Episode 5-484 – the one about the tree
Introduction:
Hello and welcome to episode 5-484 of the RunRunLive Podcast. I’m calling it 5-484. That’s as good a number as any. At this point we are beyond the specificity of rational numbers and, some would say, rationality in general.
Today I’m going to tell a story about a tree. I’ll give you the update on my current entropy challenge. Because it’s always something, isn’t it? And I have an idea to start a new segment called “Stupid running questions.”
And, maybe I’ll talk about mortality.
Because I find mortality crowding into my life these days like a big, not-unfriendly, bear of a monster. Just smiling sheepishly and bumping me every now and then. Like when I try to be in the kitchen at the same time as my wife. We just bump into each other and get in the way.
That’s mortality. Here I am trying to make a quick salad and go about my day and then there is mortality going bump, bump, bump…reaching over my shoulder for the mustard.
Could be worse.
Could be morality getting in the way.
…
So, my friends I hope you enjoyed the festive season and all the Saturnalia celebrations?
Did you know that during the height of the Roman Empire the god Saturn was depicted holding a scythe. How do I know this? I mean I’m old but I’m not that old.
We know this because we have a couple Roman Towns from that time period preserved at Pompei and Herculaneum. These are the rare occasions where archeologist can date exactly.
And the God Saturn holds a scythe. Which is a tool, with a hooked blade on the end for harvesting crops.
Much to my disappointment, this depiction of the god Saturn with a scythe has nothing to do with the Grim Reaper. They just thought Saturn had something to do with agriculture.
You might ask why they celebrated an agriculture god in December? Shouldn’t that be the harvest celebration in the autumn? Well, yeah, but if you were a farmer from 2,000 year’s ago you would harvest the summer crops then sow the seeds for the spring crops and the whole process would wrap up by the winter solstice, and that’s Saturnalia.
The classic Grim Reaper, with his death’s head and cowl, holding a scythe was conjured up in medieval times, specifically during the black death, where the plague harvested men, women and children like so many stalks of ripe wheat.
Don’t get me started on the difference between a scythe and a sickle, or we’ll have to fight.
What does this have to do with running?
Nothing.
But what fun is life if you can’t scribble outside the paint-by-numbers area every then and now?
…
My training is going well. And let’s not forget about the bad knee. Remember I had a bad knee that kept me from running for 2-3 years?
Yeah, that doesn’t hurt anymore.
I’m prompted to say something about this because I find myself so easily moving on- like it was a mosquito bite or sour tasting burp – not the devasting injury that it was.
Every time I run into one of these physical roadblocks, even the ones that seem irreversible and unconquerable, I get through it and then – Hey! – it’s like it never happened.
The lesson? Humans, at least this human, are wired to forget. We live in the future and sometimes in the past.
Most of us are kinda shitty managing the present.
But, it is weird.
I ran into an acquaintance, an old neighbor, who I hadn’t seen for a while, and he asked; “Did I see you running again? Last time we talked you had a bad knee? What happened?”
I really had to think a about a useful response. But the answer was, “It got better.”
So there you have it.
It got better.
Let’s hope it stays better.
Of course there were consequences to the injury. I’m 30sec to a minute a mile slower. I’m still drawing the line at 3 runs times a week. I suppose I’ve transformed into a new athlete. Like being gestated in the injury cocoon for 2-3 years and then emerging, not as a butterfly, but more of a disheveled, dog-eared moth.
And of course the universe has no sense of propriety and won’t give me a break
We’ll talk about my current, ah, challenge in the outro.
But first we need to tell a story. A story about a tree.
…
The Tree.
Somewhere in all the hours of schooling that I have amassed were courses in physics. I even got a degree in Engineering that requires some Physics. I like physics. I didn’t like the math, but I liked the theory of physics. It’s quite comforting to think that everything in the physical world can be described, calculated and solved by a set of basic, universal rules.
You’ve heard, perhaps of E=MC2? Energy is universally equal to mass times the speed of light squared?
How about F = MA? Force equals mass times acceleration? This is how you can determine how hard an object will hit something.
Or how about a variation of that, Torque, which is a type of force, equals the force times the radius.
By now I’m losing you. But Torque is how a hammer works. Or a pitcher throwing a fastball. You multiply the mass of the hammerhead by the length of the handle and you get the Bam! Or the Crunch!
Simplified, a long handle with a big weight on the end creates a lot of force at the point of impact.
For instance, a mature eastern white pine tree, that, in Latin is ‘Pinus Blancas’, which literally means ‘White Pine’ – so really guys, points for creativity – anyhow…A mature white pine tree up here in New England is over 100 ft tall and will weigh 4,000 to 6,000 pounds.
All that weight is up at the top where the pine needles are.
So, my friends, what I’m trying to explain is that the white pine trees that surround my house are essentially giant, evil hammers.
…
The Monday before Christmas we had a big storm roll up the east coast. It came out of the Gulf of Mexico and ripped across the country like an angry, ill-mannered tourist. It caused a lot of trouble with tornadoes and such as it tore through the south. Then it ran up the coast towards us.
