Past vs Present

Austin has a new library. It's fantastic.

I'm in Austin this week, visiting my sister and seeing some of the beloved people and places that have helped make me who I am. It's an ongoing joke/truism in Austin that things around here change in a hurry, and not always for a better in the eyes of the locals. And while you don't have to leave for a couple years to see it--just waiting around one's own neighborhood for a few months will do--coming back to visit every six months is a fast way to muddle all the mental maps I used to have.

New pedestrian plaza on UT campus

Capital Metro, for instance. A bus system I once knew as well as the inside of my own apartment. I knew that major changes were coming--there were signs up at every bus stop when I was last here in May, plus I keep up with the Twitter chatter around transportation in Austin. But last night Denise and I were driving home from "my" HEB (which has also been rearranged, by the way) and talking about buses that are rerouted and stops that we used to use that are now gone altogether. I had no sooner said aloud, "I need to look at the CapMetro map and see what's changed," than I saw a sign for the upcoming Austin Marathon, indicating that the route is going through East Austin, a place it never went in the years I was running, volunteering, or spectating. So I added, "And I guess I need to look at the marathon map, too."
 
Places adapt and change. Kids grow up. People move away. Businesses close up shop and others open, buildings are torn down and new ones spring up. This is true everywhere, not just Austin--I've seen it happen plenty in the short time I've been in Cincinnati. And while I have my own reasons for clinging desperately to a time that is gone, the truth is that I know full well those days are never coming back again. My first Austin bus route is gone forever, the local supermarket can't serve customers who don't exist, and I'll never go back to one of my former apartments, open the door, and find Chadwick on the other side waiting for me to come home. The world is moving on and I've already gone with it, whether I like it or not.

Ai Weiwei's "Forever Bicycles" is here on a long-term
loan. For that matter, it may be gone; I haven't been
round to look yet. It's new since I lived here and will also
be moving away again.

On the other hand, the Austin Half Marathon course has reverted to the one I ran for the first time and loved back in 2009, and while I'm not going to be here in two weeks' time to experience race day in
person, there's nothing to stop me from running some of those miles this week. Not for the sake of reliving the past, but rather to get all the joy I can out of the present.

And I hope that's what you're doing this week, too.

Best Books of 2017

Better late than never: the top books that I read last year. As should be evident if you've read any of my book posts, my loving a book is no guarantee that you will. (Although these are pretty good ones.) Please note that these aren't necessarily books published in 2017, but rather books I read in 2017. I'm not that fancy.

I only read 23 books in 2017, so it was not a huge or even normal year for my reading, but what I lacked in quantity was made up for by some pretty great, thought-provoking stuff, some of which everyone needs to be reading right now.


So, here we go. All images are from Goodreads:

3. What the Living Do: Poems, Marie Howe
I forgot until I re-read Dash and Lily for Christmas that it was them who pointed me in the direction of Marie Howe. And I'm so glad they did. Magnificent, beautiful poems about the nature of life and death. IIRC (I read it early in the year), it's not entirely PG, so be warned if you decide to read.

2. Demagoguery and Democracy, Patricia Roberts-Miller
I saw this author at the Texas Book Festival! Because, full disclosure, I sat in her class for a semester back in 2010 (and got an A, by the way) and we're friends on Facebook, and I get to enjoy the benefits of all the things she writes down on a daily basis.

Anyway, this book. Obviously, it's timely, but its importance lies in the tools it gives the reader for spotting and pushing back against demagoguery. I read it on the plane home from Austin and the next day handed it to a coworker to read. Which I would do for you, too, if you were within book-handing-to distance. Read it.

1. Gospel of Freedom: Martin Luther King, Jr.’s Letter from Birmingham Jail and the Struggle That Changed a Nation, Jonathan Rieder
Speaking of timely. If you've never read Dr. King's Letter, there's no time like the present. This book is a great way to do that, especially for those of us who didn't live through it, because it provides historical context. Also, lots of great photos. It took me twice as long as it should have to read it just because I couldn't stop staring at the photos.

It's fashionable for some at the moment to claim that protest itself can be as bad as the injustice that is being protested. Have a read of this book to see that indeed, nothing is new under the sun. Dr. King has a strong message for those folks, alongside his encouragement for those who stand up against injustice for what they believe to be right.


Shorter list than usual, but it was a short reading year. Want to see more of what I read? Let's be friends on Goodreads and you can check out my 2017 shelf.

Meanwhile

Last week, by some miracle, I managed to get out and run two days in a row! And I was like, "Hey, body, remember when we used to do this all the time? Maybe we can do it some more!" and my body said, "I hate you and can always devise weird pains you can't even imagine yet to stop you from doing something so stupid."

So. We're a work in progress.

Nothing says "running" like a picture
of my feet standing still, yeah?

Meanwhile, I'm looking for a spring half marathon. I'm planning to be in Austin for my 40th birthday--yay!-- but that means both the Flying Pig (Cincinnati) and the Indy Mini (Indianapolis) are out, because I'll be 1200 miles away that weekend. Bummer. The Hoosier Half in Bloomington in April is an early favourite, if they get their act together sometime soon and update the registration page.

Meanwhile meanwhile, in the excitement of the Hotter'N Hell Hundred this weekend (Texas had its biggest bicycle event of the year in the hot-and-dry northern part of the state at the same time that the southeastern side was being washed away by a hurricane. Everyone I know is safe, but it was a long and anxious weekend all the same), I started searching training plans for a lengthy bicycle ride--namely, the Ride Across Indiana. I'm pretty sure one has to be not entirely in possession of all one's faculties to even consider doing such a thing, but that happens to be my exact description, so it's totally fine.

