About Charlie Kirk and His Tragic Assassination

Regarding the recent murder of conservative Christian activist Charlie Kirk, I have to preface any comments with the disclaimer that, before this horrible event, I hadn't heard or read anything from this individual, only that his name tended to circulate around on the more politically-charged posts on Facebook. In the last couple of days I checked his You Tube channel and he seemed like a composed, reasonable and likable young man who boldly and passionately expressed his viewpoints on a number of issues, some controversial, that I have mixed opinions about.  He avidly and consistently supported and campaigned for Trump over the years while the latter was equally consistent with his nasty and hateful rhetoric...this is the only direct criticism I'll make about Charlie.  Yet I personally know several people who are squarely in the camp of our current demagogic, autocratic "leader", but they're also very caring and generous...Charlie Kirk struck me as someone with that type of personal charm.  The individual that is being portrayed as the shooting suspect seems to have come from a multi-generational family of staunch Trump supporters (who apparently turned him in to the police).  Perhaps his political allegiance is to violent extremist militia groups, but at this juncture I don't see any leftist leanings as our evil president has directly insinuated without providing any evidence, trying to stir up division and anger while making the Democratic Party opposition into a scapegoat.  The suspect seems to have been well-trained with a sniper-level of firearm accuracy, since the act was committed at some 200-yard distance, and how his deft scampering off a high roof implied some special military-level training.  I remember how, in the late 1990s, popular late-night radio host Art Bell, well-known for his conservative political views, still ran afoul of some extremist right-wing militia group that harassed and threatened him.  Sometimes one's supposed "allies" can turn out to be the real enemy. My inclination toward Mr. Kirk is to honor his courageous life and defuse the propaganda that evil players like Trump are perpetrating upon the shocked population, who could use a real leader at this trying and sad time instead of this presidential fraud...a 34-count convicted felon...inflicted upon us last November by my fellow Americans... 

Napier Finally on the Hot Seat

University of Florida head football coach Billy Napier, ever since he's been at the helm, has presided over a team that has under-performed to fans' typically ambitious expectations.  So the question each season is: how long will he go before he's described as being on the "hot seat"?  I've jokingly been entertaining this notion for 2025, a year that the Gators have been hyped as being a breakthrough season that could even propel them to the college football playoffs at the end.  They had a couple of "soft" home games to start off the season.  On August 30th they played Long Island University and performed well for that level of competition, winning 55-0.  Their opponent this past Saturday, South Florida, had opened their own season with a surprising walloping of Boise State, 34-7, so I wasn't very sure about how they'd do against UF.  As it turned out, Florida was a disorganized, undisciplined mess, unprepared for this game, a close contest ultimately decided because one of their childish, unsportsmanlike and entitled players decided to spit at an opposing player at a crucial moment, resulting in an 18-16 loss to the Bulls.  After it was over, I had no trouble at all finding references to Napier now being on the hot seat.  The question was, would he do like he did last year and say something snide about his critics?  I haven't heard anything of this sort yet...let's see how the Gators do on the road this Saturday in Baton Rouge against #3 Louisiana State.  If he survives that contest, then Napier will "get to" travel down-state to face #5 Miami the following week: oh joy...