It was weird for a December storm. It was warm and blustering high winds and torrential rains. More like a September hurricane than a December storm. We used to get snow.
But, the climate is changing.
I was sitting at my desk in my spare bedroom doing something entirely self-involved and unproductive as is my habit with the wind gusting and the rain driving against the windows.
Then there was a big BOOM! And the house shook like ship grounding itself on a reef.
Needless to say, I was startled. I went to see what had happened and sure enough a big pine tree had fallen against the other side of the house.
I called my wife who had gone to work and told her she should probably come back.
Startling as this was, I didn’t think there was much damage. The tree seemed to have glanced off the peak of the house and slid off onto the deck.
Half a big pine split off at a crotch about 20 feet up the trunk and that half had swung down with the weight of the rain and the force of the wind from that pivot point to crash just at the flat peak of the side of the house.
The storm was still raging, and I couldn’t see the top pf the roof. I peeked into the attic and didn’t see anything obvious.
No windows were broken. Everything seemed ok. I went back to work. I had some deals I was working on for the end of the year.
My wife turned around and made her way home.
A few minutes later I was on a call and there was a second boom. The other half of the tree had fallen on the deck.
…
I was not losing my mind. These things happen. This is one of the joys of home ownership. Stuff breaks. Stuff rots. Stuff falls.
You call the insurance company, and you do the dance and stuff gets fixed.
I still had internet and power, so, hey, there was really nothing for me to do.
Let the professionals handle it.
…
Everything seemed fine, enough, until a bit later, when Yvonne and I were standing in the kitchen and she asked, “Do you hear water running?”
I did hear water running.
And it wasn’t the icemaker.
Water was running in the ceiling of the kitchen. Water was dripping out of the light fixtures.
Uh oh.
I scampered back up into the attic to take a closer look. The tree had bashed a giant gash in the dormer on that side of the house. Which now was acting as a giant funnel for the rain, sloshing down into the attic, filling the ceiling and flowing down the walls.
I could no longer ignore the peril.
Super-hero, homeowner, Dad-brain engaged!
“I need to get a tarp on it.” I said with immense seriousness.
Experts will tell you that a 61-year-old man should not climb up on a second story roof in a raging storm.
But when super-hero, homeowner, Dad-brain kicks in all logic is cast aside.
I donned my cape, I mean a durable water-resistant jacket, and strode, in a manly fashion, chest high, jaw grimly set, as it were, into the breach.
I don’t own a ladder that will reach the second story roof. Well, technically I do but it’s an antique aluminum beast that weighs several hundred pounds and the flippy things on the side, that, in theory, allow you to extend it are broken. The flippy things are called rung-locks.
But, I do have a shorter ladder, It’s flippy things are also broken, but I can lift it when it’s extended.
With that ladder I can get up onto the porch roof.
And, then, ‘hold my beer’, I can pull the ladder up behind me, balance the ladder on the peak of the porch roof and scramble onto the top roof.
To make sure you have the correct picture, these are not flat roofs. These are pitched roofs with asphalt shingles. The pitch is about 33 degrees. You can walk on them, but it’s dicey on a good day.
All of this, I’m sure, sounds incredibly stupid and dangerous.
Which it is.
But that is the super-hero, homeowner, Dad-brain at work.
These were not normal circumstances. This is war! Desperate times!
In addition to the ridiculous, rickety ladder deployment, I had to somehow carry a tarp and a staple gun.
In the pouring rain. And wind.
Duty! Give your all for home and hearth…and hope the emergency room isn’t too busy.
I crammed the staple gun into a pocket and stuffed the tarp under my jacket like an overripe canolli.
I extended the ladder, leaned it against the porch roof and climbed away.
Yo ho!
Once ‘safe’ on the porch roof I pulled the ladder up behind me.
I balanced the ladder on the peak of the porch roof and scrambled up onto the second story roof.
A second story roof is really not that high. It’s around a 25 foot fall. It probably would only maim you depending on where your F=MA came to rest.
It certainly feels higher when you’re up there looking over the edge.
I began carefully crabbing around trying not to slide off the slick roof while trying clear as much tree off as I could so I could somehow get the tarp (which was still stuffed under my jacket) over the hole.
There were broken branches all over. One large branch had cleaved through the roof and was in the attic. I was kicking and pushing them off as best I could while hanging on and trying not to violate the forces of friction, that, once violated would shoot me off the slope of the roof into a not-so-comical free fall like Wiley E. Coyote.
As I was clearing the branches and trying not to die from my own mass times acceleration, one of the branches I shoved off slid along the roof and toppled my ladder.
This is one of those freeze-frame moment when you wish you hadn’t done something but it’s too late.
Now I was trapped.
On the roof of the house.
In a raging storm.
My wife was watching me this whole time, no doubt calculating life insurance benefits, but, as stupid as it was for me to scramble up the two roofs with the wrong ladder, there was no way she could do it.
What to do?
She asked if she should call the fire department.
No. That would be adding another layer of ridiculousness on top of the current absurdity, and it would break the man code as well.
Instead, I pulled out my mobile phone and called one of my running buddies. He’s a contractor and lives in the next town.
