Gil Can Run!A blog on Running and all the crap that runs through my head while doing it

Sep 24th Totally have been vegged out

Seriously, ran Thursday, ran today. It’s been tiring. But I think I haven’t been eating enough. Now that I’m aware, hopefully I won’t have these problems anymore.
Meanwhile, there’s a half marathon in town next weekend, and I can’t find out where to register for it. You have to register online by the end of this week. But it seems you can’t register online without a login and you can’t get a login without physically handing in paperwork in Rome. That’s just obscene.
So I wrote the organizers and asked them, but who knows if they’ll get back to me. On the good side of things I got my phone sorted and everything else seems to be easy sailing through calm seas. So that’s a plus.
Other than that I really have nothing. I voted, mailed my ballot back. The lady at the post office was funny, “You’re not voting for Trump are you?” Seriously people, it’s not bullshit, the rest of the world does not want us to vote for Trump, they understand the particular danger he represents. They get that he is not a good person and would be bad for America, and what’s bad for America is bad for the world. It’s not because of “aide” we may give places, we don’t give much to Europe at all. It’s because when our economy tanks, when we pull away from the world, we cause depressions, we cause bad economies all over. We hurt people. When you get people who don’t understand how things are connected, that’s when really bad things happen, that’s what Trump is. And the European people, by and large, understand it. We need to wake up.
I have always felt voting and participating important. I have always felt there was a dangerous path America was headed down and that working the way I do helps avoid that path. I have never felt it as viscerally, I’ve never felt the danger so close, so palpable as I do this time around. I hope this is the last time in a long time I feel this way. I am legitimately afraid of what a Trump presidency would mean. We have just over a month to go, and hopefully this round of fight the fascists ends well.

Have fun, keep running, and remember; if Gil can run then so can you!

Sep 21st The machine keeps running

I woke up late, got out to run late. I’m not as tired as I was yesterday, but pretty close. Took a nap, you know I’m tired if I take a nap.
I like that I seem to be keeping a consistent pace overall with my runs. I do not like that I am so damned tired. Hopefully, tomorrow will show more improvement.
Meanwhile, I finally figured out my address here in town. I still haven’t gone to my favorite pizzeria, and I realized tomorrow I must buy a lid for one of my pans so I can cook rice! What was I thinking? How is one supposed to cook rice without lids for their pans? Things we take for granted sometimes.
So I still have a week and a half to spend doing something before work starts. Doing nothing all day is actually rather difficult. Just trying to get everything settled and set is a lot of hurry up and wait. Although, I heard from the Italian Consulate in New York today, they sent my information to Barletta almost 2 years ago, and yet Barletta does not have it in the system. What a giant pain that is. At least Barletta is a quick train ride from where I am, so I will be able to easily sort all this out, even when I start working, it shouldn’t be much of a problem. Logistics and administration is not my strong suit, and doing it in a different language makes things tougher. I complain, I get frustrated, but overall it could be much worse.
So tomorrow I wake up and try again, hopefully things improve. Although, as this day has gone on, I have gotten more and more tired. So we shall see. A fresh round of mosquito bites aren’t helping at all. I really don’t like these little bastards.

Have fun, keep running, and remember; if Gil can run then so can you!