Oddly enough, the distance (160 miles in one day) and the completely different approach to training than I've ever done before (you know, wheels instead of feet) isn't what's giving me pause about this. I've been going back and forth about it for weeks now, because I've always been strictly a utilitarian cyclist, and when anyone's asked me if I train for these massive bike events, I've always said, "No. That's what running is for." To make this change feels like I'm giving up a fundamental part of my identity. On the other hand, I'll be 40 next summer, and isn't that what 40 is for?

So I wrote a plan down and will see about adding some intentional riding miles to my intentional running miles in the next few weeks. This may be a thing. We'll see.

Are you trying anything new with the final third of 2017?

Change Comes in Pieces

I wrote this post in 2012 for the alumni site of Adventures in Missions (AIM), the short-term missions program for young adults that I participated in straight out of high school. AIM gave me incredible experiences and lifelong friends. Alas, the alumni site did not give me a storage place for my words. This piece came up in my Facebook memories a few days ago, but when I clicked through to re-read, I got an error message and then remembered that the alumni site is no more. 

Since I don't want a perfectly good 700 words to go to waste, I'm reposting it with a few tweaks but no updates that bring us to present day. So here's a bit of time travelling back to Austin during London 2012.

In the last 24 hours, I’ve watched 14 different sports. Right now, I’m flipping between three channels on my TV and two live feeds on my computer, and I have TV Guide, NBC Olympics, and London 2012 windows also open so I won’t miss anything. You might say I’m a fan.

My earliest Olympic memory is of fellow (eventually) Longhorn Mary-Lou Retton in ’84, but it wasn’t until ’88 that I understood that these mysterious Olympics were something special. And like everybody else, I couldn’t have been more into ’92. The Dream Team. The Unified Team. Kristi Yamaguchi and Viktor Petrenko. Dan and Dave. Janet Evans. Kim Zmeskal. It was an amazing year.

And then it got better, I thought—the IOC separated the Winter and Summer Games into different years, so we had an oh-so-short wait before the next Winter Games. I was delighted at first, but the closing ceremonies had more of a sense of finality than usual, because there were no forthcoming Summer Games. A two-year gap didn’t seem so short any longer.

In some ways, the Olympics are better than ever because each set of Games gets its own year, without the world’s attention being divided between the two. But the price for making both versions more special was that The Olympics as a whole have lost some of their mystery. The rarity and sense of occasion is diminished when the Olympic rings never vanish from Coke cans and McDonald’s wrappers. A little bit of the excitement and anticipation is lost, because it’s always an Olympic year.

But why should my post-AIM life make me think of the Olympics? In many ways, my time in Scotland was no different from anyone else’s field time: I learned. I grew. My personal horizons broadened. More importantly, my spiritual life expanded as the bounds I had placed on what God could do were dissolved again and again. But my heart broke into pieces.

There’s a gorgeous story about Dr. David Livingston, one of the pioneers of western missionaries to Africa. His compatriots in Scotland wanted to give his body a proper burial in the country of his birth, but the African people he had devoted his life to were not wild about the idea. Their ultimate solution was to send Dr. Livingston’s body back, but keep his heart. Why? “His heart belongs in Africa,” they said.

Yes. This. Exactly.

As short-term missionaries, we left our hearts behind when we came home. But I’ve found that two years of my life wasn’t sufficient for Glasgow to have all of my heart. There’s a piece of my heart at Spring Mill Bible Camp, my teenage safe haven. Bits of my heart live in Denver City, where I spent so much time as an AIM student and assistant, and at South Plains Church of Christ, where Chadwick and I were members for 8 years. Slivers of me sit at South Plains College and the University of Texas. You’ll find pieces of my heart with Chadwick at our little apartment on the edge of Austin and at workplaces like BikeTexas and the Wound Care Center. Even more bits of my heart are scattered across the planet right now, attached to people I love who have touched my life and left me as a better person. A better follower of Jesus. Better able to love the next person I meet.

Maybe that’s why, even as a mere observer, I feel such an affinity with the Olympic Games: not just because of the passion and dedication of the athletes, not just because of the excitement and joy and emotion of giving one’s whole self to a single moment. It’s because despite the storms, through some horribly wrong days and because of wonderfully right ones, and in contact with many hearts and minds, the Games change, and grow, and keep striving to be better.

Don’t be afraid of scattering your heart. Don’t shy away from leaving pieces of yourself behind. It hurts when your heart breaks, but that pain is not worth comparing to the glory that awaits us at the time when we will again be made whole.

Cold Light

I deleted a tweet that I regretted yesterday.

If you come visit me, I will take
you to admire this. I will probably
not take you to OTR, because it's
a pricey place to hang out.

The New York Times ran an article this week about things to do in Cincinnati, which has been doing the rounds of all the local Twitter accounts. The article includes many local things I love, namely Red Bikes, the Purple People Bridge, the Roebling Bridge, and Cincinnati Shakespeare, so I wanted to share it. However, it also refers to Over the Rhine (OTR) as "the gentrifying district" with no other comment except to enthuse about all the fun things one can do there.

