Coming Up

It's May 1, and I'm really over it with the shoveling. We got something like 10 more inches of snow today. It sucks.

You know, this whole day really sucked. Ever have one of those days when you know you're just going through the motions and your heart is not in it, and then you realize just how much you are forcing yourself to endure?

Then I came home to find one of our trees in the backyard, the juniper, was uprooted by the heavy snow. I'm hoping we can save it once the snow melts, we'll need to figure out a way to stabilize it. Seeing the juniper lying down in the yard, buried in heavy snow, made me see myself and where I am.

I've been reading a lot of crap lately, mostly because I am procrastinating. Procrastinating taking some sort of step forward. Feeling like barfing up something from this hole in my gut, but there's nothing there, it's just dry heaves, empty. I feel sucked dry, with no hope of repletion.

I've been suppressing a rant.

So I get these newsletters in my e-mail every day that talk about medical news. And I read other people's blogs in medicine and get news about the pharmaceutical industry, and other things related to health care and reform thereof. And the shit continues to be cranked out. All the trouble in healthcare is the same trouble we have in every other sector of our world, which is, corporations have too damn much power and all the wealth is concentrated at the top, because politicans can be bought by wealthy interests. The "I've got mine, screw you" mentality.

And then I see snippets and links to things on Facebook. And I see what people post, divisive, politically charged, mean-spirited crap, because they are angry and frustrated with the way things are. They are afraid. It makes me wonder just how much the recent rash of violence we've seen is related to how upset, frustrated and powerless people feel.

So I want to talk about fear. People are afraid for their livelihoods. They are afraid because they want to keep a roof over their heads, food on the table, and live their borrowed, temporary, fake comfortable lifestyles full of gadgetry that they sell their souls to live. And they'll lie, stab someone else in the back, cheat, and steal to keep going, because they think they will be safe.

And so they put up with a lot of crap, that affects their health and well-being, sometimes staying for years in the same place because it's comfortable, but it's a false comfort because underneath they are afraid, very fearful every day that their paycheck and way of life will dry up suddenly. And they know it all depends on keeping a smile plastered on their faces, on being apologists for bad corporate behavior, acting like domestic violence victims who will come back no matter how many times they are beaten because they just don't get it, that they are enabling it themselves by their complicity.

But the way things are has us by the proverbial family jewels...and most people see their only hope of survival to be docility. It's not a good thing when you see multiple instances of people going berserk, and the copycats who follow, and you never know what it was that pushed them over the edge. There is way too much mental illness and not enough care for people who can't deal with the stresses life throws at them. It doesn't have to be this way. We have created this situation.

Over the years I have heard of so many people who got sick from their jobs, the stress, the inability to wake up in the morning and face another day of faking it, of making excuses for the sick and perverse way they enable the poor treatment of other people, of toeing the line and shutting up. And the behavior of corporations is dependent on fear, because those in the highest tiers are fearful of losing their control, so they rig the system to work in their favor, because they can. It makes people sick.

If you have the ability to see what's leading to a downward spiral, taking back control over your life and refusing to be sucked into the quicksand is what you have to do. You cannot force yourself to do things, you'll be bitter, angry, hateful, and sick. You'll be lucky if all you need are antidepressants.

I love the words to the song/poem "Coming Up" by Ani DiFranco. Reminds me of our politicians. Indulge in some wishful, idealistic thinking for a moment.

Congress, having formed its own set of rules for its members' behavior, works with their own code of unethics to guide them and obstruct any progress that might be in the interest of most citizens. They don't want to abide by the Affordable Care Act. That's for the little people. Whether they are on the side of attorneys or Big Pharma or insurance giants or big banks, they're all pitted against the common good and only acting in their own interest. As long as your ass is covered, it doesn't matter who's winning. What we need to do is remove them from office. Voting won't work. Hog-tie and carry them out if we have to. They are not serving us, they don't deserve be called our representatives. Send them back home where they can learn to work paycheck to paycheck like the rest of us.

The people are numb, anesthetized by their own gullibility for shiny flashing objects...necks flexed and mesmerized by their little mobile devices. When you spend most of your leisure time focused on a tiny little screen and fingertip-operated keyboard, and the remaining time focused on a bigger screen operated by a remote control device, there's not much brain space left for focusing outside, for thinking critically, or seeing a bigger picture.

Can't step outside yourself and your situation for a moment to ask yourself: Why? Why are we doing this? Why are things the way they are? Does it have to be this way? The thing is, we have short attention spans. No sooner is a thought thought, than it dissolves into the atmosphere. Can't hang onto it long enough to pursue it. It's true that we are powerless as individuals but wrenching ourselves from our butts and banding together with other people is what needs to happen.

It doesn't appear that anyone will be waking up from this societal coma anytime soon.

