Parking this here because it’s so hard to find.
Restoring a human Internet
For those of us who still think about these things, a powerful piece about restoring a more healthy and human Internet. You know, the one we planned, not the one we delivered.
The issue we all know
Our online spaces are not ecosystems, though tech firms love that word. They’re plantations; highly concentrated and controlled environments, closer kin to the industrial farming of the cattle feedlot or battery chicken farms that madden the creatures trapped within.
we may be able to challenge in an interesting way.
Technologists are great at incremental fixes, but to regenerate entire habitats we need to learn from ecologists who take a whole-systems view. Ecologists know something just as important, too; how to keep going when others first ignore you and then say it’s too late, how to mobilize and work collectively, and how to build pockets of diversity and resilience that will outlast them, creating possibilities for an abundant future they can imagine but never control.
Good reading for insights and incitement.
Converting to a plant-based lifestyle
More and more frequently my wife Mary and I are asked about our experience with the plant-based lifestyle we began together several years ago, and how new people can get started. Here are some of our best recommendations, collected and organized from a patchwork of conversations with our friends who have been interested in coming along with us.
We’ve included resources like our go-to cookbooks and websites; documentary movies and series that helped us with and still reinforce our decisions; a short list of some of our favorite plant-based brands and where we source our food. We’re not trying to be comprehensive here, only to provide a solid foundation for anyone who is interested in making the move.
Before we begin, let’s get a few important things out of the way:
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- While there are a host of reasons to transition to a plant-based diet, from personal health outcomes to the ethical treatment of animals and especially to help reduce climate change, we’re not going to cover those here because there are plenty of other places to find your own why and to feel comfortable with your decision (including via some of the videos below). For us it’s all of the above. In the end it doesn’t matter which is more or less important to you, it’s that you decided to explore the change.
- We’re not medical professionals and we are not making any evaluation or promises or claims about who can support and sustain a plant-based diet or how it will affect anyone specifically. We can tell you that in our experience we feel more energetic, lighter, younger and happier; we can see the very real changes in our blood panels and body compositions; yes, we get more than enough protein, probably more than most people; and we’ve even run marathons powered completely by plants. Of course your mileage may vary.
- Lifestyle changes like this are a journey, and there can be several stops along the way if you prefer your change to be gradual rather than sudden. Whether it’s first by simply reducing meat consumption by cutting it out a couple of days a week, to becoming vegetarian by completely eliminating meat, to becoming fully vegan (to whatever degree, and there are several levels like belts in karate) by also eliminating dairy, there’s a place for you to be successful and happy along the spectrum. We’re still evolving ourselves, and definitions are less important to us than what we’re able to practice every day. Btw, yes, seafood is meat, but many people are more than comfortable in pescatarian mode; we no longer are.
- Situations where a plant-based option is not available to us are very rare these days, even out in public as more and more restaurants and venues offer valid and authentic vegetarian and vegan meals. But sometimes it happens that we can’t get what we’d like, and in those instances, our rules of engagement are 1) don’t be the problem, and 2) don’t go hungry. We can usually cobble something together out of sides or small plates, and if we have to forego protein for one meal it’s not the end of the world. No sense or satisfaction being militant.
- We’ve found that the quickest path to derailment is to try to make meals that replicate the meat and dairy you’re leaving behind. A plant-based burger for convenience every once in a while is fine, but not only are many plant-based equivalents themselves heavily-processed foods, they are open doors to regression or, if you want to look at it that way, cheating. Make the best of your fresh start by making friends with the concept of fresh whole foods.
Okay, on to the recommendations!
Cookbooks and websites
We love these first three resources as much as the changes they’ve brought to us, and they helped us in our decision to try plant-based as much as they are now the foundation of keeping us there. So much more than collections of recipes: the refreshing and sensible advice about how to start your transition, how to adapt your pantry and kitchen, how to change your shopping habits, how to swap out ingredients, how to be a plant-based badass, all of it is worth reading over and over again. And we do.
By far our favorite cookbook series is from the team at Bad*Manners (formerly Thug Kitchen). They are simply amazing, and their cookbooks of simple and delicious recipes are always the first we reach for. The original and best is Bad*Manners: The Official Cookbook, and if you do nothing else from this post, get this book: it is life-changing and you can find it at any bookstore, both online and in the real world. But we’re pretty sure you’ll end up getting them all: Brave New Meal, Hungry As Hell, Party Grub (those nachos!), and Fast As Fuck. A few months with these and your plant-based skills will be outstanding. Your profanity will be next level too. Their website has 20 pages of great recipe listings, along with a newsletter and a podcast, but there’s nothing like having these books in your hands and propped up on your kitchen counter. You can also follow along on almost all social media platforms.
Equally great but in a more understated way is the team at Forks Over Knives, which has produced a range of first-rate material, all referenced on their website. Their OG cookbook, The Forks Over Knives Plan, is a 4-week meal-by-meal makeover to help you transition and continue far beyond. We’re just starting to work through their newer cookbook, Flavor!, with good results. They offer a free Ultimate Beginner’s Guide to a Whole-Food Plant-Based Diet, available as a PDF for download. And the Forks Over Knives documentary film is a classic; more on that below. Also available to follow on most social media platforms.
