up to.  A time travel story with a hook that, well, seems too familiar to me.  Also, it just might be that Stephen King got some one of his ideas from it that he used in his own time-travel epic novel 11/22/63...

MULTIPLES by Robert Silverberg

Back in the late 1970s and early 1980s, following the blockbuster TV movie Sybil starring Sally Field, multiple personality disorder became something of a chic trend in psychology, with books and claims coming out that different people had "different people" within themselves.  Now imagine a future in which it's all not only true, but that it's no longer considered a disorder but rather something that makes people's lives more interesting and conversely paints "singletons" as being unattractive and drab.  A young woman with no multiple personalities tries to convince a "multiple" guy she's interested in that she's one as well...it's a comedic spoof on something that was a big deal in popular culture back then...

Next week I'll continue looking at 1983 science fiction short stories... 

Congratulations to Gamecocks and Jayhawks for College Hoops Titles

Although at work for much of the championship tournament Final Four basketball action this past weekend, I was able to watch some of it...in the NCAA women's tournament South Carolina clearly dominated, suffocating Connecticut in the final game by thoroughly dominating the paint (with Player of the Year Aliyah Boston playing a major role) and getting one offensive rebound after another while crushing the Huskies on defense.  On the men's side yesterday, Kansas came from a 16-point first half deficit in which their opponent, North Carolina...at one point scoring 16 straight points...had built up an impressive halftime lead.  But the Tarheels came out in the second half shooting cold, and the Jayhawks lit up the floor with a succession of clutch three-pointers to first bring them back into the game and then take a small lead that they held at the very end.  Before the tournament I had picked North Carolina, Miami and Kansas as my favorites...they were undefeated against other opponents...but Miami succumbed to Kansas and, of course, so did North Carolina.  On the women's side I was rooting for Stanford, the defending champion, but they went cold as well against Connecticut in the semifinal round.  Now it's time to regroup and get ready for next year....and then start it all over again.  Before the women's final game on Sunday evening there was a short segment about Aliyah Boston, who is from St. Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands...Melissa and I stopped over there briefly during our cruise in February 2020 (just before all hell broke out with the pandemic) and we liked it a lot...especially the beach and winding mountain roads.  But you'd better watch out for the hordes of crazy, ravenous chickens running loose...

Motivational Coach Rob Dial Broadly Discusses Addiction on His Podcast

On one of his Mindset Mentor podcasts last week, life coach/motivational guru Rob Dial brought up the topic of addiction, explaining what he believes are its causes.  Dial takes a broad view of addiction, stating that most of us are addicted to something, not necessarily drugs (including alcohol and nicotine).  His examination takes us to our dual nervous system, split between the sympathetic that assumes dominance during high alert, fight-or-flight situations and the parasympathetic that plays the role of conserve and restore...the former involves tension with higher heart rate and the latter a more relaxed state.  When someone is addicted to something, they usually are trying to take a shortcut from being in the agitated, sympathetic state into the more agreeable parasympathetic...Dial refers to this process as "numbing".  He brings up that some who claim not to be dependent on alcohol still will take a drink or two at night to "take the edge off"...but what is the "edge" anyway and wouldn't it be better to find the cause and eliminate it up front?  Anything that one does to switch states...and this often involves running from ongoing problems instead of facing them...can be an addiction, and this includes excessive social media, television, binge eating, sex and even physical training workouts.  Rob Dial suggests that we take some time to just sit without distractions and do nothing, letting our own mind bring up the issues we have been covering up through other activities.  There's a book I just finished reading by James Clear titled Atomic Habits...it addresses addiction as well and suggests that the social and physical environment surrounding oneself can play a major role in its onset and perpetuation...as well as its elimination... 

