A Saturday warmup
Long run tomorrow, so I shook out everything today on a little 10k jaunt. I feel pretty good. I little soreness and stiffness, but nothing out of the ordinary. So after lunch I will go provision for tomorrow. Need something to eat along the way, some bananas would be nice for after and that should do it.
While mapping out a loop for tomorrow, I noticed something, a name of a village, Gilbjerg. Well, really looks just like a couple of farm houses. I guess I really am Norman, haha! And the pronunciation would go something like Gil-b-yah (or jah). I don’t think it’s any mistake that the names are so close though. Total coolness!
Meanwhile, just going to have a lazy Saturday here, nothing major going on. Play some Kerbal Space Program, last night I got a satellite into orbit around the Mun. It’s a fun game, basically they take real world physics and you build rockets, spaceplanes, and regular planes to hit goals and build your space program. You can add modifications to the program other people have written to make it more realistic. People have even built themselves cockpits, and some mod packs even let you have others play and you can create your own mission control. It’s like model rockets, only on a program. You always have to worry about delta v, center of mass, center of lift, center of thrust and all that good stuff. But you can experiment and see what works and what doesn’t.
For some it doesn’t sound like a fun day at all. But it’s interesting and challenging and helps teach engineering and science concepts, a great little game. I would highly recommend for all ages! Because these are the things all people should be learning and doing. Arts, Humanities, Sciences, they’re what will bring us through, they’re what will take us forward. The rest is just window dressing. Learning what the Universe is, what being us means, and expressing that, Science, Humanities, Arts. That’s it. In science we learn all about the whole of the natural world, in humanities we learn all about what it is to be a human being, and in art we let all that out! What could be better? So let’s make it happen, the new world is waiting for us, what are we waiting for? There’s no better time than now.
“Now is the time to make real the promises of democracy. Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice. Now is the time to open the doors of opportunity to all of God’s children. Now is the time to lift our nation from the quicksand of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood.” -Martin Luther King Jr.
Have fun, keep running, and remember; if Gil can run then so can you!
Posted in Uncategorized by Gil with no comments yet.
September is here!
First miles of the month done! I felt stiff, sore, and slow. But I kept a decent pace. Kept in mind the whole time, tomorrow is an off-day! I really should plan out a long run for Saturday or Sunday. I haven’t figured it out yet. It is time for another long run though. And with that, I just checked in on the Puglia Marathon site to see what the deal was. Looks like December 18th! Come January I’ll start planning out and budgeting out Summer marathons. I need to get Asia done at least.
So running today, a song came on the walkman mp3 player. Yes, I use Sony, always counterculture with me. You buy an iPod, I buy a walkman. Anyway, I started thinking. I’m not any better, or any worse than the very best or the very worst human beings on the planet. That’s where all this comes from. It dawned on me. Even many of my friends who are very good, well-meaning people, still at some level think they are better or worse than others.
Think of the very worst person in the history of humanity. Maybe it’s a famous person, maybe it’s someone from your past. No matter what horrible thing they did, no matter how heinous it may have been, or they may continue to be, they are still a human being. They are capable (but they haven’t been) just as good and decent as you are. Now think of the very best person you can think of (assuming the best and worst people you can think of aren’t you). Yep, no matter how awesome that person is, you have the same ability to be that great!
That’s the thing, no matter how we’re raised, what our ability level in the sense of the common, modern system is, we are all equal, and equally capable of being as great, or as terrible as any human has ever been. When I think about the historical bad people, when I think about the current bad people, when I think about the people in jail for horrible crimes, I honestly sit and think, “I am capable of that too, but I don’t do it.” Because I have empathy, because I have good ethics, because I’ve decided doing those things are wrong. Pretty much, I have this voice inside my head that says some things are wrong. Some people don’t, and some people’s voices are stronger than mine. But we’re all equal, in that we are all capable of the same.