We’ve found the best online resource to be VegNews. They describe themselves as “Your Ultimate Source for All Things Vegan” and they come pretty close. Recipes of course, lots of tips, industry news, editor’s picks, podcasts, and lists lists and more lists. Their gateway feature is How to Go Vegan: A Beginner’s Guide to Eating Plant-Based, an explainer and FAQ of the most common questions, along with a dozen other useful links. Like the others, you can follow VegNews on most social media platforms.
If you start with those 3 resources, you will be busy and satisfied for a long long time. But wait, there’s more. There’s no shortage of vegan or vegetarian cooking help and we can’t list them all here and it’s fun to go exploring online and in your local bookstore. Here are a few other resources worth special mention:
Although they are not all intended to be exclusively plant-based, and some do include recipes calling for meat and dairy, there are enough vegan, vegetarian, and easily-adaptable Mediterranean-style recipes in British chef Yotan Ottolenghi‘s cookbook series to occupy some substantial space on our bookshelves and in our meal plans. Sometimes you have to go digging, sometimes you need to make creative swaps, but there is absolute gold here. We have five of them—yes, five (links are to UK site but all are readily available in US). Easy places to start are Plenty, Plenty More and Flavor, his three cookbooks directed at vegetarians. Our favorite is Jerusalem, with dozens of incredibly delicious vegan-adaptable dishes. Simple is another excellent choice. He also has dozens of free recipes rotating seasonally on his website. Another must-follow on social media, especially on Instagram.
Wicked Kitchen is better known as a prepared food company, but we are going to spend more time with their cookbook this year, The Wicked Healthy Cookbook. Lots of recipes on the website and on their social media channels. And we are loooooong overdue in making their StickyBBQ Texas-Style Seitan Brisket—can’t wait to fire up the grill when the weather breaks.
And we are especially looking forward to the 2025 release of Miyoko’s Creamery founder Miyoko Schinner‘s new book on vegan cheese. She’s no longer associated with the company she founded (still great stuff, see Brands below), so for now we’ll follow along on her Instagram.
Like cookbooks, there is no shortage of social media influencers to follow. Some of our favorites are Richa Hingle (@veganricha), Lisa Myaf (@lisamyaf), Timothy Pakron (@mississippivegan), and the incredible Hannah Che (@hannahche), who also has cookbooks, including The Vegan Chinese Kitchen, but it’s her toasts that we treasure. There are so many others.
And last, because these vegan meat recipes are not easy, from prime plant-based meat and cheese company Field Roast (see Brands below), Field Roast: 101 Artisanal Vegan Meat Recipes to Cook, Share & Savor. We remain determined.
Documentary films and Series
We may all have come across the types of vegan documentaries that promise, if you watch them, that you’ll never eat meat again, and they’re right. We’ve listed a few at the bottom of this section, but we’d rather feature three that offer more positive messaging while still being honest about what happens before and after, and one series that wraps a more holistic approach around plant-based nutrition. There are a few hours of watching here, but do you know what? Less than 10 minutes watching these trailers might be enough to get anyone started.
Forks Over Knives Documentary (Amazon Prime or FOK website)
The basic whys and hows of a whole foods plant-based diet. Start here.
You Are What You Eat (Netflix)
A 2024 mini-series that uses twins to examine the even short-term health benefits of a vegan diet, along with some other foundational reasons for making the conversion. Four 45-minute episodes.
The Game Changers (Netflix)
Centers on maximizing athletic performance, but really a vegan showcase for any active (or would-be active) person.
Live to 100: Secrets of the Blue Zones (Netflix)
Yes Dan Buettner brings along a bit of pop health culture, and the aim isn’t really to live to 100: it’s about being capable and alert well into older age via a holistic approach to health and activity and attitude. The magic of this series is lighting up how your new vegan diet can be wrapped in other positive, complementary approaches that amplify everything you do. Four episodes, each less than 45 minutes.
If you’d rather be outraged, scared or disgusted into it, you could try Cowspiracy, Seaspiracy, Earthlings, and Dominion (links to trailers only). Warning: we’ve never been able to sit through one of these. If you want to skip right to the hard part, watch Dominion.
Brands
Rather than make a list of all the new brands we’ve tried and use on a regular basis, we will defer to the cookbooks above which offer great education and recommendations on different products (what is Nooch?). Instead, we’ll offer just a few brands in a few categories where most people have some difficulty transitioning and choosing good replacements. Again, we’re not trying to replicate foods exactly, but if you need some advice while exploring the shelves or food cases, and you’d like to know what about this and what about that, here’s where you might want to start in sorting through what has become a landslide of choices. Btw the websites for these brands are full of free and creative recipes using their products.
Milk
Our everyday milk choice is unsweetened original Ripple plant-based milk, made from pea protein. It’s satisfying and delicious, and we use it in everything from recipes to our cereal. For steamed coffee drinks, we shift to Califa Farms Oat Barista Blend and Califa Farms Unsweetened Almond Blend — these both froth up really well even on home machines.
Eggs
Most cookbooks will give you several options for egg replacements in recipes, from flaxseed or chia mixtures to avocado, and they work pretty well. But if you want to use an easy equivalent, Just Egg is a great answer. Made from mung beans, these products are packed with protein and taste and cook up like real eggs. The pourable product is great for scrambles, and the folded product is excellent for sandwiches of all kinds especially breakfast sandwiches.
