Incredible journeys

I just saw the end of a couple of epic journeys last night.

I finished up the book, Without a Paddle: Racing Twelve Hundred Miles Around Florida by Sea Kayak by Warren Richey. From GoodReads.com:

As far as Warren Richey knew, his life was on course. A reporter with a beautiful wife and talented son, Richey couldn’t imagine how it could be any better....Then his marriage falls apart and he can’t imagine how it could be any worse.

The divorce leaves Richey questioning everything, while struggling to find a way forward. To get his bearings, he enters the first Ultimate Florida Challenge, an all-out twelve-hundred-mile kayak race around Florida.

The race is literally around Florida in any a boat without a engine. Ten participants start out in Tampa, travel south around the Keys, then head north along the east coast. Of course Florida is peninsula not an island. The racers have to paddle upstream on a winding river toward the center of the state, carry their boats overland for 40 miles, and then head downstream on another river to reach the Gulf of Mexico once more.

The author does a nice job describing the challenges he faced racing around the clock, covering 1200 miles in a kayak. The race is a free-for-all of fatigue and sleep deprivation. Along the way, he looks back on his past failures, but spends as much time planning for his future. It sounds like a pretty incredible race and the book does a good job of taking you there.

Then tonight we watched a movie called 10mph. Two friends drop out of the corporate, cubicle life, move to Denver and start a production company. Then they come up with the movie concept - they would ride a Segway across America, from Seattle to Boston.

They run into plenty of obstacles and have to constantly scrounge for cash to pull off the 100 day trip. The movie is an entertaining look at the not only crazy way they decide to cover the 4,000 miles, but the characters and places they see along the way. They end up meeting many great people who support them and take them in. I thought it was great.

"If I had the chance now, I would ask him: Where did you find the strength and courage to keep moving? In many ways it is the obstacles that define the man. How far you walked is not nearly as revealing as how far you crawled." ~ From Without a Paddle.

"...why not live it up, take the risk and do the thing that you're supposed to do."  ~ Hunter and Josh from 10mph

Born to Run

A friend recently sent me a link to "40 free (or cheap) things you can do in San Diego". I clicked on the link yesterday and found a few interesting things to do. One recommendation was to attend book-signings at the Warwick's Book Store in La Jolla. After clicking over to their site, I found out that Christopher McDougall (author of Born to Run) was speaking today. I read his book back in February, and it was excellent, so I decided to go listen to him speak.

The author was on assignment on a different story when he saw an article on the winner of the Leadville 100 endurance race. The accompanying picture showed a 52 year old man running in what appeared to be sandles made with soles of old tires. He dropped what he was working on to find out more about the story. It lead him to the reclusive Tarahumara tribe in Mexico who have the uncanny ability to run hundreds of miles, and display a serenity that leads you to believe that this is what we were born to do.

Upon discovery of these 'natural' runners, the author seeks to understand their secret from both the natives themselves, and scientists who have been studying human evolution and history to explain how our makeup sets us apart from other animals when it comes to covering great distances. One of the major factors that set us apart is our ability to dissipate heat through sweat. Early hunters likely survived by running animals to exhaustion and death.

The Tarhumara run on very minimalist sandles, and during his research the author encounters a few runners who believe running completely barefoot helps runners to avoid injury. This is the topic that has garnered the most press coverage and controversy. It has helped start a growing trend toward running in less structured shoes, if not going completely barefoot. The author himself used to be frustrated with a list of injuries, but going barefoot has allowed him to run again.

The story leads up to a 50 mile race that includes both the Tarahumara as well as some American ultra-runners. The blend of narrative, history and science make for an interesting read. And it turns out the author is a pretty good speaker as well. Tonight he expanded on the topics covered in the book, and interestingly didn't touch on barefoot running until the last couple of minutes. However, during the question and answer period, barefoot running was once again a hot topic.

One major lesson beyond all the history and science of running began with that first photo of the Leadville 100 winner. The author spoke with a running coach that saw the eventual winner at about the 60 mile mark. He was standing at the top of an embankment which punished the already weary runners. When the author asked about the Tarahumara runner, he was looking for information on the runner's style, gait and form. But all the running coach kept saying was, "you should have seen the smile on his face".

Beyond all the arguments about science and running with or without shoes, the Tarahumara have a way of looking at running as fun. It is probably no coincidence that they also experience much lower rates of disease and depression than most any other society. Toward the end of the author's presentation, he said his hope was that after all the barefoot-running debates die down, that people will look closer at the joy of running displayed by the Tarahumara. That could be the real lesson of the story.

