Wednesday, October 31, 2007
The Running Ben
With the end of October, it seems that autumn has finally arrived here at Old Ivy University. After nearly a full month of beautifully crisp weather, the arrival of several days of ominously gray and wet weather last week served as a signal to the local tree population to spontaneously shed their leaves and for the temperature to spontaneously drop twenty degrees. (Fortunately, unlike last year, my landlord is in the country this year, so it is likely that the heat will actually be turned on from now until at least March.) Pumpkins have arrived at my local grocery store, though I have yet to determine exactly when that transition occurred. Beyond these seasonal patterns, the Old Ivy calendar indicates that it is now fall break, which means that this week I do not have to attend any classes and can focus on other things.
Some of those things are mundane. I deal with them every week and I have learned from experience that no one really cares how many books on quantum physics or the development of electrical power grids one has read and summarized. But there have been a few interesting developments. For example, last Saturday I attended a live performance of Orson Welles' War of the Worlds. A cast of radio actors staged the event, using authentic period broadcasting equipment (ok, just microphones...) to send their voices to an array of antique receivers spread around the room. We were invited to close our eyes and immerse ourselves in the experience of a Martian invasion, all in beautiful 14 channel, mono surround sound. As a fan of old-time radio, this was a rare treat although I had secretly hoped that the sound effects would be done by a traditional foley artist rather than using a laptop. Such is life.
The next day, I took advantage of my time off to go visit my girlfriend. Between her theater work and my inertial tendency to stay in the library until a given reading was finished, we had both remained isolated in our busy little worlds, but we mutually decided that this was something with which we needed to deal...posthaste! Unfortunately, I arrived at her house late due to construction delays on the highway. But we were still able to grab a nice dinner and a 9:30 screening of Elizabeth: The Golden Age. I have never seen the first film, which my girlfriend loved, but this sequel apparently failed in a significant fashion to live up to the original. I had no idea that Francis Drake was only peripherally involved in the defeat of the Spanish Armada. Victory that day apparently went to action-hero and cliche-spinner Sir Walter Raleigh, whose character seemed closer to Errol Flynn's Robin Hood, complete with melodramatic rope swinging, than a complex historical personality.
The other significant highlight of my trip was my attempt to fix my girlfriend's MP3 player...and my subsequent destruction of said player. She had a nice 2 gigabyte iRiver Clix which for some reason refused to sync several of her mp3s. I adjusted the IDE codes, but Windows Media Player refused to allow the transfer. It was then I started trying to install a newer version of the firmware. But as I have often learned, better is truly the enemy of good. None of the firmware install files worked properly and the end result was that despite wiping off all of the songs from the player, Windows continued to believe that it was fully loaded. The only silver lining was that the FM radio still worked. Luckily for me, my girlfriend took the whole thing in stride, claiming that the machine was acting up even before I had fiddled with it. Nevertheless, we went out the next day and picked up a new machine, one which doesn't rely on Windows Media Player quite so heavily for its file transfers, so that she can listen to her favorite music while running.
Which brings us, after a rather circuitous path to the title of this post. Now I'm positive that those of you who have made it this far will be wondering what my girlfriend's interest in running has to do with me. We have already established, after all, my lack of athletic ability, at least so far as hiking is concerned. My girlfriend, however, was a cross country runner in high school and has also been known to play soccer. Teaching for a few years interrupted this routine, but since she's no longer trapped at Underwood, he decided that she needed to get some more exercise, beyond going to dance class two to three times a week. She decided to ease her way in using a program called "Couch to 5K", designed to allow anyone to gradually work their way from not running at all to running 3 miles over the course of nine weeks. She started doing it this summer, and besides a few weeks off her feet due to a dance related injury, has kept at it persistently ever since. She also persistent chided me for spending to much time in the library and suggested this program might be the way to get some exercise into my life.
