Light it Up.
This weekend BB and I went to Memphis and Jonesboro, AR, for a wedding of one of her friends. It was subtly Harry Potter themed, and a really good time. They had a mac and cheese bar with sugar-brined jalapeños. It was absurd. They also had a cupcake platter that kept being replenished as if by magic. I ate a lot of cupcakes.
The weather was fabulous. Cool, sunny, and just a little breezy. We did a 14 mile run, at just under an 11 minute pace. Though, the first couple miles were slower for crossings and shoe issues. So, we kept up a very strong long run for a long time. Our last marathon pace was 11:25 min/mi. If we end up at 11:00 this time, I’ll be more than thrilled. As usual, the goal is to finish. But I’d love to be out there running for maybe not quite 5 hours this time.
We came back to ECC Sunday evening and did a tempo run Monday morning. I was nervous about it. I haven’t really tried to run any distance and any speed except the 10km race last weekend, and I failed rather spectacularly at that. I didn’t know what I’d have in my tank. I just had a 5 mile run on my calendar, and so I was going to jog it out. BB had a 5 mile tempo run, and wanted to do a 1 mile jog warm-up before.
So I told her I’d jog with her, and then see if I could keep up when she turned it up. It was cool (65 degF) and dry, and a little breezy. The warm-up jog, a mile at an 11 minute pace, felt ok after my legs shook out, and when BB sped up I stayed with her. We turned in three 9:25 minute miles in a row, and I felt like I was doing easy work. Best I’d felt in a long time.
So I asked, as we ticked into our fifth mile, “For the last mile, want to light it up?” BB said sure. We finished our fifth mile at 9:15, and then bolted. I ran as hard as I could, and we started with a nice downhill. My legs were burning and my lungs were heaving and I just ran like hell. A mile is a long way to run like hell. It hurts. Especially if you’ve already done five miles.
I kept waiting for BB’s watch to jingle. It took forever. Time goes very slowly when you’re pushing as hard as you can. But finally the odometer ticked over and we stopped, gasping. 7:47.
I ran a mile in seven minutes and forty-seven seconds. It’s not the fastest mile I’ve ever run; I did a 7:27 about two years ago. But it’s the fastest I’ve run in a very long time. And it’s far faster than I thought I could do now. My fitness is not shit, it turns out. I have some fast miles in me. I’m proud as hell of that mile, at the end of a longish tempo run. I have a half marathon in a couple of weeks, and I’m excited to get it in, now.
Two in a row, good training runs that build some confidence. Let’s go. There’s a thing to get done.
Chance, Choice, Reaction.
In AA we spend a lot of time talking about what we can control and what we can’t. Life will happen, you can’t choose what gets thrown at you on the wings of fate. All we can do is take it a day at a time. My house is going to leak, sometimes. Or I might break my leg. Or my employer might decide they don’t want my services anymore. Who knows. the world spins and eddies of misfortune spin at all of us. We have to absorb them. Some of those misfortunes are ones, just or not, that we are born with.
But we have choices as well. Each day when I wake up I decide to spend the day sober. I decide to go to work or not. I decide to run. I decide to rest. I decide to cook or to eat junk. I decide to go to my meeting or skip it. I decide to antagonize others or attempt to be a voice of serenity. I may be more or less successful in enacting these decisions, but they are mine. And failing at following through on something I decide to do is its own kind of decision.
I have more decisions. Ones that I think are often not recognized by the world at large as decisions. I can choose to be offended or not. I can choose to be baited when someone wants to hurt me. I can choose to be angry at politics or religion. I can choose to balance my work life and my social life in a way that makes sacrifices of one for the other. I can choose to be angry about the circumstances of my genes and birth. Or I can choose to be entitled by them. I can choose to be angry I have to make these choices.
Most of us choose not even to recognize they are choices. It took me some 33 years to do so. And at least another two or three of practice before I could act, even imperfectly, on that recognition. And I’m not perfect at it now. But I see the choices I have. And I can take ownership when I make choices that make me unhappy. I can take ownership when I choose to be unhappy.
For me, now, most so-called “negative” emotions are the emotions of reaction. Unhappiness is much more akin to surprise than it is to satisfaction. When something comes along that I can’t control but wish were different, or when I realize too late I’ve made a bad decision, or when a bad decision I made on purpose finally bears its rotten fruit. Then I am distinctly and often deeply unhappy. That lasts until I recognize it, identify my part, and then select and action to take to address it.
After that comes determination.
