Post-Vacation Blues...and Ultrarunning

The bride and I, plus some heirs to the estate (including Mister Tristan, the 5-year old human being, not the blog), just returned from a wonderful week at Ocracoke Island, NC.

Coming back to the real world seems particularly jarring this year.  Which means that the vacation was indeed special.

We've been vacationing at the Outer Banks for the past 3 decades, but had not stayed on Ocracoke Island since the 70s.  It's south of Cape Hatteras and only reachable via ferry.  The island is some 12 miles or so long, and the village of Ocracoke sits near the southern end.  The village is constrained by the National Seashore and so is of finite size, which limits its development and keeps it rather quaint and charming.

I don't have access to my photos at the moment but will post more soon.

Oh, the connection to Ultrarunning?  I ran exactly once during vacation, an easy 5 miler.  Not exactly a strong training base, but it was the amount I felt like running.  After all, I was on vacation.

Drones, or Cause and Effect

From our friends at Shakesville, some common sense: 

"The consequence of drone strikes has been to radicalize an entirely new generation."-U.N. Special Rapporteur on drones, British lawyer Ben Emmerson. 

And Emmersen, whose "legal insights will form the basis of his report to the U.N., expected later this year," has an additional warning about the long-term effects of the US' drone program: 

Emmerson says the drone strikes are illegal under international law as they violate Pakistan's sovereignty and fly in the face of Pakistani government calls for them to desist -- and that they also legalize al Qaeda's fight against America. 

He said: "If it is lawful for the U.S. to drone al Qaeda associates whereever they find them, then it is also lawful for al Qaeda to target U.S. military or infrastructure where ever (militants) find them."

Cause and effect: it's just not that hard. 

Cats in Art: Panther (Unknown Prehistoric Artist)

From my continuing weekly Sunday series of cats in art. Currently I'm using some prehistoric art, triggered by finally seeing "Cave of Forgotten Dreams" which depicts 30,000 year old art in Chauvet Cave, France.

Image credit National Park Service, here

From the Amistad National Recreation Area in Texas, a well preserved panther (mountain lion) image, in a rock shelter.  From the NPS web site:

 

Nestled along the United States-Mexico border in southwestern Texas and northwestern Coahuila, the Lower Pecos River Archeological region encompasses an area of about fifty square miles. Though this cultural region is fairly small, more than 2,000 archeological sites have been recorded. These sites cover a time span from the 19th century to over 10,000 years ago. Over 325 pictograph sites have been documented containing some of North America’s oldest and largest pictographs. These pictographs range in size from isolated motifs just a few inches tall to huge panels stretching more than 100 feet along the back of rock shelter walls.

Panther Cave is the region’s most famous pictograph site. The rear wall of the shelter is covered, floor-to-ceiling, with hundreds of motifs which collectively form an uninterrupted panel more than eighty feet in length. The namesake of the site, a giant red-painted mountain lion or panther, is over ten feet long from nose to the tip of the tail.

It's tough to make out in this ancient pictograph since the cat's legs are not very clear, but to me the overall impression is one of fluidity, of a lithe, agile cat leaping effortlessly, tail erect for balance.

One senses power, speed, and quick danger.  The unknown ancient artist was truly able to convey a lot of information in this beautiful image.

 
 

They Were As Real as You and Me

I don't recall whether I've mnetioned this fact in Mister Tristan (the blog, not the 5-year-old human being), but I am a fascinated student of the American Civil War.  Meaning avid reader, researcher, writer.  In fatc, I've had a couple of articles publsihed in The Gettsyburg Magazine, and am working on another.

Anyway, from editor Andy Turner of The Gettysburg Magazine, we read this vignette, and without any more explanation needed, this si why I am so facsicnted with the American Civil War:

As they say, it’s a small world. You never know who you are going to run into and when. Such was the case of two Civil War veterans who once faced each other on the field of battle and later bumped into each other as old men.

The following article, from the February 1911 edition of Confederate Veteran, tells of the unlikely meeting of two former foes.

Singular Meeting of Two Old Veterans
The Tampa (Fla.) Tribune prints a remarkable yet very reasonable story from Zephyr Hills, a new colony town in Florida, concerning two veterans who battered each other with their muskets at Malvern Hill in the battle there. The veterans were William H. Hopkins, who was in a New York regiment, and Samuel Stafford, who was in the 5th Florida.

