leg pain

Date	Place of exercise	Duration (minutes)	Classic Sprint	Start time
26 Mar	Park	29	1:10.38	8:30

                So I’m not running at Don Bosco anymore, I’m back to the park near my apartment. It’s the location of the classic sprint that I first ran 6 years ago. As you can see by careful observation of the statistics that are part of this blog, the results painted by the classic sprint are inconsistent at best, but mostly a sad.

Don Bosco--end the fantasy

Date	Place of exercise	Duration (minutes)	Yard	Start time
22 Mar	Don Bosco	28	1:44.12	6:30

Date	Place of exercise	Duration (minutes)	Yard	Start time
23 Mar	Don Bosco	27	1:45.80	6:31

          No more fooling around. I’ve stopped this fantasy that my friend wants to do this. Dalilah’s progression is similar to many experiences of exercise wannabes. 

Last Monday—didn’t go because it was a holiday (those who don’t really want to exercise can find any excuse NOT to exercise).

karma and the electric fence

16 March 2016

Karma.  It’s a killer.  You wouldn’t know it, but it’s everywhere. Even on farms in Iowa. 

                City people sometimes don’t understand electric fences. My friend, Delilah and I, were walking around inside the grounds of a Catholic church in Tirana. The sky was clear, the sun was bright, and the air was fresh. It was the first time we had meet at this courtyard the size of a football field where the public is allowed to walk /run/exercise any time before 7:00.

Close to 60 seconds

Date	Place of exercise	Duration (minutes)	Classic Sprint	Pull ups	Start time
12 Mar	Park	25	1:01.17	5,5,5, 5,5	9:10

A great run today.  I still haven’t reached the 60 second mark on the final sprint, but I’m getting closer.  I remember back when I was teaching here and I would lower my best time for this sprint almost every day.  At the time, it gave me a great feeling of

26 Moscows in the USA

http://www.pri.org/stories/2016-03-10/there-are-more-20-towns-america-called-moscow-why

Above is a link to a story about towns called Moscow in the United States.  I wrote the following letter to the World in Words podcast:

Ok, so there are 26 towns with the name of Moscow in the United States.  What about this question:  Why do we call them Moscow, and not Moskva?  How did the proper Russian pronunciation, which is not difficult for English speakers become corrupted and then stick?  You even went so far as to contemplate if the name was actually a descendant of “moss cow”, or “ma’s cow”.  You thought that some Russians in Pennsylvania may have been the founders of Moscow, Pennsylvania.  If true Russians named the town, why wouldn’t they name it Moskva?

One more thing…I wonder why we haven’t changed the name of the city? Beijing used to be Peking, Mumbai used to be Bombay.  These names seemed to have been changed from something more western to something that fits more with the local language.  Why hasn’t the same been done with Moscow?  Who decides which cities shall have a name change?  I could understand using a name like Moscow if the Russian version was especially difficult to pronounce.  But, Moskva presents no problems for English speakers.  What’s more, the Russian language doesn’t really have an /ow/ sound.  So it looks like the west chose a name that the natives cannot easily produce in their language.  Why?

Then you also talked about how some of the towns have changed their names in order to delete the Soviet feel to them:  Leningrad reverted to St. Petersburg, Stalingrad became Volgograd. It may be interesting to note that George Orwell’s Animal Farm ‘predicted’ such name changes, with the towns reverting back to their former names.  In the book, however, the revolution was still intact, unlike the real life scenario, so maybe it is not so interesting.

I love your show by the way…

Thanks,

James Martin

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To close out the show, the host played a clip of a truly hilarious country-western song that makes us Americans look extremely stupid...or uniquely humorous (if the singer is sarcastic--which I doubt).  I just followed a link by someone writing a comment to the World in Words site.  I'm happy to announce that it IS a parody and dripping with sarcasm.  Well done, 

Pinkard and Bowden  

Here is the youtube version of the song:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gJB9fYMLALE

The downward path. Magnesium?

Date	Place of exercise	Duration (minutes)	Classic Sprint	Pull ups	Start time
9 Mar	Park	33	1:03.71	5,5,5, 5,5	7:43

         The results of the classic sprint were not under 60 seconds. Nevertheless, I felt good while running. My legs were not giving me sustained pain all throughout.  This leads me to believe, in my position of eternal optimism, that I may have turned a corner. I may be on the downward path toward free sprinting.