I’ve had a couple of great running buddies over the years. Key qualities include just
the right level of cheerleading and knowledge of such things as stretches, tennis
shoes and running paths. (I’m also glad when they’re talkers – ‘cause running
gets boring, and I’m usually too busy panting to bring much to the conversation.)

But far more than anything, the top quality for any running buddy has something to
do with accountability.

Day one of a new routine is always the hardest, but the good running buddy guilts
you into it. Day two: You’re super sore, but the good running buddy reminds you
that day two will become just another day one if you put it off another week.

So, about a month in, thanks to the encouragement from your awesome running
buddy, you’ve reached your short-term goal.

Then, things get busy. You have a couple of night meetings, a social hour or two … or
five. Crap, now you’ve got social hour flab. Go for a run? Eh … I need to catch up on
my sleep.

A month goes by. “Let’s go running,” you say, uncharacteristically, to your running
buddy, who, having considerable willpower, hasn’t stopped exercising and isn’t
going to wheeze as you do when you round the first corner.

The cheerleader in your running buddy kicks in. Even though you’re back exactly
where you started, your running buddy tells you “Nice job. Next time will be easier.”
So you plan to go running two days later. The time arrives. “How do you feel about
running?” your superb running buddy asks.

This is the moment where you return the favor. You say, “I’m all about it! Let’s go!
The air is cool and the paths are clear!”

But, instead, being the terrible running buddy that you are, you say, “Well, I could be
persuaded. But if you’re not feeling like it, I don’t mind.”

That’s a running buddy fail.*

*Sorry, Pat!

The standard advice for anyone wishing to reduce their energy consumption tends to include turning off the lights, walking instead of driving and turning down the heat.

Turning off the lights when I’m not in the room? Check. That one’s pretty easy. Walking everywhere? Wearing five sweaters all winter long? … Fail and fail. Some days I can do it. But on others, it just ain’t gonna happen. Excuses are just too easy to come by: My ice cream will melt by the time I walk home or I can only fit so many sweaters on top of each other.

The bad news: I’m wasting energy, and so are a lot of other people, some of whom are even less environmentally conscious and far less prone to sacrifice in the name of Mother Nature.

The good news: We can all conserve more energy with one-time choices than we can with total behavioral changes. Saving the planet is really more about using better technology, researchers are saying, than it is about giving up our comforts.

Carpooling to work with one other person, for instance, saves about a quarter of the energy that can be saved by driving a more efficient car. When it comes to keeping the house warm in the winter, we would use 5 percent less energy than we would otherwise use if we improved attic insulation, versus the less than 3 percent saved just by turning down the thermostat every day. New CFL light bulbs can save 4 percent, whereas turning off old bulbs each night will only save half of one percent of the energy otherwise needed. In other words, using more efficient technologies reduces our carbon footprint much more effectively than just using old technologies less. 

Unfortunately, the word isn't getting across, and those who are inclined to take only one or two steps, fail to take the right ones.

While weatherizing the house or buying a hybrid car can cost money, such actions come with a major plus – they only require easy, one-time changes in behavior (most of the time there are savings in the long-run, too, as the electric bills are lower). Curtailing our driving or turning up the temperature on the air conditioner, on the other hand, require constant psychological willpower. Do I really want to sweat profusely in my hot home when I get back from work? Do I really want to ride my bicycle to the market through the rain? Kudos to all those who are able to say “yes,” but I’m pretty sure my answer will probably be “no” on an unfortunately regular basis. 

So, to make up for my willpower shortcomings – which I will continue to try overcoming, I’ve decided to adopt just one hard and fast rule: Pick the best technology.

 

Watch this: I love that clip from Will Ferrell's film Anchorman, and it fits tangentially into today's post. Summer in the Midwest is a time of wretched, smothering humidity and baking heat, the combination of which usually makes you sweat without exerting any effort. If you dare to move around while outside in this sweltering stew, you take on some very real health risks. These risks should not be ignored, but they are completely manageable. With the State Fair right around the corner, we've got the two-mile Parade Run this afternooon (Get registered!) and the 6-mile (10k) Abe's Amble on Aug. 22 (Get registered!). It will be in the mid-90s today during the Parade Run, so anyone planning to run it would be well-advised to prepare. Here's a quick list of things you can do to make sure you cross the finish line on your feet instead of on a stretcher.

