Assumptions Cause Tumbles

Tagged as: Christianity, Life, Read-It, Seen-Around Oct 30

While I am happy about the fact that I have become someone who questions a lot of what I hear, I readily admit that we all need to live using assumptions. We do not check every fact each and every time otherwise we would go insane! We sit on chairs without checking that the legs will support our weight (although sometimes the chair unfortunately does not support our weight). We figure that our car engine is going to work even though we don’t check it before turning it on everyday. Staplers have staples, light switches will turn on lights, and our e-mail is accessible. These assumptions are slight and imperceptible things that we do. When the assumption does not hold, it is quickly discarded to handle the exceptional case.

But then there assumptions that have a more costly result. When you and your teammate assume that the other is going to catch the fly ball, you could lose the game. Perhaps you and another drive make an assumption that the other is going to get out of the way and an accident occurs. At work, if no definitive statement is made about who is to carry out a task then all involved will think that the other is doing it. Or in the tragedy of Kitty Genovese everyone assumes that someone else will do the right thing. Or infinitely increasing in the depth of tragedy, what happens to someone who assumes that scientists and public opinion are correct enough that Jesus is not the answer?

Let us not assume! Especially when it comes to the important things. Else we are complicit in the outcome, whatever that might be.

Barefoot Running

Tagged as: Exercise, Idea, Learn, Personal, Read-It, Seen-Around Jul 10

That title probably gets your attention. As is common knowledge, we need shoes in order to run. Running barefoot is impossible to comprehend. Except…it’s not. There are so many reasons that I have found that compel me to run barefoot. And I figured that now would be a good time to post them here.

I have been running barefoot for over 9 months now. I started off running a few blocks, and I have progressed to now run a few miles a couple of times each week. Yes, it will sometimes be briefly uncomfortable when I step on a pebble, but it is usually gone in the next step. However for most people the thought of pain is enough to prevent them from ever trying to run barefoot. On the other hand, just because I run on the street does not mean that everyone has to.

Running on sand or grass would definitely be more comfortable, but it’s really not that bad running on the pavement (in my opinion). I believe that running barefoot is better, and I want my behavior to be in accordance with my beliefs.

• I was not born with shoes. (Of course I also wasn’t born with clothes, but clothes don’t injure me. If they did, I wouldn’t wear those either.)
• Injuries increase with the price of the shoes according to surveys from runners.
• It’s recommended (by pediatricians) that young children be allowed to walk around barefoot so that they can develop their feet. There must be something there, right?
• By the laws of physics the force of each step when running has to be translated and absorved somewhere. Running sure isn’t hurting your feet. Where does that leave? Perhaps the knees and hips?
• Tough and hardened feet are much more useful than soft tender feet. Soft feet are nice to the touch, but they can’t nearly do what used feet can do. If you had to run away from danger, you can’t exactly stop to put on your shoes.
• Without the artificial support of shoes, your feet need to balance and adapt. That is, the muscles and tendons in your feet will get stronger. It’s similar to why it’s excellent to do exercises without artificial support. You need to balance while also performing the task at hand. And that will make you stronger and strengthen the entire structure.
• There sure are a lot of people from other countries that are awesome runners without the need for shoes. Have you ever thought about that? Not only are they awesome, but they have lower incidence of injury. Just because I wasn’t born in a culture like that does not mean that I cannot become like that!
• I stand for freedom!. I always have, I always will. But it is a different kind of freedom that I feel when I’m running barefoot. It kind of makes me feel like a little kid, and I love that.
• The arch is one of the strongest structures known to man. We use it for bridges to hold up amazing amounts of weight. Have you ever seen an arched bridge have something filling the entire arch? No. That’s because the arch is strongest when there is nothing filling that gap. Surprise, surprise guess where we have an arch.
• One of the most important reason to consider running barefoot is that it makes you more conscious of your running form. So while your form might suffer when you’re running with shod feet, you won’t modify your behavior because it doesn’t manifest itself until years of running have beaten your body down. However you will definitely notice the difference with bare feet. You will not strike your heel. You will land on the balls of your feet. You will be careful of where you go. You could learn how to run with better form from someone teaching you. But that doesn’t mean that you’re necessarily going to change. Pain is a much better way to modify your behavior than mere information. It’s a reminder every step that you need to run correctly.

I run barefoot. I enjoy it.

References:
SportSci – Running Barefoot
The Painful Truth About Trainers
Barefoot Rick – I enjoyed reading some of his articles and thoughts about running barefoot.

I Don’t Follow Celebrities’ Lives

Tagged as: Entertainment, Read-It Apr 30

How many people do you know who are more interested and involved in the lives of celebrities than in the lives of those around them? Too many? Yeah, me too.

Who Are They?