Factually, that's true. Not only is OTR gentrifying with lots of new (expensive) stuff popping up all the time, but if you keep walking north, you can practically see the line where the money runs out. I haven't been here for most of this process, but goodness knows I was in Austin long enough to see how many folks, usually people of color, had to push back against being priced out by developers from the neighborhoods where their families had lived for generations. A community with its own social cohesion and culture being scattered to the four winds by the "drive 'til you qualify" mentality is not exactly worth celebrating, no matter how many hip bars spring up where children used to play.

Last month, the Austin Statesman ran an online advertisement blatantly glorifying gentrification, which was pulled and replaced with an apology after the social media uproar engulfed them. I don't know if anyone in Cincinnati has made similar complaints about this NYT article. Maybe because they're not a local paper, maybe those who would complain have better things to do than reprimand every touristy column that gushes about OTR, maybe I just haven't seen them yet. I don't know. I tweeted the article with a comment that though the recs were solid, there was no need to be so happy about gentrification.

And then about 18 hours later I realized what a stupid thing that was to say and took it down. If praising--or even just being totes cool with--gentrification is a bad idea, then it doesn't matter how good the recommendations are. I don't know what OTR was like 10 years ago, but I do know that real people used to live and work and play there and now they don't. Outsiders may not have wanted to spend time there, and some bad things probably happened there. You know what? That's true of almost everywhere.

I don't have a solution to this web of issues. But if my way of entering the world is with words, then I have a responsibility to be careful with them, even in a casual tweet about a city I'm growing to love. And sometimes, as now, my responsibility is to shut up and listen to people who know more about this than I do, people who've been hurt and displaced and disconnected by an influx of "cool" into what used to be their home.

One might ask, "what took you so long?" and one would be correct. It takes me way too long, always, to remember that there are other people whose experience of the world has been dramatically different from my own.

What I Read: July

For the sake of accuracy, perhaps I should rename this series, "Not Reading a Freaking Thing." One of these days I'll do a craft post so I can share what I've been doing instead of reading.

As always, all links and images are from Goodreads. Let's be friends and you can see all the things I've read.

First-time reads:
Shakespeare's London on 5 Groats a Day, Richard Tames


Re-reads:
Unseen Academicals, Terry Pratchett
No Impact Man, Colin Beavan


Books by women:
Aaaargh.


Goodreads challenge: 15 of 52 books in 2017


What are you reading?

Sweat, Sun, Sheep, and Speedway: Indy Mini 2017

In case you missed all the fuss on Twitter or Facebook: I met my goal time at the Indy Mini by 12 seconds, AND I got the Meb high-five I was looking for. Hard to argue with that.

The weather report got progressively more depressing as last week went on, only for the skies to defy all expectations, as they are wont to do, and after a morning of the rain stopping then starting then stopping then starting then stopping then starting, it finally cleared off for good just as the winners were coming down the home stretch and I was somewhere past mile 2. (My wave started 30 minutes later than their wave. It didn't take me an hour to go two miles.)

The crowd support in Speedway, Indiana, is the best anywhere. They love this race, and it shows--I think the whole town was out on Saturday morning. Lots of high school cheerleaders were on the Speedway itself, which is much appreciated since it's the most boring stretch of the entire race. (Everybody was talking about that after--you go into this race thinking that running on the Speedway will be so exciting, and it turns out to be the most mind-numbing 2.5 miles known to half marathoning.) I did not kiss the bricks this year, partly because I was already moving faster than I had intended and there was a line, partly because since I was moving right along, I was afraid if I stopped and got that close to the ground I might not get up again, and...

Because I got my Meb-five and that was all I was after. Last year, Meb had quite an entourage running with him and everyone made a big fuss as he passed, so I was kind of expecting a bunch of people, or at least a giant "Here he is!" sign, but what actually happened was he was standing by himself on the track facing oncoming runners, and if anyone looked the wrong way they might have missed him. I mean, I've seen hundreds of pictures of Meb and heard his voice in many interviews, so it's not like I didn't recognize him, but the whole thing was so low-key I wondered a bit if I'd just high-fived some random gent who was looking for his friends. (I've high-fived so many random gents in the course of my running life that it's not like one more makes that much difference.) Anyway, I got my high-five and he said "Good job," and that was enough excitement for this race.

And the sheep. I'm pretty sure these were the same folks who dressed as the entire cast of Mario Karts last year, and I passed them all stopped at the exact same bar I saw them at in 2016, only for them to somehow get past me before the finish. Again. So, Bo-Peep and her sheep ran, walked, or otherwise goofed off for 13.1 miles, and I must have been more zoned than I thought to have missed a herd of sheep going by me in the final two miles. They were definitely having more fun than I was.

After spending the first five miles telling myself to slow down, only to look back down at my watch a minute later and seeing that I'd sped up again, I finally went with whatever my legs wanted to do knowing that I could always walk later if I ran out of steam. Except I got to mile 11 and was like, "No way am I stopping now." Y'all, Runner Su is back, and this time I hope she's back to stay instead of dropping in for a few miles and then disappearing again. I've missed her. I'm pretty sure my celestial running buddy was by my side, too, as he usually is.

The end result was an overall pace of 12:34/mile, which would have made Past Su lay on the floor and cry but is freaking flying for 2017 Su. My final time was 2:44:48, which is 20 minutes faster than 2016. Not only will I take it, my feet have barely touched the floor since I crossed the finish line.

For now, I have no races to train for (although I have a Cincinnati race calendar open right this minute--Cincy has a trail series!--so that won't last long), and there's no telling when I'll run 13.1 again. Maybe not until the Flying Pig a year from now. But (barring something really awful happening) this will certainly not be my last one.