1) Dress for success. Just like any other area of life, running has a certain wardrobe. That stinky, pit-stained old cotton T-shirt you wear to the gym may be your favorite, but if you wear it while running in 90-degree weather, you might as well be wearing a garbage bag. You will become drenched in sweat, and the cotton will hold onto the moisture for hours. Instead, wear one of those newfangled mesh running shirts that wick away sweat like a personal towel boy. They're lighter than cotton, less prone to stretching, more breathable, and allow faster evaporation of sweat. Plus, they make you look like you really know what you're doing, so you can act all nonchalant when someone comments on your race attire. "Yeah, I run so much I had to get a special shirt...it's no big deal."

2) Baste yourself like a turkey. One of the benefits of running outside is getting a sweet tan that lets everyone know how active and "with it" you are. But when that sun is raining down fire with all the intensity of the Roman army in Western Europe, you're going to want a few tribes of Scotsmen to beat back the UV rays. Okay, that was a bad metaphor. Just wear sunscreen.

 3) Go all Niagara on yourself. I can't state this enough: Drinking enough water is absolutely imperative. Dehydration can drop you like a bare-knuckle boxer, and a poorly-watered person can experience tiredness, headaches, dizziness, rapid heart rate and even constipation - none of which is helpful while running. Luckily, it's easy to prevent. Just drink plenty of water. Don't wait until you're thirsty. Do it now. Seriously. Get up and grab a bottle, glass, mug or shiny metal canister of water. I'll wait. Slurp it down. All of it. Now do that about 10 more times throughout the day. Be sure to drink during and after the race as well. Bonus: Drinking lots of water can also help curb appetite, since the body sometimes confuses thirst with hunger.

 4) Bring your Siamese twin. Running with a partner not only offers motivation and support, but it gives you a safety net in case you start feeling double plus ungood. You can always hope a stranger notices when you collapse in an exhausted heap, but a good friend and running buddy will likely see warning signs of heat stroke or other heat-related maladies before you pass out. That's what friends are for - picking up your gross, sweaty body, hoisting you onto their back and finishing the race in record time. Okay, that might be a tad unrealistic, but it would be pretty cool. If your running buddy does that, you at least owe them your first-born child. (A second or third child is acceptable if you're only work friends.)

That's all I've got. Anyone else have any good tips? Leave a comment below or email me at pyeagle@illinoistimes.com. Have a great day and a great run!

Perhaps it was the heat. By 9:30 in the evening, one would normally expect the sweltering fever and thick humidity of the day to dissipate, but the sultry blanket of summer seemed to defiantly drape itself over the park even as the waning crescent of moon slowly climbed into the night sky.

Full of root beer caffeine and a week’s rest, I bounded down the stairs of my apartment building, eager to take the abandoned streets as my own and make up for my recent inconsistency in the realm of physical exertion. I was wearing my space-age light-weight running shirt, a blinking light clipped on the back collar, and my black, silicone-covered music player pumping into my ears a growling, angry tune with grinding guitars and piercing drums – the best music to run to. I do my best work when the music strokes that hidden epic-sensitive spot in my ego, the one that secretly and fallaciously tells me I can run faster than anyone else on the planet. Sometimes it whispers to me in the first-person plural voice: “We never slow down. We never stop. We are invincible.”

I jogged quickly down MacArthur Boulevard toward Washington Park, leaping emphatically over each uneven sidewalk joint and mud slick, then turned east onto Williams Boulevard. I long ago reasoned that I should run the half-mile boulevard loop first because that first forces me to actually do it – saving it for the end would make it easier to skip. I’ve now begun to wonder if the final hill in the park leading back to MacArthur would be easier if I saved the boulevard loop for the end. No matter now.

The heat began to seep into my muscles and lungs as I pattered past the main South Grand entrance to the park. My short, quick steps gradually began to feel heavier, as though I was dragging a pair of dumbbells tied to my ankles and someone kept adding a few ounces of weight with every passing minute. As I pushed up the hill by the playground pavilion, my breathing began to change from shallow puffs through my nose to deep and forceful gales through my mouth, requiring concentration to keep them under control. I’ve found that metering my breath gives me focus and keeps me from feeling winded.

The downhill slope between the pavilion and the lagoon is a welcome respite from the toilsome fight that even flat land presents. I practically fell down the hill in quick, light steps that barely touched the ground and seemed to place my body ahead of my feet. But just as what goes up must come down, every downhill has an uphill, and the carillon hill awaited me next. I crossed the southern lagoon bridge, where a row of sleeping mallards had docked for the night, and began to push deliberately up the incline, every heavy footfall seeming to chip into the hillside like a stair case. I passed a young couple walking up the hill and thought smugly to myself, “Look at those lazy suckers walking. I’ll show them how a runner climbs a hill.” By the time I reached the top, the smothering heat had injected every cell of my body with a dull fire that made me second-guess my doubt in spontaneous combustion.

