Run DMZ

Something amazing happened when we were all hunkered down earlier this year: The earth quieted down too. I’m not just talking about the sharp decrease in trucks and tankers and trains and white noise and run-of-the-mill congestion. The planet actually stopped coughing and shivering from all of our human hacking.    Don’t believe me? Then  read this article recently published in Science . See, humans are among the main producers of high-frequency “seismic noise.” Not only do we generate our own seismic activity both on and below the surface, but that activity tends to drown out simultaneous natural phenomena. When we all quieted down in quarantine, so did the seismographs around the world that record such movement.    I’ve been thinking a lot about how the pandemic is reshaping our relationship with our environment. I'm convinced we’re experiencing a Lorax-level reckoning and it both comforts and concerns me. On good days, I marvel that I can still get anywhere i...

I'm gonna go ahead and call it: The tomatoes are a bust.    It’s been close to three months and to date my yield remains three still-very-green tomatoes from one of six plants that produced ample yellow flowers but no fruit.    My peppers are doing better, but only one has turned the promised color on the plant card; the rest remain stubbornly green and several are now mottled.    So goes my first foray into my urban victory garden. Pretty plants, I can grow. But functional ones, not so much. Part of the problem may be the containers—too shallow to support the stakes I bought for the plants’ support. I think the soil is OK, but that will be determined once I’m brave enough to bite into my bounty. I also am no longer sure creating this container garden on my second-story walkout worked. Our local bees must have lost their invitation to the pollination party. I thought the plants were self-pollinating, but if that’s the case, they should have been way more un...

  The other day I recalled a conversation decades ago with a fellow member of a corporate running team known as The Deadliners.  One of the stars of the team was running late for a highly competitive 10k in downtown Norfolk. We feared she’d be a no-show and, as a result, we wouldn’t make it onto the podium that day.    When June finally did turn up, she confessed she wasn’t enthusiastic about running the race, which carried a steep fee for the times.    “Remind me again why I just paid $45 to do something I could also do for free?”   I couldn't deliver an adequate answer. She had a very good point. But one of our colleagues, Dan, was ready with a response.   “Duh, June. We do it for the T-shirt and maybe a medal.”   And so, some 25 years later, here we are, now running virtual races for a T-shirt and maybe a medal (back then given to those who placed; now, to those who participate). If not a T-shirt, then we seek some other swag to justi...

I don’t talk much about spirituality, particularly my own. Not in public, not in private and not on this blog. But this morning I took part in a unique event that had me very visibly praying on a busy, six-lane suburban street corner with almost 900 others, everyone standing, sitting or kneeling six feet apart and wearing face coverings per a new state law. We stretched for blocks in every direction. We were grateful for the annual weather phenomenon known as June gloom that kept things cool.   We were part of a much larger group of thousands throughout San Diego County participating in We Pray San Diego, a special event created and coordinated by a Maranatha Chapel pastor and Miles McPherson, the former-NFL-player-turned-megachurch-minister. We peacefully assembled and took our places and at 9 a.m. began listening through headphones and earbuds to McPherson lead a recorded online prayer vigil that included biblical scripture to connect with our own reflections, confessions, petiti...

  For more than two years, I’ve lamented leaving Les Mills’ BodyPump, a group exercise class I took consistently every Tuesday and Friday early morning at a local 24-Hour Fitness. Then I abruptly  left both the class and the gym . When I finally returned to San Diego, I started back at my original gym on a nearby military base, having finally gotten over the issues that forced me to flee there.   Now it’s time to move on again. Due to the ongoing pandemic (and maybe well beyond it), all local military gyms are open only to active duty and their dependents, plus DoD civilians who work on base. I do not fit any of those categories. And returning to 24-Hour Fitness isn’t an option, being as they are in Chapter 11 bankruptcy and do not appear eager to reopen in my suburb.   I started looking into online exercise programs, especially free ones that a friend recommended from YouTube. But I just couldn’t connect with the format or instructors. My older daughter told me she’...

I no sooner publicly acknowledged bright sides of pandemic living when we were again thrust into turmoil due to recent incidents showcasing racial inequality. First, there was Ahmaud Arbery,  killed while on a neighborhood jog . It took local law enforcement more than two months to charge two gun-wielding vigilantes with murder despite clear evidence they went well beyond whatever bounds they believed they were entitled to have. I thought back to an early morning jog I took in the mid 1990s in Elizabeth City, North Carolina. I lived in a typical middle-class, mostly white neighborhood bordered by a lower-income, mostly black one. A house I'd run by earlier had been burglarized, and police stopped me a couple of blocks over upon arriving at the scene. And rightly so. Who expects to find someone running for pleasure at 4 in the morning? All I had to do, though, was explain that I was training for a marathon and where I lived and they let me go. Would they have done the same ...

I’ve written numerous times about bathroom issues common among runners and probably anyone whose repetitive movements impact their  gastrointestinal organs ,  kidneys  and  bladder . Pre-exercise nutrition is a key factor; you need to make sure you eat foods and drink liquids that help prevent things like diarrhea and dehydration. But there’s another important factor that isn’t always within the runner’s control. I’m talking about restrooms. If you run or even walk long and far enough, especially if you pre-hydrate to ward off other dangers due to hot-weather workouts, then at some point you’ll need to make a pitstop. This typically isn’t an issue and may even predetermine a select route. But these are still not typical times, despite the relaxing of rules that now allow for more public interaction. Depending on where you work out outdoors, you may need to go and find a public restroom near a still-shuttered state or local park is closed. It’s also not as ea...