Support Groups, Fight Club and Grief

When I was nine, I was going to a brand-new public school: Nova Blanche Forman Elementary School, known then more commonly and simply as Nova Elementary.  Over time I made a few friends out there in Davie, cowboy country in south Florida.  One day a few of us got together and informally established our own fight club, transforming into a sport and ritual an activity usually reserved for bullies and angry kids.  Surprisingly, it lasted longer than you might think, although with my ribs poking through my chest...making me look like a concentration camp survivor...I quickly got tired of the good-natured blows that naturally would come my way.  So I totally got the meaning behind the concept of an adult fight club, presented with such force in that 1999 same-titled movie. My son Will revealed, though, that this movie went down into a rabbit hole of plot twists and deeper meaning, so one evening I began to watch it...from the beginning.  Presented in the first person, the narrator...played by Edward Norton...is suffering from extreme insomnia stemming from his depression about his mundane, boring life.  He hits upon the strategy of participating in support groups to cure his insomnia, even though he usually doesn't have any connection with the groups' themes.  So my exposure to support groups, along with the way they go around in a circle during discussion time with the members spilling their hearts out, began in full earnest with this movie.  Earlier this evening I attended a "grief care" support group presented at a local church...Melissa suggested it.  I'm not sure what I see myself getting from it, but there I am, within this group.  We're committed to anonymity about the people in it as well as the specific stories told. Had I still been working and not retired like I did, I'd have the perfect excuse for avoiding it...I just DON'T LIKE support groups.  Earlier I mentioned that Will was the one who told me about the movie Fight Club: his recent passing is the core reason behind this support group having me "in" it.  Like the protagonist Jake Epping in Stephen King's wonderful novel 11/22/63, I am not a crying man by nature...although the tears are often simmering just under the surface.  I just never thought of life as being endless: it's mortal, with our life spans on Earth bracketed between the year of our birth and that of our deaths.  This mortal physical body that goes by the name William "Bill" "Billy" Irwin belongs to the life span begun in 1956, and the end year has yet to reveal itself.  I am dead to the year 1856, and most likely won't extend to the year 2200 as well (unless Putin's dubious immortality vaccine comes to the rescue).  I'm also dead to wherever my body isn't...I'm looking out the window and my life isn't there: it's here, seated at this keyboard writing this.  The HERE AND NOW, in essence, defines me in a subjective sense and cannot be quantified by physical science in any objective manner. My eventual experience of dying will, of necessity, be conceptually very different from what others experience about my death from their viewpoints.  It's a great quandary, this gulf between subjective awareness and objective observation, and since time marches on without regard to how I feel about anything, I might as well relax and entertain a sense of inner peace about it all, tedious support group or not.  Either I'll survive others or they'll survive me...

Society Becoming Unhinged and Violent, Mirroring World Leaders

I'm looking around me and it doesn't look good.  People in society, and leaders around the world, are becoming mentally and morally unhinged, holding tight to their resentments and grudges and then exploding into acts of terror.  Putin keeps sending drones to bomb his neighbor Ukraine, knowing that the main result of his actions is murderous terror against ordinary civilians.  Yet in the interests of longevity he touts a vaccine that is supposed to ward off cancer, and in personal visits comes off seeming like a reasonable and congenial individual.  Those two children massacred in a Minnesota church by a sick monster, and the young Ukrainian immigrant woman who finished her work shift, boarded a Charlotte, North Carolina commuter train, and was promptly stabbed to death in random fashion by the young man who happened to be sitting behind her seat, are just the more recent examples of what I see as a complete breakdown in civil society. And this president of ours, I'm sure, would be an active part of this chain of violence and terror as he is governed by vengeance, fear and anger. I don't need to watch the national news to get more than my share of disheartening news.  The local news shows consistently come up with stories about people who shot up their own home or of others who got mad at someone at a party, workplace or bar and then went back to their car and returned, guns blazing with fury.  I go out of my way on my neighborhood walk/runs to keep my mouth shut and eyes trained on the road ahead of me, but this doesn't stop some motorists around me from slowing down and checking me out from safely behind their tinted windows as if my mere existence posed a kind of threat to them.  Life is fragile: that's a lesson I already learned but which was brutally reinforced in the last two years with the deaths of my son and sister-in-law.  Stephen King wrote a 2006 novel titled Cell, in which cellphone users would suddenly become violently deranged and go on killing sprees.  I don't think we're so far off from that scenario, I'm afraid. Lord, get me through this day...  

Further Plans for Cancer Treatment

This morning I had my consultation appointment with the urologist who performed my March prostatectomy.  Since my follow-up PSA blood test revealed a slightly increasing trend that probably points to the presence...at least on a microscopic biochemical level...of residual cancer in that part of my body, he laid out the future treatment strategy.  It includes both radiation and hormone therapy, and this will be scheduled in the next few days.  Sure, I would have preferred to have maintained that earlier low PSA level, but my doctor is very upbeat about my prospects following this treatment regimen, which we will schedule around our upcoming cruise.  I don't know how this will affect my overall energy level in the next two or three months, but I've already decided to focus on showing up and finishing regarding the running races I'm going to participate in with a mix of running and walking.  The main hassle as I see it will be driving across town to my treatment sessions and back.  Still, I plan to be positive and active through it all...

Happy Anniversary, My Dear Melissa!