Going downhill again, I saw another runner headed the same direction and immediately shifted focus from, “Good God, I’m dying,” to “I have to pass that guy!” Competition is a powerful motivator, especially when a person’s physical faculties begin to groan for rest. The other runner turned onto a side road and began to walk. The smugness immediately returned, and a self-satisfied grin sprouted across my face like a cartoon lion who sees his prey fall into the dust.

The next few minutes are a blur – the combination of heat, exhaustion and hyper focus have wiped any distinguishing details from my memory. I only remember hitting the final hill leading back to MacArthur Boulevard with a cautious optimism – I was nearly finished, but the hardest work remained to be done. For me, the final leg of every run is always a sprint, no matter how tired or out of breath I may be. With two light poles to go and my legs and shoulders burning in protest, I increased my pace by about half – a full run at about 80 percent of my capacity. The last light pole loomed ever closer…a few more steps…now GO! I break into a sprint like I’m trying to catch the last train ever. The guttural tone of a favorite vocalist whispered indignantly in my ear, driving me forward. “We once drew, some lines in black. Right now, it’s about time, we took them back.” I pump, push and shed the weight of exhaustion for one last charge. My feet move faster than I thought possible, screaming and fighting every step of the way. Fifty more feet. My chest heaves in gasping breaths that only leave me wanting. Twenty feet. Tunnel vision sets in…I see only the blurred lights of a passing car ahead and the solid stripe on the road leading me forward. As I reach the finish, the heat hits me again, as if I had left it behind by sprinting. Though I’ve finished running, my legs don’t want to stop; the keep moving, forcing me to speed walk down the sidewalk with my hands on my head like a prisoner of war.

It was only 2.5 miles. That’s hardly anything. Perhaps it’s the heat that sapped my strength so early. Maybe it was from not running with a partner or my lack of a concrete running goal. Any one of those factors could be the culprit, or it could have been all of the above. At any rate, I have a lot of work to do if I’m going to run the Abe’s Amble 10k race at the State Fair on Aug. 22. That’s more than double the length that winded me last night, but I know I can do it. As my subconscious says, “We are invincible.”

            Drugs. In the world of fitness – and by extension – sports, they have become an issue impossible to ignore. Even though most of us amateur runners, cyclists and other athletes will never deal with steroids personally, we are constantly barraged by allegations about or confessions by the names we admire: Lance Armstrong, Mark McGwire, Florence Griffith-Joyner, Bill Romanowski…the list goes on for miles. If we think about it, we realize that these are names not of gods and titans, but of humans just like us – straining to hit the ball harder, pushing to top that hill faster, struggling to shave an extra second off that lap time. Those who use steroids want to be the best and make for themselves a name to surpass the heroes they admire.

          Author and extreme amateur athlete Stuart Stevens began taking steroids in 2003 as research into the mental and physical effects of steroid use, and he wrote about his experiences in Outside Magazine. (Read it here.) Stevens relates how his body changed into a muscle-bound machine that wouldn’t quit, but more interesting than the effect it had on his body was the effect it had on his mind.

“You confuse what these performance enhancing drugs are doing to you and yourself,” Stevens told NPR’s Michele Norris in Oct. 2003. “You start to think pretty quickly, ‘Well, this is me. I can ride three hundred miles and the next day, I can feel just fine. Aren’t I impressive?’ ” (Hear it here.)

With steroids, we could all be bigger, faster and stronger. So why don’t we? For me, it’s a combination of reasons: the prohibitively high cost, the dangerous health risks and the lack of any real need. But there’s another reason I’ve chosen to take the hard road to fitness: to me, using steroids defeats the whole purpose of being an athlete.

“Sport is about individuals competing against individuals, not about individuals competing against other individuals’ doctors,” Stevens says. “… There’s something about it that is tremendously dishonest. The athletic endeavor should be one of the purest endeavors that we engage in in life.”

I have been running and watching my diet for about five years, and I’ve lost more than 70 pounds in that time. I’ve run two half-marathons, gained self-confidence and greatly lessened the health risks I’ll face later in life. Sometimes I imagine just what I could have accomplished if I had taken steroids. I could have done two full marathons, and I could have a chiseled physique to show off. But I’ve come to realize that wouldn’t have been me. I may be slow, weak and a bit pudgy, but I’m better off now than ever before. And I’m proud to say I did it the hard way.

No, really, it’s for the birds.