The story goes on to say that at Malvern Hill, Va., the Union forces charged an intrenched line of Confederates, and a fierce and bloody hand-to-hand fight took place. The two men, now grizzled and old, were boys. They met face to face, hand to hand, gun to gun, and saw each other well. Both had emptied their rifles into the ranks of their respective foes, and with clubbed guns they attacked each other, each demanding surrender. Neither would yield, and they fought with the fierceness of youth and the determination of brave men, each of whom had faith in the righteousness of the cause for which he struggled. Hopkins dealt Stafford a heavy blow with the butt of his gun on the head, and at the same instant Stafford had brought the butt of his gun crashing upon the head of Hopkins, the hammer striking his eye, and both fell. Stafford arose in a very short time, dazed and terribly hurt; but the attack had failed, and the Union troops, defeated, had fled, or those who were able to flee and were not captured. Hopkins lay upon the earth unconscious, apparently dead, and became a prisoner. A bullet had struck his head, inflicting a most dangerous wound, while the blow of Stafford had fractured his skull. The Confederate boy looked down upon the still form of his enemy, who was covered with blood and gave no sign of life, and his humane heart stood still in horror. He began to weep over his enemy, and undertook to wash the blood from his face. An officer asked him what he was crying about, and he said: “I have killed a man. I did not know him. Why should I kill him?”

It was nearly three months before Hopkins himself knew that he was alive, before he recovered consciousness. The sight of his right eye was gone. The blow he struck Stafford resulted in the destruction of his right eye. Neither saw the other after that fight until now. These two old men, each having but one eye, met by chance. Stafford lives within the bounds of the colony; Hopkins is a colonist. When chance led them to the same group near colony headquarters, they greeted each other casually as strangers; then each took a second look and a third. Each being struck by the similarity of their mutually unfortunate state, they looked upon each other with growing interest. Stafford said: “I seem to remember you. I wonder if we ever met before?”

Hopkins answered: “As soon as I saw you I thought I ought to know; but I do not, I guess. My name is Hopkins.”

“My name is Stafford. I live just over yonder. I lost my eye in a fight at Malvern Hill. How did you lose yours? Was it in the war? Were you wounded?”

“Yes,” Hopkins responded in surprise. “I was struck on the head by a Reb at Malvern Hill when we charged their intrenchment. Well, that was the man you remind me of.”

“You are the Yankee who refused to surrender and knocked me on the head with the butt of your gun, I believe,” said Stafford; and when each told the details of the fight, it became evident that these gray-haired men were the boys who fought so terribly in battle hand to hand that day at Malvern Hill. And each battered the other to the destruction of his right eye.

Janet Christiansen, Revisited...and Ultrarunning

Beem awhile since I posted about Janet Christiansen (last was here).

She was murdered several years ago and is buried in a local cemetery where I run.  An article in our local newspaper a couple years ago about her body being exhumed for additional forensic evidence to try to solve her murder led me to her grave and got me thinking about immortality and such.

Funny how odd events or things just kinda resonate for unkown reasons, but I've generally decided just to go with it, there are things to be learned.  I didn't know Janet; she's just a stranger whose story touched me.

What I've taken from Janet's story is that life is short, things can change in a heartbeat, and that there are no guarantees.  So the only sensible response is to live each day to the fullest and don't take anything for granted.

Whenever I run by there I ususally drop off some wildflowers--here, Queen Anne's Lace--just to say thanks to Janet for the valuable lesson that "you may not have as much time as you think."

The link, of course, to Ultrarunning is one I personally need to take to heart: if you feel like doing a particular run (be it training or a race), just DO IT. 

No time like the present; after all, the whole point of this post is never to assume you'll have the time at some later date.

Stop, Look and Listen...and Ultrarunning

Image credit R. Berdar at Flickr, here.

Being the old guy that I am, I am a member of AARP (American Association of Retired Persons).  I recently took the on-line AARP Driver Safety Course to gain a discount on my auto insurance.

If you've ever taken any on-line training, you know that they run the gamut of difficulty: there are some totally easy courses, some in-between courses, and some real gonad-busters.

This course was easy in the sense of not even being pass-fail; rather, you just plow through it, take the unscored tests, and earn your certificate at the end.  It does take several hours, and there are no time shortcuts.  While much of the info presented was simply common sense, I actually did pick up some good advice.

What I wanted to focus on in this post pertains to the image above of the type of old railroad sign that used to be prevalent before crossing signals and flashing lights became the norm.  Much of the AARP course deals with strategies to address the reality of older drivers not being quite as aware of their surroundings and reacting slower.