Lit

I just finished the book Lit by Mary Karr. It is a memoir about her struggle with family scars, marriage, motherhood, and becoming a writer all through the hazy veil of alcoholism. The book details how her dependence on alcohol pushed her away from life, and ultimately tore apart what she knew of it. Later in the book, she struggles to get sober, and through her support group, grapples with "letting go and letting God".

I have read a number of "my life sucked, let me tell you about it" memoirs over the past few years. At some point they all seem to run together, and I need to step away from this genre. I'm not sure what online snippet led me to put this book on my 'to-read' list, but it lurked there for almost a year before I sat down to read it.

I had some difficulty getting into the book initially, but about a third of the way through it grabbed on to me. She has an unflinching way of writing about how alcohol blew apart opportunities and relationships, without playing the victim and glossing over her part in the collapse. Though she is descriptive in the details of the demise of her marriage, she is clear that her descriptions are not only filtered through a haze of alcohol, but her own perceptions of what happened. She allows that the story would be quite different if told by her ex-husband. As she notes in the book, "I would’ve preferred that my ex vet this manuscript and correct the glaring flaws. Wisely, he balked – I’d have hated to see his version, too."

Many dependency recovery programs have a strong element of prayer and faith. Mary would have none of it initially, and it is interesting to read about her reasoning and struggle as she grapples with letting go of control and preconceived notions. She walks a rather crooked path before entering the doors of church, and even when she sits down in the pew, she brings something to read in case she is bored. Not a quick conversion by any means, but I found her path interesting.

As a side note, I have been marking good passages in books over the last year or so. If I own the book, and particularly if it is a work of non-fiction, I will highlight good passages or turns of phrase in pen. If it is a book on loan from a friend or a library, I have been using these little Post-It flags. This is what Lit looked like when I was finished.

A bunch of flags is usually a good indication that I enjoyed the book, but not always. There have been a few books heavily flagged that I thought weren't the best. Although, some of them were read when I was going through the toughest part of our separation, so it makes me wonder if I was just not in the right mental place.

On the flip side, Lit may have been really enjoyable for me because I read it at the right time. The author's struggles with depression, dependency, divorce and despair may have hit me at the right time. Who knows, if we had read it in book club back when life was different, I may have written it off as just another woe-is-me memoir. But I don't think so. I think this one stands above the others, no matter when I picked it up. Worth a read.

My virtual running partner

I have enlisted a new running partner to help me as I prepare for the marathon this time.



A running gadget won't necessarily make you run any faster, but I have to say that it can sure make the necessary training a lot easier. The Forerunner 310xt is one of the latest GPS sports watches from Garmin. I had been using a Polar watch that had a footpod to estimate my running distance. It worked well enough, but the desktop software stopped working so I couldn't upload any of the data, and the heart rate monitor was also becoming very faulty.

There are a few different Garmin GPS watches with varying features, but I decided on the 310xt primarily for the battery life. The other watches would typically last 8 or 10 hours, but the 310xt is advertised to last up to 20 hours. Not terribly important for running, but I can imagine being out on the bike all day, and it would be disappointing if it pooped out before I did.

I have been using if for about a month and a half, and it has been really useful for training. Having any sort of watch that measures distance helps tremendously. You don't have to plot out things ahead of time, and you can try out new routes on the fly and it will keep tallying up the miles. I chose to get the version with the heart rate strap because I find that to be helpful feedback on training and effort.

The watch comes with a USB sensor that you plug into your computer to communicate with the watch. It works well, and as soon as the watch is within a few feet of your computer, your workout data is sent to the desktop and/or online program for review. There is plenty of data for a numbers geek like me - time, distance, pace, heart rate, elevation gain, lap splits, and even a map of your route. My old Polar watch used infrared communication, and the technology seems to have largely died along with the watch.

The Garmin has been particularly helpful during my interval training. At times, the workout for the day can be pretty complicated, and I would otherwise need to be writing down my repeats on my hand.

You can set up the interval workouts ahead of time, and the watch tells you what to do when you are out on the road. It keeps track of the intervals, goal pace, number of repeats, and beeps to tell you when the next interval or rest period begins. If you like, it will even give an audible signal to tell you if you are running too quickly or slowly. It has made these workouts so much easier to do (except for the actual running).

There is also a screen on the watch that has a "virtual partner". Your virtual partner is set to run a specific speed, either a general pace you specify, or one that is programmed into your workout. When you are out on a workout, the screen compares how you are doing against the virtual partner, showing for example that you are 3 seconds or 50 feet ahead. I didn't think I would ever use this, but I find myself checking the screen to see how close I am to hitting my interval pace. It is an easy visual to know whether I need to pick up the pace or I can ease off.

