Self-Preservation

Good morning, commuters!  Go, run toward your destinations, and from yourselves.

Environmental Frustration

My hands can make spectacular shadow figures.  But, they're no more than silhouettes of a dog as they are a structure made up of cells used to unearth possibilities, ambitions, and keep the perpetuity of survival.  I hate the whole idea of walking into 90˚ angles for all of my life in order to function with society.  I mean, it's so tragic; spending an incredible chunk of existence under the enslavement of a higher entity (generally, the CEOs) in order to be happy and make it through the monthly rent.  It's like, imprisonment is actually a very expensive thing.  And the price for that; we abuse the things that make our existences possible, the resources that enrich our lives.  We cover the meadow fields with concrete, in order to pave a road, so that blowing the top off a mountain may be done.  The workload is designed for destruction, the prehensile appendages of our limbs, that was developed for the survival of our species, make the possibility of our extinction within arm's length.  I think we have established a system that ignores the externalized costs of our needs and "happiness."  While I do have to accept the inevitability of serving the corporate mission, corporations owe the environment the responsibility to keep resources healthy and everlasting.  It's frustrating that so many of them do not vouch for the mending of their own broken system.

Awful, Just Awful

I've had my gym membership for nearly a month now.  While wanting to feel all-weather with my goals in running, I have forgotten why I run.

Today, I set off to gallop beyond 6ish miles, and really make the most out of the accessibility and convenience running indoors has to offer.  I came prepared; gels stacked, iPod playlist arranged, shoelaces tightly tied, nuun fizzing up in my 2 water bottles.  I spent the first 20 minutes (just past 5 kilometers) untangling my headphones, trying desperately to keep my balance while totally losing focus.  While I gasped for air, I noticed the cascade of salty fluids gush out of me.  I slowed down from 9.5 mph to 3.5 mph and maintained that for 10 minutes.  I kept the songs blasting out of my earbuds hoping my nerves would relax and heart rate to tame itself; it was at around 167, decent but can be a red flag to some.  My legs gave out, left foot protested with stinging pain, and spirit totally despondent.  I pushed another half mile, jolting the pace up to 8.6 mph to get as close to five miles as possible, then quit.  Whatever happened to the days when 30 milers were routine, strenuous yet possible?

I think I lost something here:

Last year, I didn't think about running at all.  I just did it.  It was something that was essential to life, and applicable to any mode of existence I found myself in.  I have the luxury of living near trailheads and state parks but I think I have taken that for granted.

In the trails, amid solitude and silence, all of the emotions and mechanisms of the body are communicated and heard.  Thoughts are magnified; there is no clamorous fight between Gangnam Style blasting on the gym stereo or whatever noise emanated from the ear buds and the self.  Running is simple and concise.  The more complex one makes it, the fulfillment value becomes less.  Simplicity gives one the chance to appreciate one's self, realize their full capacity, and to truly enjoy the adventure.  Running trails is harmonious to meditation, and that's very important.

Tomorrow, I will run the Redtown Trail, rain or shine.

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On a completely, sort of, unrelated note, here's a track I enjoy listening to and imagine myself running:

Shell

Is this a fair comparison?  I have never heard of anyone rob a 7-11 with a president.

Ode to Squak

Oh, mighty Squak
such a gentle little mountain you are,
green as Grendel,
enormous yet tame,
old but youthful,
in the aeons in which you have lived
witnessed the birth of stars,
and some of their deaths.
That lonely tower of brick
that rests atop you,
was a bright home, before
your resilience dissolved it,
into smithereens.
All that dirt in your body,
and the rocks that embellish it,
with the evergreens at your appendage,
make you something mighty,
precious and wonderful
to me.

Squak Mountain bears, as one might expect, a one-hundred percent similitude to Cougar and Tiger.  For those unfamiliar with the Issaquah Alps and the protuberances that make it distinct, read here.  Though, it stands apart from the two with its light foot traffic.  Actually, the foot traffic is so light that one may even consider it nonexistent.

I brought Tess, the 4 year old border collie, and Charles, the 4 month chocolate labrador here yesterday.    Charles had never left the vicinity of our backyard, and so his outdoor behavior was highly questionable.  Instead of jogging around the trails, like I usually do with Tess, I decided to leisure the trip with a gentle hike.  I parked the car on the SE May Valley trailhead and began the hike via Bullitt Trail.  The destination; Central Peak.  The dogs were kept entertained by the chuck-it launcher and several tennis balls I packed along.  There were no other hikers throughout the day, and so I offed their leash so they could run around, though not to the extent at which my eyes could not meet theirs.  Charles was an astounding companion on the trails, equal to Tess.  Without any prior experience on being off-leash, he did not wander off trail (even in spite of the several clearings we came upon) nor run ahead out of sight.  One hour passed, we hiked past the brick chimney then arrived at Central Peak a half-mile later, the area considered to be the destination for most hikers who come here.  After our return for lunch at the fireplace, we descended down a different, wider, steeper trail .  It was a good day for the dogs to get excellent exercise.

Here are pictures:

Snow on top

Pups on the Fireplace

Playing Fetch

Cairn

Tennis ball camouflaged in moss

Charles

Teresa

Me

The Love That You Learn

Dr. King,

I think often of you!

M Theory

Every scientific milestone started off as a philosophical question/wonder.  There's ambition, a staggering one, connected to the tenet of quantum mechanics.  In spite of my vast incomprehension of the subject, I am fascinated that scientists are diligent at the pursuit of such a mysterious field.  Whatever the discovery may be, I'm quite sure it will be very exciting.

Tess Likes Meditation, Too!