Sep 20th I might be sick

No pun or double meaning, I really think I might be ill. I’ve been very fatigued for many days. More tired and more sore, generally, than I’ve ever remembered myself being. Totally bonked again during a relatively short run. No injuries, not much more stress than normal. Just something is sucking all my energy away from me. I think I’m eating enough (although I was just able to do my first food diary entry in days, and I did eat more today than I have been). Definitely been drinking enough water. So I’m starting to think I might have come down with something. It doesn’t help that I’ve been getting eaten alive by mosquitoes the last few nights.
I finally have real internet today. Well, it’s the mifi device I have been using in Italy. I keep getting apartments without internet, next time I need to find a place to live it’ll be at the top of my list. So I’m sorting out the last few little things, hopefully. I’m glad I got into town early enough to iron out some of the finer points. Even though it created a few extra problems. But that’s the thing, it’s give and take.
Meanwhile, the world needs America to knock it off with the conman, fascist Drumpf. Clinton needs to wipe the floor with him in the commercialized advertising events, I mean debates. They’re not real debates anymore. Which is both good and bad I suppose. Also, America, could you stop shooting unarmed peoples please. While some people will say stupid things like, “more white people get killed by police” the fact is, proportional to how much of the population each group makes up, you are much more likely to be unarmed and murdered by police the darker your skin gets. This is irrefutable fact. Knock it off. Speaking of guns, it seems less people own more guns now, and about 50% of all guns are owner by about 3% of the US population. To that 3% of the population, I think you need help. I’m sorry, but that sounds like a sickness. What’s wrong with you?
My absentee ballot came this week though, and I will mail it back by the end of the week. The only other thing I have to sort is my running shoes. It seems New Balance has discontinued my model in Europe is what it comes down to. I can stay with the same shoe, if I want to pay for the shoe, plus the shipping, plus the import tax. Making it twice as expensive. Of course, I should have just got a new pair when I was back in the States for the Summer and brought them back with me that way. But the other models New Balance (I use them exclusively) suggests are lighter, have a lower drop and are still rated highly for overpronators. The irony in it is, one of the models the 860v6 is already being replaced in the US by the 860v7! They make this more difficult than it needs to be I think. So I have lots to think about on the shoe front. My first pair of NB was actually a 1080v4 I think, v4 or v3. Then I switched to the 940v2 when I started using my running club’s shoe store. I don’t even know how many pairs of the 940s I’ve been through. It’s been a few years, and about 3 pairs of shoes a year, so maybe 9? 10? It’s been a lot.
I worry about things like this, because of my severe overpronation and the amount of miles I do. I don’t want to have to deal with injury and such. Although, there will surely be some discomfort with any shoe change. The big problem is that my current pair should be out of useful miles by mid-October. I will, of course, stretch that until the end of October; but still. At this point, I’m hoping the fatigue goes away and I’m all better by then. Tomorrow morning I will get up and go out for another few miles and see how it goes. I may shorten my weekend runs and see if that helps next week. I’m doing well so far this month on goals and mileage. Not that I have any definite goals. But I am going to see if I can manage 1500 miles again this year, since a sub 20 5k is not going to happen. I don’t even have anymore 5ks on the schedule, in fact only one more definite race, the Puglia Marathon.

Have fun, keep running, and remember; if Gil can run then so can you!

Sep 18th Sunday Run day

Almost got 10 miles in. I was not easy at the end. Lots of sun, high heat, I was exhausted. I even stopped in the park to use the water fountain. Did not stop me from bonking.

The rest of the day was finishing unpacking and I was going to go to the beach, but the weather changed and it’s been pouring rain all afternoon and at the start of this evening. But my apartment is clean, and I have space to live now.

With no real internet right now, again, and not much to do, I finally sat down and watched the new Star Wars film last night. I had downloaded it at the end of May, and then my computer died, and I figured last night was as good a night as any.

Very quickly, it’s a modernized, rehashed Star Wars: A New Hope. Holy crap, what a shitfest! It wasn’t a bad movie if Star Wars: A New Hope didn’t exist, well except for the whiney asshattery of Kylo Ren. Fuck you, that’s how Han Solo goes out? Yeah, he was supposed to die in A New Hope, blah blah blah, I’m sure Harrison Ford didn’t want to go through 3 movies again. Fine. But having him just get run through by his cry-baby kid. Whatever.

I hate JJ Abrahms still. It will continue, I don’t want to watch any more of his films. Hollywood has always been about remakes and sticking with what’s popular and safe, but it seems they have hit new heights of laziness and money-grubbery.

Alright, dinner is calling my name. On dreary days my hunger level seems to increase. The less I do, the more I want to eat? I guess so.

Have fun, keep running, and remember; if Gil can run then so can you!

Sep 17th Birthdays and moving!