Happy anniversary to my beautiful sweetheart Melissa. We're celebrating thirty-nine years together, with hopes of many more to come, along with joy and laughter.  I love you, honey!

Ran and Walked the West End Community Parkrun 5K This Morning

This morning I got up early, once again proving that I can indeed engage in this suggested habit if I have a good reason behind it.  And that reason was today's Parkrun, held Saturday mornings at 7:30.  My Parkrun of choice (Gainesville has two) was the West End Community Parkrun, the eighth event since it began in early July.  That location is a former golf course-turned community park, a few blocks west of 122nd Street off Newberry Road. For me it was my third official finish there, and I had my strategy set before me: alternate five minutes of speed-walking with five of moderate running...starting the race with three minutes of careful running as we passed over a long stretch of cracked up concrete sidewalk.  The conditions were predictably inhospitable: 72 degrees with 94% humidity, and a glaring sun rising in the east without any clouds.  The course has so many twists and turns that it is indecipherable...just follow the signs, arrows and volunteer marshals.  Although it was a bit taxing under such heat and humidity, I found this regular switching between running and walking to be very workable, a template for my future races although I might adjust the walk/run ratios.  Let's see, when I finished it at a time of 34:36, I figured that I walked a total of 15 minutes and ran for 19:36...not bad.  You can view today's posted results by clicking HERE.  Next week I'll most likely cross over to Depot Park.  The West End Community Parkrun this morning had relatively few participants, but that Depot Parkrun usually swells up.  I do like the fact that after West End is over, I can cool off and change at the gym across Newberry Road and then enjoy a coffee or chai latte at Patticakes next door.  And now it's time to face the rest of this weekend, whatever it brings us. As for tomorrow morning, let's see what motivates me to get up early...

Adult Family Members Suffering from Medical Issues

Today my family is undergoing some medical problems, and we are in a state of mobilization to help out when and where we can.  My daughter and brother-in-law both have some serious issues going on, and they are seeing doctors and medical help.  Your prayers are welcome, and we rely on God to heal them of their afflictions.  It's tough when two different issues seem to come out of nowhere to cause such distress among our loved ones...bless and comfort Rebecca and Keith...

62nd and 23rd

I'm sitting here in that same old Dunkin' store facing the same scene I showed in a recent article.  There's a street sign right there ahead on the corner: NW 23rd ST on top facing in one direction and NW 62nd AVE on the bottom facing the other. Cars come and go, but I don't see pedestrians making any use of the provided sidewalks here.  That's a lot different from the Manhattan, NYC streets I see on my YouTube live feeds at night...click HERE to see an earlier video.  On them the cameraman, with seemingly endless endurance, walks a brisk pace for miles upon miles, up and down Midtown Manhattan streets and avenues...it makes me tired leaning back on my couch watching all the fast-walking people, and they, too, seen to possess boundless energy.  But were I there among them, I probably wouldn't be tiring either, no matter how much real estate I covered.  I've been wearing a FitBit watch for a few years, and when I was working (at the post office) the last couple of years I would almost always be in continuous motion, often deliberately walking when I probably could have just stood or sat still.  I would regularly amass more than 20,000 steps in a workday, and then when I got home as often as not I would do some running-in-place before going off to bed. Now that I am retired, am I unconsciously scaling down my physical activity when I don't have to? And if so, is that a good thing?  On today's neighborhood 3.3-mile walk/run, I originally set out to speed-walk the whole loop, but at the 5-minute mark I switched the project to 5 minutes of walking alternating with 5 of easy running...and it worked! Beforehand I had thought that running would be a little too rough, but I discovered that I could get into a nice groove for five minutes knowing that I'd be back walking some.  No problem...this is actually a step up from my earlier plan to institute a 6 minutes walking/4 minutes running routine.  So maybe this 5/5 system can get me through long distance races...the first half-marathon is coming in November.  Then in early December it's a 15K, followed in January by a choice I have between a marathon and half-marathon.  Let's see how far I can take this, in the old "postal worker/ big-city walker" spirit...