I think we need to find a way to bring out the best in everyone. I think staying positive is the only way the world gets “solved”. And I put that in quotes because I don’t think there is anything to solve. We’ve created systems over the millenia that create these conditions we’re in. I’m sure that some people will never understand empathy and having a conscience. I think those people are truly rare and could be dealt with if we weren’t making so many sick with this twisted way we have of looking at things. The whole system has to change though and it has to start inside us, and we can’t hold anything sacred as we look for the answers. But before we act, we must examine, we must find the truths. Science can help us greatly with that. We have learned, rather recently, that we are wired to learn through empathy when we are young, that many creatures do this. There is so much more inside ourselves that science will unlock. I truly believe when it comes down to it, they will find that the old Enlightenment way of thinking about Human nature is absolutely wrong.
We still use that way to think about Humans. Are you aware of that? Everything we have, all the modern systems, all the modern thoughts on education, socio-economic issues, relationships, love, families, every aspect of human interaction is modeled to fit into a structure that was created around philosophies from 300 years ago! Even the most modern of ideas, still are forced into these systems that were set up. And they were wrong! We’re not these beasts only concerned with what is mine. Not even the supposed “animals” are like that. Don’t get me wrong, nature is a dick. The natural world is a completely uncaring place, a leopard will rip your fucking face off and shit down your neck (quiet literally if it feels it needs to to protect its kill, because you would be a meal to it). But we’re not much part of the natural world anymore, now are we? But even when we were, our survival was dependent upon working together, collectively. It’s possible we had hierarchies for mating and such, like other primates, but we still had to work together. We had to learn from each other, and gather food for each other. Were people dicks? Yeah, but from the best we can see in antiquity, it seems like if you were too much of a dick, you got kicked the hell out.
Yeah, we have some feelings we have to deal with, but I think in a healthy society, these things are not nearly as problematic as they are now. Being so focused on the self, being so focused on winning, being “Alpha”, whatever it may be, we take everything so seriously. This causes a major over-reaction whenever we feel we’ve “lost”. As you think more collectively, when you start to see that you are just as good or bad as everyone else, you start to realize that you can’t take things so seriously. Where does this train of thought get me?
In the end, when a cop beats a guy, kills a guy, when a criminal robs, or whatever. When a soldier kills someone, when a “terrorist” kills, whatever it is, I realize that it’s me. It’s my buying into this sick system, that’s allowing this. The more I buy in, the more culpable I am. Because no matter how much I’m looking for a solution, by participating, I am lending to the problem. I am supporting this behavior, and by judging these people so harshly and dismissing them as somehow “less-than” I am falling back into that Enlightenment thinking that “some folks are just no good”. It’s counter-productive. Do some people need to be removed from society until we can sort our shit out? Absolutely, we have to keep a certain amount of safety, but we also have to figure out how to rehabilitate people. How to heal them. It’s not that they are “bad”, it’s that they are ill. We have to figure this out before it’s gone too far.
But we are all equal, we are all brothers and sisters, and we need to start acting like it. Hope this one made sense, I jumped around a little at the end. It’s been a long day, and I’m tired, if anyone needs help with what I’m saying, just ask.
Have fun, keep running, and remember; if Gil can run then so can you!
Posted in Uncategorized by Gil with no comments yet.
End of August!
And thus ends the months named after Roman Emperors. No seriously, look it up. Ever wonder why the 9th, 10, 11th, and 12th months of the year have the Latin roots for seven, eight, nine, and ten in them respectively? So I thought I’d do something fun for the end of the month and see if the roads leading into town would give me a starburst-like pattern if I ran a little bit down each road. Unfortunately, it looks more like some sort of deformed asshole.
All I could think about today was how tired my legs are, and how far I’ve come since June where I barely ran 35 miles. If I had just a little more energy and patience today I could have run 10 miles to make an even 150 for the month. 145 is still a big month for me, even with the huge miles I did in February and March this year. I’m just about back to where I should be on my monthly average. Just over 120 now, need to get myself back up to 125. What I really like is, this month I’ve kept my pace at 9 min/mi (5:36 min/km). I have to say that’s pretty fast for me. It’s not record breaking, not even a marathon PR for me. But considering how much I was hurting in June, I’ll take it.
