Learning to be a runner, weeks 2-3

Week 2 was a bit of a setback – with a chest cold, I couldn't get my lungs to carry me past three-quarters of a mile.

But this week so far is much better. I eked out a mile and a quarter last Friday, but yesterday I did 1.56 miles (that's half of a 5K; it's not just some weird number I picked), and today was the first day I tried to run two days in a row. I extended another tenth of a mile, for no good reason, really.

I'm mixing the running in with other physical activity, for several reasons.

» The easiest reason is I play tennis and softball in organized leagues, and I frequently ride my bike to get places. I'm not going to plan my life around running a couple of miles, making myself drive five blocks to the grocery store if I got on the treadmill at lunch.

» I want my body to understand running as part of group of exercises. If I was going to the gym to do some cardio, I'd hit three, four, five machines, but not the treadmill. Right now, I'm hitting the treadmill, and then doing a sprint on a bike (I've got five miles down to about 11 minutes on about 40% tension over a given pre-programmed course).

» I don't want to get bored, which I do pretty easily.

The local Corporate Challenge is June 24 this year, and I'm hoping to be able to handle it without (a) walking any of it, or (b) having to crawl into the office the next morning.

Great Lakes Wiki

I don't really think of myself as a member of a Great Lakes community – at least not until winter rolls around and we hear the dreaded works "lake effect" every 10 minutes.

OK, so maybe that's a slight exaggeration. My favorite public radio station does the weather every 20 minutes.

But apparently, folks on the other side of Lake Ontario do have a community, and an important one.

They've created Great Lakes Wiki, a place for citizen journalism on the Great Lakes.

Awesome.

Via NewAssignment.net.

Learning to be a runner, week 1

OK...I successfully did one mile, three times, and feel OK about it. Pretty good about it, actually. It turns out if you listen to songs that are about 5 minutes long, you can warm up and then run a mile over the course of three songs. That seems to make it not bad at all – run for two songs and then you're done.

I've got a bit of a cold right now, but I'm getting on a train shortly, and headed for a few days off in the great state Commonwealth of Massachusetts (we need a word that rhymes well with commonwealth).

If the lungs hold up through the sniffling, I think we're going to up it to a mile and half Saturday, and see how we feel Sunday.

We'll let you know how that goes.

Learning to be a runner, Day 1

On Thursday of last week, I took advantage of the lovely weather to wander over to Fleet Feet, the local running shop.

I'd been there before, and been very impressed. They come over to you, they introduce themselves, they measure your feet, they put you on a treadmill and videotape you running so they'll know what to do in terms of shoes.

Outstanding, right?

Yeah.

That was a little over two years ago. I decided I was going to learn how to run.

I kept at it for a month or two, and did pretty well – I had my 5K time down to about 26 minutes, after never having done anything like running before.

I realize now that I was setting the wrong goal. I had wanted to learn how to run – and I accomplished that.

I was doing 26-minute 5Ks (that's about 3.12 miles those of you who can't convert in your head – what's wrong with you!?), but I was doing 26-minute 5Ks while being bored and sore and hating every minute of it.

I didn't do any running last summer.

So this year, I've decided to set myself a new goal: rather than learning to run, I want to learn to be a runner. Someone who likes running. Someone who can be sitting around in a strange city feeling like a vegetable and decide to go for a run, because it's good exercise, and it's good for the spirit.

So I took my-20-pounds-lighter-than-last-time-self over to Fleet Feet, and they looked me up in the computer. The shoes are a half-size smaller, and two widths narrower than two years ago. My landing doesn't correct as much as it used to, so the shoes are a little more padded on the outside.

And I just went over to the gym and did a mile on the treadmill (I walked a quarter-mile first, then ran a mile; I was almost ready to give up after 3/4 of a mile of running, but I said, hey, what the heck, one more time around the track).

Two years ago, I would have made it another mile, but instead, I did a mile, then climbed on a bike (where I'm much more comfortable) for 10 minutes.