I asked, ‘Hey, can you come over with one of your ladders and rescue me from my roof?’
Lucky for me he was willing and capable of the rescue.
While I was waiting, I finished clearing the brush and managed to get the tarp over the hole, spread it out and use all the staples to secure it. (The roofers who came the next day to inspect told me I did a good job.)
Then, all that was left, was to sit in the pouring rain and wind on the top of my house and wait for my buddy to show. I told my wife she could go inside.
No use her standing in the rain looking up at me.
It was a peaceful absurdity, sitting there watching the storm from the roof. Like some ancient mariner in the crow’s nest of his ship plying a ship through the tossing green waves.
The rain soaked all the way through me. I was covered in pine pitch and needles.
But I was sanguine. The crisis had called and I had thrown myself into the teeth of the gale in response. Mildly heroic? Or just stupid? I think when you get away with it, maybe it’s mildly heroic.
After a while my buddy showed up with his contractor’s ladders in working order, and I was able to scramble down.
No one died.
Except the tree.
And that was suicide.
In the end the accounting will be significant.
The tree bashed into the side of the house and pushed that wall in. The joists in the roof were dislocated and, of course, there’s a big hole.
The tree destroyed my deck too, and all the furniture and the grill.
The rain got into the ceiling and the walls.
The old house will need extensive work.
The positive is it brought a bit of adventure into our lives over the holidays.
A story to tell.
We were forced to throw away a few truckloads of stuff from the attic – so we got some early spring-cleaning in.
But, my friends, that’s what insurance is for. It’s only stuff.
We have too much stuff.
No one died. A new project to keep us busy and distracted in our old age.
…
Thank you, my friends, for listening to my tree story.
I really appreciate the cool emails I get from people telling me how they are long time listeners and glad to hear my voice gracing the interwebs again.
Did you know they teach podcasting courses in college now? It’s an actual thing.
The industry as a whole…and it feels a bit ridiculous referring to podcasting as an ’industry’ doesn’t’ it? But, that aside, the industry took a hit in 2023 as advertisers pulled back from podcasts and the high-profile podcasting startups, fueled by the irrational exuberance that is venture capital, got caught up in the current venture capital winter.
Because, when the market tightens up those pesky investors start expecting silly things, like revenue and profit.
But, none of that matters to we independent producers who never had any expectations of payment. Those of us who write and produce because it is what we do like a shark swims or a scorpion stings.
Let me take you out with my new health challenge.
If you remember from last time, I had gone to my annual physical and my cholesterol was high. This was two checkups in a row that my cholesterol was high.
So the doctor decided to send me for a calcium cardio scan. Which is a thing they do, like a catscan that checks to see if you have calcium build up in your heart arteries.
The calcium build up, better known as ‘plaque’ is the end game of having high cholesterol. This is the old ‘blocked arteries’ story.
If your arteries get blocked up, it restricts blood flow and the old body doesn’t work without blood and the oxygen it carries. Eventually you have a heart attack. It’s called Coronary Artery Disease.
I asked the technician at the scan what happens next? He said ‘we send he results to your doctor, if you don’t hear anything that’s good, if there’s something wrong they’ll call you.’
And…the next day I see my doctor is calling me and leaving messages.
Rut Roh.
Long story short – I have calcium build up. It’s minor. The range can go up to 1,000, I’m at 71. Over 200 is a moderate risk. Less than 100 is minor risk, but it needs to be treated.
My doctor knows my lifestyle, so I asked him, “Hey, I’m starting a training cycle, like, what is my risk here? What am I supposed to do with this information?”
He recommended that I try to keep my heart rate down.
I was a bit blind sided by this. I have a healthy lifestyle, for the most part, and my diet is healthier than most – how does this happen?
It’s genetic.
I moped around for a week chewing on this new news. Feeling sorry for myself. I was just starting to feel strong again.
But, I shook myself out of the slump. Now I have a new project. Let’s see how much I can treat it with diet. I had fallen off the wagon while I was injured and I had been enjoying too many craft IPA’s, and I was 10-15 pounds heavy.
We’ll talk more about my expectations of relaxing into retirement with the things I enjoy, but, the more I thought about it the more I realized there were things under my control.
I already started the cure. I stopped drinking. I am down 5-6 pounds and have gone nearly 100% vegan. I should be able to get down another 15 – 20 in the next 2 months and we’ll see what the blood work says then. I’d like to stay off meds if I can.
I started training again. I’m going to stay in base-building mode for this cycle and not do the hard tempo I usually do.
And you know what? I feel great.
We held the 10th anniversary of the Groton Marathon on New Year’s Eve day morning. This year we staggered the starts, which was great. It meant when the 3 of us old-timers finished the half there were 30 people cheering us in.
5 days into my clean eating and no beer I felt great. Go figure. What a revelation! You mean if I fuel my body well, run lighter and not be slightly hung over it makes for better running?
It’s a Christmas miracle!
It’s going to be a busy year. It’s going to be filled with clear-eyed mornings, good books, dog hugs and friends.
I’m up for the challenge, are you?
If so I’ll see you out there.