4 more months left in 2016, and frankly, they need to end quickly and well. Sure this year has had its challenges on micro and macro levels. But how well have you been dealing with your adversity? Have you been facing it head on and plowing through it? Or have you been blaming everyone but yourself, and letting it consume you? There’s a difference between pointing out what’s wrong and saying it needs to be fixed, and blaming other people for your problems. Pointing out the inequities and injustices in a system, is one thing. But when you blame other people, or a group of people, wholesale, for something that they demonstrably didn’t do, “taking jobs” shit like that. Then you’re just whining, and having a pity party. The difference is, there is a system out there designed to keep most people in shit, and some people are kept in larger numbers in a shitty situation. That is demonstrably true. You can back that up with actual numbers. You can’t with the other shit. You can’t show “illegals” are taking jobs, why? Because they’re not taking any jobs any of you would do! They’re doing the jobs they used to do under the guest worker program before Cesar Chavez organized them so they would be paid a fair wage. Once they ended that program, they knew exactly what would happen. The same people would show up to work, they’d now have to stay, because it’s too dangerous to keep crossing the border, and they wouldn’t be allowed to organize to be paid fairly. We have a half of our political whatever believing that these people are something other than victims of a greedy system. And your candidate for President has benefited directly from this shit. He’s been caught hiring undocumented workers. He wants a wall, he wants this fervor, not because he believes the shit he spews (although he may have prejudiced, bigoted views against Mexican workers), but because it’s a cheap source of labor and he doesn’t want anything to endanger that. It amazes me that people honestly don’t seem to realize this, or think this is made up or something.
Anyway, tomorrow starts a new month, Autumn is only 21 days away! Wow, good thing time (or what we think of as time) flows as it does.
Have fun, keep running, and remember; if Gil can run then so can you!
Posted in Uncategorized by Gil with no comments yet.
Freedom cannot be protected or enforced at the end of a barrel
On my run today I was absolutely focused on this idea. Since Sunday people have been posting so much of the right and wrong of what Colin Kaepernick did and there’s just so much that’s so wrong about almost all of the push back. While I find the protest of sitting out the anthem perfectly right and acceptable if you feel that the country is not living up to the ideals the anthem and flag supposedly stand for, I’m going to try and avoid that here. What I want to address is the fact that freedom, and I’ve said this before and I’ll keep saying it until we get it, does not come at the end of a gun, the tip of a spear. It is not protected through violence, nor the threat of violence. If anything it is impeded by even the most well-meaning of these things. I believe this is a perfect example of such a case.
No government, regent, monarch, representative, dictator. No religion, pastor, priest, imam, rabbi, prophet, god. No single entity, outside the one acting, grants any other being, anywhere in the universe “freedom”. No predecessor, no ancestor, nobody gives me freedom, nobody gives you freedom, nobody gives Colin Kaepernick freedom. Freedom is not a gift, it is not something to be handed out, and learned in songs, or in documents, books, or handed down through laws. Freedom is a natural state of being. Regardless of where you think the origin of nature resides, it is 100% natural. Anything given to you by another being is not real freedom. Because if something can be given, it can be taken away, and freedom can never be taken away in any form. You can hide and disguise your freedom, but you are always free.
One may argue, “but if someone takes your life they have taken your freedom.” No, they have not, they have taken my life. They will never have my obedience to their doctrine if I disagree. Why do you equate death with an end of freedom? If you’re afraid your message hasn’t been heard already, then what does it matter if nobody still hears you? If your message has been heard, then it has been heard, you don’t need to keep repeating yourself, hopefully your death, because of the exercise of your freedom will encourage others to pick up your cause. Even within the most oppressive regimes, people will exercise their rights as human beings, when they feel they need to. Look at the case of the Kreisau Circle. There are so many examples just from World War 2.
Let’s look at a hypothetical. Let’s say, for argument’s sake, nobody ever opposed Hitler militarily and Germany took over the world. Would all the Jewish people be extinct? Would all the Romani? Would all the LGBT? Would playwrights and composers, painters and sculptors not be making art? Or would there be people resisting? Would there be people helping those he looked to exterminate? It would be horrible, but freedom would remain. It would be dangerous to be free, more dangerous than it is now. Any regime can outlaw anything they want, they can try and take any freedom they want, they can point a loaded gun to your head and demand you stop. The only time your freedom is taken is when you obey. When you value your life more than your freedom.
