Cross Country

[HugeFanOfBadReligion]

I was wondering what everyone's opinion is on activities such as cross country. Would you consider it a sport? If so, do you view it the same way as other sports such as (American) football, soccer, basketball, etc.? I was curious about different people's opinions on this site because ever since the winter ended at the start of the year, I've been doing a lot of running, and today (the first day of school for me), I joined the school's cross country team after a friend suggested to me that I should join. I personally think that whether or not it is a sport is just based on the reasons why you participate in it. I know that some people are participating in it viewing it as a sport, but I still personally wouldn't consider myself an athlete for being on the cross country team. One of the reasons why I don't view it as a sport is because I'm not determining how well I'm doing based on who I'm running faster than and who's running faster than me, I don't feel the need to be competitive. I'm just running at a pace based on my abilities and I feel I can tell how well I'm doing without comparing myself to others. I think I'm going to stick with this, I feel this is something I can do well in and it will help me stay in shape. At today's practice I managed to keep up with the more experienced runners (without feeling the need to beat them, I was just keeping the same pace as them) and was told that I did quite well for my first time on the team, so I'll continue running on the team.

[recovering_fan]

I was wondering what everyone's opinion is on activities such as cross country. Would you consider it a sport? If so, do you view it the same way as other sports such as (American) football, soccer, basketball, etc.?

Yes, it's a sport, but I don't think the culture surrounding it is anything like the typical "jock culture" surrounding team sports. There is some physical contact at the beginning of the race, among the elite runners, but even that is very minimal. At my high school (where I ran one year), it was the sport that all the semi-nerds participated in. Most of the team was involved in other, more intellectual, activities, like debate, drama, writing or even math team. Math team was about the geekiest thing you could do at my high school, but I was on the math team, as was another cross-country runner.

Also, there's nothing wrong with going out for a sport, especially if you have a lot of energy. People live sedentary life-styles, and some of us need to run ourselves to exhaustion every now and then just to stay sane. If I ever get a job with an insurance company, I may join the corporate track team. For now, I often walk 3 miles to the university on the other side of town when I have class there.

But then, I have nothing against people playing sports. Never have. It's those poor suckers who waste their lives watching sports who have my deepest sympathy.

Good luck,
RF

PS -- Most importantly, don't write off anyone who runs cross-country as a potential friend. They are the right crowd, usually.

[Earl]

HugeFan, I have no problem with your choice. It sounds great to me. It really doesn't matter if it's a sport or not. I wouldn't even have a problem with you playing a sport like football or hockey, just as long as you kept a sane attitude about it. The problem I have is with athletes who become arrogant and begin to think the rules don't apply to them; and, of course, I have a big problem with sports fans who seek to impose sports upon unwilling kids or excuse school athletes from wrongdoing or even seek to prevent individual athletes who have committed crimes from being prosecuted.

[Safety]

I ran track one year when I was in High School and it was the only sport that I participated in, unfortunately. I would say that I was decent for a freshman. However, the other athletes on my team were terrific. Several of my teammates went to state, and I think that discouraged me from joining again next year, because I knew that I would have a difficult time achieving their level of skill. I shouldn't have been ashamed at being one of the slowest on the team, as I was only a freshman. I regret not running for a second, third, and fourth year, but it was still an enjoyable experience nonetheless.

[Fat Man]

I ran track one year when I was in High School and it was the only sport that I participated in, unfortunately. I would say that I was decent for a freshman. However, the other athletes on my team were terrific. Several of my teammates went to state, and I think that discouraged me from joining again next year, because I knew that I would have a difficult time achieving their level of skill. I shouldn't have been ashamed at being one of the slowest on the team, as I was only a freshman. I regret not running for a second, third, and fourth year, but it was still an enjoyable experience nonetheless.

Oh! How fortunate for you!