I, however, was never an athlete, unless one counts an occasional game of ultimate frisbee, and remained skeptical that such a program could get someone like me, who had hated running ever since elementary school, to actually run three full miles. So I held off. Until this summer, between getting back from Germany and having my wisdom teeth removed, I decided to just try one week of this program and see how it felt. Then one week turned into two. My plan was to complete the program without telling my girlfriend and then to surprise her, to show that I had listened to her and hopefully impress her with my newfound athletic prowess. But then I had my wisdom teeth removed, and I didn't feel like doing much of anything.
After a few weeks of recovery, I started over again. One week rolled into the next. Week after week after week. I woke up at 7:30, even if my earliest class was at 10:00. I would go running by myself on local residential streets whose sidewalks were almost always empty, listening to public radio on my little MP3 player, jogging and walking, and eventually just jogging...and maybe even running....first for 20 minutes, then for 25, and then for 28. I could hardly believe it...maybe there was something to this exercise thing after all. Some days, my legs ached and I didn't feel like getting out of bed, but my girlfriend, who I had finally told about my secret running sessions, encouraged me to keep going out and running, so I did, partly because I don't like quitting and partly because I wanted to make her proud.
Today marks the last day of my 9 week program. Today, and two other days this week, I have run 30 minutes, a distance of almost exactly 3 miles, with no breaks or rest. I admit that I am in no way prepared to enter myself in a race of any kind and that my friends from home will still almost certainly outrun me at the next frisbee game we play. But, I am getting into better shape and have now run many times further than I ever thought possible. (Chalk this all up to my girlfriend's positive influence.) Perhaps during the summer, I'll try to expand upon this regimen and try to add an additional mile or two, but for now I'm quite satisfied with having made it this far and will attempt to keep running, even during the winter, so that I don't have to start from Week 1 again when spring eventually rolls around.
For now, I have to get to the library. I'm attending a conference this weekend in D.C. (my second one in two weeks), and I have to finish some errands and try to get some work done before tomorrow afternoon. More news on my D.C. trips and ruminations on Harry Potter, presidential politics, and academic life here at Old Ivy are all coming soon.
Until then, have a Happy Halloween, and give my regards to the Great Pumpkin...!
With the end of October, it seems that autumn has finally arrived here at Old Ivy University. After nearly a full month of beautifully crisp weather, the arrival of several days of ominously gray and wet weather last week served as a signal to the local tree population to spontaneously shed their leaves and for the temperature to spontaneously drop twenty degrees. (Fortunately, unlike last year, my landlord is in the country this year, so it is likely that the heat will actually be turned on from now until at least March.) Pumpkins have arrived at my local grocery store, though I have yet to determine exactly when that transition occurred. Beyond these seasonal patterns, the Old Ivy calendar indicates that it is now fall break, which means that this week I do not have to attend any classes and can focus on other things.
Some of those things are mundane. I deal with them every week and I have learned from experience that no one really cares how many books on quantum physics or the development of electrical power grids one has read and summarized. But there have been a few interesting developments. For example, last Saturday I attended a live performance of Orson Welles' War of the Worlds. A cast of radio actors staged the event, using authentic period broadcasting equipment (ok, just microphones...) to send their voices to an array of antique receivers spread around the room. We were invited to close our eyes and immerse ourselves in the experience of a Martian invasion, all in beautiful 14 channel, mono surround sound. As a fan of old-time radio, this was a rare treat although I had secretly hoped that the sound effects would be done by a traditional foley artist rather than using a laptop. Such is life.
The next day, I took advantage of my time off to go visit my girlfriend. Between her theater work and my inertial tendency to stay in the library until a given reading was finished, we had both remained isolated in our busy little worlds, but we mutually decided that this was something with which we needed to deal...posthaste! Unfortunately, I arrived at her house late due to construction delays on the highway. But we were still able to grab a nice dinner and a 9:30 screening of Elizabeth: The Golden Age. I have never seen the first film, which my girlfriend loved, but this sequel apparently failed in a significant fashion to live up to the original. I had no idea that Francis Drake was only peripherally involved in the defeat of the Spanish Armada. Victory that day apparently went to action-hero and cliche-spinner Sir Walter Raleigh, whose character seemed closer to Errol Flynn's Robin Hood, complete with melodramatic rope swinging, than a complex historical personality.