Butter & Sour Cream
While there are several great choices in this category, Miyoko’s Creamery butters are outstanding. Taste, texture, cooking, baking, you won’t miss the real thing. At all. Kite Hill’s Sour Cream Alternative is solid.
Cheese
Most people cite cheese at the reason they don’t go full vegan. We understand, and we know it’s hard—you’re not going to replace a French cheese board anytime soon, although there will come a time as artisanal vegan cheese production is very much on the upswing. Unfortunately not much has made its way to supermarkets yet, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t great products to use. Miyoko’s Creamery again comes in as an outstanding choice: their artisan cheeses, when you can find them, are excellent; their cheese spreads are easier to find and are guest-worthy. Mozzarella? Say no more: you can make a really nice caprese with their classic mozzarella, and we are looking forward to using their new pourable mozzarella product for pizzas. For cream cheese, it’s a toss up between Miyoko’s Cream Cheese collection and Kite Hill’s cream cheeses. We do prefer Kite Hill’s Ricotta Alternative. Slices and shreds can be a mixed bag, as most are serviceable and none really stand out except for Field Roast’s Chao Creamery products—we can make an amazing 4-cheese grilled cheese from those.
Meat
Lots to choose from here, and the usual suspects are fine: can’t go wrong with Beyond, Impossible, Gardein, Amy’s Kitchen, others. Most likely you’ll sample quite a few of these both in your own kitchen and out of your home, and they’ll be interchangeable. Even in this constellation there are some standouts. In addition to its cheeses, Field Roast has an amazing line-up of meat products, from sausages to burgers to appetizers to roasts to breakfast sandwiches. One we can’t live without is their Italian Garlic and Fennel sausage, which we mostly use for tomato sauce dishes, but also in tacos and bowls. Beyond’s Brats are a staple of our summer, and we prefer their Breakfast Sausage Classic Links to the others too. Abbot’s Butcher Chorizo is fantastic. We’re still mourning The Very Good Butchers, which had an awesome lineup until they expanded too quickly; if they ever make a comeback and you see their products online or in stores, go for it.
Ice Cream & Yogurt
Also a matter of experimenting from the waterfall of brands, but in this arena we prefer Ben & Jerry’s Dairy Non-Dairy Pints made from oat milk, So Delicious ice cream sandwiches bars made from either almond or coconut milk, and Kite Hill’s Greek Style Yogurt, add your own fruit.
Frozen entrees
Yes we try to avoid these as much as we can, but there’s always a rushed night and we usually have some in the freezer. Solid brands are Wicked Kitchen, Purple Carrot, Sweet Earth, and Amy’s Kitchen.
How will your shopping habits change? Just remember that you’re always better off in the produce section than the processed foods aisles and you’ll be fine. Everything we’ve mentioned here is available to us in our local supermarkets, and most big chains now have a decent vegan or vegetarian section. Our first stop is almost always Whole Foods. Trader Joe’s has a good lineup of vegan foods, most under their own label (VegNews has some helpful guides to TJ). Target is getting surprisingly strong, especially in the prepared meals department.
The final recommendation we have is about sourcing produce. Farmers markets and local farms, of course, are great. Nothing is better than your own backyard or container garden if you have room. The last few years we’ve upped our farm-to-table game by growing a good amount of our produce indoors a few feet from our kitchen in a hydroponic garden from Rise Gardens. Even in the middle of winter we have fresh basil, lettuces, tomatoes without leaving the house. Not for everyone, although even a small countertop garden is more than worthwhile.
Wrap up
Well that seems to be quite enough for one post for now. If you’ve read this far, thank you, and we hope we’ve provided some useful information to get you going to where you want to be, or, something to think about if you’re still not sure. We’re likely be making edits to this post over time as it will be our standard evergreen response to friends who ask us about it all. If you have questions or suggestions yourself, please leave them in the comments below–we’ll try our best to find some answers!
El Viejo
When I first started running 25 years ago, in my 40s, there was this guy on the indoor track at the fitness center I ran on during cold winter days. He was at least 10 years older than me, probably more, and he would lap me like clockwork no matter what my pace. I used to think, “If only I could run like that guy. If only I could run like him.”
Eventually, over the years, I became that guy, a stronger runner for younger runners to chase, lapping the others in the gym, finding some success in local races. By chance I ran into John fifteen years later during a run in a local forest preserve. Now he looked old. He looked slow. He was slow. He was coming towards me and I waved him down and introduced myself and told him the story, and he laughed…we laughed. “Well you don’t want to be like me now.”
But once again, a few years later, here I am, and I am him again.
Every few years the photographer David Jaewon Oh asks me to stand still for a portrait when he comes to town to shoot a running event. The first photo is waiting for the start of The Humboldt Mile in June 2018. The second photo, waiting to cheer at the Chicago Marathon in October 2023. There may be more somewhere to fill in the gap, but these are enough for me to react like Winston Churchill did when confronted by painter Graham Sutherland’s famous portrait of him, which Churchill later had his wife destroy. The semi-fictional exchange from The Crown sounds about right:
Winston: It is not a reasonably truthful image of me!
Sutherland: It is, sir.