Zoom!

That's the sound I'm going to make when I'm running on the Speedway on Saturday. Of course, I'll have to say it aloud, because my running is less "zoom" and more "plod," but whatever. Going slower just means I have more time to line up to high-five Meb, amirite?

I'm just gonna go get another set of these Saturday.

Seriously. If I manage to get a Meb-five, I don't even care if I break my leg on the next turn and have to be carried back via the nearest hospital. That's really all I'm going for.

So! Less than a week to go until my second running of the Indy Mini. As I did for El Paso, I'm guessing my final 12-mile training run time is likely to be close to my race day finishing time. I was a bit slower than that in El Paso, but here's the thing about Indianapolis--it's flatter than the flattest of pancakes. Unlike everywhere I look in Cincinnati, the closest thing the Indy Mini has to a hill is the ramp up to the Speedway. Where Meb will be. I think I got this.

This will be my 61st race and my 9th half marathon. There's nothing particularly significant about those numbers (except, hey! That's where all my money goes), but since I went to the trouble to look them up, I decided to share. You know what's going to be sad about this race? No one following me on a bike. So... anybody wanna come be my portable cheering section? It's flat!

Let's do this, Indy.

G is for Glencoe #AtoZChallenge

Join me on the A to Z Challenge: I'll share a different thing from my new home, Cincinnati, every day for 26 days in April.

Today's post is a two-fer, because I asked for suggestions on The Social Network that Is an Abomination and Shall Not Be Named but Is Still Useful From Time to Time, and I don't want to ignore them completely.

Graeter's Ice Cream was suggested and seconded. However, I haven't been there and I don't really want this series to devolve into "here's another local restaurant that I've heard of but haven't tried." But we did discuss it at length at Bible study earlier this week, which led to an interesting conversation about when a mom-and-pop store becomes a chain (I think 10 locations was the consensus we finally reached with the help of Google), which led to a brief mention of Schoolhouse Rock, and eventually left us all kind of hungry and craving ice cream. (Except me. Ice cream and I have a weird relationship that I shall not go into right now. I crave fro-yo instead and it's been working out well for about 15 years.) All that to say: If you're coming to Cincy and you need some ice cream, this is probably a place you want to check out.

One thing we have a lot of around here is cool old walls.
At least, I presume they're old. I suppose it's technically
possible they were built last year and were just
designed to look old.
Anyway. This is the wall on Glencoe Place.

So, Glencoe. It's a short street in my neighbourhood that is currently more of a construction zone than actual street. So why give it a post in the A to Z Challenge? Because here in this land where I waste a lot of time trying to pronounce all the German placenames in Spanish (a habit that will probably wear off eventually, but seriously, y'all, after 16 years in Texas I don't expect it to go away any time soon), I'm not about to turn away from a Scottish name that I can already pronounce, whose namesake I've visited to boot.

Having said that, while Glencoe village itself is a lovely place, and IIRC is the first place where I saw signs in both English and Scottish Gaelic, the first thing I think of when I hear "Glencoe" is somewhat less pleasant and I have to wonder who in Cincinnati's past thought, "Hey, let's name a street after the site of a brutal massacre!" If there had been social media in 1692, the street sign would probably have a hashtag on it.

Look at all that green. Spring doesn't screw around in
Cincinnati. Unrelated: I had to crop so much rubbish
out of this photo. Stop littering, folks. It's disgusting.

Tick Tock

I'm in Indiana this weekend visiting my grandma. (Our usual hilarity is likely to ensue, if you're among her many Twitter fans.) Why? Because not only do I enjoy her company, but also because it makes her happy, and the time left to make her happy is short.

After my dad's mother passed away two years ago, one of my cousins wrote a beautiful Facebook post about being out of time--our mutual grandmother was her last living grandparent--and how precious hours and minutes become when there aren't that many left. This was one broken heart beautifully expressing what we were all feeling but hadn't yet articulated--time was up, and all we are left with are the memories we collected over a lifetime. It's not enough. It never is. (This happened back before the arrival of the Hamilton album and "running out of time" becoming a meme in its own right.) 

Source.

Of course we know in our heads that we're all running out of time, always, with our nearest and dearest as well as ourselves. We're not guaranteed any more time, no matter how much we try to stave off those thoughts with good intentions and grand plans to do better next time. And honestly, why would anyone truly want to live each minute like it could be the last one? I'm not sure how our human brains would hold up under that kind of stress. (Not to mention that no laundry or dishes would ever get washed again.) At the end of Thornton Wilder's Our Town, having seen how short and precious life is, Emily says, "Oh, earth, you're too wonderful for anybody to realize you!" Mr. Wilder's insight burns with the intensity of a Bond villain's laser on the thing we're trying so hard not to think about--life is precious and fleeting, and it's too much to grasp in one go.

Now I'm the one with only one remaining grandparent. I still have some time, as quickly as it may be running out. It's not enough--it will never be enough--but it's all we have. When our last minute together arrives, I choose to be left with memories of the times I made grandma happy instead of empty regret. 

What are you running out of time for? 

Spring In Our Step

I literally forgot that I hadn't written my race recap yet, and sometime this weekend I thought, "How can I write a running blog this week when I haven't done any running?" I was going to make crap up until I remembered I didn't have to. It's fun inside this brain.