For months, my smart phone-, Mp3-, cable-less self was reluctant to join, even explore the world of Twitter. Constant updates on Lindsay Lohan’s latest faux pas? No, thanks. I only signed up for the service in January as a way to keep track of some politicos in the statehouse while I was working there for another publication. But somewhere in my new follower frenzy I found a few treasures that speak to my environment/science/how-things-work/politics tastes. So, here are a few of my favorites:

As the BP oil spill crisis dragged on, I received play-by-play Twitter updates – ripe with shocking facts, humor and sarcasm – from Kate Sheppard, a Mother Jones reporter. Somehow, in 140 characters or less (usually much less), she relayed some of the most dramatic episodes happening in the Gulf and back in the nation’s capitol. Using Twitter, she complemented her regular full-length coverage of incidents including BP-tied Sherriff”s deputies barring journalists from tainted beaches and lawmakers calling oil spill hearings unwarranted “shake-downs.” Oy. (Of course, to lighten up the mood on the oil spill front, the infamous BPglobalPR is also a must-follow.) 

But I have to credit Grist, an environmental news and commentary website, with leading me to Sheppard. (Retweets rock! Er, I mean, they’re helpful sometimes.) Grist’s latest stories have included a feature about a “conservation community” in Illinois and an audio recording about the “population bomb.”

Another favorite of mine, the Society of Environmental Journalists, can be great. It can also be really annoying. It posts links to great environment news stories from across the U.S., but it also posts about 30 at a time. Overload! 

For the official word on environment and science, I’ve started following several government agencies. (And then when I visited Washington, D.C., for the first time earlier this summer, I got just as excited to walk past an event I’d seen promoted on Twitter as I did about seeing the monuments. Sorry, Abe!). A quick run-down with a sample tweet for each:

• Greenversations, the Twitter account for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's official blog

Science Wednesday: Growing Green Minds: Each week we write about the science behind environmental protection. Prev... http://bit.ly/aBShLr

• EPAowow, the Twitter account for the USEPA’s Office of Wetlands, Oceans and Watersheds

Ways to Take Action: Let native vegetation grow by the lake—mow and fertilize less! #lakesmonth

• EPAresearch

EPA Science Advisory Board panel holding public meeting 7/20-7/22 on the impacts of Mountaintop Mining http://bit.ly/aPL8dh

• USDAgov, Twitter account for the United States Department of Agriculture

USDA Blog: Endangered Birds Benefit from Wetlands Reserve Program http://bit.ly/a8vsux

• National_Ag_Lib, the National Agriculture Library's account

Have kids ages 8-13? Have them check out the recently redesigned Sci4Kids website: http://bit.ly/sci4kids (via @ARSInformation)

 • USoceangov, for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) Ocean Service

Learn about sea turtle conservation via NOAA's latest online game, "Waterlife: Sea Turtles and the Quest to Nest": http://go.usa.gov/OVa

• USGS, for the United States Geological Survey

It's National Pollinator Week! Get the Buzz: http://bit.ly/cZ5Wuh

A few others: 

• Nature_org, for the Nature Conservancy

Boeing reveals its new hydrogen-powered plane the Phantom Eye! (via @BBCnews) http://nature.ly/a9jrCV

• NSF, Twitter account of the National Science Foundation

News: Indian Ocean Sea-Level Rise Threatens Coastal Areas: Indian Ocean sea levels are rising unevenly and threate... http://bit.ly/cJsde1

 And, like I said, for the birds:

• Audubonsociety

Creating new wetlands to protect migratory birds from Gulf #oilspill http://bit.ly/9YzyeR

 I’m not about to recommend my own account  because I fail at tweeting (I think I’m up to 15 tweets since I signed on, and most of those are random retweets), but be sure to keep up with the Illinois Times’ account.

ALSO, I’m sure there are tons more out there that I don’t know about but really ought to be following. So, a request: PLEASE fill me in! I need some recommendations, especially for good Springfield-area Twitter-ers.

My sister Natalie is awesome. (Both of my sisters are awesome, of course, but only one of them is relevant to this post.) A dietician by trade and an avid fitness enthusiast, Natalie recently turned me on to an online tool that holds a lot of promise for my future fitness.

For a very long time, I’ve been kicking myself for not doing a better job of tracking what I eat. I know that if I did track my consumption, I would be confronted by some unpleasant truths – namely, that I probably get way too many calories from carbohydrates. Dieticians say you should get about 60 percent of your calories from carbohydrates, but I’m probably closer to 80 percent. (That’s just a guesstimate, of course.) Once I finally get in the habit of tracking what I eat, I’ll be in a much better position to identify consumption trends that sabotage my fitness and overall health.

Enter NutriMirror.com. It’s a free service that lets you log your food intake and offers nutrient values for your logged items, as well as helpful analysis to show you where your diet can improve. It contains a lot of nutrient values for foods I wouldn’t have expected to see in the database, such as pineapple salsa from Trader Joe’s.