Yes, people have gone through great lengths in this world to make others obey. And it is true and it is possible to have it happen. Patrick Henry, revolutionary and slave owner, famously said, “Give me liberty or give me death!” Ironic that such a famous line was uttered by a man who viewed other human beings as property. Surely, if any of his slaves ever said the same, he would have had them put to death. But what of that? What of slavery, surely you say there, people have used violence to keep others from being free. Well surely they did, and many other instances throughout history. Yet, the drive to express one’s freedom persisted. How many monuments are there to so many of these? Instead we erect statues and plaques to those who would put down these acts. Robert E. Lee is seen by many in the US and even in other parts of the world as a hero. Yet he was instrumental in leading the US Army to stop the Harper’s Ferry Slave Revolt of 1859. How many reading this know names like Gabriel Prosser (I know I’ve shared the awesome song about him before), Denmark Vessey, Nat Turner? These men were fighting for their freedom, they weren’t waiting for the United States Government to give it to them. Unfortunately, the very Army of the nation that proclaimed “All men are created equal” was often the force used to put an end to their revolts. Countless slaves throughout the ages have been murdered, beaten, raped, tortured into submission, but that flame of freedom, that desire to escape their bonds has never diminished. No government gives them that, no police force protects that. In fact, we can see, just in the one collection of slave revolt synopses on wikipedia, often police forces, militias, armies, are used to enforce oppression on those striving to exercise their freedom.
I do not fear a government, a religion, a lunatic fringe, or even just someone on the street. If I have something to say then I will say it, if I need to do something then I’ll do it. If my life is forfeit because of it, so be it. If I am wrong, then the weight of history will wash away my trace, but if I was right, my idea will burn on, and the next generation will pick up my cause and keep the fight going. To be free is to live without fear. Not because you are hiding behind a shield of metal, plastic, fabric, and weapons. To not be afraid, because you know that your freedom is primary, that your freedom comes from within. No one can take that away, once you have resigned that you will act justly, even in the face of those who will try to deny you those actions. That is true freedom.
So why can’t we enforce this freedom on everyone? Think about how ridiculous that statement actually sounds. Just because some “holy man” may burn me at the steak, shoot me, stab me, whatever their choice of death would be, because I don’t act the way he wants, doesn’t mean I need protection from him. If he won’t listen to reason, if he kills me, he still does not kill my idea. He has not proven his ideas better, he has not proven mine worse. He has only proven he is either better at swaying the masses, he’s better at generating hatred or violence, or he’s better at enacting violence than I am. If anything, he’s proven he doesn’t have a good argument to begin with. If you’re only persuasion is to say, “Do as I say or die” or “Do as I say or leave” or “Do as I say or I’ll torture you,” you have proven your ideas hold no value. “But it’s impossible to change other people’s mind about things,” yes. But if you can only enforce your ideas through violence, or the threat thereof then all you’ve done is instill fear. But if you can talk to people about ideas, even if they don’t agree, and at least accept that you have a right to live as you wish, then that is a win. If the only answer to your ideas are violence and threats of exile and demands of silence, then they have no answer for you, and you’ve won.
Guns and violence do not protect ideas, do not protect rights. All too often they are used to suppress ideas and oppress rights. I do not care what someone’s intentions are when they pick up a weapon. What matters is the outcome. No side in any war has ever thought “Wow, what we’re doing is wrong, and someone should stop us!” After their side has lost, some may express remorse. Make excuses for their actions, “Well, I was a victim of peer-pressure.” Doesn’t matter, at the end of the day they didn’t think they were wrong to do it in the first place. If they did they’d throw down their weapons at the first sign of resistance.