One major disappointment was the ability to send workouts to the watch. The desktop software allows you to set up workouts easily enough. The hassle comes in when you try to set the desired pace. There are ten stock speed zones in the software and the watch. The software allows you to customize the zones, and I spent some time setting up paces for my intervals, tempo and long workouts. But for some reason, the customized speed zones do not transfer to the watch, and the stock ones are used in any workout you set up. The stock zones are so broad that they are worthless, and range from slower than walking speed to faster than world record time.

I emailed Garmin product support to see why this was happening, and apparently it is a design flaw in the software. It seems a rather major flaw to me - why have the ability to customize the speed zones if they can't be used on the watch? I was able to find a work around after some internet research, a fix that Garmin support seems clueless about. It is less convenient, but it does work.

I found the Garmin 310xt for 20% off, and there was also a $50 rebate when I bought it. It was still a bit of an investment, but I think it is worthwhile as I try to take my training to another level. I have to say that I am very pleased with it overall, and I hope to put a lot of miles on it over the next few years.

Eating locally

I finished Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver last week, and it is a great read on an interesting topic. Even if you only read the first chapter, it would be worth your time.

Barbara Kingsolver and her family move from Tucson to Virginia and decide to get their food as locally as possible. As one synopsis puts it, the book is "their journey away from the industrial-food pipeline to a rural life in which they vow to buy only food raised in their own neighborhood, grow it themselves, or learn to live without it." The book chronicles their first year of being locavores, and includes not only their own experiences, but lots of information on the environmental damage and resource waste behind our normal eating habits.

One of the major points is that we have lost most all our connection to how our food is grown. It all just shows up shrink-wrapped in our grocery store. Most of us have little clue about how far the food has traveled, what chemicals were introduced, or even what the plants look like in the wild. Another point she makes, which is something I have thought about in the past, is that most people (including me) no longer know when fruits or vegetables are in season.

Growing up, I remember that some fruits and vegetables were only in the store at certain times during the year. Now you can get asparagus almost any time of the year. But to make this happen, the vegetable often crosses half the world before it makes it to your table. According to the book, "Each item in a typical U.S. meal has traveled an average of 1500 miles." Another odd statistic that shows how little sense it all makes - we export 1.1 million tons of potatoes while we also import 1.4 million tons. When all the transport of food across the world is considered, there are far more calories of energy used to produce food than are actually contained in the food itself.

The organic food movement has also taken a good foothold in the market. People are concerned with what kind of pesticides and other chemicals are used in growing their food, and what kind of health risk they pose. The chemicals not only pose some risk to us, but also can sterilize the soil so that it no longer will produce. Just this morning I saw an article, Coming Soon to Your Strawberries: Newly Approved Carcinogenic Pesticide. Methyl Iodide is used to "induce cancer in cell-culture experiments" and has been shown to "bind to DNA and cause mutations", yet it has been approved to be used as a pesticide in 47 states. California has its own approval process, and they are deciding whether it can be used here.

There are many reasons to try to eat more locally, more organically, and getting to know the farmer that grew your food. People do it to reduce pollution and oil consumption, to eliminate chemical pesticides in their diets, to support their local community of farmers instead of shipping their money overseas, and for the simple fact that fresh produce tastes so much better than the well-traveled, shrink-wrapped version.

Not many of us have an acre of free land to grow our own vegetables, but even people living in cities are carving out small areas to grow some food. An article in yesterday's Seattle Times details how much a woman living 15 minutes from downtown Seattle has been able to do. At our own home, Matt is currently making pasta sauce from tomatoes and basil grown in the backyard. The pasta will probably be served with a salad using lettuce from the garden as well.

This is only a small portion of their harvest. They have enough tomatoes that they can give them away or even trade them to a neighbor for firewood.

There are varying degrees that people participate in this local food movement. Some of the above mentioned authors are even grinding their own grain and making their own cheese. Whether you grow some of your own food or just change your habits slightly, the impact can be pretty staggering. From the book,

"If every U.S. citizen ate just one meal a week (any meal) composed of locally and organically raised meats and produce, we would reduce our country's oil consumption by over 1.1 million barrels of oil every week. That's not gallons, but barrels. Small changes in buying habits can make big differences. Becoming a less energy-dependent nation may just need to start with a good breakfast."

I've enjoyed several books by Barbara Kingsolver, and I found this book to be a great mix of interesting stories and enlightening information.

