Running sans ipod. . .

is exactly what I did last week when I ran the Valpo half marathon. For those of you keeping score at home (and I suspect that total is exactly zero) I ran that 13.1 miles in 1:41:09. Or something approximating that. It was about a 7:43, 7:44 average pace. But the point is--it was the first race I ran without music. Since they've technically been banned from sanctioned events (most people wear them anyway) I've been experimenting with doing long runs without them.



To my suprise, I've found I've enjoyed it. During the race I actually got to have a few conversations with fellow runners. And you feel--if you'll forgive the slightly new agey feel to this--more connected to your own body as you run. I still enjoy the ipod, especially doing intervals--everyone wants to feel badass when they are doing speedwork--but the long runs take on this kinetic energy of their own when you run sans music. And running sans ipod didn't seem to hurt my time. That half last Saturday was a PR.



Book of the Week: A People's History of American Empire by Howard Zinn.



It's a graphic history version. The book goes through the U.S.'s efforts--despite its own stated rhetoric--to control and manipulate colonial interests. It is, as you might imagine, depressing. Anyone for a comic book version of Wounded Knee? A real barrel of laughs it isn't.



But a slightly more important problem: it lacks context and nuance. Take the Wounded Knee massacre for instance. That was an awful chapter in American history. But because of the way it is presented in this book it isn't clear what motivated that massacre, what followed it, and the way it impacted the continuing history of Native Americans and their continuing interactions with the American government. We just roll on to the next atrocity, and the next time that America hypocritically intervened in another people's history, ostensibly to help them, but really to allocate resources for ourselves. This 'greatest hits' approach to American Empire's most awful moments superficially points out that the U.S. often hasn't lived up to its democratic ideals, but fails to diagnose, with any real nuance, the underlying problems, whatever they may be.



Am I expecting too much from a graphic book? I don't think so. I've read some really perceptive graphic memoirs as of late that presented nuance and sophistication in their approach to complex psychological problems. Why can't I expect trenchant political and historical analysis from a graphic history? I'm sure the book's author and the people who produced the book will argue that quite a few people simply need to be reminded that this history exists. And they are, sadly, probably too correct.



But that's what I read last week. I hope whoever reads this is doing well.

Running through death

Book of the week: Sarah Hall's Daughters of the North.



Daughters of the North is told from the perspective of a nameless 1st person narrator, who insists that her readers/torturers/interrogators refer to her as 'sister.' The story is set sometime in the non-too-distant future, when global warming, religious fundamentalism, and resource shortages have turned Britain into an despotic bureaucracy. 'Sister' begins the story in a small town in the North of Britain, with a breeding monitoring device in her vagina, and an increasingly loveless marriage. She seeks a female commune located in the nearby mountains. She finds the commune, has the device removed, and falls in love with one of the 'sisters.' Eventually she begins to train with the military branch of the commune in order to begin an assault on the ruling authorities of the country. The novel, as the paperback's cover is quick to point out, is reminiscent of novels by Margaret Atwood and Ursula Le Guin, two authors I rather enjoy.



This has to be one of the few novels I wish could be a little longer. Hall's narrative is fragmented, and intentionally so, but to the point where its themes feel underdeveloped. The novel has some interesting things to say, and, more importantly, some interesting questions to ask, especially for those of us who find that the current political environment in the U.S. (and perhaps Britain) isn't as conducive to civil liberties as we'd like. At the heart of the novel is a familiar question, asked in such a way as to be relevant for our times: at what point does a country's government cease to deserve its citizens' loyalty? Watching the John Adams mini-series has reminded me that the men and women who founded this country were profoundly aware of the complexities of this question. Like Thomas Jefferson, I think, Sarah Hall wants us to keep perpetually asking the question. The novel addressed gender politics as well, but I suspect that most readers will find that Le Guin and Atwood addressed these questions more robustly in The Left Hand of Darkness and The Handmaid's Tale.



For the runner, by the way, the novel had a lot of great descriptions of running, training, and hiking in the mountains. The novelist, I think, HAS to be a runner.



Run of the week: I did a little over 18 miles today (18.3 in 2:55:50), as I continued to prepare for a marathon in late May. I do a fair amount of my training on the local university campus. Rounding one of the lakes, I found a small group of people having what I think was a funeral at the edge of the lake. They seemed to be placing ashes into the lake, singing songs. It was slightly awkward at the time; I had to find a way to run through a funeral without drawing too much attention to myself (running around them would have involved drawing even more attention to myself) but they didn't seem to mind. As I continued to run, it hit me that this wasn't such a bad idea for a funeral. Possibly my mind has been poisoned by too much John Denver, but having my ashes scattered in a setting with a lake, trees, ducks, and the odd kid trying to feed the ducks, seems like a pretty peaceful way to go back to the dust whence I came.

Just a Test. . . .

To see how this works. I used to blog on myspace. Then I got freaked out and stopped. But I thought I might try again.