The Retiring of a Pair of Running Shoes

    This may be kind of an odd, little post for most, but those who run will understand I think. I hope. There comes a time in the life of every pair of running shoes when it is time to be hung up; no pun intended. You can feel it coming a little at a time. They feel a little slippery on some surfaces. The heal feels hard or begins to feel as if it weren't there at all. The forefront or toebox feels hard and you begin to feel as if you are running in just socks. When your feet ache after even a short run, you know that it has become time to get rid of them. It is all very sad.

    This all may sound a little over dramatic, but if you are a runner then you will understand. A pair of running shoes are not just a regular pair of shoes that you may occasionally wear out on the town. They are something you have had on your person for over 300+ miles. That is same distance as Macon to North Carolina, or from Macon to New Orleans, or from Macon to Tampa, Fl, or from Macon to Kentucky. We aren't talking around the block. We are talking distances that make most weak in the knees, but you did not do it in a day. The shoes and two legs did it in a span of months.

  Your running shoes have felt the run beneath your feet. They have felt your body escape gravity every three strides and felt what it feels to be weightless if only for a second or so. They have felt sweat, snow, rain, mud, sand. They have watched the sun come up and the sun go down. They have brought you moments when the whole world was a trail and you were moving towards the horizon as if you were gliding with no effort at all. They have heard your curse the ground beneath you and struggle to make the next steps. They have heard you smile and con yourself into another mile long after you should have quit. They have crossed finish lines with swagger and toed starting lines with all the caution of a wise man. They have sat with you after each run. They are sitting by the stairs waiting for their next run. They do not know what sitting in the closet feels like.

   They were the shoes you stalked. The shoes you read 100 reviews about. The shoes you went and held in your hands many times before you brought them up to the checkout. They were the shoes you couldn't wait to get home, so you could try them out. And now, it is over for them. They have just grown too old. It is time for them to retire to a life of slow walks behind a lawn mower or a nap in the hammock, but it is so hard to tell a pair of racers that it is time. They take it so hard. And you know they have seen the new kicks waiting in the wings. They have heard you tell your girl about the possibilities of what the new ones will help you accomplish. They know that there are now times when they are left behind to dream of the places you have taken the new pair, but they know it is time. The ache too. Their skin is no longer thick and rough. It is smooth and worn. It is no longer new and white, but tired and dirty. They are sad the road has ended for them, but know that they have done what they were built to do. There isn't another mile left in them. They are ready for the soft grass and will only occasionally miss the road that is waiting for you and them to glide over just beyond. That has been there life's wish. To just know what is over the next hill and what lays beyond. Oh' to know what is beyond. The great, wonderful, euphoric, tragic beyond.

Wired Running 1

        
                                            I am about this bad, but let's not jump the gun.


       My twin is a purist in the most extreme fashion. He runs for pleasure. He reads for the story. He eats for the pleasure of the taste. His clothes are for warmth and protection. He doesn't have his t.v. hooked up to Cable. I could keep giving you examples, but you probably get the idea. He is an idealist and purist. He is dangerous. I am sure you would agree.

       Believe you me....I am not like him. I am a firm believer is running wired. How else would I know how far, how fast, how long, where to, how good, etc? Are you wanting me to just listen to my body and my breathing? Then, you my friend are crazy; almost as crazy as my twin. I couldn't do it. I want to, but just simply can't do it. I have been talking myself into a once a week "naked" run. (Don't worry--the clothes stay on all the time while running. No one is ready for that. No one. It is a running term that means running without a watch.) And I just can't do it. Maybe after November 13. We will see.

      Anyway, that is not what this little post is about. It is about my addiction to running with gadgets. This also yields to an addiction of "logging" my runs or recording them. I am now up to four locations for one run. Once again, please, please do pray for my wife. She is such a patient woman, but am afraid I am reaching the horizon of that patience. It is time to get down to the "logging" business.

       For the past two and a half years, I have been addicted to this contraption:

   
         This is the Nike SportBand. It cost $59 and can be purchased at a host of places. I bought mine at Dick's Sporting Goods. It is a good tool for a runner who wants to see his/her progress. No, it is not a perfect tool. Yes, it has weaknesses and flaws, but it did cost $59. The alternatives cost $200+ and until recently have only been about a tenth of a mile more accurate and that to me is not worth $150. This is what my first SportBand looked like. It had some water resistant problems. This is also what my second SportBand looked like. It also had some water resistant problems. This is what my third SportBand looked like. I wasn't allowed to come back to Dick's for a little while. I sent my wife. She wasn't allowed to come back for a while. I swore off the SportBand and Dick's, but came back to both. I am insane and have an addiction. I need help. There currently exists no counseling options for this type of addiction yet.