In the realm of entertainment, there are actors, musicians, athletes, and people who are nothing else except somehow rich. They all come together at events, walk around the same streets that we do, and have lives that occasionally defy soap operas in their outrageousness. But why are there people who don’t personally know the celebrities interested in them at all? Is it because they seem to belong to a higher social caste than we? Is it because they are prettier, richer, and more talented than us? Is it because they do things that we wouldn’t even dream of doing?

My Thoughts

Really I just don’t know why us common folk are interested in them. All I know is that I see people all over the place who are far more interested in celebrities (who they do not know) than in their friends and family (who they do know). Something doesn’t seem right about that does it?

I really don’t think that celebrities are that interesting. I respect their talent, and I’m definitely not opposed to entertainment. But I don’t care what kind of a drink they ordered at Starbucks last Wednesday or who was seen schmoozing with who at the hot club in Las Vegas. Nor do I care to use any of my brain to remember any other unnecessarily small fact about them. What kind of a world do we live in where we know the favorite candy of a star and don’t even know what is really going on with the guy right next to us?

It’s time to stop immersing ourselves in others’ lives and time to start living our own! (Or at least immerse yourself in someone’s life who knows that you exist. Who knows, something worthwhile might even come out of it.)

Running In Tempo

Tagged as: Exercise, Idea, Life, Read-It Sep 28

In Runner’s World Magazine, I recently read an article about tempo running that made me want to get back into the groove of running. Tempo running (also known as lactate-threshold or threshold running)

Until college, I always despised any running that I did. Whether for P.E. or for sports, it was always a chore that was done with little enjoyment. A necessary evil that we a prerequisite for the fun of something else.

And then in college something changed. My fitness level was probably about the same so that wasn’t it. My location and life were obviously different. Whatever the reason was, though, I started to realize that running allowed me to:

1. Stay fit
2. Get some fresh air
3. Explore the area on foot rather than in a car
4. Spend some time alone in my thoughts

I would run the loop around campus on a fairly regular basis. I even started to enter into a few races. What a turnaround from only a year or two before! In any case by the time that I left college I was fairly comfortable going out for runs for recreation and fitness purposes. In fact, I was even going out with other people occasionally for a little bit of socializing (in addition to the fitness benefit)!

So enough about the history of me and running. I started to recently run a little bit (only once or twice a week, mind you). However, after reading the article I was for some strange reason under an incorrect impression about tempo runs. I thought that they were run faster than they really are. I mean, “an 8 on a 1-to-10 scale” sounds pretty fast to me! But reading the rest of the article as well as another article on tempo runs made me realize that it’s simply more of a steady consistent pace, albeit a pace faster than one might normally jog.

What I have been doing is running at a consistent pace but for only much shorter intervals. This week I ran 4 sets of 3:30 runs at probably about an 8 minutes/mile pace with a 60 second jog between sets. Let me tell you that it’s not easy! But I rather enjoy the challenge and am once again starting to enjoy the time alone, outside, and not in front of a computer (now that I’m in front of one the entire day for work).

I’m not sure whether I’m going to continue this regime of running at a fairly brisk pace (but definitely NOT sprinting) for longer periods of time or whether I’m actually going to try a tempo run for 20 minutes. Whatever the case, I will continue the running as it is affording me benefits that I value.

Running is even more than just exercise, though. Have you thought of that? You can learn a lot about life from running. You can learn about yourself: are you persevering, are you stronger in mind than in body, are you even in shape? You can teach yourself to be independent and strong in mind. Running a race has been used as an analogy to life, and that’s because it is so true. How better to understand the analogy (and correspondingly life) than by running yourself?

So go. Do it. Just do it. (Does anyone remember Nike’s once ubiquitous slogan? Whatever happened to that? They went from simple to complex marketing in my opinion.)

And…That’s A Wrap

Tagged as: Life, Read-It Aug 18

Reading never gets old. Well not to me at least. It’s something that I’ve enjoyed during my life, and it’s something that I make a point out of continuing to do.

In any case, I just finished The Foundaction Trilogy by Isaac Asimov.

Why is reading books never old (in comparison to reading things online)?

1. They’re available even if there is no electricity.
2. You can take them anywhere, even if there is no Internet connection there!
3. They’re sometimes more readily accessible than reading things online. Try searching for copies of all of the classics freely available online.
4. You get cultured when you read them. How else will you know where famous sayings and quotes come from if you don’t actually read them? It’ll make you look less ignorant when someone uses a quote from a book and you’ve already read that book.
5. It gives you an aspect of your life that is actually changing. Even if everything around you seems to be droning on in the same old manner, at least you’ll be able to talk about how the book that you’re reading has been exciting (or not) to you.
6. You look more well-balanced to other people. Someone who is reading looks a lot more balanced than someone who is staring at a computer screen all of the time, wouldn’t you say?

Do a lot of people still read? I have no idea. I was also tempted to put something related to decreasing chances for poor eyesight, but I don’t actually know if that’s true or not.

That was a lot longer than I had envisioned that post being.