Author Archives: robinandrew0804

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About robinandrew0804

Robin Andrew is my pen name; I’m a runner, a writer, and a parent, from a small town in central Colorado. As a youngster, my biggest athletic aspiration was to not be the last person picked when teams were chosen for games. Since taking up running for stress relief (right about the time our kids entered their teen years - go figure) and fun, I’ve run fifteen marathons and dozens of other events, on both pavement and trails. This site is my way of sharing the joy and sense of accomplishment I’ve found in simply putting feet into motion, plus a few other bits and pieces of what I find interesting and worth caring about.

Pushing Down

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The arrival of spring this year found this runner looking-forward eagerly to a long event that started up in the mountains and ended down in town. With a couple thousand feet of overall drop, I figured it was a sure formula for a fast pace and an ego-boost to start the season. Sure enough, I crushed my goal pace on the first half (which contained nearly all the downhill) but when I got to the flats…ouch! Turned out my enthusiasm had gotten the better of me and my legs were already shot. By the last few miles I could barely get my feet off the ground as I watched shufflers pass me by and ended up with the worst finish I’d had at that distance in years.

Looking back on it now, I see several things I did wrong. First off, after years of living and training in a mountain region where up and down is a fact of life, I’d taken my fitness in that regard for granted.   Ignoring the fact I’d spend half the last year living in a city where a highway overpass counts as a scenic overlook, I just assumed running all that downhill at an eager pace would still be my thing. Wrong!

Second, because that city sojourn had been at sea level and my regular home and running are all above 6000’ elevation, since my return I’d focused my training on pace work to get re-acclimatized to thin air with less oxygen. Add in the long runs needed to prepare for the event distance, and I completely ignored the kind of up and down runs that would have prepared my legs for this event.

As I mentally beat myself up for that overconfidence, I recalled that an event in which I’d DNF’d a few years ago also had a big downhill in the first half, and that time too, I’d been proud of my pace on those drops, self-image swelling as I wove my way around slower runners and watched the valley floor come rising up to greet me. There too, once we got back on the level, my legs were noodles, only that day, on top of the fatigue I discovered I had no idea how many miles were left to run, thanks to poor signage and a course that looped around and crossed-over itself like a pre-schooler’s shoelaces. Pretty sure my car was closer than the finish line, I bailed and snuck away in shame ( well, maybe just embarrassment…). So much for that earlier flash of ego!

Putting those two together, I’ve resolved to spend this winter on uphill runs and treadmills with the incline set high. And, never again to be deceived by an early downhill. It’s one thing to let it all hang out on a downslope at the end of a run ( thank you to all those race-planners who lay out their courses for a downhill finish, you let us mid-pack runners feel like heroes!). From now on I’ll read the entire elevation profile (another thank you to all the race directors who include that vital info on their web site), and take just a little help from gravity’s boost, while preserving my legs for what comes after.

Pushing downhill, I’ve discovered, is a drug best-taken in controlled doses!

Shakespeare’s Pub – A Barstool History of London as Seen Through the Windows of Its Oldest Pub – The George Inn

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This amusing blend of history and anecdote traces not just the George, but all the coaching inns of Southwick, down through the centuries. Brown, who has made a career of writing about British beers and the people who brew, serve and consume them, has an obvious love of his subject and that translates into an enjoyable read, even with an iconoclastic glass of wine in one’s hand.

Has a decent eye also, for how individual history reflects that of the surrounding economy and culture. One of his revelations concerns the effects which the invention and rapid spread of railroad trains had on a wide range of industries, from the freight wagon trade, to passenger-carrying stagecoaches, stables and liveries, lodges/hotels, the hop trade, ports and the very patterns of settlement geography. Not gradual change either, but rapid and accelerating, able to wipe out an industry in one lifetime. That some of the trades displaced had done similar violence to other, earlier ones, suggests poetic justice when the trains themselves are later displaced by automobile and truck traffic (on roadways which necessarily evolved almost beyond recognition from the muddy and undisciplined things they had once been – ‘imagine, needing to make actual rules for which side of the road to drive on! Imagine!’).  Which reflects nicely on our current fearless leader’s proposal to preserve the coal trade. Really?

Touching on literature, cuisine, habit and morality, Brown suggests that the history of the George is only tenuously concerned with its physical manifestation, examining the existential question, if you replace only one small piece at a time, but eventually have replaced every piece of any object, is it still the original object? A question he answers in the affirmative – as he must, for the book’s topic to have merit…

My favorite bit though, is when a George-lover asserts that the ghost of Same Weller (of Dickens’ Pickwick Papers), has been seen around the place, allowing Brown a wonderful riff on the mental contortions required first to believe in ghosts, then in the ghost of a fictional character who never lived in the first place, and then that said ghost would haunt not the pub which the author named as his character’s locale but the one which some readers like to think the author may have had in mind when he created his fictional location, despite giving it the not-at-all fictional name of another actual pub down the street!

I like the way this author’s mind works, and will be seeking out his other beery books. Not to mention seeking out The George one again, as soon as we return to London-town.

Running with a Nine-year-old

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“Never go on stage with a kid or a dog,” some famous actor once said ( I think it was W. C. Fields, but I’m not sure, and it’s probably a paraphrase, anyway, so who’s counting?)

The sentiment comes to mind after taking part in a local Turkey Trot which had been set up in tight back-and-forth over a grassy meadow covered by about two inches of stale snow and which attracted over 400 participants despite temperatures in the 20’s. Seeing the start line occupied by the usual lean young men (in t-shirts despite the cold), I set myself back among the ‘faster than a walk, but definitely not going to take any awards’ crowd and awaited the gun. The first mile was purely a matter of traffic control; weaving a path through runners who were already losing their initial steam, and trying not to impede those who thought the same of me, as we all hogged the thin strip of muddy grass we were carving into semi-secure footing among all that snow.