El Paso and the Springfoot Marathon, how do I love thee? Let me count the ways:

1. It's a tiny race. I've never run in a smaller race outside of the local running club races in Lubbock, certainly not one I had to travel hundreds of miles for (1500 miles. Someone asked and I looked it up). All of the runners were super supportive of one another--people were honestly talking to me like we were BFFs, to the point that I started to wonder if I'd met some of these folks before and just didn't remember them. Of course, with that few people and that much time together, we practically were BFFs by the time we finished.

2. Seriously, I can't get over how friendly they all were. A total stranger wandered up to me before the race and started to chat about growing up in El Paso (him) and how many races we'd run (both of us) and how far I travelled to be there (all me). He was pretty good-looking, too, so clearly I should have gotten his phone number. The crowd support along the course was thin, but who cares when we carried our own crowd support with us?

I played with the colours on this pic, because what better
time to play with colour than on someone else's pic?
So, the sky wasn't really that shade of turquoise. The
mountains were really there, though, and the course was
magnificient. Photo courtesy of the amazing Scott.
(Yes, my eyes are closed. I was taking a wee nap.)

3. Not that I needed crowd support, because I had my own. Do you ever get the feeling someone is following you? On a bike? While you're running a race? Marty (who I was staying with) was technically following her husband Shane, but I saw her a few times, too, and also heard her, because she was hauling music. Scott, who had to go to work long before I finished because I run about as fast as molasses flowing uphill in January, came downtown two hours before he had to be there and crisscrossed the course to wave, shout things like "Come on!!" (he caught me walking once, because I'd stopped to take a gel and I'm terrified to run and gel at the same time), and take pictures, which is great since I now have official permission to share his photos on my blog.

I'm pretty sure I didn't do anything to these photos and
the sky really was that blue. 

4. The aid stations had themes--I saw Star Wars, Mario Kart, and Harry Potter. No prizes for guessing which was my favourite. The best thing about the Potterstop, though, wasn't the costumes or the theme music; it was that they were also in character. Professor McGonagall wasn't smiling, Dobby was trying extra-hard to make everyone happy, Voldemort was sucking the life out of people (although that feeling may have been more related to Mile 11 than Voldy), Hagrid was cleaning up all the dropped cups. It was amazing.

5. There was a hill, but it wasn't terrible. You may remember I was a bit nervous about the hill in the middle of the race after looking at the course elevation chart a few weeks back. At the expo, local expert and pre-tour-guide extraordinaire Scott talked me through the entire course, pointing out all the places where the course went around the hills instead of over them, and summing up worst of the inclines as, "It'll be easier running than if you were on a bike." Having now run it with my bikey eyes: I agree. This is why I have so many bikey friends, y'all. They make my life better.

6. I got to finish here:

So that was cool. It's as pretty on the inside
as it is on the outside. The El Paso Chihuahuas
play here--I just learned that while writing this
and had no idea while I was running.
Photo courtesy of Marty the Magnificient.

7. The finisher medal is beautiful. My Indy Mini medal is still my favourite of all time, but Springfoot is definitely the prettiest one I own. I've been showing it off to everyone who made the mistake of standing still near me for more than 30 seconds in the past week. It's now hanging on my wall with all the rest of my medals, which should be a relief to my coworkers.

So on Saturday, when Marty and Shane asked how fast I thought I would run, I said I had 2:46 on my iPod but that may have been a tad optimistic. What I should have said, of course, was that I would go out way too fast, fade at about mile 3, the wheels would be completely off the wagon by mile 8, and I'd stagger home the last couple miles. That's what I do at every race, including this one. So, my final time was 2:50:55, which is not quite the "now let's go get a PR" launchpoint I was hoping it would be, but was better than I expected giving how I'd felt at race start. (I woke up with a headache, which I always knew would happen someday, and while it wasn't a full-fledged migraine, I did manage a few migraine-y symptoms. Whatever you're imagining right now: yes, that. And it lasted until the literal minute the race began.)

On the upside, Central Indiana is pancake-flat, which is a big help to this PR chase at the Indy Mini. I don't expect an absolute PR, as I've said before, but want to fly through it as fast as I can. I've heard this approach called something fancy that I can't remember, but essentially it's for those of us who can't run as fast now as we did in our 20s but who still work hard to keep getting better. Although, obviously, I'd love it if I can get down to my absolute PR again in the next year or two--it helps that I was never all that fast in my 20s. Regardless, Indy is ahead of me (insert "start your engines" joke here) and I plan to fall down once I'm past the finish line, after leaving everything on the road.

Ground Transportation

This tweet came rolling across my timeline a couple weeks before my latest adventure in roaming the country to escape my emotion of the day:

I’m convinced that the typical American’s experience with transit starts and ends in airports or at Disney theme parks.

— Yonah Freemark (@yfreemark) February 6, 2017

I can't speak about Disney from personal experience, although I have anecdotally heard similar sentiments about how everyone loves Main Street, USA, because of its car-free walkability and nostalgia and whatnot. If only they'd all go home committed to asking their city council to make their own main street more like that one, eh?

Airport transportation, however, is another thing. I use it almost every time I travel, usually to transfer between terminals, although during my layover at DFW on Monday afternoon I absolutely took Scott's excellent suggestion to ride around on the Skylink to combat boredom. (It's possible he was joking. I did it anyway, mostly in search of better food than what was on offer at my gate.)

I didn't take any pics on the DFW Skylink, nor on the train
in Houston, but I did see this back home. These signs are
 all through the Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky airport
to remind folks to be active while waiting for a plane.
Sure beats standing in another Starbucks line.