       You may be reading and thinking that I would have some extreme dislike for the SportBand, but the opposite is true. I love the SportBand. It cost $59. I have had, including my current one, four of them and have only bought two. Using the SportBand is easy and fun. Yes, I said fun. Nike has been working on it since they put it out and every year it gets a little better. The SportBand comes with a chip that you put in your left shoe, if they are Nike+ capable, or on top of the shoe if you have an adaptor. The chip looks like this:

  
    Once you put the chip in your shoe and the SportBand on your left wrist, you are almost ready to run. The only thing that you have to do is calibrate it. You have to run or walk a distance greater than .25 mi. I ran a mile on a track. It does have to be calibrated on occasion due to you changing shoes, pace, routes, etc. After this is done, you are ready to run.
  
     I have run over 2500 miles wearing the Nike SportBand. I love it. The SportBand keeps track of your distance, pace, time of run, time of day, and calories. Once you have finished running is where the real fun begins. You plug the SportBand into your computer (Yes, it does double as a USB stick!). The computer uploads your run to the Nike Plus website. It looks like this:

  

     Once on the Nike Plus website, you can see your run and the progress you are making. You can set goals for speed, distance, weight, amount, time, pace, etc. You can also join into challenges against other Nike Plus users. I love these; sometimes it is what motivates me out of the door and onto the street. They are all different, but are usually something like, "The First to 100 miles in October." These challenges are too much fun to participate in. It always makes me try to get in just a little bit more everyday. And they also give out virtual trophies for the achievement of goals and winning a challenge. I have a trophy case! (Just wanted you to know I am humble) But also know it is much like Little League. I could set a goal to run 2 miles this week. I could run those two miles and achieve my goal and I would get a trophy. So, having a lot of trophies is not as awesome as it sounds.

   Anyway, if you see me running, know that the SportBand is on. Know that once I finish running, I will record that run in four different places. I am insane. I know. Did I mention that I love the SportBand? Get one fast!

   Looking forward to my next run with the Nike SportBand,
       David

Number 1

(Drum Roll Please!)

(Maybe even some festive fireworks...We are talking about the Number 1 book here, aren't we?)

And the winner of the Number 1 Spot in my Top Ten Book List is:

     You cannot (should not) read a book by an American author, since the early 20th Century, that has not at least been in the smallest fashion influenced by Sherwood Anderson. He talked publishers into taking a look at both Faulkner and Hemingway (who was also greatly helped out by Fitzgerald and Ezra Pound). Faulkner mimicked him in his book, Mosquitoes. Hemingway parodied him with both, Torrents of Spring, and, To Have and Have Not. Sherwood Anderson came quietly onto the American literary scene after he was well into his 40's (this gives me hope) and changed the way Americans wrote forever. Up until Sherwood Anderson, they (American writers) tried to imitate European authors, but after Anderson, they decided what would be true American literature. It was to be plain and under spoken. It was to be raw and beautiful. It was to be transparent and hidden. Sherwood Anderson's work is all of those things. He built the model that they would later copy or emulate. Others merely added onto it. I know some will disagree, but that is fine. I have much to learn and even more to read.

   I like this book because of a multitude of reasons. The first isn't found in this book, but within the life of Sherwood Anderson. During his early forties, he had a mental breakdown and ended up disappearing for four days. When found, he said he had been wrestling with who he really was; which turned out to be a writer, something he had not really tried his hand in. Something that would transform who he was and who we remember him as: Someone who wrestled with their humanity. And that is what he writes about. People who wrestle with their places in life, their obligations, their weaknesses, their pasts, their jobs, their emotions, their relationships, etc.

   Winesburg, Ohio is a great book because it is a novel of interrelated short stories centering around the character of George Willard. The characters of this book are flawed, ineffectual, and incomplete. Anderson does not try to separate realism from fantasy. He allows the real world to collide with dreams because he knows that life is full of both the natural and the phantasmagorical. He knows that within the realness of life lays dreams and those dreams live in the quiet of each human who is compounded by their own weaknesses. These stories, although centered on the town of Winesburg and George Willard, are about a number of people in and around the town. Each of these characters and for that matter, the town itself, is fighting to live in the place where life takes place; somewhere between realism and fantasy.