This I Believe

One of the last books we read in book club was This I Believe: The Personal Philosophies of Remarkable Men and Women. It was actually one of my picks because I had heard about the old radio show from the '50s, and the effort by NPR to revive it a few years ago. The original radio show was hosted by Edward R. Murrow and featured brief essays by both the famous and the unknown. Politicians, nurses, artists, construction workers, athletes, parents, students - anyone and everyone could contribute.

It is a difficult assignment to capture what you believe in three brief pages. From the introduction of the book: "This I Believe offers a simple, if difficult invitation: Write a few hundred words expressing the core principles that guide your life - your personal credo."

The book is based on the series, and features essays from both the original series and more current submissions. Many essay titles are serious like, "There is Such a Thing as Truth", but there are also some more lighthearted ones like, "Be Cool to the Pizza Dude". There was also two essays from the same person - one from the '50s series when the author was 16 years old, and another essay fifty years later. I originally checked the book out from the library, but after bookmarking about fifteen essays with scraps of paper, I decided it was a book I wanted to own.

I enjoy having the book to refer back to, but I have found that most all of the essays are also online. I thought I'd feature some of the ones that spoke to me or touched me in some way. These will be in no particular order, probably just in the order they appeared in the book. The first is from the 1950's by composer, conductor, pianist and educator Leonard Bernstein.

The Mountain Disappears

I believe in people. I feel, love, need and respect people above all else, including the arts, natural scenery, organized piety, or nationalistic superstructures. One human figure on the slope of a mountain can make the whole mountain disappear for me. One person fighting for the truth can disqualify for me the platitudes of centuries. And one human being who meets with injustice can render invalid the entire system which has dispensed it.

I believe that man’s noblest endowment is his capacity to change. Armed with reason, he can see two sides and choose: he can be divinely wrong. I believe in man’s right to be wrong. Out of this right he has built, laboriously and lovingly, something we reverently call democracy. He has done it the hard way and continues to do it the hard way–by reason, by choosing, by error and rectification, by the difficult, slow method in which the dignity of A is acknowledged by B, without impairing the dignity of C. Man cannot have dignity without loving the dignity of his fellow.

I believe in the potential of people. I cannot rest passively with those who give up in the name of “human nature.” Human nature is only animal nature if it is obliged to remain static. Without growth, without metamorphosis, there is no godhead. If we believe that man can never achieve a society without wars, then we are condemned to wars forever. This is the easy way. But the laborious, loving way, the way of dignity and divinity, presupposes a belief in people and in their capacity to change, grow, communicate, and love.

I believe in man’s unconscious mind, the deep spring from which comes his power to communicate and to love. For me, all art is a combination of these powers; for if love is the way we have of communicating personally in the deepest way, they what art can do is to extend this communication, magnify it, and carry it to vastly greater numbers of people. Therefore art is valid for the warmth and love it carries within it, even if it be the lightest entertainment, or the bitterest satire, or the most shattering tragedy.

I believe that my country is the place where all these things I have been speaking of are happening in the most manifest way. American is at the beginning of her greatest period in history–a period of leadership in science, art, and human progress toward the democratic ideal. I believe that she is at a critical point in this moment, and that she needs us to believe more strongly than ever before, in her and in one another, in our ability to grow and change, in our mutual dignity, in our democratic method. We must encourage thought, free and creative. We must respect privacy. We must observe taste by not exploiting our sorrows, successes, or passions. We must learn to know ourselves better through art. We must rely more on the unconscious, inspirational side of man. We must not enslave ourselves to dogma. We must believe in the attainability of good. We must believe, without fear, in people.

The machine knows

As I have wandered around southern California trying to get acquainted with my new town, on several occasions I have driven in circles to find where I was going. Trying to hit several stores while out running errands became a bit of a chore, usually requiring printed directions or frequent check-ins with Google Maps on my phone. More than once I have missed a turn or exit and found it difficult to circle back. It also looked like I would be doing some regular work at multiple locations, so I broke down and bought a GPS receiver for my car.

I had emptied my change jar at a Coinstar machine and had a $40 credit on Amazon, so that is where I started shopping. I also checked out the local Fry's Electronics to see some of the GPS units in person, but their prices weren't any better. I finally decided on a Garmin Nuvi 285WT which was on sale. I figured the routing ability of most modern GPS units were all roughly the same, so I was looking for a relatively basic model and maybe a few bells and whistles. The 285WT model had some good reviews regarding the intuitive ease of use, and the larger screen seemed to allow for more information to be displayed clearly. It also came with a free 9 month subscription for traffic information and Bluetooth for hands free cell phone calls.