Winston: It is not! It is cruel!
Sutherland: Age is cruel! If you see decay, it’s because there’s decay. If you see frailty, it’s because there’s frailty. I can’t be blamed for what is. And I refuse to hide and disguise what I see. If you’re engaged in a fight with something, then it’s not with me. It’s with your own blindness.
Yes, well. I would almost rather be called slow than old because at least there’s something you can do about slow, although…now I have no choice to admit, I am El Viejo. And I embrace it, yes I do.
A few months ago one of the faster runners in our crew (if only I could run like her) told me to stop using the word slow when posting on social media, mostly in reference to myself, but really for everyone. We’re so happy to see you out there with us, she said. It’s about the experience and the support and not the pace, she said. She’s right of course, and those are things I already knew. What to do with this competitive fire still left, somewhere down deep, and not a little competitive insecurity: 42 age group awards, want to make it to 50…and in saying that, I’m showing the insecurity of the what ifs…what if I had tried harder in high school, what if I hadn’t sabotaged myself with so much alcohol and tobacco, what if I had started younger and stayed with it, what if I hadn’t gotten sick. My own blindness.
There are only so many days. One of my regrets, and I’m a person who has so very few regrets, is that I didn’t start running marathons sooner, that I waited until I was 61, because surely I could have gone sub 4 or something that never would have been enough. As it is, I’m coming up on 250 races, only one of which was a DNF because I messed up some meds. The list of DNS had been growing because I’ve become smarter about backing off in the face of undertraining mostly due to injury–one of my mantras is to live to run another day–and I’m almost ready to stop counting even as I’m nowhere near ready to stop racing.
Following that mantra, and helped by the reminder from Kim (my sister was named Kim too), this season I accomplished what I set out to do: I ran every race I signed up for except one, which I missed because of COVID, and I hit a modest time goal in my last 5k that indicated to me that I was in fact on my way back and gave me a green light to turn things up for next year. I did cut plans for a couple of fun runs at the end of this year and the start of next because my wife Mary needs to heal a foot issue, and those races would not have been the same without her.
Next spring will be light: the season opener at my 15th Shamrock Shuffle in March (still a little sore at those guys, another story), and a time check at the Ravenswood Run 5k in April. Then it’s getting my daughter married before I pour in the heat of the rest of the schedule, and stress this old body to see if it can take the load of marathon training in 2025. If that happens, great. If not, and I’m back to being a 5k/10k kind of runner, with an occasional half marathon thrown in, that’s great too.
Because now I’m solidly El Viejo, who gets to say things like every day is a gift, every mile is a gift, every step is a gift, every breath is a gift, every start line is a gift, who gets to say things like that and mean every word. And I guess now that’s my gift to you, because my running is really not about me any more. It’s not that my time has passed, it’s that my time means so much more now than to worry about the time to the finish. Living in the moment with all of you, in the crew, in the mid-pack, inevitably in the back of the pack, wherever we may be, that’s where you’ll see El Viejo for a while longer at least. Not in any hurry to be anywhere else anytime soon.
Of course one thing that won’t ever change is my closing mantra:
There may be younger runners. And there may be faster runners. But every once in a while, on a warm summer evening into the setting sun, there is no more magnificent runner, than me.
So, see you all out there in 2024. It’s been a joy and an honor to share the road with you, and always will be. If you call out El Viejo, I’ll answer to it because I own it now, with honor and pride, with appreciation and humility, and with a great deal of gratitude. Thank you for letting me tag along.
2023 Mini Shoe Reviews (including a mini rant)
One of the silver linings of coming back from a long-ass injury and recovery period is the opportunity to build a new running shoe rotation. Here’s what’s on my feet these days, after discarding the expired and the worn out and the troublesome. Feeling really good about the rotation and how I built it—will give some quick thoughts on each shoe.
But first, a mini rant. The state and cost and cult of running shoes is completely ridiculous today. Like most runners I had fallen into it too: ultra-cushioned, super stack height, plated and whatever, thinking I had to have the latest and greatest not only to compete but for the fashion of it all as well. And seriously, why are we paying those prices. While I’m no physical therapist, I am pretty sure that much of the latest shoe technology only weakens our feet over the long term (Born to Run was absolutely correct) in return for short-term performance and comfort. It’s a dangerous and unnecessarily expensive game to play if you have a horizon beyond the next season, and I want to keep going as along as possible, so I’ve stepped off that bus.
Okay, back to building the new rotation. My mission was to return gradually to medium stack height and medium drop, with enough firmness that proprioception (can you feel the road beneath your feet?) returned to my running experience. These old legs will probably never get back to the era of my beloved zero-drop Newtons, but this transition rotation is taking me from 10mm drops to a target of 4-5-6mm, with stack heights that won’t break an ankle on a sharp turn. I also wanted a wide variety of brands and purpose, with lightweight trainers mixed in with the everyday. All of that could have ended up costing a lot of money; it didn’t, because my last filter was to avoid paying full price for anything. With two exceptions, I used heavy discount codes or sale pricing of 40% or more to buy some truly excellent shoes, waiting for season’s end, discontinuation of colorways, whatever was available for savings. You can still find most of the models in stores and online for little money.