The Cincinnati airport has a train, too, although the trek through the underground tunnel between the terminals in a nice one and I've not yet been tempted onto the train. (In the interest of research for this post, I was planning to use it Monday night, but it was at middle-of-the-night service levels and as such, was not worth the wait.) I can certainly see its usefulness for the exhausted, the mobility impaired, those with small children, women wearing high heels, and anyone who isn't trying to squeeze a few more steps into her day to win a challenge on her wearable activity monitor.

So, here's my extremely unscientific observation: yes, airport transportation is a microcosm of our greater public transportation, in many ways. (Click through and read the whole thread above, by the way; it's great.) Folks stand anxiously in front of the doors staring up at the sign, then back at their ticket, then back at the sign again, before finally stepping aboard hoping they've made the right choice. They aren't certain what to do once inside--crowd by the door? (No.) Move further in and grab a rail to hang on? (Yes.) They're equally timid about stepping off again, in case they got the wrong exit. (Actual conversation I overheard in Houston on Friday: "This is our stop." "Are you sure?" "Yes, I'm sure." "How do you know?" "It's on the board right there, and there was just an announcement." "There was an announcement??" In fact, there were at least three.) And that's in an airport filled with employees who are literally paid to get you where you need to go. No wonder folks are so shy about using transit in places where mistakes in navigation take a lot longer to adjust, if the airport train causes that much anxiety.

But I don't think that's a good enough excuse. The things that make airport trains useful and attractive--frequency, reliability, safety, easy-to-understand wayfinding, speed--are the same ones that make all transit user-friendly and successful. Or the opposite, when those factors are missing. What if cities approached all public transit with the idea of moving a bunch of people in a hurry for low cost while minimizing their inconvenience?

That would be a great step toward making all our Main Streets the happiest place on earth.

When the Only Way to Cope is to Leave

I'm headed to El Paso tomorrow to run a half marathon--I may have mentioned it once or twice before now. But there's another reason I'm leaving town.

For the first Deathiversary, I went to Dallas. This year it's El Paso. I don't really want this to be a thing--that I have to go to a major Texas city every February 18--but the timing worked out well to go see some kind, welcoming friends on a day they know is hard. It'll be nice to cry at familiar faces instead of ones I've just met. And then the next day I can literally run away from my feelings. Brilliant.

I have standing permission to swipe (with credit, natch) photos
from Scott's social media, although now that I think about it he may have
only extended that permission if I were going to use them for BikeTexas.
I'm not sure we ever discussed me using them on my blog. Huh.
So, thank you, Scott! Also, wow, look at this sunrise. Can't wait to see that
in person. (And the race starts at 7 AM, so I'll get a good look at it.)
Photo source: @sbwhite on Twitter. (You should follow him. He's great.)

I work in a mental health office, with coworkers who are amazing and talented and just incredible at what they do, but you can understand why I hesitate to make the "running away from my feelings" joke in a building full of mental health counselors, in case they start to worry about me. Don't get me wrong; they probably should worry, but I don't want them to know that, either. Fortunately, not that many people who have to see me every day want to read my thoughts when they go home.

Anyway. Sitting alone in my apartment, even if I stocked up with ice cream and cookies and all the Netflix I can handle, does not appeal. If this day has to come round once a year, I'd rather greet it by being up and going and doing and running off to another city instead of hanging out here with the ghosts and memories and what-ifs and bitter regrets. This one day a year, I can't cope with solitude and silence. I can't take being alone on the day that began a long journey of loneliness. I can't.

And so far, running away from my feelings has been a valid coping strategy, so I'm not about to mess with that. See you tomorrow, El Paso.

Shuttling Between

Once upon a time, I rode a Greyhound bus from Tulsa, Oklahoma, to Indianapolis, Indiana, and then a few days later back to Lubbock, Texas. Believe me when I tell you: I never, ever want to do that again.

So... this is not a bus station. But this pic is from a trip to
Dallas last year, and at the end of the trip I took the train
back downtown to get back on my Megabus home.
That's what this photo is from.

However, I do willingly hop on cross-country buses for short segments between Midwest cities, including the Greyhound from time to time. It seems the presence of low-cost carriers (near me, we have Megabus and Barons Bus) have pushed Greyhound to up its game from back when they were the only outfit in town. I don't know how other folks make the choice between the two, but I choose Megabus when I have a couple weeks' advance notice and they have reserved seats available. Megabus is great for saving some cash, but is less great when passengers spread out over two seats and insist that their seatmate is just in the bathroom. To avoid a Forrest Gump scene: if I can't get a designated seat, I don't ride. So in those instances, or if I have to do a last-minute thing, I choose Greyhound. 

And I will add, while on the subject, that my last couple of Greyhound trips have been fantastic. Agents in the bus stations and drivers on the buses are all wonderful. However, that won't stop me from choosing Megabus when it can save me some cash. (I have no opinion on Barons Bus yet. Maybe soon.) The benefit of any of them, of course, is that I can read or sleep or whatever instead of driving.

This is on my mind right now because I went to Greenfield last weekend to visit my living grandmother and visit the grave of my not-living grandmother, but I wanted to be back in Cincinnati on time for church on Sunday. No bus option worked for me getting back without causing massive inconvenience to my family, so I took a Zipcar instead. I had the flexibility to get back on time, but unfortunately it costs four times as much as the Megabus on a busy day. It is as Terry Pratchett wisely noted in Unseen Academicals, "The less the money, the slower the travel," although when I consider that I'll have to work four times as long to have a little bit of flexible time--for most visits, it's not going to be worth that tradeoff.