I have used it for a week or two, and I have to say it is pretty handy. Beyond simple directions, it has helped me locate stores, gas stations and restaurants on the fly saving me some time and effort. There have been a couple of misses though, like telling me to turn right on Park St. when you're not allowed to, and leading me to a non-existent fast food joint when I was starving. The traffic info also takes too long to load to be of use during the morning commute, so it is a good thing it came with a free subscription to try it out. But in general the Garmin has been great.

And one of the handiest features is probably one of the simplest - estimated time of arrival. I do hate to be late.

Of course there are some disadvantages to knowing where you are at all times. Sometimes a wrong turn here and there leads to a surprising discovery. My friend Matt was also mentioning that since he has used a GPS for directions, he has stopped paying attention to how he was getting there. It dawned on him as he was leaving an appointment, that he had no clear idea of how to get home.

Probably shouldn't get too dependent on technology.


michael drives into a lake. from peter allen on Vimeo.

Oh, and another thing
Sean and I were standing in line at Home Depot the other day and there were some Thomas Guides by the checkout stand. I wonder how many they sell these days. 15 years ago they were standard issue in any construction vehicle. The books of maps were divided up in grids, and the table of contents in the back listed every street in the county with the corresponding map grid listed. It was a pretty good system to find places, but of course you still had to find out how to get there. And of course parts of it were out of date as soon as they were printed.

Just checked my truck, and there was a year 2000 Thomas Guide for the Puget Sound region stuffed under the back seat. Might be time to put it out to pasture next to the slide-rule and rotary phone.

Just wanted to mention

I am now participating in a program with Amazon.com called "Amazon Associates". When I have a book or product review, there will be a link in the post to the product on Amazon.com (if available). If you click on the link and purchase the product (or any other product during that session I believe), I get a little kickback from Amazon for the referral. I have also created a store with items that I have previously talked about in this blog, or that I found particularly good. I will only be placing items in the store that I have personally used. The store is currently divided into categories of books, running, biking and electronics. The link to the store can be found on the right side of the blog.

I bring this up not only in hopes of directing a little traffic to my Amazon store, but also because it seems a little sneaky to not mention that the links might earn me a little money. I will not turn this blog into an endless list of reviews and links (though I do have a backlog of books to talk about), but I am hoping for a little passive income while I continue to seek steady employment. 

So if you find something interesting on this blog, or just in the mood to shop at Amazon, I would appreciate it if you click through the store link to the right. I value your readership and comments, and I appreciate all the support.

The second Christmas gift to myself

...was an iPod Nano. I received a free iPod Shuffle from the Ragnar Relay in 2008, and it opened me up to the wonderful world of podcasts. I listen while out on runs and doing work around the house, but can also plug it into my car stereo. The problem with the Shuffle is that there is no screen to pick out what you want to listen to. Since I was primarily listening to podcasts, I had to continually set up playlists and sync the Shuffle to my computer. With 1GB of storage, there wasn't really any room to add in music.

I was originally looking at the Microsoft Zune HD. In addition to being an MP3 player, it also had an FM HD radio. It also had wifi as well as video, but I was really just looking for a music player. My old MP3 player had an FM radio, and I used enough that I was hoping to have it again in my new player. I hesitated to buy the Zune because podcasting is so slick in iTunes, and I read it wasn't quite as easy on the Zune. Before I pulled the trigger, Apple came out with the new iPod Nano, and it included an FM radio as well. Sold!

I have been using the Nano for about a month now, and it is a great improvement over the Shuffle. With 16GB of storage, there is room for not only all the podcasts I listen to, but quite a bit of music as well. I can decide on the fly what podcast I am in the mood for, and I can watch the occasional video podcast as well. And another slick feature of the Nano is that once you listen to a podcast, it will be removed from the Nano the next time you sync with iTunes. This frees up memory for all the new podcast episodes that are queuing up to take their place.

The FM radio also has a Tivo-like feature in that it constantly records the last 15 minutes being broadcast. For those that have become so accustomed to rewinding their tv shows that they try to do the same on the radio, the Nano is your kind of machine. The Nano also shoots video, but this is one of those thrown in features that I may not use anytime soon.

Last fall, there was so much running and housework, that I was running out of things to listen to. I ended up subscribing to more podcasts to get more material. By December, the housework and running came to a stop, and I ended up with a backlog of over 150 podcasts. The road trip last week helped me get back down to double digits, but I may have pare down the list of podcasts I can keep up with.

So, two thumbs up on the iPod Nano

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