Now, if you had been going to school back in the 1960s as I had, and if you had a crippled up knee as I had, and you were unable to run and was totally lousy at sports as I was, then, you probably would not have been allowed to finish school, as I was not. More likely would have been thrown out with the trash, as I was, even though I was passing all my other subjects.

No, that didn't matter at all. I got rejected because they couldn't make a jock out of me to score touchdowns for Home Town High!

All my schools ever cared about was sports, and to Hell with academics!

Anyway . . . . . . .

I guess you all have noticed, that lately, I haven't been posting very much in these forums.

That's because I have been very busy, staying up all night, every night for the past week, adding more Playlists to my YouTube channel.

Well, tonight, I hit the jackpot!!! Yeah, I discovered the mother-load!!!

I found a YouTube channel by Stanford University.



The channel presently has 1383 Uploads, only 21 Favorites, but it has 53 Playlists.

Apparently, most of the 1383 Uploads have been favored to the 50 Playlists making them much easier to access.

There are Playlists on Astrophysics, Cosmology, Paleontology, Quantum Physics, Evolution, Computer Technology, etc. etc.

Each Playlist consists of several videos in a series, and each video is about 2 hours long.

Watching the videos is almost like attending science lectures at Stanford University.

I am going to devote an entire Playlist to all of these university lecture videos, and lock it in place at the top 12 Playlists on my page. One of the original Playlists that was formerly up in my top 12 will drop down to a lower place somewhere on my page.

It will probably take me at least a week to favor all the videos in the new Playlist that I will be working on starting tonight. So, I won't be watching the videos in their entirety yet since each one is approximately 2 hours long. I'll just click on each video, favor it to my Playlist, then click on the next right away to favor it, and so on.

Then, when I have finished favoring the videos, I will sit back and watch each one in their entirety from start to finish.

Since each videos is about about 2 hours long, and if I watch a couple of them each day, it will probably take me about a year to watch them all.

So, I'm about to get schooled!!! BIG TIME!!!

You know, I just got to say . . . . . it's too fucking bad that when I was in my teens or 20s we didn't have home computers, and there was no Internet and no YouTube, or anything of the sort.

Only the government, the military, NASA, and big corporations, etc. etc. had computers, and they weren't desktop neither. They were great big mainframe computers that filled a large room with several cabinets of electronics with reel to reel tapes for memory storage, and data was fed into the computers with a stack of punch cards. Of course, computers were connected across the country by a telephone network, which was the closest thing they had to an Internet of sorts.

If desktop computers had been available back when in the 1960s when I was a kid, and if there were an Internet like we have to day, and YouTube, then I would have been sitting in front of my computer searching for educational videos on science, such as astronomy, physics, paleontology, biology, and evolution. I would have said to Hell with the schools!!!

When I was living in Las Cruces New Mexico, the public library was not very big, and the latest books weren't always available. It was mostly older out-dated books. Then there was the University library, but since I wasn't a student there at the time, there was a limit to how many books I could check out on each topic.

Yeah, I was born about 40 years too early!

You kids today, don't know just how damn lucky you are!

But now, thanks to the Internet, and YouTube, I can now sit through science lectures from Stanford University.

So, tonight, I'm in 7th heaven!!!

UPDATE:

After about 5 hours of working on my latest Playlist, it now has 60 videos. This is the largest Playlist on my channel.

Here is a direct link to my newest Playlist on my YouTube Channel, Big Fat Heretic.

Stanford University Lectures
http://www.youtube.com/user/BigFatHeret ... 6E0A3EE090

Well, I'm going to take a break for now, and add some more videos tomorrow afternoon.

But in the meantime, I'm going to kick back and relax, have some coffee, smoke my pipe, start watching a couple of 2 hour videos, and get schooled!!!

ANOTHER UPDATE:

I just finished watching a 2 hour video, titled "Darwin's Legacy" the first in a series of 10 videos.

Here are two beautiful poems based on the theme of Evolution. I couldn't resist copying these poems. Who says science can't inspire art and poetry? Eh?

I mean, like, seriously! Scientists are people too, not just "human computers" given only to cold hard logic. Like the rest of us, they also experience emotions.

Creation of Earth and Life

Ere time began, from flaming Chaos hurl'd
Rose the bright spheres, which form the circling world;
Earths from each sun with quick explosions burst,
And second planets issued from the first.
Then, whilst the sea at their coeval birth,
Surge over surge, involv'd the shoreless earth;
Nurs'd by warmth sun-beams in primaeval caves
Organic life began beneath the waves.



Production of Life

First HEAT from chemic dissolution springs,
And gives to matter its eccentric wings
With strong REPULSION parts the exploding mass
Melts into lymph, or kindles into gas.
ATTRACTION next, as earth or air subsides,
Approaching parts with quick embrace combines,
Swells into spheres, and lengthens into lines
And quick CONTRACTION with ethereal flame
Lights into life the fibre woven frame
Hence without parent by spontaneous birth
Rise the first specks of animated earth;
From Nature's womb the plant or insect swims,
And buds or breaths with microscopic limbs.

ORGANIC LIFE beneath the shoreless waves
Was born and nurs'd in Ocean's pearly caves;
First forms minute, unseen by spheric glass,
Move on the mud, or pierce the watery mass;
These, as successive generations bloom
New powers acquire, and larger limbs assume;
Whence countless groups of vegetation spring,
And breathing realms of fin, feet, and wings.

Erasmus Darwin (Grandfather of Charles Darwin)


These poems are from Temple of Nature

> Poem published posthumously in 1803
> Full title: The Temple of Nature or The Origin of Society
> Discusses the origin of life from its beginning as a microscopic organism through its development into humans and society

Written by Erasmus Darwin, Grandfather of Charles Darwin

Erasmus Darwin presented in Zoonomia the first modern
statement of a complete system of evolution based upon
scientific knowledge

1.) Geologic evolution by natural processes

2.) Species are mutable

3.) Importance of fossils to trace species

Each day, I'm going to watch at least 2 videos.

This morning, I got schooled.

Oh! By the way Safety . . . I don't wanna hear you saying that I'm going to Hell because I happen to embrace Darwin's Theory Evolution! OK???

Anyway . . . . .

Catch ya gators later!!!

[HugeFanOfBadReligion]

It's possible that I may not be able to run in cross country again until next year, as on the second cross country meet which was on Tuesday, around the last kilometre of the race, I had to start limping as my left calf started hurting, but I still continued on. Around the last 400 m, at the last stretch of the race, it was impossible for me to stand up on my left leg and I collapsed. I then had to crawl the rest of the race as I didn't want to put the previous half hour of running I just did to waste. Despite this I still managed to do pretty well, but I still couldn't walk. So I went to the hospital, and after getting an X-ray, ultrasound, and also a blood test (to see if it was a clot), they didn't really tell me anything specific and just pretty much told me what I could have figured out myself, that it was a muscular problem, and that I needed to let it rest so it could heal. So I'm still walking with crutches, and it really sucks, as it greatly reduces my mobility. As nice as it may sound, I really can't stand having everything brought to me by someone else, and I normally walk to everywhere I go, but now I can't do that, which is fairly upsetting, as I enjoy walking quite a lot. So hopefully it heals quickly, but even if it does, I probably shouldn't start running again until a while after I've regained my ability to walk. On top of that, I'll definitely lose a lot of my running ability for a while once I start again, as I'll lose some muscle in my left leg along with my endurance. Anyway, sorry for rambling on about this, this is what happens when I'm unable to go anywhere!

[Earl]

I'm very sorry over what has happened to you, HugeFan. You're certainly to be commended for finishing the race (although I wouldn't have blamed you if you had quit). Sorry about your mobility being reduced and having to depend upon others to bring you what you need. You're a smart guy; so, I know that you'll be patient and give your body time to heal. I hope you'll heal quickly so you'll be back on your feet soon. Since you suffered injury as an athlete , perhaps your social status at school will experience a boost. (When I came down with mononucleosis in the eighth grade, my social status -- which hitherto had been low -- enjoyed a temporary boost because a classmate or two assumed that I had contracted the disease from kissing girls -- which, of course, was not true, as I had not even started dating. I probably just got it from a drinking fountain at school.) But, seriously, I hope you recover quickly. Best wishes.

[recovering_fan]

Well, HugeFan that sounds like a pretty raw deal!

I agree with most of what Earl said, but I'd like to add something. It's important to distinguish between "quitting" and "retiring due to injury." In the first case one is letting imaginary mental obstacles get the better of him, whereas in the second case, one is acknowledging very real physical obstacles that we all need to respect. I don't suppose anyone would think less of you if you didn't go back to cross country after this. The most important thing is to go back to it only if you still enjoy it. Don't go back just because you feel you "have to" or anything. But of course ... I guess you like running, right?

(When I was in high school I would join sports teams and then simply quit -- as opposed to leaving them because of injury. I didn't even take Math team all that seriously. It might have done me good to stick with the activity, but your situation sounds a bit different.)

[Fat Man]

Good evening HugeFanOfBadReligion.

I'm also very sorry to hear what happened.

Take it easy for awhile until your leg heals.

Hey! You should enjoy people bringing stuff to you until you are able to walk again without the crutches and eventually able to run again.

Although I don't like sports very much (actually hate sports) I have nothing against track running, or swimming, or rock climbing, or hiking. Those are good exercise, and much better and healthier than playing football or hockey which is known to wreck ones health and cause brain damage.

When I was a kid, I walked with a limp due to my crippled up left knee. But I still enjoyed hiking in the woods or out in the desert to look for fossils or bringing back cactus for my cactus garden, even though I walked with a limp. I just couldn't run.

And I like swimming.

Actually, we fat people don't swim. We float!!!

[HugeFanOfBadReligion]

Hello everyone, thanks for the kind words! @Earl, yes, I've gotten some attention at school due to my injury. Mostly it's been people asking what happened and asking if I need help with anything. Mostly everyone's been fairly kind. @RF, I don't intend on quitting cross country, but I guess it all depends on how my leg recovers. If it heals soon to the extent that I can begin running again without ruining my leg again, then I'll start to run again to get ready for upcoming meets. However, if it takes a bit longer to fully recover and I can't run until after the cross country season ends, then I'll just have to wait until next year to join again. In the worst case scenario, my leg won't fully heal and I won't be able to run long distances again without risking an injury again, and in that case, I guess I'd be done cross country for good, so hopefully it doesn't come to that. I must say that during my time so far of being unable to walk, I've gained quite a lot of respect for handicapped people. Of course I've always had respect for them and have always understood that many things are difficult for them, but now I feel I have even more respect for them. Just being on crutches for a few days has made me realize that being unable to walk can be very frustrating.

[Millhouse]

My son runs cross country, but he was born with meconium poisoning (passing first stool in the womb and ingesting it into the lungs during labor), so he has a little bit of permanent damage to his lung tissue, and asthma as a result. My ex wife and I want him to be healthy going well into old age, so she signed him up for it last year, and I support him in summertime (by riding a bike alongside him at the lake) when he's with me. This was an alternative to what he was doing before - basketball (which I opposed because he didn't like it, due to the basic reasons we're all here, discussing this).

I have, however, taken the precaution of indoctrinating him with the philosophy of ignoring any sports tard jock mentalities and to just do this for him, and to rate himself on what he can do, and not others, and to ignore any and all competitive aspects that other people try to insert into the activity if it makes him uncomfortable.

So far, he's been working out with a great bunch of people. I'm keeping an eye on it, but honestly...he already hates the competitiveness of sports, so he knows to watch out for it.