  Anderson writes of the grotesque, the imperfect, the weak, the frail because he is writing of humanity as it is and not as it might be.  He focuses on single moments that define lifetimes. Single choices that are lost or won in a matter of seconds. He writes about a life that can be found in death. He writes about the beginnings of a fractured belief in the pastoral themes of sacrifice, initiation, and rebirth; something we see the negative effects of today in both life and literature. He writes of how progress may seem to be helping humanity out, but is really leaving it behind; something we see today as we live in a time of human history where we commonly think it is okay where 5% unemployment means that everyone is working that "means" something, where 5% of humans (children and the elderly) don't have purposes or a place. 

   I will not say that some of the images are not disturbing because they are. I will not say that much of the loneliness and dispair could not be remedied with Christ because they could. To me, it is books like this that highlight where the world was before Christ; hopelessness and true damnation (eternal separation from the Great Comforter).  The stories are full of simple language and simple grammar. He does not waste words or try to include every detail. He leaves room for imagination both of scene and emotion. He leaves room for the reader, or in Harold Bloom's terms, the active reader.

   However, to me, the number one reason why this book receives top honors is because I cannot read other American authors and not see Anderson's hand holding their hand as they build their characters. I cannot read McCullers, O'Connor, Faulkner, Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Steinbeck, Capote, Harper Lee, Wolfe, Berry, Eliot, and a host of others and not feel them looking over their artistic shoulders and making sure that Sherwood is watching and will in the end approve of what they have written or at least tell them they are headed in the right direction. Maybe this means I am not seeing well or that I do not know enough to see properly and this just may well be the case, but for now it is the way things are.

  Wishing to write as Anderson did,

           David

Number 2

    Have heard from a good friend of mine that the Rain Dance was a little over the top, so we are back to a pleasant drum roll please.

   The book that makes it into my Number 2 spot of this Top Ten List is this book:

      I know. I know. I know. This is once again a group of novels, stories, essays, and letters, but very few items that I have read beat any thing Miss O'Connor ever wrote. The cover that I am showing comes from somewhere I love very much: The Library of America. It is a wonderful organization. They compile large amounts of an author's works, compare them with the author's notebooks, correct any mistakes that made it through the printing process, update the works to include what censor's may have taken out or excluded, and then they publish them in nice, cloth hardback editions. They also only cost $30-$35. Which isn't bad considering you are getting a book that contains over 1000+ pages. Some of them have like 4-6 books or several collections of short stories. This exact book includes all of Flannery O'Connor's works except some book reviews and some personal letters. It has two novels, two short story collections, essays, and some personal letters. I think it is $30 well-spent.

  The reason why Flannery O'Connor makes it into the coveted Number 2 spot in my Top Ten List is for a multitude of reasons and here are a few:

  5. The comic genius portaryed in these stories is rarely rivaled.
  4. The dialogue in the novels and stories is excellent.
  3. Her essays about writing make me strive for better writing/to be a better writer.
  2. Enoch Emory and Hazel Moates
  1d. The way she ends her stories like, A Good Man is Hard to Find, "She'd a been a good woman if someone would have shot her every minute of her life."
  1c. The way she shows that religion in the South in truly the poetry of the people.
  1b. Her belief in a truly violent Grace and odd apiritions of Redemption that drives someone to the Savior and her ability to write wonderful fiction that is a deep down picture of the Gospel, but on the surface is so well-written that few rival her.
  1a. Her belief that the writing life is truly hard work when you are doing it correctly. She only wrote two novels and 30+ stories in over 20 years of writing.

  Looking to have a little fun with Enoch Emory and his gorilla costume,
    David

Number 3

  For the Number 3 selection of my Top Ten List, I want to focus not on a single book, but rather on two authors. Those two authors are: Wendell Berry and F. Scott Fitzgerald.

         Wendell Berry

                                                                                                                  F. Scott Fitzgerald

    I chose these two authors because to me, they are two examples of both why we read and why some try to write. Few, if any writers, do it better than they. Both writers allow you to leave reality while reading and partcipate in the worlds they create with words. Both writers couldn't be any more different. They both live  (ed) completely different lives and write about really different things. However, to me, they both write about one thing: Memory.

  Wendell Berry has written more than 40 works of fiction, poetry, and nonfiction. He is a loud voice among the conservationalists in this country and abroad. However, to me, they (the conservationalist) do not really understand him nor do they understand what he writes about. I have only read somewhere between 6-7 of his works, but to me, they were all so very insightful and captivating. I am not a Wendell Berry expert in any way, shape, or form, but it seems that Mr. Berry is trying to write about one very important concept and that is: Affection. I believe that all of his writing, or at least, what I have read can be traced back to this concept. And as a bystander who loves being outside and in Nature, this is not what the conservationlists are screaming or pushing.