These are all road shoes–the trails around me are wide, crushed gravel so no need for technical footwear. Research and recommendations came from standbys Kofuzi and The Ginger Runner, with assists from Doctors of Running, Believe in the Run, Ed Budd, and occasionally others. They’re all easily found on social media.
Top row, from the left:
PUMA Deviate Nitro 2
Absolutely fantastic and a tremendous amount of fun. Once you’re in rhythm and up on the plates you feel like you could go forever. All the cushioned foam is successfully offset by a full carbon plate–these are everything I wanted the sloppy Nike Invincibles to be but weren’t. The grip is outstanding especially on wet pavement. I’ll likely move on from the plate and the drop after this pair, but they sure are a ride for now. Medium to long runs. 32mm stack, 10mm drop. 6.3oz.
New Balance 1080 v11
Legacy shoes from the old rotation that still have some miles left on them. A lot of people didn’t care for the heel counter in this version but I’ve had no issue with it. 1080s are the shoe I first started running in about 25 years ago, and I’m glad I returned: a solid distance shoe anchoring the longer distance portion of the rotation, and still with some pop. Will definitely buy v13 when they come around on sale in a few months; reviews have been been good and drop has decreased to 6mm. Long runs. 30mm stack, 8mm drop, 10.1oz.
Brooks Hyperion Max
Never cared for Brooks shoes: way too heavy, way too much drop. Hyperion Max though, just wow. These are incredible. Light, fast, versatile. Nothing “max” about these, and I reach for them more and more. Would even consider for race day for a 10 miler or half marathon. Only thing about them, because of the unusual heel they’re a little strange to walk in, but once you’re up during a run I can’t think of a shoe that’s a better or more pleasant ride. Medium to long runs. 33mm stack, 8mm drop, 7.9oz.
Middle row, from the left:
Hoka Mach 5
In my quest to get back to sane stack heights you’d think I’d cross Hokas off the list, but not these. The best Hokas I’ve ever run in since the early Cliftons and the Tracer. These evolved from a few of their mid-range shoes from a few years ago—Clayton, Cavu—and with moderate cushioning for a Hoka they are fast and light. Please don’t ever change these. Short to medium runs, especially tempo and threshold. 29mm stack, 5.5mm drop. 8.2oz.
Nike Pegasus Turbo Next Nature
The original Nike Peg Turbos were my favorite running shoes ever, and as every review in the world will tell you, these are not anywhere near the same shoe, you can hardly tell they’re from the same lineage. But honestly there’s nothing wrong with that, and the Next Natures are almost a throwback to the time before running shoes completely lost their minds. These are rock solid everyday trainers, period. Nothing to get overly excited about, nothing bad, they just get the job done. Half of the foam is recycled, so there’s something to be said about being responsible as well. No regrets, hoping Nike reduces the drop but not holding my breath. Medium runs. 32mm stack, 10mm drop, 8.6oz.
Adidas Adizero SL
Another no-nonsense quality everyday trainer like the Next Natures. Nothing much more to say about these except that I got them for $50. $50! Medium runs. 35mm stack, 8.5mm drop, 8.6oz.
Bottom row, from the left:
PUMA Liberate Nitro 2
The only shoes in the rotation I’ve had second thoughts about, but only because they are best suited to track workouts and I don’t have convenient access to a track. Very light and fast, not much cushioning and the road feels like a shock compared to other shoes. The heel counter is troublesome because it’s sharp and bites if you don’t have sock coverage on your achilles. Would also have preferred a lower drop in a shoe like this. Not being entirely fair because I haven’t been able to run in them enough to form a solid opinion, but I think I may transition these to walking shoes before their time. Speedwork only. 28mm stack, 10mm drop, 6.3oz.
Nike Streakfly
Another excellent shoe I bought at very deep discount when Nike was discontinuing colorways. Fun and very fast with enough cushioning to use as lightweight trainers. Also solid race day shoes for 5k or 10k when you don’t want to run in plated shoes, which, more and more, is my preference not to. Short runs, tempo and speedwork, short races. 32mm stack, 6mm drop, 6.0oz.
Adidas Takumi Sen 9
Man these are fast shoes, with fiber rods instead of full carbon plates. Like the Streakflys, I use these as lightweight trainers and they have become my preferred 10k race shoe; wouldn’t go longer than that though. Short runs, tempo and speedwork, short races. 33mm stack, 6mm drop, 6.4oz.
This rotation should last me well into 2024, although I’ll have to update the New Balance 1080s by spring. May also add in some Sauconys next round as my legs get used to lower drops. I do still have a pair of Nike ZoomX Vaporfly Next% (38mm stack, 8mm drop, 6.6oz.) with some miles available on them for racing, and I’ll have to make a decision for the half marathons on next year’s calendar because I’m beginning to believe that if you’re not an elite runner who takes extra care to build specific foot strength, plated shoes will not only weaken your feet but rip them apart. In the meantime though, this may be the best and least expensive shoe rotation I’ve ever had, and I’m extremely happy with it. Your mileage may vary of course, but if any of these are interesting to you, please look to the online reviews and videos for more complete analysis, and look for them on sale at your favorite shoe source.