And eventually, acceptance and usually satisfaction or happiness again. Because I have changed my circumstance, or recognized that life is simply going to batter me for a bit. Because I can recognize how I led myself into these circumstances. Because I can take action to change them.
There is no fairness in life except what we choose to make. And working towards greater fairness is a noble goal. I admire those working towards it, and I like to think I’m one of them. But there is no way to make life truly fair. For the most part, I got lucky. In a few respects, I got a very short draw indeed. But I’m not satisfied with my life because I have been, overall, given a much better deal than a bad one.
I’m satisfied with my life because I’ve been taught a perspective that allows me to accept that I will not win every battle. I am not exempt from trouble. I don’t deserve any more than any one else. And I understand that most of my problems are self-created. And I believe that that’s true of almost everyone.
I know it is, because I mingle daily with persons who have come from far less, suffered much more, and then done much worse than I have. And though some have risen far further, most have not. Most live modest lives of graceful utility doing simple work we take for granted. And almost all of them are happy. And almost all of them see the value in their lives and offer of themselves to others.
I am an alcoholic. My disease is one of the most misunderstood and denigrated, shamed, and hated afflictions. I am a fortunate alcoholic. Not only to be in recovery, but not to have murdered or burgled or beaten or robbed. But I sit daily with those that have. I count them among my friends. We sit in the basement of a church, and we laugh about how good our lives are. Even as we continue to suffer the consequences of our actions. Even as society considers us reprobate. Immoral. Weak.
We use simple terms to describe ourselves. Lowlife. Scum. Asshole. Thug. And we use the past tense.
Take away the alcohol, begin to understand the choice. We drank to express the anger, to act on animal impulse. To give permission. Excuse.
Now, in sobriety, I have been given something that feels like a superpower: I get to choose how I feel about things, even when I am made victim of injustices. I may react with rage or malaise or bitterness. But that’s only my reaction. My choice is to respond to chance with determination. To find my part, how I led myself to a low place I don’t want to inhabit, and then how I can climb my way out of it.
And that last part, well, it starts with grabbing the outstretched hand of another drunk. Which is why, as I’m climbing, I’m always reaching back for a hand that might need mine.
The Spring Racing Season.
Well, my fall races haven’t even really begun and the spring racing season is almost upon us. To get the bibs you want, for lots of races you need to be paying attention and sign up six to nine months in advance. For example, I looked at the London Marathon and it’s been sold out for months already.
BB and I have decided to shift to a spring full marathon, because I just can’t train through the summer and maintain my fitness. It’s too hot, I’m too lazy. Also, that will allow me to get my triathlon in in the fall, when the summer runs are shorter and the bike is doable in the heat.
So we signed up for a little community marathon deep in Amish country in April. Should be a nice temp, the training through the winter will be lovely, and it will be a gorgeous rural race. We’re staying in a little bed and breakfast. It’s a Saturday race so we’re looking forward to a nice weekend away with a long run.
Getting fit for a marathon is a big task. And doing so while battling heat is even bigger. I’m looking forward to being able to do so without feeling like I’m running in a sauna.
A First, and not a Good One.
Yesterday I had to walk briefly during my 10 km race. At mile 5.5, I was so hot and dehydrated I walked for about two minutes, then jogged for a few minutes, walked again, and then finally jogged the rest of the way in. I finished in 1:02 and change. Which is about a 10:07 pace. Last year, I did this same race at a 9:07 pace. I’d never walked during a race before.
This year was 5 degrees warmer, 10% higher humidity, and no wind, compared with a 7mph breeze last year. All convenient excuses for the truth: I am not nearly as fit as last year. I’ve run about 250 fewer miles this year than last. And while I’ve put a lot of bike miles in, they just don’t do the same thing for me as running.
Heat is incredibly challenging for me, but I managed it far better last year than this year. I did that because last year I got out there and ran in the heat, however slowly, four or five times a week. This year I’ve been lazier, and differently focused. I know what I need to do, but I’m reluctant to do it because it’s hard.
If I want to do another triathlon, I need to add the bike and swimming to my running. Not replace it. I have gotten myself into a place right now where being marathon fit in November is going to be a real challenge. I’m embarrassed about that. I’m still just kind of flabbergasted that I could train for and complete an Olympic triathlon while losing fitness.
It says something about me that “I’m not in shape” has come to mean, “I am not, at the moment, in the best shape of my life.” I have long lived in the realm of superlatives. I am the best or the worst or whatever. It’s an exhausting place to live. It’s a kind of obsession. I have never had any trouble accepting that I am not the best athlete. But it is very difficult to accept that I’m not the best I’ve ever been, right now.