I'm quite sure my quads haven't hurt this much in a really long time. I can't even really feel anything below my quads. OK, maybe that's a bit of an exaggeration (maybe).

But rather than take that pain and say, "crap, if it's gonna hurt, I might as well hate this for another mile," I've decided to take the pain and say, "OK, now I know what to expect."

So tomorrow, when I jump on the treadmill to do another mile, I'll know what's going to feel like what, and that I shouldn't try to climb stairs right after it.

And maybe, just maybe, given a month or two, I'll be running 26-minute 5Ks and enjoying it.

Stay tuned.

The jealousies of pi

March 14 was, of course, Pi Day (hint: the number starts 3.14).

Harvard had its annual celebration, and this year, BC senior James Niles-Joyal recited the first 3,141 digits (hint: the number starts 3.141).

My favorite part, though, is the way the Harvard kids rag on him (listen to the last clip on the page).

Apparently, memorizing the first 3,141 digits of pi isn't an entirely useless exercise, but it is an insult to people who care about the number.

Uh-huh.

Here are the first 10,000 digits, on the off chance you're interested.

Oh, I may owe you a pi story. Here goes. I first learned about pi in sixth grade. My math teacher told us pi could be represented as a fraction as "22/7." She also told us that no one had ever found a pattern in pi.

So I did what any reasonable sixth-grade wiseass would do: I divided 22 by seven and got 3.142857142857142857... I couldn't believe people were looking for patterns in this number and hadn't taken it far enough to pick up a six-numeral pattern.

On passing her in the hall I had mentioned I had found the pattern people were looking for in pi, and she asked to see my work the next day.

The work, of course, was correct. It was the fractional representation that, it turns out, was an approximation. Sigh.

40 years and still wandering the desert

Martin Luther King, Jr., was shot and killed 40 years ago today. He was 39 when he died, so he has now been dead longer than he lived. I don't know if that has any extra significance.

What would King think of America in 2008?

I guess it depends on how he got here – I'm sure if he'd seen the pace of progress since then, he'd be disappointed, but if he just showed up after a 40-year absence, maybe not as much.

But then again...we're kind of straddling a divide, aren't we? I'm sure King would be pleased as punch we have a black man running for president. And maybe even that the world's best golfer is also a black man.

But from Jena to Syracuse, nooses are back en vogue. The verb "lynch" is getting people fired from high-profile journalism jobs (great that they're getting fired; why are they still using it?). And Don Imus is back on the air.

I don't know. What does progress look like?

Yeah, "ask"

In case law enforcement ever tells you to delete a photo from your digital camera – or demands that you hand over your film in the name of security – here's what you're allowed to do.

If you are in a publicly accessible place – a sidewalk outside a stadium, for example – you're allowed to photograph anything you can see with reasonable equipment (that said, don't set up a giant telescope in the middle of the street and try it), and use it for informational/reportorial purposes (you may or may not be allowed to sell such a photo to a non-news organization; that's very much up to interpretation).

You will need to understand what is a publicly accessible place. If you're going to the ballpark, you are no longer in a publicly accessible place once you step onto ballpark grounds (including a parking lot).

A street is a public place, unless it is a private way.

Even municipally owned spaces might be subject to private rules if they are being rented out, or if they charge admission.

So be aware of what's going on around you, but don't cave in to people being jackasses for the sake of being jackasses.

Opening Day

Winter has defeated me this year, more than any winter since that of 2003-04, when I first moved here.

That year, I was not only unprepared for things like lake effect snow and the perpetual grey that is a Central New York winter, that winter was the coldest the area had experienced since they started keeping records. It was also the second-snowiest.

This year, it just seems like it's been cold forever.

Sunday morning I woke up to bright sunshine and 17 degrees. Fahrenheit.

The Red Sox and Athletics played two regular season games in Japan last Tuesday and Wednesday, but baseball season starts today for real.

It is the day I look forward to starting in late October, after the World Series ends. That irrational thing we call "fandom" always brings me out of my shell when I get to follow the Red Sox day-to-day, but it also signals spring: renewal, green grass, trees blossoming, the chance to get outside at long last.