About Will Smith's Incredible Hulk Moment at the Oscars

The Incredible Hulk was a popular TV series in the late seventies and early eighties.  Based on the Marvel comics character, Bill Bixby starred as mild-mannered Dr. David Bannister, a scientist who accidently exposes himself to such an excess of gamma ray radiation that, in times of extreme stress and anxiety, causes his body to transform into a raging monster, the Hulk (played by Lou Ferrigno).  Not exactly Jekyll and Hyde...Robert Louis Stevenson's character actually changed into a completely different personality...the Hulk retains Bannister's moral compass and compassion. It's just out of control, stuck in a fight-or-flight mode...much like that we experience in our own lives when we're under tense and difficult circumstances, became angry or fearful, and our sympathetic nervous system temporarily gains supremacy over our thoughts and behavior.  And although this period may only last for a few minutes, we're often left with the consequences of irrational and antisocial public behavior.  This is what I believe happened to Will Smith at the Academy Award ceremony the other night when he rushed the stage and slapped (and immediately thereafter cursed at) comedian Chris Rock for making one of his trademark insulting offhand jokes, this one aimed at Smith's wife Jada for her shaven head (she suffers from alopecia).  He was already center-stage and under the spotlight, a favorite to win Best Actor for his dramatic performance in the movie King Richard and most likely already was feeling a bit stressed out. Soon after the incident Smith was very contrite and apologetic for his impulsive action, but will continue to suffer its fallout.  Just who is Will Smith...the soft-spoken and congenial gentleman so many have come to appreciate or the creepy violent dude revealed in that unfortunate moment before the world?  Both, I imagine, just as each of us have this duality...I just think most of us, although probably unpleasant to be around in those moments of extreme anxiety and anger, don't resort to physically violent behavior.  Instead, dramatic and sometimes profane language, extreme passive-negative behavior, or a total shutdown from interaction can be common reactions to those experiencing personal Hulk transformations.  I do find the media reactions to it all interesting.  After realizing the other night that the Oscars were going to show because of the Red Carpet pre-ceremony show, with outfit after gawdy, tasteless outfit touted as high fashion, I made it a deliberate point to avoid the awards...finding out about the Smith/Rock altercation later.  The reactions were divided between those praising Smith for defending his wife's honor and those condemning his violence.  And then the media ghouls went to work, digging up items in both Smith's and Rock's pasts and citing things they had said before.  Different celebrities went to work giving their own feedback, and then the ghouls researched them, digging up even more negative news to promulgate over social and mass media.  What a media circus, and a macabre one at that!  

Are City-Wide Running Races Fading Into the Past?

In his autobiographical book Ultramarathon Man, distance runner Dean Karnazes relates how his first marathon run went.  He was in high school and there was a charity drive in which donors would sign up to pay...if my memory serves me correctly...a dollar for each quarter-mile track lap the participating student ran.  Most reasonable people saw themselves pitching in up to 5 or 10 bucks.  But Karnazes saw fit to run his first full 26.2 mile marathon that day, circling the track 105 times...and then presenting his flabbergasted fellow students with the bill!  It must have been an awfully repetitive run for him...yet that's pretty much how track and field events are conducted.  It certainly is vastly different from the marathon and half-marathon races the past few decades, which often run through the heart of cities and spotlight their own attractions for the racers and those accompanying them.  Typically, streets are marked off and policemen stand at crossings to halt traffic, letting the runners pass through without having to stop...this must cost a pretty penny for the organizers.  I think it also would tend to annoy a lot of folks who just want to go about their normal business without this kind of disruption and delay.  Over my running "career" since 2010...in which I've confined my races to northern and central Florida... I've completed 13 half-marathons and one marathon.  Of these, 6 half-marathons took place in the heart of Gainesville for the Five Points of Life event held in February, 2 races on the south side of Ocala, and 1 in the Tavares-Mount Dora area of Lake County...the others were deliberately conducted in predominantly rural settings.  Even the Ocala races took place mostly on country roads, although the traffic was high enough there to require a bit of police presence and management.  A few years ago the Ocala Marathon/Half-Marathon ceased to be, and in 2020 Gainesville's Five Points organizers switched the race site away from central Gainesville to southwest of town.  After Covid pre-empted the 2021 races, they resumed...back to the heart of town with a modified course that still had runners going through downtown Gainesville, the University of Florida campus (including the football stadium) and the famous hills of NW 16th Avenue.  But the marathon event was eliminated, leaving the half-marathon as the only long-distance event here in February.  Gainesville has another annual half-marathon they hold annually, the Tom Walker Memorial, which uses the rails-to-trails Hawthorne Trail in a there-and-back race emanating from Boulware Springs Park in the southeastern part of town...no police or city infrastructure needed here.  And that's the trend I see coming: races far from streets and set in rural areas and parks.  Furthermore, I see another trend in which half-marathons, marathons, and even ultra-races (longer than 26.2 miles) are being conducted in parks where runners go through multiple loops to achieve the distance they're seeking.  Next Sunday, the 10th, there will be such a race on the Hawthorne end of the Hawthorne Trail...half-marathoners will do a 6-plus mile there-and back on the trail twice, while those running the marathon will do it four times.  But then again, the overhead cost for staging this race is bound to be much, much lower than had they done it through city streets.  On June 18, Ocala has their own similar race planned at their southeastern Baseline Greenway Park...the course loop is a little longer than a mile and half-marathon runners will do it 12 times (no marathon race planned here).  Since 2019 (with a 14-month gap because of Covid), Gainesville has had its own weekly race, the Depot Parkrun 5K, with takes place entirely on park grounds and involves 4 laps to achieve the distance...but it's free and not very long.  The Hawthorne and Ocala races I just mentioned cost a bit of money...the question is whether runners will decide to forgo the adventure of the course in favor of getting a posted result.  As for me, I'm undecided.  I look on the Internet running calendars and still see races occurring in other cities across the country...maybe this drawing back from urban events is only a local phenomenon, who knows...

Quote of the Week...from Abraham Maslow

Education can become a self-fulfilling activity, liberating in and of itself.      ---Abraham Maslow

Abraham Maslow...today is his birthday (he'd be 124 if still alive) was a twentieth-century American psychologist who created the "Pyramid of Needs", the base of which represents people's physical needs and the very top comprising self-actualization.  He also emphasized that self-actualizing people tend to have more of the "peak experiences" in life that many long for, as well as develop an outlook leading to the longer-lasting "plateau experiences" of inner well-being.  I found his above quote about learning "in and of itself" to be an affirmation of how I also have regarded it over the years...and frees education from the tyranny of ego-based, hierarchical judgment that formalized school training tends to foist upon hapless students compelled to endure it, first through compulsory education in the K-12 years and then on to college for career preparation.  I have also tended to be something of a renegade with education, and this did not carry over well into the much more rigid structure imposed by teachers and curricula in school settings...but after leaving school I've experienced great joy at learning different things, without someone standing above poised to beat me down should I stumble in my exploration or diverge from a topic they were promoting.  When I was young, information was available but difficult to come by...nowadays the Internet has opened the door wide to knowledge, and with platforms like YouTube it is possible to learn to do just about anything and even attend virtual classrooms.  Sadly, there are lots of folks who only see the value of learning anything in how they can make money from it...I've been confronted in the past when such a person would spy me studying something that, to them, had no discernible "value".  The problem with their perspective is that they tend to see their own self-worth in terms of increasing wealth and social prestige...should they one day find themselves unable to continue that way, I'm afraid the whole house of cards that sustains their ego-based self-image could collapse.  But let's just skip over some of the psychological jargon I've brought up and cut to the chase: learning, simply put, is fun! 

My March 2022 Running and Walking Report

I'm not sure whether my increased running totals for this past month represent an aberration or part of a continuing process...I suspect the former...but I did have some higher figures: 290 total miles, I ran on all the days of the month, and 18 miles was my longest single run.  I ran in two races: the Micanopy 10 Mile hosted by the Florida Track Club on March 19th and a Depot Parkrun 5K the following Saturday.  I doubt that I'll be running as much as the weather warms further into the spring/summer seasons...I'm hoping to "step" up the walking, as well as begin some swimming workouts, to balance out the picture a bit...

On the April 9-10 weekend there are two upcoming local races.  On Saturday the 9th the Florida Track Club is holding another event, this one the Headwaters 5K that takes place near my home in northern Gainesville. I ran it last year and it's free with my FTC membership.  And then there is the "Run Your Buns Off" event the next morning, starting and finishing from the outlying town of Hawthorne and using a six-mile-plus strip of the Hawthorne Trail to simultaneously stage a number of races, ranging from 5K to a marathon. They accomplish these distances by having entrants undergo multiple there-and-back cycles...the half-marathon involves two and the marathon four, so you're basically covering the same territory over and over again.  The half costs $65 and the marathon a whopping $90.  I don't know...the prospect of spending this amount of money to run a half-marathon with such an unvarying, repetitive course just doesn't appeal to me, especially with the prospect of that free race the previous day (closer to home and with a more interesting course).  After that weekend the only local races I see in "my" Alachua County area are the Depot Parkruns that take place each Saturday morning...my intention is to try them out once or twice a month throughout the rest of the spring and summer.  I might try out some speed-walking in some of those races...I did walk for a total of 125 miles in March...