Reading and Running

I just read my last post eleven days ago promising two stories in my next post.  Well, I regrettably and laughingly must say I have no idea what stories I was supposed to recite to you all.  The whole bit about saying I'm going to write two stories was somehow going to help me remember to actually do the writing part of it was a failure to say the least.  My apologies.  This last week has been insanity.  I had papers, finals, standardized CBEST testing, graduation ceremonies and family gatherings, and an apartment to move out of all in a 7 day span.  So without further ado, I will recommence my blogging on this summer day.

I am currently signed up for two half marathons, mid August and mid October for the American's Finest City Half and the Long Beach Half, respectively.  So training is in full swing in order for me to get myself in shape by mid August.  To aid me in my endeavor I have started tracking my mileage on mapmyrun.com.  Technically, its a social networking tool for runners where you create a free account and can see what other runners are doing, or what other runners are running.  I like to use it because it allows me to keep track of my mileage without knowing specific routes.  I go for my run and keep track of time with a stop watch.  When I get home I map out my route on the site and punch in my time and wala.  It tells me my per mile rate and allows me to keep a calendar of my training.  Its also very useful for determining how far you want to run before you leave.  You could map out 6 miles exactly if you wanted to or you can look for runs in your area that other people are doing.  Its pretty cool.

Training is quite difficult I am finding.  Running and building up more and more endurance will come without a doubt, but its difficult to find time everyday to train.  Even just to run 5 miles takes quite a bit of time.  At least an hour if you include stretching and cool down.  Even more than that, I like to do 15 minutes of push ups and stuff before I go and shower off.  And then I usually will want to go play tennis or basketball later in the day.  And its only going to get longer too.  By the time I'm running upwards of 10 miles, I'll be at it for closer to an hour and half or two hours.

Moving on... I am starting to read this book called Why We Hate Us, "American Discontent in the New Millennium."  I am not too far in but I have had very mixed feelings thus far.  I sometimes feel like what the author is saying is obvious, or that he is simply just really negative and not worth reading (although I know resolutions come at the ends of books).  But there are times where some intriguing things are said.  I think I will use this book as a springboard for the next several posts. 

Side note: I am trying to finish Coetzee's "Waiting for the Barbarians" and will eventually start "For Whom the Bell Tolls" after that and will read concurrently with the Meyer's book that I mentioned above.  

Meyer's book starts off with a list of things that he believes everybody hates, or at least that one of his old column (CBSNews) readers hated and he agrees with.  Ridiculous things that the average person would dislike, such as people that clip their fingernails in public restaurants and the cosmetic line labeled "S.L.U.T.".  He then moves onto a larger complaint.  America's hypocrisy with the media, how we hate it and yell at it and call celebrities and reality stars stupid but spend hours watching them.  He reports in a study that on average, Americans spend 8 hours a day in front of electronic devices.  So that is essentially 8 hour work day, 8 hour media/electronic splurge, and 8 hours of sleep.  There is the American 24 hour cycle.  I appreciate the author's numerous allusions to Holden Caulfield in appropriately describing America's enemy in a national self pride - phoniness.  Caulfield hated phonies.  America is full of them.  I appreciate Meyer's quoting of columnist Lars-Erik Nelson's statement that "Conservatism isn't the enemy.  Liberalism isn't the enemy.  Bullshit is the enemy."  I couldn't agree more.  The media has turned Americans against one another.  The media has created the reds and the blues, the liberals and the conservatives, the atheists and the religious.  It is a polar nation.  The media is painting a picture of a divided nation, yet nobody is winning.  We are all still unhappy.  Just 19% of Americans, in a CBSNews poll, agreed that America was heading in the right direction in 2007.  I don't feel like that could be any higher right now given the poorest economy in decades.  We go to school and learn about the 60's, a time of revolution in America, a time usually deemed "turbulent," yet the numbers of "satisfied Americans" are now more than half of what they once were in polls taken in the sixties.  Yet, instead of fixing the problem together, Americans are still playing the "us" versus "them" game with each other and their own special interests, not realizing that we are all the "us" of America that media and big money are feeding off of.  The battle is against phonies and appearances, not each other.

I look forward to reading more, and hopefully finding more solutions than complaints.