25 December 2010: Spandex on the Run…

About a month ago I posted a collection of “gym spandex” shots. Now here are the runners…

Running Spandex

25 December 2010 (am)

Happy Holidays and Merry Christmas to those who celebrate it!

Workout notes
Shoulder: felt ok, even without ibuprofen. But he ibuprofen was masking the soreness in my legs.
Workout: 37 F, windy. Walked 1 mile, “ran” a 4.2 mile loop in 44:30, walked 1 mile. My goodness, I was stiff as a board and just couldn’t get loose; I was sore from the harder run 2 days ago and yesterday’s 8.3 mile walk.
There were few out on the Hike and Bike, but a couple of ladies (not running together) were wearing Santa hats; that was fun.
And yes, there was a lot of spandex. I got passed 4-5 times, but only once by a lady who ran just hard enough to get ahead of me and stayed there….so for about 5-6 minutes I got a very close up view of the war being raged by her compression spandex tights and her butt. Had I been able to maintain my usual 9:30 mpm pace, I wouldn’t have seen her.

There was also this young guy who was running in a singlet; his muscles just bulged and he made it look easy. As I drove home I went up a hill, and he was still running. That was me….30 years ago. Sigh….I hate entropy.

Videos: I see lots of billboards for churches. That is fine; that is free speech. But not everyone is a fan of free speech:

Personal/Health/BrainLater in the day I’ll take my now 84 year old mom (whose birthday is today) to a movie (probably True Grit) at a place that serves lunch.
Of course it was good to spend time with her. But I can see the challenge of socializing with an elderly person. In her case: her body is still reasonably strong but her mind has slipped badly and is slowly getting worse. Having anything resembling an adult conversation is all but impossible; she still speaks well but repeats herself constantly and can’t remember what you told her 5 minutes earlier.

That is the toughest part; I want to show respect but at the same time I don’t want to make unrealistic intellectual demands of her.
In a way, a physical handicap would be easier to deal with; for example you know that someone with a broken leg can’t walk and you know what adjustments that you need to make. It is tougher when you can’t really assess the mental level and when the level changes hour to hour.

The other point is that not all of “the elderly” are the same; for example a math professor recently retired from our department. He was STILL doing mathemtical research and teaching courses such as differential equations….and doing a good job of it! He too is in his early 80′s, but his mind is still excellent.

So, what causes the mental breakdown? It turns out that there are several things and many different symptoms. Here is a short list and here is a short article about what can happen to some old people.