   This affection that I think Mr. Berry writes so well about is something that exists on a much higher level than what he is actually writing about whether it be a poem, a short story, a novel, or an essay. This is the very meaning of affection. It is not mushy or romantic because both of those two feelings get old. It is not idealistic or rash because they get old and calluoused as well. It is a deep, deep love for a place. And that love of place is home in every good sense of the word. It is about doing good to the people in your home. It is about doing good to the land that is your home. It is about doing good to the community that surrounds your home. And the whole reason you are doing all this good is because you love it. You care for it. It is not easy because true love is all choice and little feeling.

   

    You can read this affection in his rage-filled poems or essays about land waste, politics, progress, crime, etc. You can read this in his wonderful short stories and novels about the fictional Port William townspeople and community. You can read this in every word  that he has written. He has an Affection for his wife. He has Affection for the land he lives on and farms. He has Affection for the people who populate his community and country. He has Affection for God. And to be honest, he does not tolerate anyone or anything that does not have this Affection. He hates it and will not tolerate it.

    To me, Wendell Berry is the finest living author. No one writes better. I know this is an extreme statement, but if you know me, I have a bad habit of these. I can't help it. They just come out. I am not well-read, so I may be missing something, but I will tell you of the author when I come upon him or her. I am sure it will be a while.

My favorite Wendell Berry selections are:

1. Hannah Coulter--the opening chapter of this book is the finest writing that I have had the priviledge to read in a very long time.
2. Jayber Crow-novels
3. What Are People For?-essays

  The other author that claims the Number 3 spot is F. Scott Fitzgerald. Everyone has heard of him. Everyone has read the Great Gatsby. Most hated it because their English teachers spent too much time talking about Fitzgerald's lifestyle and no time talking about the genius it would take to write a book that is still a bestseller 75 years after it was written. And no time talking about how the small book defines the sense of longing filled with delusions of granduer that America is still feeling 60+ years after WWI and WWII. In my humble opinion, no writer that lived during the time that Fitzgerald lived wrote better than he did. Yes, he was an alcoholic. Yes, he squandered some of his talent. Yes, he partied a lot. Yes, he was always in debt and had to write for popular magazines in order to live an extravagant lifestyle, but when you can look past all of this and only look at the facet that I am talking about, the writer: F. Scott Fitzgerald, then you can see that no one wrote better. Better than Hemingway. Better than Dos Passos. Better than Wolfe. Better than a slough of other names. I know there will be some disagreement and I am biased. (Very)

     The author and essayist John O'Hara said that matching every American author word against word, no one rivals F. Scott Fitzgerald. No one. I agree and will again say I am biased. Fitzgerald write 160 short stories, 4.5 novels, numerous reviews, numerous essays, one travel book, one Broadway play, and worked on movie scripts in Hollywood. No, he did not win the Pulitzer or the Nobel Prize for literature. No, he did not use all of his talents wisely. But when you look at his short stories or his novels many of them are lacking, but most of them could be lessons in writing and how to write. They are studies in character, emotions, and plot formation. He worked for 11 years on his novel, Tender is the Night. That is not the work or effort of a slack or "slick" writer. If you read his notebooks, you will know that he did not just "throw" stories together. However, this is my list and I do not need to explain why I think that FSF is a great author, I guess. To me, he is not just an author. He is on the next level, he should be called an American Man of Letters.

   When you read Ftizgerald, try to not feel the over-arching lonliness. Try not feel the aching for how things should have gone; might have gone. Try not to feel the soul searching and the beauty of the night. Try not to feel as if you are not hurting for the protaganist and wishing to guide them into the right choices, but know it will not come. Try not to find yourself lost among the pages. Try not to laugh. I learned to love Keat because of FSF. If you get a chance listen to FSF read the Keat's poem "Ode to a Nightingale" and try to not feel as if you are not a part of the poem. It is writing in the highest degree to me. It is what reading and writing is for.

My Favorite Fitzgerald Works:

1. The Beautiful and the Damned-novel
2. May Day-short story
3. 10,000 False Starts-essay

"In a real dark night of the soul, it is always three o'clock in the morning, day after day."
   F. Scott Fitzgerald

Still watching the Green Light at the end of the dock,
  David