Obviously, I want transit in the U.S. to keep getting better, faster, and more convenient, without sacrificing affordable prices. An Amtrak that came through Cincinnati not in the middle of the night, and that maybe would take fewer than 14 hours to get me to D.C. (plus another five hours to NYC, for goodness' sake), would be a dream. What would it take to get that?

One Week More

One week to go! I have a final speedwork planned, which means not a thing here in Su-Land because I'm not that good at it, but otherwise four easy running days this week before Sunday.

By the way, here are Cincinnati and El Paso's forecasts for next Sunday. I'll let you guess which is which:

So much for that "warm weekend getaway" plan. At least there are still lovely people to see. I hope they don't all need to urgently go out of town on Saturday.

Get excited, y'all, we're about to run 13 miles!

Time to Park

Today's my transportation day, and I have good news: you can bike, walk, roll a wheelchair, kayak, ride a horse, drive, and some combination of the above through the great treasures that are our national parks.

Getting there? Well, we have planes, trains, automobiles, buses, streetcars, bicycles--however works best for you. See? Transportation!

Visit a national park near you. Check out their websites and learn things. Send them an email or a tweet to let them know how awesome they are. Contact your elected officials and tell them what our parks mean to you. (While you're doing that, the Bureau of Land Management could also benefit from your voice.)

Look at this trail! LOOK at it!! It's not nearly finished, but once it is--wow.
And one of the finished segments is near me!

And you can support the national parks here.

Sudden Stop

My father has been a CDL holder since the licensing began in 1986. When the program was coming into effect, his employer handed round training materials to all of their drivers to study for the written exam. For the couple weeks before the exam date, watching the CDL training videos was a fun-filled family activity--we probably could have all passed the written exam after our intense studying.

Image source: Reddit.

One of the training videos was all about driving on steep grades, including the use of a runaway truck ramp if the truck loses brakes in the mountains. (Said ramps often slope uphill--sometimes a really steep hill if it's a short ramp--and are filled with deep gravel or sand to bring the truck to a safe stop. There are other kinds, too, with mechanical arrestors and barricades and whatnot.) Central Indiana is not really known for its mountains, so the existence of runaway truck ramps has been something that's lurked in the back of my brain for 30 years with no practical use, since driving large and heavy vehicles is on my Never-Ever list for this lifetime.

Until I drove from Cincinnati to D.C. a few weeks ago, passing through West Virginia. I saw a sign that read, "Runaway Truck Ramp 1 Mile" and of course the "useless information" section of my brain lit right up. Sure enough, it looked exactly like I'd always pictured it.

The day I drove to D.C. was also my father's birthday, so I called him that evening to tell him I was walking along Pennsylvania Avenue toward the White House, and oh, I saw some runaway truck ramps on the drive in. No prizes for guessing which one he was more excited about--he's never seen one in person, either.

"Did you have to use it?" he asked, because everybody's a comedian, and then he went on to tell me that if I used it, I'd have to be towed back out. Then he said, "You probably wouldn't have to have your bicycle towed out. You can probably just pick that up and walk out." I was about to ask how far he thought I would fly if I hit one of those ramps on a bicycle, when he added, "Of course, you're going to go over the handlebars if you hit one of those on a bike." Yeah. Wherever I landed, I doubt I would be walking away.

Anyway, like many last-ditch safety features, most of these ramps are not used a lot (thank goodness, although there's one in Colorado that's used 20+ times a year), but when they're needed, they're critical. Caltrans posted a video a few months back of one in action--you can see in the video how fast the truck stopped. It's incredible how such a simple idea as having a gravel pit as a backup plan can save lives.

What's a backup plan you hope to never, ever use?

Will It Grow? Secret Garden, Round Two

I do not consider myself particularly lucky, especially when it comes to critical life moments like choosing a checkout queue at the supermarket or finding a good parking space, but sometimes, some really great times, I'm the luckiest person alive.

Signed by (top to bottom) Jason
Forbach (Albert Lennox), Jared
Michael Brown (Lieutenant
Wright), Maya Maniar (Ayah),
& Henry Baratz (Colin Craven).

I had one of those great times when I got to return to D.C. only a couple weeks after I saw The Secret Garden to see it a second time. My show ticket and place to stay were provided by other kind and generous folks, making this trip both awesome and affordable. Thank you, kind and generous folks!

This show closed in D.C. last weekend, but if you're in Seattle, you're in luck--they're coming to you soon. Don't miss it. Please don't miss it. If nothing else, you'll get to see it in the spring, which is obviously the correct season for a show that includes a song called "Winter's on the Wing."

Spoilers after the jump.

Because I Can Never Say Enough Things About Libraries

It was a very bookish trip to D.C. this time around (the more so if I count The Secret Garden under "books"), with visits to Folger Shakespeare Library, the Library of Congress, and Politics and Prose bookstore.

I landed at Folger Shakespeare Library first, where I was met by a docent at the door who asked, "Are you here for the tour or the exhibit?" Naturally, I said, "Can I do both?" and she agreed that that was a terrific idea.

The exhibit at the moment holds various folios have have travelled around the US during 2016 so that folks across the country could have a look at some of the Folger collection, which was pretty cool, but no matter how amazing the exhibit is, it can't hold a candle to the Folger tour. (Not that candles are allowed. That would be dangerous with all the old books.)