So I've taken the old "Stop, Look and Listen" mantra to the roads when I run.  Since much of my local running is on curvy, hilly rural roads, often with minimal shoulders, I frequently change sides and even run on the "wrong" side of the road when doing so is actually the safest strategy for both me and any drivers I may encounter.  I am always thinking visibility: how can I best be seen and out of the line of fire.

But before I make any maneuvers, I really and truly literally stop, look, and listen so I don't wind up as roadkill.  I realize my situational awareness skills are not what they once were, so I take extra care to make certain that I know what's coming my using my eyes AND my ears.

 

New Mexico's Unfortunate Nickname...and Ultrarunning

Across these wonderful 50 United States of America, here in the northeast we see such inspirational state nicknames as the "Keystone State" (Pennsylvania); the "Empire State" (New York); the "Monumental State" (Maryland); the "Old Granite State" (New Hampshire); and the "Green Mountain State" (Vermont), just to name a few.

But head out west, waaaaay out west, all the way to New Mexico, where we learn that that state's nickname is the "Vermin State."

Yes, the Vermin State.  Seriously?

Better get the Chamber of Commerce on that pronto, if they can spare some time away from trying to keep the minimum wage suppressed and blindly opposing sensible safeguards and regulations as being anti-business.

The link to Ultrarunning is that I had a couple of business trips to New Mexico where I fully appreciated its license plate nickname: "Land of Enchantment."  I did a couple of memorable runs at White Sands and near Carlsbad Caverns, both of which will absolutely knock your socks off.

[image credit here]

 

 

 

Cheaters in Sports...and Ultrarunning

Saw Mike Wise's commentary in the Washington Post a week ago about drug cheating in baseball.  And he makes some great points:

Almost forgotten this weekend is the annual Baseball Hall of Fame enshrinement ceremonies in Cooperstown, N.Y. It is a pastoral postcard of a hamlet in upstate New York somehow still called “Baseball’s Spiritual Home.” Amid clubhouses full of lost souls, a better moniker might be “Graveyard to the Grand Old Game.”

For the first time in almost 50 years, the new inductees are all dead. The players eligible for induction — Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens, only the greatest power hitter and pitcher of their generation — are widely considered disgraced drug cheats who, in the end, needed lawyers more than Hall of Fame votes.

Ryan Braun isn’t getting into Cooperstown, either, but not because he merely used performance-enhancing drugs. No, before admitting his guilt and accepting Major League Baseball’s 65-game, rest-of-the-season ban, he committed a more cardinal sin: He kept lying, only more belligerently. Going after the people who caught him lying and cheating, he became the National League MVP who knew no bottom.

Braun followed the Bondsian deny-till-you-die credo, attacking the people who caught him, swearing his innocence on everything — including, comically in retrospect, his actual life. A week of ugly backlash showed Braun there is a harder-to-forgive crime than using steroids to steal money and fame from your peers: being a bad guy.  

Alex Rodriguez, who admitted he once used PEDs, is flirting with expulsion from baseball because he too didn’t learn the lesson of the PED era: Fess up when the truth catches up to you and move on. [Note: he was suspended thru 2014]

These 2 guys, sadly, followed the Lance Armstrong strategy: deny, Deny, DENY, and attack, Attack, ATTACK, until their pack of lies ultimately crumbled like a house of cards.

I learned long ago that bad news never improves with age, so it's best to deal with stuff head on and early.  You're going to face some pain, sure, but nothing compared to the escalated pain that will have compounded if you wait.  Just sayin'.

So, the lies turn out to be worse than the original sin.  Back to Mike Wise:

Bonds, Clemens, Braun and Rodriguez are all cautionary tales in what should be the thesis of the Lance Armstrong School of Ethics: The public will forgive a guy for using PEDs.

What they’re less likely to forgive is lying about it afterward and then trashing and attacking the accusers.  People understand the temptation to cheat. But if and when you get caught, don’t be a jerk. It makes you look irredeemable.

Oh, and the connection to Ultrarunning?  It's entirely likely that some of our elite Ultrarunners do use performance-enhancing drugs to do better, although on the other hand the financial incentives to do so just aren't there (endurance running is NOT a big-money sport, duh). 

But overall I truly believe that our sport is mostly clean, just based upon the kind of people I know who gravitate to it.