No, people want to find the next distraction, they're stupid enough to fall for fake "quizzes" as marketing devices for fake cures for middle age, or the latest snack food to support the obesification industry, or anything else of which irresponsible journalists enable the marketing: camel's milk, red bean Triscuits, snake oil, Androgel...

As long as they can still buy these things, they don't seem to care about changing anything.

You can't regulate stupidity. There's a whole industry built on it. It's called "America".

Rock Repeats and Ranting

The dire weather that was forecast for our area held off just long enough to make for a pleasant morning of running. I woke up at 6:30 totally surprised to see blue skies, with a bank of clouds behind the foothills, just like yesterday. It was cool and windy, but the sunshine was parked over us for at least a few more hours, the way things looked. I decided to go back to the original plan of Rock Repeats.

When I arrived at the Horsetooth Mountain trailhead at 8:30 am there were only 4 cars there! Usually on a weekend in the spring, the parking lot fills up early. Probably a lot of changed plans due to the anticipation of nastiness.

It's always nice to have the trail to myself. The first time up I ran a relaxed pace, figuring that a steady pace today would be the way to go, without bashing my quads too much. It's been several weeks since I did my last repeats up here, and I only did two. I go back to work tomorrow, and squatting down on the stool to start IVs is a challenge with sore quads.

The first trip up was uneventful, but the views were amazing. I could see where some of the foothills south of us got a dusting of snow, down to about 7000 feet. But the snow hadn't reached this far east. It was moving, though, and the wind was strong when I got away from the more sheltered areas of the trail. I added a little extra to each of my repeats this time. I went past the Wathen trail intersection and past the log bench, to the end of the singletrack directly under the Rock. Just a little more trail to challenge my ankle.

The second trip up was still sunny, but some sleet was flying around every so often. I couldn't figure out where it was coming from because there were no clouds above me. On the way up the second time I pushed a little harder and felt good. As I headed downhill, I could see the storm moving in over town, and it looked worse down there than it was up on the hill where I was.

When I was almost to the bottom, I ran into a group of runners coming up, I figured they were out there doing a run of the course of the upcoming Quad Rock 50, Nick's inaugural event this May. It will be a week after I run the 24 hour, and I'm not anywhere near ready for that kind of trail running. Hopefully all will go well this first year and the race will become a draw for lots of runners. We have so many good trails here, I think it will be hugely popular.

When I reached the bottom, I got some drinks and food at my car to prepare for my third ascent and who came down the trail but my friend Cat and a few other runners, doing the Quad Rock course. I did most of the first mile of the ascent talking with Cat, and then we reached the fork where they went up the trail, and I took the road to the left.

The only thing different was the sunshine was no longer there, but the wind hadn't changed and there was still an occasional mist of sleet. I got almost to the bottom and then did a little extra out & back on the service road to wrap up 15 miles for the day. I ended up with 4050' vertical gain and descent. Not bad to wrap up my last full mileage week prior to the 24 hour. Next week I'll cut back a little, but after that I plan to take a full two week taper. I can allow myself that luxury now. I'd like to give myself every chance to have a good race in Iowa, even though I'll be happy to do 100 miles.

Okay, so here's where I have to rant. On my last descent, as I passed the first junction where the trail meets the service road, which is about 0.6 miles from the parking area, these two IDIOTS came huffing up the trail as I was running down. I could smell the cigarette smoke before I got there, and they were the source. What kind of stupid idiot would smoke a cigarette when we've had such a dry spring and the wind is howling? STUPID STUPID STUPID.

Should the park rangers start handing out nicotine patches? Maybe I should have said something, but I didn't. I was so mad after I ran by and thought about it. That's all we need, a good wildfire to start off the season. I'm mad at myself for not running back up the road and lecturing them. All it takes is one dumbass and POOF!

Since I'm on the topic of rants, I find it interesting that the Boston Marathon organizers have put out a warning to the runners about the predicted heat in tomorrow's race. They said, "inexperienced runners" should consider not running this year. My friend Connie is running with another runner from here, Dan, who is blind. They are going ahead with it. They are both well-conditioned, experienced and smart, so I'm not overly concerned that they'll get into trouble.

This raises some questions: first, any runner can get in trouble with the heat. Experienced and competitive runners are probably just as likely to have a problem from underestimating the effects of the heat. And doesn't the Boston Marathon start at some crazy hour out of tradition, like 10:00? Hello...

If you're training for an event you really need to be prepared for all conditions. If you know the race starts late, and it's a spring race, then heat is one of the first things you should be prepared for. Being a road racer doesn't exempt you from having to use common sense when it comes to weather. I sure hope they won't have that mentality of "Give me an IV at the finish line". As if it's the race's responsibility to put a bandaid on what they have just done to their bodies.

Anyway, just had to put my $.02 in about Boston. Let's just hope the prima donnas stay away. A race is a race, and it comes with a set of conditions: some are predictable, some are not. You need to be prepared for anything, so if you're not prepared, do the race a favor and stay home.