If you're even a little bit interested in theatre or Shakespeare, and you think you may ever visit D.C., put the Folger Library on your list and be sure to take the tour. The docents are incredibly knowledgeable, anxious to answer as many questions as possible, and just all-round fun, as you can imagine from people who spend their professional lives around Shakespeare's words. (Their social media team is also fantastic & worth a follow.) Whether you can visit the library or not, the Folger editions of Shakespeare's plays are helpfully annotated and good choices for reading/homeschooling/keeping on your shelf/etc. Although if you're teaching your kids Shakespeare, please please PLEASE be sure to see the plays onstage, too. That's how they're meant to be experienced!

It's possible I may have been humming "God, I Hate Shakespeare" from Something Rotten through the whole tour. Maybe. It could have been someone else.

Top row: theatre inside the library, Hamlet, Puck, Romeo and Juliet.

One down, two to go. Next up was the Library of Congress, and I bet you've already guessed what I'm going to say next: GO! The artwork alone is worth a trip, but then you get a peek into the main reading room (and have to take a break to get over fits of jealousy for people who're allowed in there), and the Jefferson Library, with quite a lot of his original books still intact and on display (not in use, of course), and whatever exhibits are in season.

I was there for the final week of the "America Reads" exhibit, which showcases American authors who've shaped the country with their work. Obviously, that's a pretty wide range of folks, so it's probably just as well that I wasn't responsible for deciding which authors and books were included. God bless librarians who are capable of making those kinds of tough choices.

L to R, top row first: Christmas tree; Jefferson Library; stairs to the reading room;
Jefferson Library entrance; two of the many quotes near the ceiling;
building front; one of many pretty parts of the ceiling.

And finally--Politics and Prose Bookstore. They were listed in an article about bookstores worth travelling for that someone sent me recently, and since I was already travelling, I took a train and a Capital Bikeshare out to have a look. And then wished I'd started there.

While I have a running list of favourite bookstores on the planet*, my real favourite is usually whichever one I'm standing in. And Politics and Prose is delightful. First of all, I'm fairly convinced they use a Charles Rennie Mackintosh font, although I've not been able to find confirmation on this so far (but it sure looks like it).

It's a beautiful store, with lots of friendly staff and happy (at least when I was there) patrons. And a fantastic cafe downstairs. While I of course want you to visit, I'm a book person. I just want you to go to whatever bookstore, or library, or provider of books is near you. No airplanes required.

I own three copies of Les Misérables and don't need a fourth,
so I settled for taking a pic of this gorgeous, amazing cover.
Just looking at it again makes me sad I left it behind.
What I didn't leave behind: This beautiful picture created out of the early chapters
of The Secret Garden. And since I was in D.C. to see Secret Garden onstage,
it wasn't a hard decision.

What's your favourite book place? (And if you want to spend some relaxing and entertaining time on Twitter, I have a list of just book places.)


*In approximate order of current love: BookPeople, Austin; Strand Books, New York; Bookmamas, Indianapolis; Caledonian Books, Glasgow; Hester Books, Lubbock; Booksellers, Cincinnati; Books & Brews, Indianapolis. Politics and Prose will have to fit in there somewhere.

Rolling Right Along: Capital Bikeshare and Pennsylvania Avenue

I went to D.C. twice in December. Not on purpose.

Well, okay, yes on purpose, but while the first one was planned a few weeks ahead of time, the second one was a surprise that I willingly said 'yes, please!' to and had a lot less time to make plans for.

Anyway. Y'all know my life is basically about books, bikes, and buses, right? With some (frequently book-based) theatre on the side? Those are also what my two days in D.C. were all about on trip #2. I navigated the city via train (instead of buses, and it was very easy. For a tourist, anyway. I might be less pleased if I lived there all the time), with a couple breaks in the middle to take a spin on Capital Bikeshare.

It's going to be a while before I get tired
of looking at this pic. Pennsylvania Avenue
bike lanes, with the Capitol in the background.

Naturally, I chose the bike lanes that run between the White House and the Capitol via the middle of Pennsylvania Avenue for this adventure, although the D.C. bikeway network is growing, and I definitely want to check out more of it in the future. Due to some nightmare construction or upgrages or whatever at DC Metro, Capital Bikeshare has a one-way $2 fare right now, in addition to the $8 day pass or other memberships, which is meant to help commuters cover their first and last mile needs. I wasn't planning to ride all day, so $2 for a one-way zoom through the nation's capital was a pretty good deal. (Although I did not zoom. As I told my friend Scott, I rode as slowly as possible to savour the trip while it lasted.)

I did not take a picture of my bikeshare bike, for reasons passing understanding, but I did at least stop for a quick Periscope, and I think there's a glimpse of the bike in there. I haven't rewatched it, and I was pretty excited, so there's no telling what gibberish comes out of my mouth in that video. Ye be warned.

I managed another quick trip on Day 2, this time to complete a literal last mile between my train stop and the bookstore I was headed to. Just as I experienced in D.C. (and in Austin, and in Cincinnati), researchers have found over and over again that bike share works best when it's integrated into the public transportation system. And D.C.'s current $2 promotion to help bridge some gaps in the transit network is a great step in the right direction. I'm so glad I got to be a part of it, even if it was for one short day.

What's a cool/exciting/out-of-the-ordinary thing you've done lately?