As Sunday progressed, the sun continued to shine, working the air above freezing. I sat, reading the last 75 pages of The Lost – a long, draining book that had become a metaphor for my winter – and listened to the last of the icicles crash from the eaves onto the roof.

Thursday, I will be at the ball park, covering Opening Day for the Chiefs, Syracuse's minor league baseball team.

They've replaced the Astroturf with grass, though I can't imagine the grass will be up by Thursday. At any rate, I'm sure the field won't be blue (nor will the photos).

It still might be too cold, mornings this week, to ride my bike to work – or even to think about throwing my bike on the back of my car. But sunshine and baseball are both signs that spring is on its way, and I'm ready for it like I haven't been in a while.

What We're Reading: The Lost by Daniel Mendelsohn

I've been writing about The Lost for the past several months.

I did finally finish the book, and it turns out that once you're past the first 50 or so pages, it's an emotional drain. The whole way.

I'm glad I wove some fluffy fiction in throughout the book.

I'm also very glad I read it.

In the end, Mendelsohn finds his family. He even stands in the spot where his grandfather's brother and his daughter hid – a three-by-three basement, about eight feet deep.

For the spatially challenged among you, imagine eating, sleeping, going to the toilet, resting and everything else you could do, in your refrigerator.

With your daughter.

Or your father.

Mendelsohn is able to touch the earth where his great-uncle and his mother's cousin were shot after they were discovered.

It's a long, exhausting journey; you should take it yourself to see how he gets there.

The author spent the better part of seven years writing the book. Eight people who were instrumental to the writing died between the time Mendelsohn met them and the time the book was published. Except for one one of them – who died just before Mendelsohn was able to meet her, though he did get to speak with her on the phone.

One thing that strikes me about the book is the way Mendelsohn is able to organize the narrative for his readers. It's a long, convoluted journey. There's some fact, there's some speculation, there are a lot of contradictory stories.

Another thing that strikes me is the amount of help Mendelsohn is able to dig up. Not only from his family (between his parents' stories and his brother's photography) and his teachers (one travels with him more than once), but from total strangers – a younger man who happens to be studying the Jews of the area from which his family came carts him around Poland and Ukraine, translating, for days at a time; a man who has already taken it upon himself to track down all the survivors from the area carts him around Israel, translating.

Serendipity, kindness, coincidence: these are all part of the story, and all in a big way.

The Lost Update: How to tell the story

I have promised myself never to see the film Schindler's List again.

This is not a statement on Steven Speilberg's amazing interpretation of Thomas Keanelly's rather dry – though ultimately interesting – tome.

It is not a statement on the girl in the red sweater – the only piece of color in the film.

I saw the film twice in the theater. Once was with a group of fellow Jewish high school students. We sat, immobile, in the theater after the movie, until theater personnel told us we had to leave so they could begin letting in the crowd for the next showing.

The second time was with my Irish Catholic friend B—. We were very close in high school, I was one of the very few Jewish friends he had, and it was important to him to have me along for the experience, for some cultural reference, history, conversation.

I broke down crying at the same point in both showings: when Oskar Schindler falls against his car, crying, "If I could only have saved one more."

I've read lots of books, seen lots of movies, about the Holocaust. The only two other works I've exposed myself to multiple times are the film Life is Beautiful, which I've seen twice, and Elie Wiesel's book Night, which I've read three times (once for a class).

The point is, by now, more than 60 years after the end of World War II, hundreds upon hundreds of books have been written; dozens upon dozens of films have been made; thousands upon thousands of stories have been told.

All the stories are remarkable. The individual stories of survival, the individual remembrances. All are powerful.

So how do we tell a story about the Holocaust, and make it stand out? Have we reached a saturation point? Is it possible?

Daniel Mendelsohn does address this question, although it is not his question, in The Lost.

And there's no real answer. The answer has to be, you tell your story, and hope people find it interesting.

And so that's what Mendelsohn does.

For more posts about The Lost, click here.