I let myself falter. And not being the best I’ve ever been feels like it means its not worth doing anything. So I tell myself, over and again, that my goal is not to be the best I’ve ever been. That’s fine and nice. My goal is to not get diabetes. My goal is to be able to hike and travel and explore when I’m 80. My goal is to be fit for trying new challenges with my partner.
And yet, when my fitness lapses, despite my regular endeavors to maintain or improve it, I feel lazy and stupid and fat and ugly and ashamed. Instead I need to look at what I’ve accomplished. I look good in a suit. I can run a long way. I can finish a marathon and a triathlon. I don’t drink or smoke. I’m maintained my mental health to the point that I can productively participate in a relationship. My life is good.
I am not currently in the best shape of my life. And that’s ok.
The Broken and the Whole.
I live between the broken and the whole
But am no citizen of either side
I’ve come to understand a different role
I fought to swim the vanguard of the shoal
But learned when others fly I only glide
I live between the broken and the whole
I once pretended distant shores my goal
Or some lost place as far as I could ride
I’ve come to understand a different role
For I am neither stallion nor the foal
The unremarked corral where I reside
I live between the broken and the whole
Though I have nursed a lost and broken soul
I’ve risen – muck to middle – for my pride
I’ve come to understand a different role
I reach to you, still mired in the hole
And you can heed my hand and still decide
To take and understand a different role
To live, between the broken and the whole
House Selling Progress.
An adorable young couple has made, and I have accepted, an offer on my home in St. Louis. I’m losing money. The St. Louis housing market never really recovered from the big recession, and I’m going to be getting back about 85% of what I paid for the home. That’s ok. I can afford the loss, and if you think of it in dollar terms, along with the upgrades I put into the home, it means I paid roughly $700/mo to live in the house. That’s quite reasonable.
Of course there’s still a lot to do and have done. Inspections, appraisals, etc. etc.. I will have to have a few additional repairs made, I’m sure. Hopefully nothing extensive or invasive. And then I will stop owning that home and start owning a small pile of cash instead. I might buy a car. But I’m most likely to simply invest the rest toward retirement. And then I’ll be finished with my life in St. Louis. Which makes me a little sad.
Maybe I’ll come back for the marathon in the spring.
How Do You Change Visions?
I am fond of telling people with academic resumes that there are many other kinds of jobs out there. After all, I have one of them. I’ve had a few of them. My job is, I think, a lot better than an equivalent-rank professor’s job. I don’t have to scare up my salary in grants. I don’t have to teach or be subject to the whims of students. I make a decent bit more money than I would as a professor. And I still get to do interesting “research”, such as it is, and publish my work and present at conferences and whatever.
But I am not an academic. I am a middle manager in a large hospital. If I am ever going to be a professor, it will be adjunct. I was an adjunct professor before. I will probably be again, but I am not likely ever to be on the tenure track, or even a non-tenure track full time researcher. My career decisions have taken that from me, and that’s ok. I am good at what I do, and I work for a prestigious institution with a mission I believe in. I’m just not faculty.
But being an academic and a researcher is part of my vision of myself. And in part because of twitter, and the academic community I’ve become a part of there, I’ve tried to wedge myself in to academia. I do novel investigations! I publish! I get small, occasional grants! I’ve had real academics in my family! See? I’m one of the cool kids.
But I’m not. And the truth is, I had my chance at that world and I was marginally successful for a while, but I didn’t work hard enough, and I left for a better set of working conditions. And I got them. So why am I still trying to keep my foot in that door? Why do I pretend I have relevant opinions on federal funding and budgeting, on grant awards, on publication policy? I am an outsider, face against the glass.
I do that in many communities. I’m not good enough at anything to be an insider. So I do my best at a lot of things and latch on to those I can perform just well enough to seem like a participant for a while. Running. Music. Writing. Academics. Math. Science. I’m not actually adept at any of these things. I’m a poseur in almost every aspect of my life. I desperately want the people who are actually good at these things to think I’m good enough to be one of them.
I am not. I once might have been. Alcohol and indolence undid those dreams.
I can already hear some of the scientists who I know read this thinking, “Oh yes, I have impostor syndrome too.” I am not suffering from impostor syndrome. I have intentionally inveigled myself into societies where I do not belong, and cannot compete, because of what I want to think about my own quality, when it is not there. I am not an faux-impostor. And I am not a real impostor either – I cannot pass for these things I’d like to be.