So no police, no army, no war, no battle, has ever won me freedom. It has never protected freedom, and it never will. Freedom is a knowledge that one may act in accordance with his or her own conscience. Some people have a broken conscience, we have to figure out why. We have to look at them with compassion and love. Even if they show none. They are injured, they need help, and we have to approach it in that way. If they had a broken leg, or a severed hand, we would look at them with compassion. I do not fear another’s lack of compassion or conscience. I will always act according to what is in my heart. I don’t need a gun, a tank, a plane, a missile, a badge, a bullet-proof vest, a piece of paper, a law, a book, or anything else to tell me that I am free. I don’t need a government to grant me that idea. Freedom is self-inherent. It always has been, it always will be. The false equivalence between freedom and the acts of others granting, or protecting it for us must end. It is dangerous to keep propping up this idea that what Colin Kaepernick did is something that was allowed him because someone killed someone else in some foreign land, or because someone elected to become a police officer and stand around at the stadium and stop would-be attackers. What Colin Kaepernick did was afforded to him because he made a moral decision that what is happening in the United States today is wrong, and that he was in a place where he may be able to make a change, that he may be able to help secure more equal treatment for himself and for others like him across a nation that still claims all people are equal, yet continues to act in a different manner. His freedom to act and say what is in his heart, is afforded by his lack of fear. That lack of fear does not come from other people standing around him armed, it comes from the fact that he understands there are things in this world greater than him, and that what happens to him is inconsequential if he does not do something about the injustice he sees around him.
Freedom is free.
Have fun, keep running, and remember; if Gil can run then so can you!
Posted in Uncategorized by Gil with no comments yet.
It was not easy like Sunday morning!
I figured I would do another 10 miles today, and it would be slower. I was wrong. Actually ended up 6 seconds per km faster! (10 seconds per mile) I’m very glad tomorrow is a training off-day. My body is beat! I think if I had ran the same route I did yesterday I wouldn’t have been as fast, today I did keep it a little flatter. But I was so tired I thought I would still be slower. I’m getting impatient in getting to the point where back-to-back 10 mile runs are no big deal to me.
But it’s Sunday, it was the end of a big running week for me, it’s the end of a big running month. I was just blank the whole way. All I could focus on was the discomfort and trying to keep good form, move my hips more, make sure I don’t get injured. Today was all about just staying focused on the task at hand, being in the moment.
I’m almost half way through the weight I put on over the last few months, about 4kg (9 lbs) down. Need to go a bit further and then I can relax. But I’ve decided I need to use a food diary every day, all the time. It’s just the way it has to be. I tried to just be disciplined without filling out a diary every day, really at every meal so I didn’t forget anything, and it clearly didn’t work.
The most important thing about keeping any diary, particularly food and fitness, is 100 percent honesty! If you say “well that didn’t count, that second helping of x wasn’t THAT many calories, that chocolate bar couldn’t have had that much of an impact.” I got news for you, it did, it does, and it definitely does. Yes alcohol has calories, yes so do soft drinks. “Empty calories” doesn’t mean your body doesn’t process it and use it for energy, it means there’s no nutrition, only energy, so if you’re not burning them off, they are being stored as energy in your body (fat). That is the reality of the situation. It doesn’t matter how fast or slow your metabolism is. It’s all an equation. If your output of energy is greater than your input, you will burn fat. There comes a point where you have to hit stasis. Where your input and output are about the same on an average day. My problem is that if I don’t pay attention I overeat. I always overeat.
I really love food, I think about it all the time. Everyone has their own problem, that is mine. I always want to cook the next great meal, I always want to find the best way to make something taste excellent. No matter what I’ve gone through, no matter how I feel about things, I’ve never sacrificed taste and eating well for my health. I still always enjoy my meals and I will continue to do so. What’s the point of life if you’re not enjoying what you are doing? Eating is one of the most important things we do next to breathing and drinking water.
So that’s where I’m at today. I’m feeling good even though I’m really tired. I’m on the right path, and I know how to stay on it. You have to face up to what the problems are and deal with them in reality. It’s true in fitness, true in politics, true in life. That’s just the way it is.
Have fun, keep running, and remember; if Gil can run then so can you!
Posted in Uncategorized by Gil with no comments yet.