 Excuses out of the way, I ran the day before my birthday, it was slow and arduous. Then another slow trudge on my birthday.  Skipped my usual Thursday because I moved to Trani, and between getting the rental car in Napoli, getting my shit together, getting out here, finding an apartment, hanging out with friends, then visiting my new job yesterday, life was actually too busy to run.

Now, anyone that knows me and knows this blog knows that I do not name names, and I do not talk too much about the people in my personal life. But I would be remiss, without breaking my own rules here, if I continued without mentioning that the whole time I was moving, and for my birthday, a very special person was there to make a very stressful time into a great pleasure. Everything would not have come together so easily and it would not have gone nearly so well without them. As I know this person reads this, you know who you are, thank to so much!

So finally, I woke up this morning and ran. Of course, on the run I ended up making a new friend, how great is that? It’s the power of being positive. The irony is, his wife is an English teacher in town! The run was shorter than I wanted, I miscalculated the return distance, as I didn’t retrace everything. But it was for the best, I was pretty beat, I’ve been working very hard the last few days and I am still recovering from the layoff, after being injured. Which, I do need to be careful of the Lecce stone streets, very easy to turn an ankle. The good news on that is, it’s only in the historic district. The downside is, I live in the center of the historic district! 

But that is significant. I talk a lot (those that pay attention) about deciding what you want, setting goals and making it happen. It’s part of having the #PMA. Well, when I first visited Trani in 2008 I said, “one day I want to live here.” Now some people in those world have the means to just do that. Most of us do not. Most of us have to put in lots of work. I still have tons of work to do to make this happen for any reasonable duration. I won’t get complacent. But in less than 10 years, I made it happen. Patience, hard work, thoughtfulness, these things make a difference, in anything. Figure out what you want, and go for it. No thing, no place, no person, is going to give you happiness and freedom. Happiness and freedom come from finding what you want, deciding you really want those things and giving your all to make it happen. And if what you want changes along the way, then change! Easy as that, and if you fail, it’s fine. That’s part of life too, keep moving forward, adjust, adapt, overcome! We are flexible, we are adaptable, that’s what being human is. We’re not sharks, who have to keep swimming (yes, I know not all sharks have to) no matter what, we can stop, look, rethink, rest, recoup, and change.

That’s what we always need to keep in mind. To be human is to be a survivor. Of course, on a macro scale, if we don’t change soon we won’t be able to adapt away from the impending doom. But you just  keep voting for the Trumps of the world, because they keep you comfortable, see how comfortable you are when the world literally burns.

Not getting into that today, have to keep moving, I got a good thing going here.

Have fun, keep running, and remember; if Gil can run then so can you!

Sep 11th I ran a race, seriously, I was not expecting it either

Friday night, my friend tells me there was a half marathon in town today. So I woke up early, got my shit together, went down there, Kroners in hand, and registered for a race. I ended up surprising myself. Until the last few miles/km I was actually on pace for a PR. But a couple hills at the end just killed my stride. Oddly, it was right around the same pace as my last half, which was last year’s Gulf Beach Half Marathon. 4.5 minutes off my PR.
Had I been rested this week, had I not pushed so hard, I think I could have PR’ed. But oh well, it’s my last day in Denmark and I want to enjoy it. Beautiful weather, it was a great day for a run, and now I will go enjoy some of the local area. Fun fact, Lego is from Billund, Denmark. I’m going to enjoy some of Legoland. Also, I was in shock the other day when I drove past a Danfoss factory. Most people will have no idea what Danfoss is, but they make HVAC valves and fittings, and components. They also make nozzles for oil-fired furnaces, boilers, and water heaters. For years I had seen the name Danfoss on things and never once realized where they were from. When your grandfather is a plumber you are exposed to things most folks never see.
So, Denmark, I would highly recommend the visit. Enjoy the countryside, enjoy the cities, enjoy the history. I have to say I like Denmark in general. Next visit, I’ll see Copenhagen and maybe drive over to Malmo, Sweden. Why not right? But I am sleepy, and have lots to do before I leave early tomorrow morning to go back home to Italy.