I am simply a groupie. A person who so admires what others do that he wants to be somehow insinuated into the world where they do those things. Impostors at least have the talent to pretend.
So how to I change my vision? My vision of myself, my vision of the world I want to live in? My vision of my career? I am judged by things now that are not the things I would like to judge myself by. Corporate interests. Management. All those spiky buzzwords we love to mock and disparage. Finding my way in that world requires some heaving involution of my intent and efforts.
I am 42 years old. And I do not know what I am. I have spent so long forging false identities, I’ve neglected the mold of a real one. What should I be? What is left among these untended paths that I can still be? Or should I meekly accept the truth of my life as I have built it so far: I am nothing sturdy.
And I have never found much honor in flimsy things.
Continuing Failures.
Well, I did not have what it takes to do the 12 miles in the heat Saturday morning. We went the whole twelve miles, but I didn’t run the whole way. My legs had it, but I didn’t. I am simply not equal to the heat during the summer. My heart race races, I overheat, and I can’t go on. I’m gaining weight, and I’m not feeling fit. I don’t know what to do in the short term to fix it.
In the long term I know: eat less and exercise more. My body isn’t really changing shape as I’ve put on a few pounds, and I know that some of the weight I’ve gained is muscle, because I’m lifting weights and I can see the difference. But I’m also at way too high a body fat percentage, and as I’ve gained muscle I haven’t leaned down at all.
The result is I tried to drag 192 pounds through 12 miles at 80 degrees and 89% humidity and I couldn’t do it. I only made it about four miles before having to walk the first time. The full twelve took us about three hours. Which is a long time to be run-walking drenched in sweat and miserable. But we made the distance.
I really hope we have a cooling trend soon. At 70 degrees I can run a long time. And at 50, I can run forever. At least, I could last year. The marathon was a little warm last year, a low of 54 degrees, warming to 71 by the end of the race. And we did it. If historical averages hold, the marathon this year should have a low of about 38, and a high of about 54. Which sounds absolutely mesmerizing to me.
I am objectively in worse shape than I was last year this time. I’m slower, and I can’t finish long runs I was finishing last year. So I have to work harder. And I have to do something about my eating. Which means, don’t buy any more goddamn peanut butter. Because I can’t resist eating a third of a jar with a spoon and a glass of milk. No more little treats at work. I can cut 1000 calories a week without missing them if I’m just reasonably circumspect about my consumption.
If I lose the 5-7 pounds I’ve put on, and get my short runs in despite the heat, I should be ready to do the long runs even on the challenging days. This weekend the forecast calls for 68 at dawn on Saturday. Hopefully, after a few runs this week, I’ll be able to meet that challenge. Much is mental. But overheating is brutal, and I don’t know what to do except get into better shape, so my body is more efficient and doesn’t produce (and conserve) so much heat at the same energy levels.
I’m disappointed in my fitness at the same time as being proud of what I’ve accomplished this year. It’s a weird place to be. In the past year I’ve run a full marathon, broken the two hour mark in a half-marathon, I ran a 1:25 ten-miler, and finished my first triathlon. And no little kid’s version either. A 44 kilometer, hot, humid beast. I’ve achieved things I never thought possible.
And here I am, being stupidly mad at myself for not being fit. I guess I’ll just have to do better.
Disappointed in my Fitness.
I have had two horrible runs this week, and one halfway decent one. I did better last week, but not by much. It’s hot. Really hot, and that’s part of the deal, no question. But I’m not feeling right, and it’s visible in my performance. Additionally, my right knee and left hamstring are injured. The knee has been slowly getting better. The hamstring is new as of the last few days, and getting worse.
As fun as the triathlon was, and as rewarding to finish and test myself, riding a bike this past year and replacing some of my running with miles on two wheels instead of two feet has been awful for my fitness. Running is just so much more work. For me, a mile run is work at least three or four miles ridden. There may just not be any way to get the fitness on a bike as there is on my feet. My heart rate won’t spike on the bike like it does on my feet or at the gym.
And so, even though I’ve been getting the hours in, exercise-wise, I haven’t maintained the cardiovascular fitness I had this time last year. I’m heavier, slower, and laboring in the heat. I’m injured more. I really enjoy riding, which makes me sad, because I can’t justify it if I want to maintain a high (for me) level of fitness. It just doesn’t sustain me.
I suspect a biking enthusiast would tell me: well just ride harder! Lovely idea, but I don’t have long rural roads on which to do that. I have city streets or I have public paths. Both are crowded and require regular slowing to share with cars, other bikes, or joggers. I simply can’t get the exercise on my bike that I can running, and I’m feeling the couple-hundred miles I haven’t run now.