Just a Saturday
It was a beautiful day for 10 miles. Not too hot, not too humid, it was very nice. My times showed it. I’ll try again tomorrow, but I know I’ll be slower, my legs are tired. Then it was rushing around, as my friend’s boss had a party at the farm, so I had to attend (apparently everyone has to go to birthday parties in Denmark, and when it’s the boss’s wife, yeah you go!). Totally cool, always fun to experience how other cultures do. United beat Hull at the last minute (literally almost) and the All Blacks retained the Bledisloe Cup by beating Australia 29-9. Almost all is right with the world.
The down side to all this is my friend, the wife of the friend I am currently staying with is back in the US. Her mother has been very sick, and she finally lost her fight last night. It’s never an easy thing, and we all deal with loss differently. The whole thing has reminded me a lot of when my mother’s father died. It was difficult for me to handle because he was by far the person I identified most with in this world. In many ways he still is. I’m not good with the whole death thing, and I never will be. It’s weird, why feel bad? I mean I get funerals and stuff are for the living, and I understand missing people. But you have a couple choices when someone dies.
I think you need to figure out what brings you comfort and go for it. I never support anyone trying to force others to find comfort the same way they do, forcing beliefs on others is always wrong. But if you find comfort in a god, in a heaven, in reincarnation, in a void, in whatever it is, go with it. Do you, be happy, move on, keep the PMA. That’s all we can do. Life goes on for the rest of us, we still have a fight here, we still have a struggle here, and our loved ones would want us to focus on that. I know when I go I want people to have a party. Cremate me, put my ashes in one of those biodegradable urns, put an acorn in there and let my ashes grow into a big oak tree. But have a party, no crying! Drinking, food, music, dancing! No club music though, and none of that pop shit, you play the music I like! That’s what I got, I’ve always known that stuff though, I know how I want people to say their farewells to me. None of that somber funeral home ridiculousness, none of that woe is me sobbing and sappy crap. Live it up! I’m gone, you’re still here, I will be the one crying for you!
Have fun, keep running, and remember; if Gil can run then so can you!
Posted in Uncategorized by Gil with no comments yet.
Thankfully, tomorrow is an off-day!
Seriously, I was dragging so much ass out there today! Then at the end, I was so sweaty, the watch rebooted and chopped off 0.1 mile! What a pain. So that’s that. What sucks is the blister, that hurt so bad and I had to keep my mind on staying off of it.
I worry about any changes to my stride, that it may cause injury or excessive discomfort. It seems I got through today alright. Hopefully, I can get back to normal on Saturday. No I won’t be healed, but maybe it won’t hurt so much, the nerves that are so exposed now won’t be. Either way I will cruise to my normal 120 miles per month.
Physically, I feel good. I worry the extreme downtime may be getting to me mentally. It is tough being idle for so long, with basically nothing but running. Trying very hard to stay away from sugary drinks and eating my way through this lull. It’s easy to be disciplined and stay on course when things are running along like clockwork. It’s when things break down, that’s when you really have to stay focused. I’ve slipped a little bit, but I think as long as I focus on drinking water the rest comes along.
Hopefully, in a few weeks I’ll be back into a routine and things will settle. I do need a schedule and I need some external structure sometimes. Routine isn’t always a bad thing. But tomorrow I rest, I need it. I need a little recovery.
Have fun, keep running, and remember; if Gil can run then so can you!
Posted in Uncategorized by Gil with no comments yet.
Running, Earthquakes, and more!
So I’m still in Denmark, won’t be back in Italy until mid-September. Not being sure how far the earthquake this morning went, I needed to check in and make sure my people were tutt’OK! (All ok) So then I went for a run.
The run went pretty well, except for one little issue. I kept up a great pace and felt good, but when I got back and took off my shoes and socks…BLISTER! Oh no! Right on the end of my big toe. I get them so rarely, but they totally suck. Luckily I just am going to get a few miles tomorrow and then take Friday off. We’ll see how my foot reacts.
So after thinking about the crapiness of seismic activity, I thought about the fact my dad is retiring in a few months. So much time has passed, and yet I feel like just yesterday I was a kid in Kindergarten. What really gets me is all this time has supposedly passed and yet nothing seems to really change.