The other significant highlight of my trip was my attempt to fix my girlfriend's MP3 player...and my subsequent destruction of said player. She had a nice 2 gigabyte iRiver Clix which for some reason refused to sync several of her mp3s. I adjusted the IDE codes, but Windows Media Player refused to allow the transfer. It was then I started trying to install a newer version of the firmware. But as I have often learned, better is truly the enemy of good. None of the firmware install files worked properly and the end result was that despite wiping off all of the songs from the player, Windows continued to believe that it was fully loaded. The only silver lining was that the FM radio still worked. Luckily for me, my girlfriend took the whole thing in stride, claiming that the machine was acting up even before I had fiddled with it. Nevertheless, we went out the next day and picked up a new machine, one which doesn't rely on Windows Media Player quite so heavily for its file transfers, so that she can listen to her favorite music while running.
Which brings us, after a rather circuitous path to the title of this post. Now I'm positive that those of you who have made it this far will be wondering what my girlfriend's interest in running has to do with me. We have already established, after all, my lack of athletic ability, at least so far as hiking is concerned. My girlfriend, however, was a cross country runner in high school and has also been known to play soccer. Teaching for a few years interrupted this routine, but since she's no longer trapped at Underwood, he decided that she needed to get some more exercise, beyond going to dance class two to three times a week. She decided to ease her way in using a program called "Couch to 5K", designed to allow anyone to gradually work their way from not running at all to running 3 miles over the course of nine weeks. She started doing it this summer, and besides a few weeks off her feet due to a dance related injury, has kept at it persistently ever since. She also persistent chided me for spending to much time in the library and suggested this program might be the way to get some exercise into my life.
I, however, was never an athlete, unless one counts an occasional game of ultimate frisbee, and remained skeptical that such a program could get someone like me, who had hated running ever since elementary school, to actually run three full miles. So I held off. Until this summer, between getting back from Germany and having my wisdom teeth removed, I decided to just try one week of this program and see how it felt. Then one week turned into two. My plan was to complete the program without telling my girlfriend and then to surprise her, to show that I had listened to her and hopefully impress her with my newfound athletic prowess. But then I had my wisdom teeth removed, and I didn't feel like doing much of anything.
After a few weeks of recovery, I started over again. One week rolled into the next. Week after week after week. I woke up at 7:30, even if my earliest class was at 10:00. I would go running by myself on local residential streets whose sidewalks were almost always empty, listening to public radio on my little MP3 player, jogging and walking, and eventually just jogging...and maybe even running....first for 20 minutes, then for 25, and then for 28. I could hardly believe it...maybe there was something to this exercise thing after all. Some days, my legs ached and I didn't feel like getting out of bed, but my girlfriend, who I had finally told about my secret running sessions, encouraged me to keep going out and running, so I did, partly because I don't like quitting and partly because I wanted to make her proud.
Today marks the last day of my 9 week program. Today, and two other days this week, I have run 30 minutes, a distance of almost exactly 3 miles, with no breaks or rest. I admit that I am in no way prepared to enter myself in a race of any kind and that my friends from home will still almost certainly outrun me at the next frisbee game we play. But, I am getting into better shape and have now run many times further than I ever thought possible. (Chalk this all up to my girlfriend's positive influence.) Perhaps during the summer, I'll try to expand upon this regimen and try to add an additional mile or two, but for now I'm quite satisfied with having made it this far and will attempt to keep running, even during the winter, so that I don't have to start from Week 1 again when spring eventually rolls around.
For now, I have to get to the library. I'm attending a conference this weekend in D.C. (my second one in two weeks), and I have to finish some errands and try to get some work done before tomorrow afternoon. More news on my D.C. trips and ruminations on Harry Potter, presidential politics, and academic life here at Old Ivy are all coming soon.
Until then, have a Happy Halloween, and give my regards to the Great Pumpkin...!
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