Tomorrow I need to run 12 miles. It’s going to be in the mid-80s. And humid. And I don’t know if I have the legs. Between my injuries and my poor fitness, I don’t know if I can do it. This time last year I was putting down 15 and 16 mile runs at a 10:40 pace. None of those days were quite as bad as tomorrow will be. Morning temperatures were in the high 60s or low 70s. The low temp tomorrow will be 81. It’s going to be hard.
BB and I are going to shift to a spring marathon this coming year. The long training runs in the winter will be far better. A marathon in April, and training from January on, will be much easier to manage. Then the fall can be about half marathons and maybe my traithlon again. We’ll see. Right now, I’m disappointed in myself. I don’t have the fitness or the grit I feel like I should.
Tomorrow will be a test. I don’t know, right now, if I can meet it.
What Makes a Calling?
Reading my friend Psyc Girl’s post about “living your calling” this morning has me wondering, what makes a calling? It’s something I’ve actually spoken out against, in science, but – as with most things on twitter – fumblingly and in brief, unfocused ejaculations. Because I’m not anti-calling. I’m 100% for it! Sort of! What do I mean?
To me, a calling is emotionally inextricable from religion. The first exposure I had to the word was religious – people I knew spoke of being called to missionary service or the priesthood. Being called meant having an irresistible urge to serve God, and to accept hardship, poverty, grueling toil, and perhaps even martyrdom to do so. It meant traveling far and wide, adhering to what was written on one’s sinew as truth, and accepting death rather than compromise.
Religion was not the only realm in which a calling existed though. I soon was given to understand the concept of an artistic calling. A kind of mania that allowed one to do nothing but create. An exultant suffering. Being called to art meant the same ascetic life. Poverty, itinerance, and enlightenment.
Those were the pillars of a calling. Not only being willing, but being compelled by God or from within to pursue a kind of rapturous integration between the self and the profession. An accountant, perhaps, was simply a person with a job. An artist or a nun or a missionary had blended lines where the person melted into the vocation and became a single entity.
There has arisen a culture of the calling in science. Perhaps it’s been with us a long time. Certainly the mathematical ascetic is a stereotype. But now, the biosciences, chemistry, physics, too have adopted the calling as the truest expression of desire for a scientific career.
One must be willing to endure a decade or more of low wages and miserable living conditions to advance to the world of leading a research lab. One must adopt an identity of “scientist” which dominates other aspects of one’s identity and comes with supplemental addenda which cannot be discarded: atheism, skepticism, progressivism. These requirements winnow the identity – with ecclesiastical rigor – into a small field of true believers.
Science is a great pursuit and scientists make critical contributions to society and community. But we have created a religion around it, rather than science simply being a profession at which the adept can labor happily. One must be called, in order to lead a life of science. And once one is a scientist, one is always a scientist, even if one leaves science: it has become an identity which consumes the self.
I am not an academic scientist. I am a sort of faux-academic science engineer. But I am not called to that. It is not my identity. I can imagine changing careers and becoming deeply invested in some other path. I was once sort of on the path to the academic life, but alcohol derailed me. Then I nearly returned to it before accepting the position I have now.
I enjoy my job. I believe in my institution. And I appreciate working here. But it is not the core of my life, the center of my existence. I do not sacrifice for my career, the way an academic must sacrifice for science. My career sustains me. It allows me to do the things I truly love, and be with people I love to be with. It provides me with a sense of contribution and social responsibility. But it is not the thing I love and want to be with. It is not my church.
And crucially, not being called to my work means that I am not a disgrace if I choose to change my career. I am not an apostate or a failure. We have arranged science as a pyramid where those at the top benefit from the labors of those new entries, and those multitudes who cannot, by the constraints of the system, advance are heaped with shame and scorn if they choose to break with the toxic apparatus of academic science.
Being called as a scientist means accepting a miniscule chance rising to the stability and acclaim and rewards of making major contributions, while enduring the much greater risk of being cast out and deemed insufficient. And being told that you yourself must consider yourself a failure if you do not ascend to the rarefied heights of tenured professorship.
So I don’t really want to have a calling. For those that do, I encourage them. If truly the priesthood, or professorship, or artistry is the only thing you can imagine doing with your life, and your vision of contentment is entwined with those goals, then go fight for them. That’s your desire? May you be blessed on your journey.
But I would rather be as I am. Perhaps without so fierce a sense of purpose. But content, and able to find my next path gladly if this one runs out.
Infactorium 