Today, a friend was denied entry to a bar, because that friend doesn’t conform to the gender “norms” and this was in New York City! When I was a kid I thought games like softball would be obsolete by now because all the girls would just be playing baseball. I thought we’d be done with all the silly crap, but we’re not. We’re not even close. Drumpf is evidence enough of that, and all his racist-ass followers. It’s not so much that I ever felt like I was spinning my wheels, but I feel like society is just spinning its wheels.
My dad, he taught me a lot about how to look at our fellow human beings, and while my parents weren’t always there, and sometimes they really didn’t pay too much attention, they did teach me to be good to everyone. That the only way the working people get out of this is by sticking together, not being out for ourselves. When I was younger, I thought if we just fixed the problems causing poverty, all the other problems would magically be solved. As I’ve grown, I’ve been lucky enough to realize that is not the case, and there are worse things out there than poverty, believe it or not.
Poverty actually points out the larger problems. The most glaring of which can be seen here. If you look by numbers, you see that there are more poor “white” people than any other group, but there are many many more “white” people in general. When you look by percentage you see how horrible the problem really is. Racism is real, this isn’t a problem of “laziness”, or “desire”, or “families”, or “absent fathers”, or “black-on-black” crime. All that is bullshit. The system is meant for certain people to succeed and others not to. It really is that simple.
But in the end, we have to start to really work together. Don’t let anyone red-bait, tell you you’re a communist or anything, those aren’t bad things anyway. But we have to stick together, and the first thing we need to do is accept others as they are. To really love our fellow human beings. To understand our kinship to each other, and the planet on the whole, and then we can start to fix these things. Hopefully these things happen sooner, rather than later.
Have fun, keep running, and remember; if Gil can run then so can you!
Posted in Uncategorized by Gil with no comments yet.
Some days you have to take it easy
That’s what I did today. Ran the flattest road I knew in the area and just relaxed. Stayed really consistent for me too. It’s been raining all night, so it was super humid out. Just a sluggish feeling day, so I just wanted to move, but take it easy.
Overall, I’m feeling lazy today. I don’t want to do much of anything, but I’m getting things done. Some laundry, dishes. Some days the hardest thing to do is simply keep focus. Right now, I’m just going minute to minute thinking about what I need to get done. Right now, the question is, what to have for lunch.
Vegetarian patty on a roll with some lettuce and onion. Sounds like a plan! It can be difficult when you’re a guest in a country, and you don’t know the language or the produce too well. So I’ve been relying more than normal on prepared things. It could definitely be worse though,I have found I rather enjoy Knorr creamy tomato soup. I think I may like it more than, dare I say it, Campbell’s! Crazy right? I can’t believe it. Because is there anything better than Campbell’s tomato soup and a grilled cheese sandwich? Wow.
So I’m keeping this short today. I’m hungry and food is almost ready! Talk to you all later, here’s a song for you!
Have fun, keep running, and remember; if Gil can run then so can you!
Posted in Uncategorized by Gil with no comments yet.
Took it easy today
Since it was horrible rain yesterday, and lightning in the weather report, I ran today instead. It was a beautiful day to run, now it’s not. The clouds have returned and the rain will be returning shortly I’m sure. Beyond that, just cleaning up and looking for an apartment.
So one downside of healing up and basically being on vacation for the last couple months is that I had put on some weight. As far as I know I never got back up over 190 lbs (86.2kg) but I was not happy. Today, I seem to be getting better as far as weight goes. Back down around 177 lbs (80 kg). Now I need to stress again, I am not doing this to look good, this is about health, blood pressure, breathing, and running. The lighter I am the faster I can run. 165 lbs (75kg) is right about where I want to be. I’ve started using a meal tracker again, because I was getting out of control, with sweets and sodas and beers. So I’m back on water and coffee and eating proper portions. Diet and exercise is always the answer. If you’re going after vanity, you’ll have to be more extreme with things. I just limit the amount of food I intake, but if you want to be all cut and whatnot you have to look at what foods you are eating and what their proportion of carbs, protein, and fats are.
But I’m building back up, a really good run today, even though it was slow. It’s a long process, and I have to be patient. Always. The struggle never ends, remember that.
Have fun, keep running, and remember; if Gil can run then so can you!
Posted in Uncategorized by Gil with no comments yet.