Route 66: the long road home
As much fun as I had during my race sequence this spring setting PWs (Personal Worsts) by a wide margin at nearly every distance, including my first DNF in almost 250 races, I do believe I’ve begun to strengthen the infrastructure and regain the rhythm enough to begin to reverse that trend. Time to leave those PWs behind—may they stand forever—and come back as, not the runner I once was, but the runner I can still be.
Never did my 2022 running wrap because there’s wasn’t much of anything to wrap. At the risk of repeating myself from the near sudden end of Soft Reboot coming out of the spectacular 2019 running season, 2020’s The Year of Unrunning, and 2021’s Running Resurrection: inactivity during the pandemic and the resulting injuries broke me. My body. My spirit. My body again. And again. Fought it best I could yet not enough, described it and what I would do about it and what I wanted for myself coming out of it, and all of it is still true.
There is nothing more to say, looking back, running backwards from that last good race in California, to Chicago. There’s power in metaphor: I’m 66 now and Route 66 is the only road open to me, the only road forward, the only road home. Not sure how much time I have left, so I might as well take it slow and enjoy it, make sure I’m still moving, make sure I keep showing up.
There are still always going to be roadblocks of course. A (last?) bout of COVID. Meds askew. Wildfires. I’m only getting to this today because even now that the smoke has cleared a bit, it’s 90 degrees outside and too hot for old guys to run.
The foundation of the turnaround is acknowledgement that my problems were of my own making. That my knee hurt because I wasn’t running. That my back hurt because I wasn’t working out. That other problems had root causes in lack of hydration, poor nutrition. The shoulder that’s shorter than the other by an inch because of all those years carrying heavy computer bags and luggage? Fix it. Fix everything, fix all of it.
Some things are worth bringing back.
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- Inspiration from local heroes: Erika, Callie and Tom; my indomitable wife.
- Inspirational and informational readings from those far away: Dicharry, Benzie, Kara, Born to Run 2.
Some new/old mechanics:
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- A sustainable cadence of strength, mobility, stability, with regular and planned pilates, TRX and yoga taking precedence over running.
- New shoe rotation, gradually working my way back to basics to re-strengthen and feel the world through my feet: less cushioning, lower stack heights, lower drops, firmer ride, more variation. Proprioception is key!
- Chia seeds.
Some very personal things:
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- Acknowledging loss, yes. Youth. Speed. Friends. Time.
- Rediscovering joy. Energy. Passion, but passion with tempered perspective.
- Strength from my crew: little do they know how much energy I draw from them, how much they help keep me going, especially now that I’ve been able to be there more often.
And finally, a new commitment to just run through it. Stop being so careful. Stop acting so…broken. So…old. A choice to leave the last and the best of me streaked on the sidewalk and the asphalt and the trail. Sweat and tears and all that. Even bleed a little. Expose the heart. Some days all I’ve got left is heart.
Run Free. Breathe Deep. Finish Strong. I’ve known for a while I’m in the Finish Strong phase, with much too much risk that it was just “finish.” Too young for that. May not end up being the 94 year old running his 25th marathon, but…
Maybe this isn’t just Route 66. Maybe it’s the October Road of my life. In the broader expanse of my running career, this is like mile 23 of a marathon… when looking all around me I see others in various degrees of trouble and pain, the moment when I could easily shut down by choice or by my body flat giving out…and instead, I choose to take, we all choose to take, whatever it is we’ve been carrying on our shoulders all this time, we take it and gently lay it on the side of the road and head off for the finish line. This is my Route 66 now, my October Road, my long road home. And I’m very grateful I still have it in front of me.
October Road
Provided to YouTube by ColumbiaOctober Road · James TaylorOctober Road (Special Edition)℗ 2002 Sony Music Entertainment, Inc.Released on: 2008-05-05Producer:…
As always I will close this with my mantra because it is always worth telling myself over and over and over again right until the end:
There may be younger runners. And there may be faster runners. But every once in a while, on a warm summer evening into the setting sun, there is no more magnificent runner, than me.
Earth Day reading
Earth Day is coming up on April 22nd, thought I’d share some books about climate change and the biosphere I’ve learned from and enjoyed the last few years, including a few on my stack that I’m eager to get to. These are serious messages for serious times.
Recommended
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Ayana Elizabeth Johnson, All We Can Save: Truth, Courage, and Solutions for the Climate Crisis
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Elizabeth Rush, Rising: Dispatches from the New American Shore
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David Wallace-Wells, The Uninhabitable Earth: Life After Warming
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Mary Robinson, Climate Justice: Hope, Resilience, and the Fight for a Sustainable Future
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Michael E. Mann, The New Climate War: The Fight to Take Back Our Planet
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Peter Kalmus, Being the Change: Live Well and Spark a Climate Revolution
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Dina Gilio-Whitaker, As Long as Grass Grows: The Indigenous Fight for Environmental Justice, from Colonization to Standing Rock
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Jane Goodall, The Book of Hope: A Survival Guide for Trying Times
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Hope Jahren, The Story of More: How We Got to Climate Change and Where to Go From Here
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Naomi Klein, On Fire: The (Burning) Case for a Green New Deal
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Elizabeth Kolbert, Under a White Sky: The Nature of the Future
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Not discounting books by Bill McKibben and Al Gore, just been a while since major contributions.
