To crack or not to crack?

I was asked the other day whether or not it was a good thing to crack your back, neck, knuckles, etc.

I chose to answer the question this way:

Cracking you back,neck,knuckles....whatever...is not necessarily bad. My knees crack in the mornings, sometimes my back cracks when I twist.....I don't pay very much attention to those sounds. However, when I'm out and about, I pay very close attention to any cracking sound. If I'm ever standing on something and I hear a crack I move. Mortars in Iraq landed with a CRACK. If you are ever walking on ice and you hear a crack. my advice would be to take heed and run like hell.

I have since tried to think of a cracking sound in nature that didn't cause me to take heed. I couldn't think of any.

In summation, I don't worry if parts of my body sometimes crack, but I wouldn't go out of my way to try to make it happen.

Running and Cigarette breaks.

As a smoker I would take 10 5-7 minute breaks in a day. Now as a runner I have one 60-75 minute break in the day. In the military it was perfectly acceptable to stop what you where doing and have a smoke. Sergeants left you alone, people gave you that time to yourself. I get that same feeling from running now.

I bring this up because I believe running to achieve an objective is great, but not the only way to motivate yourself to do it. Running comfortably, free from constraints or expectations is free time for yourself. Even better is the fact that other people respect it and like grabbing a smoke in the Military, people will let you be while you do it.

Pre Spring photo

Keep this pic in mind.  A month or so from now I will take another picture of this exact place and show you what has been waiting to show up.

-- Sent from my Palm Pre

Running on the Potomac

Found a new place to run by the river.


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Below Glen Echo Park there are what I see as two spear head shaped islands. There is a parking lot right above that location across the street from a little white house on the corner of Walhonding and MacArthur Blvd. I get to the river from there.

Running next to the river reminded me of growing up by the James River in Richmond Virginia.

What I notice now but didn't then are the trails animals leave off the beaten path. These trails are hard to find in the late spring and summer because of all the foliage, but in the winter especially if the ground is soft,they are easy to follow. All you gotta look for is the path of least resistance. Sounds Cliche, I know; but think about it. Animals don't go out of there way to move hard. That's what I got to thinking about when I was running on the Potomac. Every time I would lose the trail I would look for the easiest way to continue moving in the direction I was moving and sure enough I would find the trail. Like I said the trail was easy to see in the soft ground, every step left a track. Zoom in on the land between the water and the footpath... you might find some of these trails.

Anyway it got me thinking about onlyIFITseasy as a path of least resistance.

Running explained very scientifically

http://www.barefootrunning.fas.harvard.edu/4BiomechanicsofFootStrike.html

Fear requires power, love doesn't need it.

FAREWELL JIM ZORN

I found Zorn in the Poem "IF" by Rudyard Kipling

If you can keep your head when all about you
are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you
But Make allowance for their doubting too,
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or Being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or Being Hated, not give way to hating,
And yet don't look to good, nor too wise:

If you can Dream--and not make dreams your master,
If you can think--and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same:
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you have your life to, broken,
and stoop and build'em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
and risk it all on one turn of pitch -and -toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breath a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To Serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them, "Hold on!"

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue
Or walk with kings--nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much,
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And--which is more--you'll be a Man, my son!


According to Kipling in his autobiography Something of Myself, posthumously published in 1937, the poem was inspired by Dr. Leander Starr Jameson, who in 1895 led a raid by British forces against the Boers in South Africa, subsequently called the Jameson Raid.

Zorn and Jameson's situation were very much alike. Both were under pressure to be successful both stayed to course even when everything was falling apart around them and both failed to achieve their objectives.

Good luck Zorn. I learned a lot from you.