Rob Dial Argues Against Comparing Oneself to Others

On his Mindset Mentor podcast today, personal development coach Rob Dial discussed how people tend to compare themselves...usually unfavorably...to others.  He says we're naturally wired into doing this assessing the relative social positions of ourselves against others, but it's not a good way to live out the day.  Folks like to scroll Facebook and other social media, but they tend to see what others post...which is usually the peak-best of what they are and do...and take it in as how they ordinarily live their lives.  I've seen this with the Canadian brothers' YouTube running channel, in which the two come off sounding awfully elitist about their chosen sport and tend to put down others that they don't see measuring up.  Well, it doesn't ruin my day to watch them, so let it be if that's how they want to present themselves...I'm still feeling fine.  My problem with others is in ordinary public conversation when they...usually it's men...go about, with false modesty, bragging about their own accomplishments and social standing.  I guess their expectation is for me to immediately defer to them as my superiors, but my reaction is usually one of aversion, wanting to put distance between them and me. This Parkrun experience I have habituated myself to partake of weekly is an example of the leaders openly stressing that it is NOT a competition...and then running in it like it IS. Rob Dial says that the only person you should be comparing yourself to is you, and whether or not you're improving over that past version of yourself.  That's how I see Parkruns and other races: how am I getting through the race and does my finishing time meet with the standards I set in past performances?  That's how I get myself looking forward each week to going down there and giving it another go.  For example, this coming Saturday morning I plan to try out the West End Community Parkrun for the third time, running it this time and seeing if I can't beat my initial finishing time there.  In the final analysis, whether I succeed in that is secondary to the main thing, which is showing up in the first place.  In any event, I'm sure there will be some annoying people who will try to make it all a personal contest between us...I say let them do that if that's how they want to limit themselves...

Self-Imposed Structure and Discipline an Issue So Far in Retirement

I'm writing this a little past 1 PM on a weekday that I normally would be driving to work had I not retired late last year after 37 years.  I'd be in the post office parking lot, no doubt eventually finding a free space somewhere in the disastrous mess that postal management created after they moved all the carriers into the processing plant on SW 34th Street.  Although if still employed I wouldn't be looking forward to being in that fishbowl of a building with all its peepholes and cameras and obnoxious "career" ladder-climbing supervisors trying to act tough, my mind and actions to a significant extent would be free to venture down whatever paths I felt inclined to follow.  The intermittent fasting that led to a heightened level of fitness and athleticism in 2023-24 (and was hinted at as being an "eating disorder" by loved ones) was able to take place under a work routine that saw me free from undue pressure by others to ravenously consume food.  I'd like to return to at least a modified version of that regimen, but I need to respond to the clearly different cues presenting themselves to me during these times of zero job-imposed structure.  For one, my priority is to include Melissa in as many activities that I can...but in the times she doesn't feel like going along I need to continue with my agenda while being sympathetic to her feelings.  People's moods and emotions fluctuate over the course of any day, and so do mine.  Each of them can speak for themselves...but not necessarily for me, although I welcome their input.  It does me little good to listen to podcasts from Rob Dial or Andrew Huberman about instilling self-discipline and structure if I get static for being proactive and showing up.  Being inclusive of others is not at all the same as depending on direction from them. My inclination is to make living simpler in a material sense and to avoid making mountains out of molehills.  Living in the present, or mindfulness, is the opposite of overthinking.  How about some mindfulness...and a little gratitude for the blessings in our lives? As for responsible activity, I think it's better to get little habits going to the point where "good living" just naturally becomes a part of my daily existence, instead of shutting down my life to focus on a specific massive maintenance or clean-up project (directed by someone else). I've learned over the past sixteen months with two tragic family deaths and three different cancer diagnoses that life is indeed fragile and we're all subject to eventual death in this world, and I value the present moments accorded me, aware that I don't know far ahead they will stretch out. I do my share of complaining about the news, but this is the time of my life. No, I'm far from perfect and have a long way to go. But I don't think that I'm being unreasonable to ask for a little consideration and respect when I am earnestly seeking to live in a disciplined and structured manner as I approach my 69th birthday...