Have fun, keep running, and remember; if Gil can run then so can you!

Sep 8th I little less today

I got out and put in some more miles. Did a little less mileage, but kept a good pace. I probably could have done more, but I was just tired and was really struggling to focus. I’m already well over 40 miles for the week, which is a lot for me.
Meanwhile, instead of anything else, let’s talk about OSIRIS-REx. It’s a NASA mission to launch a satellite today, send it to the asteroid Bennu, land, take a sample, and return to Earth with it. Now, it will meet up with Bennu in 2018, and then it will be sometime in 2023 when the mission returns. I think people tend to not understand the vast distances we have to cover in space, and how slow we are with that.
I think that’s why so many people believe in “aliens” visiting. They don’t get the major investment it takes by a society to travel these distances, and how there needs to be very good reason if you are going to go to other worlds. In our mistaken belief that we are somehow “special” we think we would be special to some alien species. Got news for you, if we had something they wanted, they come, take it, and leave, and they wouldn’t mince about in the shadows, working with our governments against us, or whatever. They have no need for that shit, they can travel vast distances in short times, or they have the resources to build generational ships, either way, we are insignificant to them. You don’t like that idea, too bad.
There’s a certain balance that must be struck with humanity. We work on a philosophy that believes nature is inherently heartless, cold, greedy, cruel. Extending from that, being humans are natural beings, then we are entitled, and in fact programmed for this. In some ways nature is this way, but there is also an amazing order to it, there is an incredible complexity that makes it impossible to boil it down to some simplistic view of what it is. Then the argument must also be made, have we transcended nature as a species? We are not subject to the whims of weather, environmental changes, predators, drought, as we once were. These things can still impact us, but mostly they impact us because we set up a system of scarcity, and we are led to believe we can be uncaring to the plight of others.
But we are not natural anymore, we can launch ourselves off our world, control a ship, land it on another celestial body and return. We build houses and make clothing, we have tools and implements, we cultivate the land, and make things grow to suit our needs.
This being the case, we need to abandon our philosophies based on what someone’s divination of “nature” or “human nature” is or was. We need to look at things from a different perspective and the systems built upon these philosophies must be torn down. Stop lying to yourselves, stop telling yourselves the lies that make you comfortable. I see it all the time. People take words to mean what they want them to, they surround themselves with the ideas that bring them solace. But the world is not supposed to be comfortable. We’re here to improve, to make things better than they were, and being comfortable means you’re never going to move from where you are. Because when you are comfortable, why move?
Anyway, go OSIRIS-REx! We can do great things, if we decide to do it. We could be so much further along in science and exploration, if we realized those things are the only real things we can do in this world.

Have fun, keep running, and remember; if Gil can run then so can you!

Sep 7th I’m amazing myself

I went out today, and again I thought a couple miles and call it a day. But I just kept going! No idea where it’s coming from. It’s not the distance, it’s the ability to keep the pace going. I really don’t know what’s happening. I am sore, for sure, but I have enough to just keep going. Tomorrow I will take it a little easier I think.
Meanwhile, I have to find an apartment by next Thursday and things are getting a little dicey. Extra stress, it’s just one of those things that’s so much easier in the US. It’s funny, because in many ways living in Europe is better, but sometimes, things are just really messed up and backwards. Like everything is set up to try and be fool proof, and you know what they say about fool proof systems. That causes problems for everyone.
So I ran and ran and really mostly focused on the fact my legs were in pain. Thought a bit about how weird everything seems right now, and then thought about how I need an apartment, I need a place to live. Nothing amazing today. No great epiphanies, no deep philosophical triumphs. Just me and the road and stuff. Although I did think about how much I really enjoy my music mix when I’m running, and how I need to get the new De La Soul album and load that up. Funny thing that my best marathon was run without any music, but I just feel lost without it. It seems to me I have a song in my head all the time.
It’s part of the reason I tend to share music here. The fact I always have a song stuck in my head. Sometimes it has something to do with what I’m writing, other times, it’s just the shit that’s bouncing around up there. It’s probably the best way I have to express myself, because I’m not always confident in the words I use. So when I hear a message in a song, and I think it is something other people should hear, I share.