On my stack
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Jake Bittle, The Great Displacement: Climate Change and the Next American Migration
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Dave Goulson, Silent Earth: Averting the Insect Apocalypse
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Ed Yong, An Immense World: How Animal Senses Reveal the Hidden Realms Around Us
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Related perspective
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Elizabeth Kolbert, The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History
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Jared Diamond, Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed
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Jared Diamond, Guns, Germs and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies
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Naomi Klein, The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism
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Fiction
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Richard Powers, The Overstory
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Longtermism: “A giant massacre for man, a small misstep for mankind.”
Of all the disturbing and predictable paths of the 21st century, Effective Altruism and its increasingly popular subcult of Longtermism are no longer the exclusive province of whackadoodles, but openly promoted by dangerous techbro white supremacist billionaires like Elon Musk and Peter Thiel and Jeff Bezos and Richard Branson who shape global policy and culture to justify and mirror their own world view of selfish moral leprosy. (Yes this is what all the personal space travel is about.)
At the heart of it all is Nick Bostrom, author of Superintelligence, a book I had long had on my reading pile which now currently resides in the trash, who argues that purging billions of humans now by letting them die in events like a climate catastrophe will provide increased value for the universe in the future, with human intelligence possibly living inside computer simulations a la The Matrix. They are serious in their beliefs. Since I bought the book Bostrom has been exposed as a white supremacist who believes that people of color in southern climates are expendable in a white future; Elon Musk is one of his biggest fans.
This is the eugenics of our time, and its adherents and frontmen are no different than extreme fundamentalists who believe in The Rapture, but in this scenario, with pre-emptive mass death actions driven by human choice while the Effective Altruists take on the role of gods.
This article is a long and important read that explains quite a lot of the political and media dynamics we’re currently experiencing, especially the resistance to taking any meaningful action on climate change. While we’re diverted and distracted by political speculation and vapid bickering, the entire world has been put into play by these maniacs. Highly recommended and well worth your time.
For the gun lobby, social media is the new video games
Great example of how the gun lobby and their Republican frontmen alter and misdirect the conversation about gun violence, especially when it comes to children. Here one of the smartest and most insightful leaders on the Internet spends time and energy defending social media as a motivator for teen suicide since 2008, when there is extensive public health data that shows that the increase in teen suicides is directly connected to a massive increase in guns in homes, which is why guns are now the leading cause of death for children: availability, efficiency. For the gun lobby, social media is the new video games, and a strategy of deflection always wins for them.
Foundations for talking about gun violence
With all the conversations about gun violence prevention spurred by the latest spike in mass shootings, it is incumbent upon us to be knowledgeable about data that informs those discussions and that may point towards realistic solutions. The information is not always what we think it is or what we’d like it to be, so, as I do every few months it seems, I’m going to share a few resources that I’ve found helpful that go far beyond searching for the latest and usually misinformed article or manufactured position to throw into another social media argument. None of these resources take positions or advocate either for or against gun policies; they do come to solid conclusions about what causes gun violence and what it might take to stop it.
Because the antidote to the common lines of misdirection, e.g.
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- “Mental illness”
- “Gun free zones”
- “What about Chicago?”
is a public health approach to a public health problem, based on
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- Factual data and evidence
- Risk-based analysis and policy recommendations
- Specific threat assessment
(Disclosure: I do not benefit in any way from the links that follow.)
The best resource I’ve come across is the free online version of the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Violence Prevention and Policy’s course, Reducing Gun Violence in America: Evidence for Change. It requires a considerable time investment, 18 hours, but you will walk away with a solid education in gun policy from all points of view, as well as a solid and vetted range of data including studies from both the private and public sectors. May not change your mind or anyone else’s coming out the other side, but it is an impartial, reality-based examination of the issue across all of its dimensions. Can’t recommend this more highly as a great replacement for all the time we waste ingesting bad data and specious arguments on social media platforms. (Course is free, but $49 allows you to complete testing and receive a certificate.) The lead instructor is Daniel W. Webster, who is the author of Reducing Gun Violence in America; that book was published a decade ago, and the course is a much-need update and an all-around a better experience until he issues a revised edition.
Reducing Gun Violence in America: Evidence for Change
Offered by Johns Hopkins University. Reducing Gun Violence in America: Evidence for Change is designed to provide learners with the best ... Enroll for free.
The second resource is Louis Klarevas’ Rampage Nation: Securing America from Mass Shootings. This is important and deeply-researched analysis drawing from a wide variety of source data and material. At 340 pages it’s a medium-length read. Turn off cable news and try this instead.
Rampage Nation: Securing America from Mass Shootings|Hardcover
In the past decade, no individual act of violence has killed more people in the United States than the mass shooting. This well-researched, forcefully argued book answers some of the most pressing questions facing our society: Why do people go on killing sprees? Are gun-free zones magnets for…
Third is the recently published study by Jillian Peterson and James Densley, The Violence Project: How to Stop a Mass Shooting Epidemic, which relies not only on a solid file of evidence, but also is informed by blinded interviews with mass shooters and people who know them well.
The Violence Project Book
The Violence Project: How to Stop A Mass Shooting Epidemic
Winner of the 2022 Minnesota Book Award (General Nonfiction)
Winner of the 2022 Minnesota Book Award (General Nonfiction)
Fourth is another book that lights up what goes wrong when our conversations about gun violence, including the ones on social media that we all contribute to, go off the rails with misinformation: Elizabeth Williamson’s Sandy Hook: An American Tragedy and the Battle for Truth. Long but fast read.
