Post- Boston Marathon

This is a repost of comedian Patton Oswalt's thoughts after the explosions at the 117th Boston Marathon and pretty much sums up how I feel. My heart goes out to all the victims, especially the families of those who lost a loved one. 

Hug a runner today. Thank a police officer, firefighter, or any first responder you see. They have a thankless job at times.


"Boston. Fucking horrible. 

I remember, when 9/11 went down, my reaction was, "Well, I've had it with humanity."

But I was wrong. I don't know what's going to be revealed to be behind all of this mayhem. One human insect or a poisonous mass of broken sociopaths. 

But here's what I DO know. If it's one person or a HUNDRED people, that number is not even a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of a percent of the population on this planet. You watch the videos of the carnage and there are people running TOWARDS the destruction to help out. (Thanks FAKE Gallery founder and owner Paul Kozlowski for pointing this out to me). This is a giant planet and we're lucky to live on it but there are prices and penalties incurred for the daily miracle of existence. One of them is, every once in awhile, the wiring of a tiny sliver of the species gets snarled and they're pointed towards darkness.

But the vast majority stands against that darkness and, like white blood cells attacking a virus, they dilute and weaken and eventually wash away the evil doers and, more importantly, the damage they wreak. This is beyond religion or creed or nation. We would not be here if humanity were inherently evil. We'd have eaten ourselves alive long ago.

So when you spot violence, or bigotry, or intolerance or fear or just garden-variety misogyny, hatred or ignorance, just look it in the eye and think, "The good outnumber you, and we always will."

Week In Review

Here's a recap of my running lately.  Not much in the past two weeks.

 Family illnesses and Mrs. Runner recovering from surgery have put heavy running on the back burner, as can be expected. Everything will be fine though. Mrs. Runner's goal is to train for a Half and I'll be happy to help her achieve it, and as long as my girls are healthy I'm a happy camper. I'm still trying to work out details so I can run the Mercedes Half Marathon.

Wednesday - 2 miles at the local YMCA run at a slightly faster than normal training pace. It felt wonderful. There is a flat, shaded gravel trail that follows a creek and bends around some playing fields. It's a short, peaceful loop and a calm place to run without head phones. I rarely run without them. Except this time. I was a dummy and mistakenly left them at home. I'm good like that!

Friday - 4 miles on the treadmill broken into a 5k at my Half pace and a 1 mile cool down. I'm not a fan of treadmills. I know they have their place, especially in crappy weather conditions and they help with pacing but I find myself getting bored extremely fast while using one. But Lala had swim practice and I wanted to get in a few miles so this had to do.

Sunday - 13.1 miles - Trial run on the Mercedes course with water/Gu stops provided by The Trak Shak (thanks, Val!) I didn't plan on running the entire course given the tiny amount of miles lately. I thought if I could make it to 5 Points South I'd head downhill at 20th St., cruise back to Linn Park

and be satisfied with the effort. That's when I noticed a bunch of people continuing on and I blindly followed along like the lemming I am. I'm glad I did, but felt stiff and sore afterwards. I needed to hit the foam roller post-run but when I broke it out this is what happened. Future runner, imo!

So, since rolling the old legs was out of the question I made a killer Bacon, Tomato and Cheddar Chowder soup instead. I guess the recipe and steps on how to make it should be my next post? How did your running go this past week?  Do your kiddos commandeer your rollers too? Here's hoping our paths cross sometime soon on a run!