On This Labor Day Starting Off September

Welcome to the month of September on this Labor Day Monday.  The Weather Channel meteorologists seem to be enjoying going to pains to explain that today marks the beginning of the meteorological fall season while the astronomical fall begins on September 22nd.  I'm not sure how that affects my life, but it continued to be very warm and humid outside as I walked around the neighborhood earlier this afternoon. I'm not counting on any sustained cooling in my surrounding weather.  No, it's tropical storms and hurricanes I'm on the lookout against, and the "experts" don't seem to think that anything of substance will develop within the next week or so, although they say there is a "robust" tropical wave out there.  We've had a pretty light Atlantic hurricane season so far, with the only developed hurricane staying clear of land, far out in the Atlantic Ocean...may the rest follow this pattern.  Melissa and I would like our planned cruise into the Caribbean Sea in early October to go off without complications. Not only do I need to take the weather into consideration about this, but apparently our mentally ill, creepy drama-queen of a president seems to think it's a good idea to manufacture yet another crisis by amassing warships just off the Venezuelan coast to provoke armed conflict with that nation...we're scheduled to cruise to the nearby islands of Aruba and Curacao. You probably voted for the felon: what excuses are you making for him this time? In any event, there's a limit to what I have control over in my life...let me focus on today and what it may bring...

My August 2025 Running, Walking, Swimming and Health Report

In August I continued to walk, run, and swim regularly, not really growing in fitness or athletic ability but instead practicing the discipline of showing up, often under stress to do other things and under adverse weather conditions.  It was a typically hot and muggy month in summer, and it wasn't at all fun.  No, it's still August as I write this and I am not having fun.  Sometimes I feel that I am acting in defiance of my loved ones when I carve out time in my supposed "retirement" to actively pay attention to my own fitness instead of being a limp, passive excuse for a being.  I'm frankly fed up with the frustration of feeling that I am being set up to be a kind of scapegoat.  Still, I think I did reasonably well getting through this past month.  I walk and run around my neighborhood regularly and I do exercises mimicking running in the house.  I do push-ups and calisthenics as well daily.  My swimming didn't happen as often as I would have liked...maybe this coming month will see an improvement in that activity.  In August I participated in three posted races...all Parkrun 5K's.  My finishing times have declined, and it's frustrating.  I wish I didn't feel pressured to stuff myself with food...that's not a healthful habit at all.   My weight has been creeping upward into the low 160's, and I'd much rather be twenty pounds lighter.   Along with my fitness routines I find myself deep into the medical rotations of tests and doctor visits following my March prostatectomy, with subsequent blood tests and pet-scan held to ascertain whether the cancer diagnosed last December is returning on any discernible level.  Maybe next month I'll have to undergo radiation treatment since my PSA level has crept up a bit. Am I healthy? Who knows, but I do know that I am continuing to be physically active.  I suppose that an element of health is having a social network of friends and family who express an interest in me and what I'm up to, and who want to hear what I think about things.  Unfortunately, although many seem to be benevolently inclined toward me, I don't see any of that extended into a level of interest.  So philosophically I guess I'm in a funk of social pessimism, with diminishing expectations of others and, if anything, a desire to be left alone without surrounding drama.  And the POS occupying the White House isn't helping anything with his antics, nor are those people who put him back into power...

Got Through This Morning's Hot and Humid Depot Parkrun 5K

Today was perhaps, weatherwise, the worst day to attempt a Parkrun: the temperature at the 7:30 start was 75 degrees with an oppressive 97% humidity.  That didn't keep Depot Park, located a few blocks south of downtown Gainesville, from filling up with runners and walkers for this weekly free event that is run by volunteers.  I mean, I got there a little earlier than usual, but the main parking lot was already packed and the overflow lot was already half full. For the Parkrun, my intention, given the conditions, was to speed-walk the entire 3.1 miles, but I found the experience frustrating when a kid and his presumed father seemed to pick me out as a mark as, early on, the little boy repeatedly (1) sprinted past me, (2) got immediately in front of me, and then (3) stopped...making me have to suddenly pivot to avoid collisions, knowing as I walked past them that I'd have to do the same damned thing all over in a minute when they did it again.  Look, if you're gonna coach your kid, fine, but maybe teaching him to avoid run-ins with others on the course just might be a priority, what do you say?  In any event, I eventually shook off that obnoxious duo but found myself going at an all-too-slow pace.  Eventually, after the second lap, I began to insert some running into it, ultimately running for 9:14 out of the final finishing time of 38:54. I don't know, I've written before how I prefer this simple Parkrun course to the one at West End because it has laps to it, but in all candor it can get to be a real drag encountering the same people over the course of a walk/run.  Maybe next time I'll try West End.  In any event, it looks like my times in the next few weeks are going to be slower and the emphasis will be on simply showing up and finishing (and avoiding tripping over obnoxious people). To view the posted results for today, click HERE...  