Have fun, keep running, and remember; if Gil can run then so can you!

Sep 6th The Sun rose, and so did I

I figured I’d get a couple miles in, then call it a day because I am sore. But I managed to just keep going today. I was really happy with my run. At one point there was a tractor mowing a field, and I ended up racing it a little. Hit a max of 16.67 kmh (about 10.3 mph). Now, while I’m hugely excited about that, let’s put it in perspective. Let’s say I was trained to hold that pace through a marathon. That’s still only a 2:35 marathon, or about 25-30 minutes slower than the people winning the marathon (if we’re talking elites). It’s a full 30 kmh slower than Usain Bolt, at his fastest recorded speed. Now, was I running as fast as I could run? No. My legs are massively tired and sore, and I just wanted to beat the tractor. But still, even my fastest isn’t all that fast.
So we’ll see how I feel tomorrow and decide how I’ll run, how far, how fast, when I get to that point. This is definitely a week to take as it comes. There is a fair amount of soreness and I have to be careful to not injure myself. But I’m also trying to increase my endurance, and yes speed as well. So it’s a balancing act. But when you think of it, isn’t that true of most everything in life? So we will see what September brings. There are going to be challenges, but I think the rest of the month is shaping up to go pretty well.
I think staying focused on the numbers helps me from getting distracted or overwhelmed by what I do. I mean, I know people that put on many more miles, but for me, going from a few years ago of not running any miles, to staying consistent as I do now, is a lot.
So it seems over the weekend, at another pipeline protest in the Dakotas, the Native people peacefully protesting were set upon by dogs brought in by a private “security” company, hired by the pipeline company. America has a long history of doing this. Outsourcing “security” forces to put down peaceful protests. The Pinkertons made a nae for themselves by going to worker’s strike camps and opening fire, sending in instigators to justify the murder of otherwise peaceful protesters. On the run today, Anti-Flag came on, they have a great song specifically about how horrible we’ve always been to the Native population of the continent. I’m just gonna leave this right here, do with it what you will, but remember, this song is much older than you might think.

Have fun, keep running, and remember; if Gil can run then so can you!

Sep 4th A Rainy Long Run

I’m actually really happy with myself today. 21.7 mi (34.9 km), and kept a pretty good pace, in the rain, all the way to the end. The last mile and a half I just walked it mostly. Calves started cramping a bit, so I figured I should just take it easy the rest of the way. Didn’t use any s-caps or slo-mag. It was a cold rainy day. In fact there was rain the whole way. Not too heavy, only twice, once around mile 5 it started to come down pretty heavy and again right for the last 3/4 of a mile.
So I haven’t had my usual Clif Bar Minis for a long run since April. I’ve just been using what I can find locally. Today I used these “Free Soft Bars”, that’s what they’re called, yes they cost money, they’re alright. A company named ISIS makes them, seriously. They’re tasty though and they seemed to keep me going. I can’t complain. It was the best long run I’ve had in a while.
I hurt a bit right now, I’m going to hurt bad tomorrow. I’m glad there aren’t many stairs in Denmark. I really can’t wait until I’m used to this mess again and these runs aren’t a big deal. One or two more of these and I should be good to go. If things keep progressing as they have I should be ready for a return to marathons in December.
But today was nice, woke up, got out, hit my goals. Even with walking most of the last mile, mile and a half, I hit my overall pace goal of 10 mins/mi. Which means I was doing much better than that for the first 20 miles. As I recall I was actually right around a 9:45/mi when I hit mile 2o. Yes, it’s 20 minutes slower than my marathon PR, but considering I was completely out of marathon shape I will take it. Next long run should be first week of October.

Have fun, keep running, and remember; if Gil can run then so can you! (Happy Birthday Mom!)