On Sunday, 8/24/08, I was back at The Great Minnesota Get Together for my yearly gig. And well, just like last year I was inclined to partake of the very very special State Fair Fare…this year’s results:
Archive for the 'lumpy's wisdom' Category
With all the events going on around here, The Lumpy is left to hold up the fort. Well, he’s been a total slacker at posting lately, so time for him to get on his game. That said, I came across the following at TreeHugger:
New Study: Kids Need the Adventure of “Risky” Play
by Lloyd Alter, Toronto on 08. 5.08
A new British study finds the obvious to any modern parent- we overprotect our kids. Half of all kids have stopped climbing trees, and 17 percent have been told that they can’t play tag or chase. Even hide-and-seek has been deemed dangerous.
So, as The Sally noted, we were just sitting here, trying to remember our anniversary date. We couldn’t exactly remember…was it the 2nd or 4th? I suggested we just call it the first Saturday in August–seems a lot more “official” that way.
So about 10 seconds after we concluded that discussion the phone rings. It is
Evidently, The Lumpy caused a tremor in The Force. So
No…THAT was is a disturbance in the Force.
13.1 Mile Trail Run, Reading, PA
Sunday, August 17, 2008 * 9:00 AM * No Entry Limit!
52 times in 2008, large groups of not very bright people will come together to compete with one another. The competitors will pay large sums of money to enter, even though just about every one of them has little chance of winning and they will “bore the heck” out of all of those around them with their claims of prowess and achievement leading up to these events. Afterwards, most of these slugs will sulk back home with their tails between their legs, still convinced that they had a chance of achieving true greatness despite a CLEAR indication that, going in, they must have been delirious from a dangerous “mixing” of semi-illegal drugs, out of control egos and the massive consumption of refined sugar products. 51 of these “gatherings of the dim” fall into a single descriptive category known as “the Presidential Primaries” (no, we did not annex Manitoba as the 51st state when you were asleep; Washington DC has one too). The 52nd event of unfulfilled dreams and moronic behavior is known as the “Half Wit Half” Marathon Trail Run; a 13.1M rustic trail run that attracts daredevils, retired Elvis impersonators, non-working Kids Party Clowns, 1 or 2 paparazzi and a whole buncha weekend athletes that are convinced that doing something that is “not too good” for their health is, somehow, “good” for what little mind they have!!! The Half Wit is a tuff but doable race for those that have more guts than brains and it is to “serious athletic endeavor” what Rap Music Artists are to the “responsible use of handguns for maintaining manageable levels of wildlife”. The HWH is Pretzel City Sport’s second greatest annual challenge; right behind reading the legal waiver printed on most of its apps in size 4 font without the use of the Hubbell telescope. The Half Wit is a nightmare of serious climbs, loose rock descents, trees and runners laying across the trails, flying insects and animals with pepper spray, urban relics that are somehow standing despite the city around them falling apart, poor footing and even poorer spellers, volunteers with “agendas” and a whole gaggle of folks running with you that still have serious aspirations of someday being a “StarFleet Commander!” Only a fool would hold this event and he is encouraged to do so each year by the 400-600 other fools from 8-12 states that continue to “come back” like a fish chimichanga eaten right before bedtime. These underachievers embrace such race oddities as the “128 Steps from Hell”, the unique aide stations that sooth a parched pallet, the shirt that reflects that the entry should never be allowed to operate heavy machinery even before taking certain cold medicines and the knowledge of knowing that despite doing 6-10 stupid things per mile during the event, they will STILL probably not be the dumbest person there. The Half Wit Half! A running adventure for those that, coming out of high school. even the Armed Services rejected and are damn proud of it!! LEGAL-EASE: YOU ALONE ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR YOUR HEALTH & WELFARE WHILE RACING THE HWH. Dr Martin Luther King once nobly said “I have a dream”. HWH finishers have dreams too but they are not the kind that make you look forward to falling asleep! Despite that, it is “probable” that you won’t get lost or dinged during this race; very few do. If you do, however, it is your responsibility to find your way back or drag your mangled body to a place where we can conveniently retrieve you via “fossil fuel” means. We do not carry you out nor look for you; we reserve our in-race support to “missing you a lot!” Our on-site ambulance feels the same way, except that, as non-runners, they don’t miss you near as bad. As such, we do not allow runners under 18 to do this event. Others discouraged from entering are anyone that knows that Penn, Columbia and Brown are more than just a writing implement, a space shuttle & a color. Others that should stay home are “terminally oversensitive” folks that think that every subsection of people, including Incas, Druids and Metrosexuals, have a right to not have their “leg pulled’ by semi-humorous trailside signs; on the other hand, former owners of any American Motors vehicle (Pacers, Gremlins, etc.), past “Dollywood” visitors and any member of the Jelly of the Month Club are welcome with open arms, legs and sores!