My Song of the Month for August 2025 is Garbage

It's approaching the end of yet another month, time for me to select my "song of August 2025".  I sought material that has been released this year for musical acts that produced songs I liked in the past.  The British alternative rock group Garbage, fronted by Shirley Manson, produced songs I liked in the late 1990's such as Stupid Girl, Push It and Special.  At the start of '25 they released the album Let All That We Imagine Be the Light. I listened to it all, one track at a time, and...wouldn't you know it...this is the third album in a row I've listened to in its entirety whose tracks I disliked.  Except, once again, for one standout, which I think totally rocks: the opening one, titled There's No Future in Optimism.  Shirley's appealing singing voice is in full stride here, and the song's instrumental production is breathtaking and powerful.  This is my song of August, and you might want to give it a listen.  In recap, below are my songs of the month for 2025 so far:

AUGUST   There's No Future in Optimism by Garbage

JULY          The Birds by Franz Ferdinand

JUNE         Stuck in My Head by Arcade Fire

MAY          Walking on a Dream by Empire of the Sun

APRIL        Nothing I Need by Lord Huron

MAY          Under the Rug by Arcy Drive

FEBRUARY  Starburster by Fontaines DC

JANUARY    Everyone Out by DIIV

New Run/Walk Strategy Developing

I was glancing out the window of my nearby Dunkin' Donuts here in far-northern Gainesville (see above pic), where I do much of my writing and studying, I'm contemplating a "sea change" regarding my future running and speed walking as I continue to plod on through the years. On my neighborhood run/walk combination training outings the last few months, I've grown accustomed to mixing them up.  Today I covered the 4.1-mile course by spending most of the time speed-walking with short, period intervals of easy-paced running.  I feel this may be the pattern for future races as well...especially the long distances ones of 10K (6.2 miles) and longer.  Speed-walk for six minutes and then run for four...and keep repeating the process until the race (or workout) is over.  I think this is a feasible training strategy for a future marathon in which I'm pushing to finish faster than six hours...there's one coming up in January. Today's workout was typical summertime discomfort, with an annoying combination of high temperature and humidity.  When conditions get cooler and dryer, it should be more workable to extend my training to longer distances and see how my body reacts to it all.  What I want is a viable level of fitness with which I can confidently enter any "classic" long distance event (10K through marathon length) and finish at a reasonable time...or in the case of the marathon...before they close down the course and stop timing entrants.  The elitists at the Florida Track Club have already stated that six hours is the deadline for finishing their upcoming marathon, after which runners are on their own and will not be furnished with posted finishing times.  A shoddy attitude, I think, considering the money laid out to enter the race, but obstinate, disagreeable people are everywhere and I would be better served focusing on my own attitude and behavior in response.  Let's try out this new alternation of walking and running and see where it gets me, elitists or not.  On the surface, it seems to make sense.  With this new structure I'm walking more than half the time while I'm running more than half the distance...

Boys with Toys

While shopping with Melissa the other day, I was very carefully steering our shopping cart past other customers along an especially crowded stretch of the store.  And then, straight toward us, an employee was casually pushing an imposing-looking pallet jack.  I watched him as he approached...and then he took out his cell phone and started looking at it while nonchalantly navigating his jack past without regard to anyone around...I guess it was up to us to get out of his way.  People whipping out their phones...what a scourge of our times.  Have you ever found yourself talking to someone, only to look over and see that they're zoned out and ignoring you, scrolling on their phone?  The only thing worse I know is the increasingly frightening circumstance of people...in anger...pulling out guns without any sense of restraint in using them.  It's become far too commonplace on the news to be met with the story of a shooter at a school, church, home or business...and often it's a minor who has committed the crime.  In the 1995 James Bond flick Goldeneye, Agent 007's Russian female partner Natalya Simonova had a contemptuous name for this phenomenon for pervasive and often harmful obsession with gadgetry: Boys with Toys.  So we're now living...or trying to stay alive...in the "Boys (and Girls) with Toys" era: whoopee...   