Sandy Hook by Elizabeth Williamson: 9781524746582 | PenguinRandomHouse.com: Books
Carnegie Medal Nonfiction Longlist 2023 The Washington Post Best Non-Fiction Books of 2022 Publishers Weekly Best Books 2022 Kirkus Best Non-Fiction Books of 2022 Slate Best Books 2022 Chicago Tribune…
This kind of foundation is essential for effective action and advocacy no matter from which direction any of us approach the issue. Those who propose new policy and practices or additional legislation, and those who consider themselves to be responsible and safe gun owners, all need a common understanding and a common language if we are to stop the fear and the slaughter. And make no mistake, it will take all of us. We better get started.
Leaving and locking down Twitter: 15 steps
Have shared this in posts in a few places, compiling in one place now.
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Here’s a relatively detailed process building out on the absolutely correct advice NOT to deactivate your account (your username would then become available in 30 days, and anyone could pick it up and impersonate you complete with blue verification check. You do not want that.) Try these 15 steps instead, best from a web browser and not the app.
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- Archive your data. If you haven’t already, create download an archive of your data. Settings and Settings and Support > Settings and Privacy > Your Account > Download an archive of your data. This will give you a complete file of your tweets and replies, but not followers, following, or DMs.
- Delete your tweets. After you’re satisfied with your archive, delete all of your tweets. A service like TweetDelete can do this in minutes depending on volume and how backed up they are. You will need to grant TweetDelete access to your account; when you’re done, remember to log out of TweetDelete.
- Notifications and Mentions are more difficult to clean up. From the main interface menu, choose Notifications then check the All and Mentions tabs. You can choose to leave conversations and/or block people you’ve interacted with. Won’t erase history entirely but will make it difficult to follow.
- Followers and following: there are no good solutions that I know of to archive followers and following, although I’m sure someone has built or is building a service to do it. I painstakingly went through and created new connective tissue to about 80% of the people and organizations I cared about most, via Substack, Medium, old school RSS, Mastodon and other fediverse tools, and, if nothing else was available, curated bookmarks. Whatever works for you for whatever you want to save. Also up to you if you want to delete all followers and following; this too would be a manual process.
- Account Information, part 1: delete as much as you can, especially your mobile phone number and if they somehow got it, your birth date. You may also want to reset your email address to the one you use for junk stuff. Settings and Support > Settings and Privacy > Your Account > Account Information.
- IMPORTANT Account information, part 2: While you’re in this area, make sure you set Protected Tweets to yes. This will lock down your account, and a lock icon will appear next to your username. Now only your followers know you exist and can see your stuff.
- Security and Account Safety: go through each and every page and shut everything down. Sever all connections with other apps and services, close any open session on other screens. Settings and Support > Settings and Privacy > Security and Account Access
- Privacy and Safety: review all the settings, shutting down whatever allows the world to look in, but pay careful attention to Content you see: wipe out any and all data points they have on you under the Topics and Interests sections, and remove the geo permission under Explore settings. Settings and Support > Settings and Privacy > Privacy and Safety
- Messages: delete all of your DMs from the Messages tab on the main menu. This will likely be a manual process. There may be a service that will do it for you, but not recommended if you have any sensitive information in those threads.
- Bookmarks: access from the main menu tab, clear all bookmarks with the button on the top of the page.
- Lists: access from the main menu tab, delete all of your lists one by one.
- Profile: access from the main menu tab, edit to remove any information you don’t want to remain. You may want to add a Fediverse addess if you’d like to leave bread crumbs for your followers. You may want to gray out or black out your profile and background photos to indicate you’re no long present.
- Change your password and make it a good strong one. Settings and Support > Settings and Privacy > Your Account > Change Your Password
- Log out.
- Wipe out: Finally, remove Twitter apps from all phones, tablets, computers. If you have the patience, clear Twitter cookies (x.twitter.com, ads-twitter.com) from all web browsers. Audit the rest of your Internet presence and eliminate all links to or mentions of your Twitter account; this includes link menus on your blog, email signatures, LinkedIn accounts, etc. If your browser provides the option for social media blocking, disallow Twitter embedded tweets.
As we all know, the Internet is forever and there will be ghosts and shadows and remnants left behind on Twitter servers and others. But if you do all of these things, you’ll have done everything you can to keep your identity safe and to lock down your data. Now breathe.
If I’ve overlooked anything, please feel free to add.
Coda: really want to get serious about leaving Twitter behind, use your browser to block embedded tweets in any content. Native to Brave, plugins for others.
The Messenger
Valentyn Sylvestrov is a living Ukrainian classical composer, born in Kyiv in 1937. This lovely piece, The Messenger, was written in 1996, five years after Ukraine declared independence from the former Soviet Union, in memory of his wife, Larysa, who had passed away unexpectedly.
Sylvestrov said it is about loss, and return. In bearing witness to what is happening in his country this winter, may we all be thankful for what we have, for what we’ve lost, from where we’ve returned.
As with all of her work, the pianist, Hélène Grimaud, plays stunningly.