IF that description is NOT an inspiration to run this damn race…then you are dead to me.
Well, okay, it wasn’t absolute zero. But a nice -7°F (windchill) seems like a good time to start running again. They’re predicting a perfect running weather of sunny and -1°F (without windchill) for Saturday. Yup, seems like a really good time for me to start running, again.
My knee has been a bit wonkey ever since my little biking incident. No pain at this point, but it just feels off. So I may as well run.
Oh, and here’s a little gem on cold weather exercise. Think it is bad for you? Bollux!
Read on…
Too Cold to Exercise? Try Another Excuse
By GINA KOLATAJULIA HENSLEY, a 41-year-old artist, got a taste of bitter cold a decade ago when she spent a winter living on a glacier near Seward, Alaska. Typical winter temperatures were 10 to 15 degrees below.
“The first time it got really cold, I was scared of it,” Ms. Hensley said. “My instinct was to get a stack of books and curl up beside the wood stove.”
But a boyfriend persuaded her to go out anyway, to cross-country ski or snowshoe for hours in deep snow. He taught her, she said, that as long as she kept moving, she would be fine.
It was a conclusion - that extreme cold can be safe for exercisers - that runs contrary to conventional wisdom. But in fact, said John W. Castellani, an exercise physiologist at the Army Research Institute of Environmental Medicine, it turns out that even though cold can be frightening, more people are injured exercising in the heat than exercising in the cold. (emphasis Lumpy’s)
I still dwell on Paris 2007.
The final entry, #11, in my breakdown of
The Perfect Human is 11. BREAK IT DOWN.
I’m not ready to break it down tonight, but I’m working on it…I need to.
And now, the next installment of my much neglected trashing analysis of How to run 50 marathons in 50 days. In the Wired piece the Perfect Human it is written:
10. PROMOTE THE HELL OUT OF YOURSELF
Before he became Superman, Karnazes was the Clark Kent of the PR world: a humdrum marketing executive at a pharmaceutical company. But in the past three years, he’s published a memoir, nabbed a sponsorship from the North Face, appeared on Late Show With David Letterman, and gotten himself on the cover of a handful of magazines. The book and the North Face contract generate enough money to support his family, and the high profile translates into maximum motivation: Failure is scarier when the family income is on the line.
Yeah…so click the ads, damint. Oh, and North Face we’re at 11 months, 18 days, 22 hours, … minutes ago … seriously!!!
Okay, so I’ve likely ranted about a whole lot of issues here, but this is a rant covering the last few weeks. Read at your own risk. Rants in no particular temporal order.
Rant On:
No, I do not care for a lap full of red wine.
And now, the next installment of my reverse-engineering of How to run 50 marathons in 50 days.
In the Wired piece the Perfect Human it is written:
9. GET USED TO IT
If you’re going to explore the boundaries of human endurance, you’ll have to learn to adapt to more and more pain. To prepare for the searing heat of the Badwater race, Karnazes went on 30-mile jogs wearing a ski parka over a wool sweater. He trained himself to urinate while running. He got so he could go out and run a marathon on any given day – no mileage buildup or tapering required. This training made the extreme seem ordinary and made the impossible seem the next logical step. Eventually, when he grew accustomed to the pain, it stopped hurting. “There is magic in misery,” he says.
Yup. Get used to it. (Oh, and EWE!–not that I haven’t done that myself at least once before .) I should listen to my own advice and get over The Debacle .
But seriously, I have to give this one two thumbs up. As some of you know, The Lumpy used to study Aikido quite seriously. I’ve fallen from that path , but I’m alway reminded of one night on the way to the dojo …An older student came up to me on the way in, and was joking with me about being sore. And thusly resulted one of my axioms, quotes of Lumpy, rules to live buy, and it is summed up by “9. GET USED TO IT”:
The pain never really goes away. You just get used to it.
-The Lumpy