Yesterday, after a bright seven-and-a-half mile run with Tess, we sat under the sun and meditated instead of pushing father into the trail.  In the PNW, light is more precious than miles, sometimes.

Bean Seasoning

I don't generally make a fuss over things, but allow me to rant about the rarity of Red Mill's Bean Seasoning.  After scouting all the natural markets nearby (Whole Foods, Metropolitan Market, PCC) finding the said item came to no avail.  It's an amazing mixture of pixie dust and ground up heaven that bursts with lusciousness.  If you're in search of a perfect addition to enliven the menu, consider turning to Red Mill's Bean Seasoning and you will owe me eternal gratitude!  It's just shameful how difficult it is to find them.

Row Your Boat

That old nursery rhyme, I dream about it often.

Fines

Every new year, I resolve to eliminate the accrual of fines from my life (ie. library books, credit cards, membership renewals, etc.)  Two weeks from January first into the present, I managed to owe the library $2.50 for documentaries that were turned in late.  This is already not going as well as I hoped.

Flume

I'm struggling to figure out my priorities and balancing everything in such little time.  After a pleasant engagement photo-shoot with Stephanie and Matt, a tiny speck of light emerged that indicated some bouts of disposable time for a 50k training.  That light was quickly swiped out after realizing I needed to learn Bon Iver's "Flume" on the piano requested by a young couple whose wedding will take place on the 19th next week.  In addition, I also needed to learn other pieces and rekindle the performance flair innate in entertainers (sadly, not me) until the said date.  Learning the song wasn't difficult.  I met with the couple today and played my rendition of it.  At their behest, the piece would sound nicely in swing. I'm familiar with the basic tenet of the style but was difficult to infuse it on a slow piece, I think. That, I'll be working on this week.

One Mile

I ran on the treadmill inside the gym for the second time today.  Acclimatization is slow, but I can feel my body adapting.

11:30 am, due to an uninvited guest making an appearance moments before getting in the car, I wasn't able to leave for the gym until past noon.

12:30 pm, parked my car on the lot and headed for the treadmill.  At this point, I only had 45 minutes of running left before I needed to have all my things ready for work.  I ran for 6.5 miles, and somewhere in between, someone jumped on the treadmill to my right.  The man ran for one mile then left swiftly out the door.  I can't tell if the guy did a workout pre-treadmill, there were no indications that he did, and I was dumbfounded because 1 mile was an awful short amount of distance to be exercising in.  If such was the case, was a thing like that normal?  Wouldn't the option of a lap-around-the-neighborhood run, along the same goal of accomplishing the same one mile distance, void the need to burn up gasoline for home-gym transportation?

People Don't Always Belong Where You Found Them

This was the first book I finished reading in 2013.  If literature is used as a prelude to set the character of an upcoming year, then I believe I am in for a staggering one.  Let me assert here that I could not previously regard as true that a novel could posses such astonishing power as tremendous as Richard Ford's "Canada."  It's so breathtaking, strewn with affliction, each word cascaded down like a torrent of profundity; tremulous, fragile, explosive, everything here left me (at times, literally) breathless and intoxicated to even bother fixing the erroneous formalities in the act of writing a review to honor its name. Dear reader, as you descend further down into time, may you take up the task to make it better; open the pages of Canada.

The "G" Word

I caved. I'm murderously sick of this rain and decided to opt in for indoor running. Ran on the treadmill this morning and felt all my experience with the sport had to start over. The air quality sucks; I can't smell the pine trees, no wind to fight against/draft on, the incline was super unrealistic, FOX news was on the TV screen (haven't figured out how to tinker around the dials, yet), and the list goes on. I called Tracy today for wanting accompaniment on the next treadmill sesh. The gym is no match for the forest, but the rainy grievances made it feel that this was the best option to log in miles without the simultaneity of showering under the ubiquitous rain.

Run A Great Distance

Attempting a 40+ miler started so well.  My left leg tends to overextend when a comfortable pace is set.  This results to longer, less efficient strides and frighteningly often, knee problems.  A day before New Year's eve, I set out to do multiple loops around Lake Youngs Trail, my benchmark dry run.  Assuming 6-7 hours would have availed me the correct number of mileage I hit off easy.  Much to my chagrin, my left leg started giving way to pain at around the 3rd hour, roughly past halfway.  This was nearly one week ago, and I hadn't accomplished any successful run since.  With no intention to aggravate the budding left-leg issue, I think it best that the end-of-month 50k race be left cancelled.  Plus, I heard that the summer run Cougar Mountain Trail Race was absolutely astounding last year.  I feel a bit bummed, but will have to take it easy from here.

Caption: exhausted face post failed train run.

And No Religion, Too?

One-thousand years ago, Baghdad was a city in which frontiers of scientific discovery were opened.  A couple-hundred years past the advent of enlightenment, religion took off and deemed algebra a product of the devil.  Move forward to this day, we need to ask ourselves: had the knowledge-based society proceed unchanged, or at least free from oppression in the hands of faith, what staggering discoveries could have been developed there?  What valuable scientific insight, or astounding intellectual breakthrough have we lost? And, would the city have suffered the same injustice and economic strife, in the way that it continuous to do so today, had scientific curiosity grown unsuppressed, had evidence based reasoning etched the fabric of its government?

Poetry/Art

Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson had me thinking when he said that the artist/poet work to illustrate the beauty in something that was so simple that I had taken it for granted.  I may have dwelled in an unfair amount of regret this past year, but knowing that was the case, conveys an awareness that would be sure to make 2013 bursting with all things beautiful no matter how simple or complex they might be.