jan 26, 2017 / 4 miles / 28 degrees
The first mention, of many, of one of my favorite Wittgenstein lines:
After the snow yesterday and the slight drop in temperature, the paths were icy. When I first started to run outside in the winter, a few years ago, I was surprised to discover that running on ice is much easier than walking on it. Even so, it was slippery today.
In Philosophical Investigations, Ludwig Wittgenstein discusses smooth ice:
We have got on to slippery ice where there is no friction and so in a certain sense the conditions are ideal, but also, just because of that, we are unable to walk. We want to walk: so we need friction. Back to the rough ground!
I don’t like running on rough ground–I have yet to try trail running–but I like the idea that we need to feel that ground beneath us.
In fact, I DO like running on rough ground and I have done some trail running (as of 2024), if you count the rubbled asphalt/dirt Winchell trail as trail running.
I connected this rough ground with Thomas Gardner in Poverty Creek Journal:
My right calf is still a little stiff from where I strained it last week doing mile repeats in the cold. Just enough to not let me out of my body.
And, here’s another line I’m constantly thinking about (experiencing in runs):
Even as we try to transcend our bodies while running, we are constantly reminded of our limits. We are bodies. We need that reminder to ground us and to keep us from getting too lost in the dreamlike state that running creates.
Good job, past Sara — you not only named the podcast episode you were listening to, but you linked to it! I loved listening to this show, occasionally when I ran, more often when I walked:
listened to podcast: how to be amazing, ep 49
jan 26, 2020 / biking / basement
Watched an episode of the reality series, Cheer, and thought about the need for discipline and being undisciplined:
Started another episode of Cheer while biking in the basement. Wow, Monica the coach is hard core. She made one of the cheerleaders who had disobeyed her order to not cheer that weekend and then injured his back do practice anyway. It was hard to watch him grimacing and writhing and sobbing from pain. In an interview, Monica talked about how the kids need and want discipline and order in their lives, partly because they’ve never had it. I often think about this balance between the need for discipline, in the form of order and rules, and the negative effects of that disciplining–unquestioned obedience to those rule even when they might lead to permanent damage–like a seriously fucked up back and life long, agonizing pain. How do we navigate that? Can we have discipline without being disciplined?
jan 26, 2021 / 3 miles / 11 degrees, feels like 0
Mentioned Wittgenstein again, then went on a wonderful ramble about ice and chums and souls:
I have no more
poems for you, chum,
only for the ice and snow.
I love the ending of this poem: the idea of thoughts slipping on a lightly iced walk, which makes me think of Wittgenstein and his line about the need for rough, tractional ground, and referring to the reader as chum. Chum is such a strange, old-fashioned, wonderful word. For me, it conjures, simultaneously, a feeling of nostalgic affection for a friend and the image of bloody guts and Jaws–oh, and also Bart Simpson’s response to Milhouse in an early season of The Simpsons.
jan 26, 2023 / 1.5 mile swim / ywca pool
Alone, and not alone, with my pool friends, Carl Sandburg, and the shadows.
10 Things I Noticed
- the woman next to me was wearing a swim cap that looked like it was from open swim. I wanted to ask her, but we were never stopped at the same time
- she was in a black suit — I think it was a tri suit. She swam breaststroke and freestyle and also ran in the deep end, her legs pedaling under the water
- there was something big and white on the pool floor, right on the part that slants down — what was it? I couldn’t tell*
- after the woman next to me left, I was alone in the pool for most of the time
- shadows on the pool floor, 1: faint, from the trees outside, flickering gently
- shadows on the pool floor, 2: a sharp, long cylinder of darkness — the lane line
- shadows on the pool floor, 3: the sun brightened and more dancing shadows with a long strip of light
- shadows on the pool floor, 4: in the lane next to me, a small ball of light — the opposite of a shadow, glowing. In the shallow end of the pool. I could see it from the far end after finishing my flip turn
- colors noticed: orange (of course), blue, a little green, yellow (maybe?) near the door to the locker room
- not always, but sometimes, I noticed the small bubbles my hands made as they pierced the water
*the white thing on the bottom was very distracting. What is it? I kept looking down, trying to study it, but with my bad eyes, I didn’t have a chance. It was almost the size of my fist. I thought about swimming down and picking it up. Gross! I decided one of the kids on the Otter’s swim team would probably pick it up during practice this afternoon.
The only one in the pool, nearly submerged for 45 minutes, I felt alone and not alone: