Busy Days, Tired Nights, and Random Musings

Well, I haven't done so well since my last post. I haven't run again or made it back to the gym. I ended up putting in 50+ hours at work last week, and then had to go in on Saturday for five hours as well since we were running production over the weekend. The nice thing is that it's generally pretty quiet at work on a Saturday, and I can get a lot of things done. You know those little nagging things that you always want to get to, but never seem to have time to do. Not that working a lot of hours is an excuse, because I managed to train for all of my marathons while working almost as much. The long hours just make getting back into the habit that much more difficult. I get up for work around 4:30am and generally don't get home from work until around 4:30 or 5:00pm, by which time I am pretty much drained physically and mentally. The days when I drag myself outside to run or to the gym despite my fatigue, I always do feel more energized afterward, but it's just making a recurring habit of it that seems to be difficult.

I ended up going to the mountains on Sunday to shoot my new deer rifle (a Ruger Model 77 MKII 30-06 bolt-action....eh, eh). I've always wanted to own a 30-06, and I finally broke down and bought one about a month ago. I have been itching to shoot it ever since, and boy was it fun. There is nothing quite like the feel of a high-powered rifle kicking back into your shoulder. The bullet exits the muzzle at like 3200 feet per second which is like two times the speed of sound (again eh, eh). It will easily take down any bucks that cross my path next month, in addition to any trees that happen to get in the way. Ha, ha.

Anyhow, it was a gorgeous Fall day outside that started off with a chilly and crisp morning that warmed into the low 60s by the afternoon. The sky was blue, the trees were showing the first signs of color, and I was surrounded by lush Pennsylvania woodlands. As I get older, I realize how much I love being in the mountains: the smell of the clean air, the scent of the pines, the sounds of birds and crickets. More importantly, I got to spend some quality time alone with my Dad. As he and I both get older, I appreciate and treasure this time together more and more. I have come to realize that there is going to come a day when he won't be there anymore, and I want to make every moment we're together count. He is such an amazing person who has so much wisdom to offer, and I can only hope to ever be half the man that he is.

My Dad would do anything for anyone, and never expect a thing in return. He is everything that a person should be, and I admire him more than any other person in the world. I love listening to him tell me who used to live in a certain house, and how they would visit, or what a building was used for thirty years ago, or what the road was like before the bypass was put in, etc, etc. He seems to know every landmark, building and road in Pennsylvania. He is full of so much knowledge, and much of what he knows is lost on my generation. I fear that much of this knowledge will not be passed along so I try to learn all that I can. He grew up on a farm, and he knows so much about farming, hunting, plants, crops, and wildlife. All of those things that with all of our modern technology and urbanization we seem to have stopped caring about and forgotten. The more crazy that life and this world gets, the more that I long for a simpler, more carefree time. I wish to "live simply" as Henry David Thoreau once said. The simple joys in life are truly what make living worthwhile. If all we have in our life is our career, cell phone, internet, and television, then we are truly lost. For the most part, all of these things are devoid of any true value, and we tend to overvalue their importance in our lives.

I apologize for the tirade, but it's these types of thoughts and feelings that I have been having lately as I become more and more disillusioned with our modern world. I have lived in the same small town for the last four years, and in that time have seen no fewer than six new housing developments spring up with more on the way. Along with the houses come the WalMarts, convenience stores, gas stations, and the overcrowding and traffic congestion that go along with them. I watch as the fields, farms, and woodlands that give my homeland its pastoral charm is razed to make way for more overpriced houses that probably won't even be standing in 50 years. I find it very disheartening, and the worst thing is that no one seems to be doing anything about it. It's as if the momentum of "progress" is just too strong to overcome so we ignore it while we drive our 15mpg SUVs and complain about the price of gas. I'm not against building new things, but I feel that it's important to strike a balance between building and preserving, and to build sensibly. As long as the builders keep raking in the cash, and the local governments don't work to curb the behavior, nothing is going to slow down the scourge of overdevelopment and urban sprawl.

I guess that running has always been a way for me to get in touch with the naturalist inside me, and with running currently not playing as prominent a role in my life as it has over the last several years, I guess that my naturalistic side is manifesting itself in other ways. I was just thinking to myself this weekend that at heart I think I long to be a trail runner and spend all of my time running up and down mountains. This would certainly combine my two greatest passions: running and a love of the wilderness. A new path for me perhaps?