Don's Diary

From the November, 2021 Oregon Track Club Newsletter:

By Don McLean
Running uphill is resistance training: building muscle
in the calves, quads, hamstrings, and glutes. It
strengthens the hip flexors and Achilles’ tendons. It
also builds speed, endurance, and reduces chance
of injury. Resistance training, or callusing, as Coach
Bill Bowerman would call it, is a tough cardiovascular
workout with moderate skeletal-musculature stress.
Finally, it likely increases your lifespan.
Here are a few hill runners: Herb Elliott, Peter Snell,
Kip Keino, Pre (and all University of Oregon greats),
Deena Kastor, Paula Radcliffe, the Ethiopians, and
Kenyans, including Eliot Kipchoge.
Oregonians are hill blessed. Consider these
opportunities:
1. Spencer Butte. About 1700’ elevation. Excellent, well-maintained trail with multiple trail choices. I
like the straight shot from Martin Street/Amazon Trail to the peak. I usually turn back at the monster
stairs which are unrunnable except for the most elite runners.
2. Skinner Butte. 250’ elevation, again with multiple trail options. Even with a slow, steady trot, it
takes less than ten minutes to the top. Great for repeats.
3. Hendricks Park. A popular venue for University of Oregon runners, past and present. Ditto the
Oregon Track Club Masters (Tuesday nights) once a month on the old road trail
behind the restrooms, near Fairmont Blvd/Floral Hill St. It is 300 yards, 80’ elevation, all uphill,
paved, shaded, with marks every ten yards.
4. Mt. Pisgah. Trail #1, the toughest, is 986’ in elevation, 1.5 miles in length, not one step of it flat or
downhill. Again, you see folks of all vintages at the top, from six to 86, maybe even older. Someday,
certainly, we will see Coleen Milliman (95 years old and the 95-99 age group record holder in the
Butte to Butte 5K).
5. The Oregon Dunes National Recreation Area. A 31,500-acre expanse, 40 miles from Florence to
Coos Bay. Though a dune buggy infested habitat, their range is limited while the rest of us are free
(after a $5 entry fee) to run and roam in the forest, on broad beaches, and dunes, some as high
as 500 feet. Have you ever run on sand dunes? Whatever your background, take it easy! Save the
Himalayas, about the toughest, or best, of all hill venues. Pre would agree. He was running them
as a teen in Coos Bay.
6. Have you tried Everesting? It started as a cycling challenge where you ascend a given hill
multiple times to equal the feet in elevation of Mt. Everest. Forget that! Just run up and down your
favorite hills and mountains over time until you have exceeded the 29,032 feet of Mt. Everest. In
Eugene, Oregon, that would mean about 116 times up and down Skinner Butte.
7. When in doubt, run uphill.

Dopey runners

Hey, honey, I was at store and

Women athletes allege body shaming within Oregon Ducks track and field program

DEXA scan results can provide helpful details about your risk for osteoporosis (bone loss) and fractures (bone breaks). This test can also measure your body composition, such as body fat and muscle.

Maybe five years ago, as part of UO study, I got a DEXA scan, blood tests, etc. The DEXA is like a x-ray, and the results look like a x-ray.

Seems like a good idea for all concerned.

Nutritional psychiatry: Your brain on food …Curious that drugs and booze not mentioned, though responsible for much of the “homeless” folks living in tents and trash on our streets .

Check out Mozart’s Missa Solemnis. Composed at age 13.

Los Angeles Fucked-Up

How Long Will I Live Calculator
…With exercise, longer and better. Even more so foregoing every wasted minute surfing the net and glued to the tube.

I know of no Medicine fit to diminish the violent natural Inclinations you mention; and if I did, I think I should not communicate it to you. Marriage is the proper Remedy. It is the most natural State of Man, and therefore the State in which you are most likely to find solid Happiness. Your Reasons against entring into it at present, appear to me not well-founded. The circumstantial Advantages you have in View by postponing it, are not only uncertain, but they are small in comparison with that of the Thing itself, the being married and settled. It is the Man and Woman united that make the compleat human Being. Separate, she wants his Force of Body and Strength of Reason; he, her Softness, Sensibility and acute Discernment. Together they are more likely to succeed in the World. A single Man has not nearly the Value he would have in that State of Union. He is an incomplete Animal. He resembles the odd Half of a Pair of Scissars. If you get a prudent healthy Wife, your Industry in your Profession, with her good Œconomy, will be a Fortune sufficient.

But if you will not take this Counsel, and persist in thinking a Commerce with the Sex inevitable, then I repeat my former Advice, that in all your Amours you should prefer old Women to young ones. You call this a Paradox, and demand my Reasons. They are these:

1. Because as they have more Knowledge of the World and their Minds are better stor’d with Observations, their Conversation is more improving and more lastingly agreable.

2. Because when Women cease to be handsome, they study to be good. To maintain their Influence over Men, they supply the Diminution of Beauty by an Augmentation of Utility. They learn to do a 1000 Services small and great, and are the most tender and useful of all Friends when you are sick. Thus they continue amiable. And hence there is hardly such a thing to be found as an old Woman who is not a good Woman.

3. Because there is no hazard of Children, which irregularly produc’d may be attended with much Inconvenience.

4. Because thro’ more Experience, they are more prudent and discreet in conducting an Intrigue to prevent Suspicion. The Commerce with them is therefore safer with regard to your Reputation. And with regard to theirs, if the Affair should happen to be known, considerate People might be rather inclin’d to excuse an old Woman who would kindly take care of a young Man, form his Manners by her good Counsels, and prevent his ruining his Health and Fortune among mercenary Prostitutes.

5. Because in every Animal that walks upright, the Deficiency of the Fluids that fill the Muscles appears first in the highest Part: The Face first grows lank and wrinkled; then the Neck; then the Breast and Arms; the lower Parts continuing to the last as plump as ever: So that covering all above with a Basket, and regarding2 only what is below the Girdle, it is impossible of two Women to know an old from a young one. And as in the dark all Cats are grey, the Pleasure of corporal Enjoyment with an old Woman is at least equal, and frequently superior, every Knack being by Practice capable of Improvement.

6. Because the Sin is less. The debauching a Virgin may be her Ruin, and make her for Life unhappy.

7. Because the Compunction is less. The having made a young Girl miserable may give you frequent bitter Reflections; none of which can attend the making an old Woman happy.

8[thly and Lastly]3 They are so grateful!!

Thus much for my Paradox. But still I advise you to marry directly; being sincerely Your affectionate Friend.

South Jetty, Oregon sand dunes photos

I ran there twice over the weekend with an 1100 foot elevation gain.  Really tough stuff barefoot, on loose sand, so different from more stable dirt trail.  Loved it.  The damn dune buggies are banned from certain areas.  About 90 minutes from Eugene.  About 10 minutes from where we roost in Florence.

From Florence to Coos Bay, the Oregon Dunes extends for 40 miles along the Oregon Coast.

Pre on the dunes…