By the second mile, things had thinned out as we each found our pace, and somewhere along the way I found mine matched very closely by a slight young woman in a pink jacket, huffing along with admirable intensity.   Focusing on steady level-of-effort as the course rolled up and down around multiple hairpin turns, I found myself easily passing this youngster, and offered a heartfelt ‘way to go’ as I did. Turn-about being fair play, she passed me a little later, which was when I began to really take note. Over the next mile, we traded places several times and I began to appreciate that besides strong lungs and legs, this kid possessed a spirit that did not readily accept being left behind.

Approaching the last turn, she was just ahead of me, within easy reach if I hit the pedal for a good finish. There’s neither honor nor pleasure in passing a youngster in the final yards though, so I told myself if I did not pull past her naturally before the last hundred, I would hang back and follow her in. Around the turn, her pace slackened and she fell behind, with about two-hundred yards to the finish.

Secure in the notion I was not going to make a fool of myself competing with ‘a little kid,’ I accelerated, savoring release from the discipline of pacing (and anticipating the joy of stopping…) when, what to my wondering eyes should appear, but a shiny pink object not only come near, but quickly pulling ahead!

Long story short, I could not have matched that finishing sprint even if I’d wanted to, so gladly followed her across the red line spray-painted on the snow. A few minutes later, after making sure she had been joined by an adult, I made my way over and offered very sincere congratulations and encouragement to the smiling youngster and her parents.

Only when the results were posted, did I learn that the person who’d kept me honest and made sure I did my best that day was all of nine-years old.

Any day we can run is a good day; and well worth a Thanksgiving.

 

DJT FLAG SHOT

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DJT Flag Phone Shot Cropped

DJT FLAG SHOT, Pastels, spray paint and Sharpie on paper,  26.5″ x 13.25″,  Robin Andrew, 2019

Just as various religious scenes have been painted and sculpted repeatedly over the centuries, so the idea of our flag has become a vehicle for exploring meaning and expressing emotions.

MAINSTREAM/MARGINAL

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Marginal Mainstream FINAL

MAINSTREAM/MARGINAL, Digital Image, Robin Andrew 2019

Inspired by a comment on an NPR talk show, that the proper issue with dangerous and damnable ideologies is not how to eliminate them (which is really not possible, and the effort often self-defeating), but how to prevent such evils that normally exist only at the very margins of society from becoming mainstream and accepted.

 

FREEDOM

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FINAL

FREEDOM

Digital Image, Robin Andrew, 2019

A World War II marking on a building in London serves as background for an idea which is much easier to believe in and defend when it is narrowly construed.

The Legend of Coulter H. Bryant, Alexandra Fuller

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A legend in structure and voice, this bittersweet volume recounting the unfairly-short life of one Wyoming cowboy/oil-hand has the added virtue of being true.

Bittersweet it is, in how tightly Bryant’s great assets – humor, modesty, caring, headstrong eagerness – are tied to his less-practical qualities – impatience and impulsiveness, difficulty with book learning, and a general unwillingness to make careful preparation for anything, including his own continued existence.

Bittersweet too, in  how the admirable desire to make a living in the midst of rugged nature can evolve into reckless exploitation and endangerment.  How the joys and virtues of Wyoming (or any other near-frontier region)and its lifestyle are intertwined with its hardships and its dangers.  Which seems, after all, the real root theme of Fuller’s slightly-dramatized biography, and no doubt the reason this Africa-born-and-raised author has chosen to make such a state her home.

Fluid and entertaining, The Legend of Coulter H. Bryant is also deeply moving; and very nearly poetic at times.

An masterful piece of work on an eye-opening topic, to an admirable journalistic end.

Protest as Proof – The American Ayatollah

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When thousands of Iranians demonstrated in their streets recently, Mr. Trump seized on it as proof that their nation’s leaders and system of government were broken, a failed system.

“Big protests in Iran,” Trump tweeted on New Year’s Eve. “The people are finally getting wise as to how their money and wealth is being stolen and squandered on terrorism. Looks like they will not take it any longer. 

His UN Ambassador, Nicki Haley echoed that sentiment, saying “This is the precise picture of a long-oppressed people rising up against their dictators.”

Frankly, I’d agree with them there.

For the sake of honesty and consistency though, will our Dear Leader agree that when millions of Americans demonstrated to protest his election and the policies he had promised to promote – and did so again a year later – logic dictates that also be regarded as proof that his leadership and administration are fundamentally broken, and represent a failure of democratic principles?

Of course not.  For this is a man who recognizes no logic except his own survival and prospering, no rules except the rule of his own gratification.

Our very own American Ayatollah.

 

 

 

 

 

Who’s in Charge Here?

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Mr. Trump, in regard to questions about his possibly-upcoming interview under oath with the FBI, stated “I’m looking forward to it, actually…” “I would love to do that… I’d like to do it as soon as possible.”

This man, famous for his independence and confidence, then uttered weasel words to the effect that he would do so “…subject to my lawyers, and all of that.”

Bull****.

Mr. Trump, if you are the man you claim to be, you will do the interview regardless of what your attorneys say. Who’s in charge here anyway? Your entire campaign was – and your incumbency is – based on the claim that you and only you have what it takes save the U S of A from decadence and decline – and now you cannot decide for yourself whether to take an interview?

Bull****.

Put Up or Shut Up, Mr. Trump. Take the interview.