My Designed Running Loop Courses, Then and Now

My old running block (~3 miles) from my late teen years in Davie, Florida is the standard I use to evaluate the various training courses I've designed, especially those within the past twenty years.  These days my running (often combined with walking) takes place on asphalt road surfaces, while back then practically the entire loop was off-road, on the grass.  For a south Florida locale like Davie...where I went to school...running on grass was totally fine since there wasn't the prevalence of holes in the ground to trip up on like there are up here in northern Florida. I like seeing where I'm stepping...in my own back yard I have to be careful where I plant my feet.  But hitting a hard surface still takes its toll on legs' soft tissue, and I have to take care not to over-train.  That's one big reason I've taken to increasing my speed-walking emphasis...less taxing on the joints. My current standard 3.3-mile neighborhood loop has me passing many, many houses while I have to be attentive...even during low-traffic times of the day...to residents and visitors pulling in and out of driveways.  And then there's often a creepy vehicle or another that drives around me and then just stops in the road, as if the driver is some kind of stalker or Zimmerman-type neighborhood vigilante.  Pedestrians are truly the vulnerable class in this world loaded with suspicion and violently-inclined folks with weapons.  One of my favorite books from some fifteen years ago is Ultramarathon Man by Dean Karnazes.  In it he describes his late-night early morning long-distance training runs...one time he ran thirty miles around San Francisco in his underwear!  I can see myself doing something like that...and then get arrested and have my mug shot plastered over my local news station's screen: no thanks.  No, there are definitely times I want to stay off the road, and one of these is when it's dark outside. As for multiple laps on my loop, fifty years ago in March 1975 I once ran five laps on my old Davie loop, amassing nearly 15 total miles.  In Gainesville, unless I'm running or walking around the block (.7 mile), I don't do multiple laps.  Instead I have extensions designed to the course that create the desired distance.  When I ran 26.6 miles on January 15, 2011 I had a pretty complex running route that took me into some interesting territory.  I haven't ventured any distance near that far in the last few years, unless you're talking the marathon I completed last November along the eastern end of the Hawthorne trail.  But training? I keep it measured and consistent, with lots of time for rest and recovery.  Still, I'd like to revisit that old Davie trail from time to time...

Football Just Not One of My Interests

Are you getting excited about the upcoming football season? I'm not. One reason rests in the fact that in my nearly 69 years of existence on this Earth, I have never, ever played a single down of tackle football. Sure, I've played flag football at school and touch football on informal occasions, but the sport that people get so riled up about is something I've never been an active part of. I watch my local news program and revel in the fact that the head sports announcer almost exclusively covers either University of Florida sports or high school athletics...and football regularly gets the heavy emphasis. I despise the coaches I had in both high school physical education class and that one time I was on the track team. In these settings there is a martial, military spirit about minors...albeit adolescent ones...having to snap to attention for their coach like he's some kind of boot camp drill sergeant: disgusting.  I see some of these power-sick individuals on the sidelines going off loudly against players who, God help them, actually make mistakes and wonder why everyone doesn't just turn off the TV or go home in protest to this kind of abuse.  And they actually make statues of star players and stage them outside home fields, as if these people were larger than life.  No one covers with enthusiasm when kids do well in math class at school, and I suppose that makes sense...but I never see any coverage either of local running races, at that's definitely a part of sports..  But football? You can have it. The other day there was a season-opening game between Iowa State and Kansas State...I couldn't care less who won.  But then the officials called a delay of game penalty on the Iowa State defense and their head coach literally went berserk on the sidelines, jumping up and down and screaming at the referees.  That dude should have been sacked on the spot...

Mini-Seminar on Avoiding Falls

This past Saturday morning (somebody) presented an educational meeting about the dangers of falling for seniors and ways to avoid them.  Melissa arranged it for us...all I had to do was drive us down to the gym conference room where it was being held.  We heard a nice talk describing the various situations that can put folks in danger of falling, and also participated in a test of our own individual susceptibility for falls.  Melissa and I did well with the tests...since I tend to be a bit on the athletic side I figured I would.  As people age, they tend to lose muscle mass and strength, especially regarding the "fast-twitch" muscles that can quickly straighten them out when they lose balance, averting fall situations.  Also, bone density tends to lessen, creating the hazard of injuries from falling being compounded with broken bones. Sometimes I get down on the way the world is going, and it seems like people are getting meaner and meaner.  But there's good stuff as well, and this mini-seminar is a useful example...