Using this tool, I’ve already learned that my usual morning smoothie (recipe below) contains a lot of carbs but also a ton of fiber, which is why it keeps me going for so long. I’ve also realized that I consume far fewer calories than I should to maintain my weight. Someone at my height and weight should consume 2,657 calories a day to maintain weight. Between breakfast and lunch, I only consumed 775 calories total – less than one-third of my total. Unless I manage to consume 1,882 calories for dinner, I’ll probably end the day with a 1,000 calorie deficit. (Yes, I have been completely honest in tracking my consumption – I promise!) This whole time, I thought I ate too many calories…weird!

Enough about me and my nutrition. Someone else try this out and let me know how it goes. And as promised, here is my smoothie recipe. Modify as you see fit.

6 frozen strawberries
1 ripe banana
8 oz. orange juice

Just stick it in your blender and blend the heck out of it. You don’t need any milk because the banana acts as a thickener when it’s blended, and you don’t need any ice because the strawberries are frozen. If you want to jazz it up a bit, add in some berries or peaches. (Props to Amanda Robert for giving me the recipe…and word is, she got it from Dusty Rhodes. Both are former Illinois Times writers. We know how to keep it healthy here – except for those office parties at which we stuff our faces with cookies, cake and cheesy delights of all varieties. Forget I said anything.)

I’m going to go eat 1,882 calories worth of candy.

Big Boi formerly of the hip-hop Beatles, actually known as Outkast, just released his stupendous solo album, “Sir Lucious Left Foot: The Son of Chico Dusty.” It’s really good, and it lends even more credence to the rumors of an Outkast reunion. Which is the greatest thing ever. I’m not the world’s biggest Outkast fan. When they were huge, I mostly listened to (ugh) Blink-182 and thought that rap and hip hop weren’t really genres to take notice of. They churned out albums and singles that topped the charts and I kept listening to “All the Small Things” and wishing I could skateboard with midgets. But I was wasting my time. Outkast was busy revolutionizing the way pop music was bought and sold. They made hip hop more accessible than it had ever been, but still delivered anthem after anthem devoted solely to hypnotic dance grooves and managed to sell it just as well to club kids as they did to soccer moms. That in and of itself is deserving of high praise. However, Outkast didn’t really reach the peaks of their mainstream crossover until they combusted on “Speakerboxxx/The Love Below” and that was with a little ditty called “Hey Ya!” And that was when the whole world took notice. I will say now that “Hey Ya! is the best song that human beings have ever recorded. It’s not my favorite song, but if a particularly cruel genie forced me to live the rest of my life listening to one song and one song only, it would be “Hey Ya!” Granted, “Hey Ya!” is all Andre 3000’s playground. It combines his pet obsessions with ‘60s and ‘70s funk with jingly acoustic guitars and shot-a-long choruses. Andre 3000 was always the one to integrate pop into Outkast’s sound, but “Hey Ya!” made that combination the focus of the song instead of an inspiration. “Hey Ya!” is the defining statement of a band that went out long before its time. Although other groups would try to work hip-hop magic into mainstream crossover success (I’m looking at you, partially successful Gnarls Barkley), Outkast did it first and did it best and I can’t wait to see if they maybe-possibly-hopefully come together again. If so, I will surely bust out my Polaroid camera, take several snap shots, and shake it in order to speed up the development process.

Sewage. It happens. And, typically, it ain’t pretty. But! Check it out: decorative manhole covers! 

A photograph of just one of many artsy manhole covers on Japan’s streets, the image is from Remo Camerota’s book Drainspotting. There are plenty more photos here.

I only happened to discover how cool water infrastructure can be because I click on all links/tweets/headlines that contain some form of the word “sewer” (My all-time favorite topic. Weird, I know. I’m easing you into it now.) But apparently there’s an entire world of manhole cover appreciation.

According to this guy, utility companies and cities often have their very own manhole design … which must be what makes the International Manhole Cover Museum possible. It’s in Farrara, Italy. Screw Venice and its gondolas! (Besides, those little love boats float down canals into which households historically have directly dumped their sewage. Romantic, no?)

But, if I can’t make it to Farrara, I’m hoping to find some postcards by Floridian Bobbi Mastrangelo, who paints pictures of manholes. My favorite is the “save water” version. 

They call Bobbi “the grate artist,” but the “grand dame of manhole covers” (or the “Manhole Cover Lady”) is Diana Stuart. She wrote a book – 128 pages. With pictures – 400. She crusades for manhole cover preservation in New York City. 

I'm pretty sure I want to meet her.