Barefoot Alaska runs

This post may not be very interesting, but is at least a record that I did run while visiting my son and his family his summer... I declare that Wasilla is not barefoot jogging friendly, leastways not if you insist on starting from home as I do.  There are plenty of very interesting trails around, but none within striking distance from where I was based. It seems that Americans expect to have to drive to get to do anything: shopping, leisure or hiking / jogging.

Although there are adjacent service roads that are OK for running, some are unpaved and many are cul-de-sacs (they say "no outlet"). The best circuit I could muster on these roads is shown below.

Run-4

To go further afield you have to venture onto the very busy Bogard Road. There is no side-walk or cycle-track, but it is sort of OK to run on the hard shoulder, although the white line that demarks it has been worn away in places where vehicles consider it to be part of the thoroughfare so one has to be alert, and anyway the hard shoulder is very gritty so is hard on the feet.

On my third run I just about made it to the nearest trail complex in the wooded area behind the Mat-Su college, but beat a hasty retreat because of the large bug population there, including mozzies.

Run-3

Their house is near to Finger Lake which is divided from Cottonwood lake by a narrow strip of land. There must be at least a footpath connecting the north side to the south across this strip, I figured, and so explored the options on my second run. I even asked a house owner who thought about my question for a while, as if it was a very strange thing to ask, and then said "no".

Run-2

Thus in my first run, exploratory in nature, I was forced to run around both lakes, most of the time on busy roads.

Run-1 - over 10 miles

I could have include some pictures, but they wouldn't mean much to most of you. Oh - but I did run once whilst in Denali, and got some cool pictures of the rail-road bridge there.

Belief and Diesel

I've always thought the advice to the Philippian jailer was over simplistic when he said: Sirs, what must I do to be saved? And they said, Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved. To give credit, the Greek pistis "belief", often translated "faith", includes the idea of wholly putting one's trust in something or someone. Whereas the modern English "belief" is sometimes much weaker as in "I believe it is going to rain this afternoon". So the above might better read "Put your trust wholly in the..."

One of our diesel vehicles had inadvertently been topped up with petrol (maybe 50% mix). I did not realise this until well on the way to Dublin to take Ali to an appointment. The engine ran lumpy but we got there, turned the engine off and did what we came for, but then I couldn't start it again. I got talking to the guy who we called out to drain the tank and we started discussing religion. He claimed to be a humanist atheist and said he believed only what he could see proof for, which definitely didn't include God. But apparently it did include some very wacky things like UFO's and life on other planets and the Jesus story being no more than a rehash of the Egyptian god Horus and did I know that Jesus condoned killing his enemies? When I got home and checked up on his points it quickly became apparent that there was a good deal less proof for his ideas than my Christian ones. But he was not the kind of gent that would be easily persuaded against his will and I'm not much use in debating (my brain works too slowly).  So we parted company each wondering how the other could possibly believe what he claimed.

Rachel Nuwer argues that the reason a god-shaped hole seems to exist in our species’ neuropsychology is due to a quirk of our evolution.  She says we have two very basic forms of thought: System 1 and System 2. System 2 evolved relatively recently. It’s the voice in our head – the narrator who never seems to shut up – that enables us to plan and think logically. System 1, on the other hand, is intuitive, instinctual and automatic... It makes us prone to looking for patterns to better understand our world, and to seek meaning for seemingly random events like natural disasters or the death of loved ones. Hence religion and her conclusion “There will always be people who believe, and I wouldn’t be surprised if they remain the majority”. But implied is that she doesn't.

In their paper "The biochemistry of belief" the authors quote Anton Chekhov as saying “Man is what he believes” and summarise that Beliefs are basically the guiding principles in life that provide direction and meaning in life. By way of example they mention the placebo effect: Medical history is replete with numerous reported cases where placebos were found to have a profound effect on a variety of disorders. One such astounding case was that of a woman suffering from severe nausea and vomiting. Objective measurements of her gastric contractions indicated a disrupted pattern matching the condition she complained of. Then a ‘new, magical, extremely potent’ drug was offered to her, which would, the doctors proclaimed, undoubtedly cure her nausea. Within a few minutes, her nausea vanished! 

We are motivated by belief at many levels. I can get out of breath jogging to my daughter's place a quarter mile down the road. When I tackle a long run like Church Mountain I have to first believe that I can do it (running barefoot with significant ascent and descent) and so far this has worked. Indeed I have just returned from such a run. I made it back albeit feeling like I couldn't have gone a step further, quod erat demonstrandum...

 distance 14.54 miles

 average speed moving 4.94 mph

 elevation gain 733m

 maximum elevation 541m

My track 

My lake, viewed from the summit

Looking south, the bump on the horizon centre left is Baltinglass Hill

What if the tenets of Christianity were untrue? Perhaps it might still be beneficial to believe in them, as in my recent post does it matter what one believes. This of course is the Puddleglum argument. But how much better if it the object of our belief could be shown to be true. And here's the catch: what does it take to show that something is true?  We take for granted that things we can sense are true, although even that is debatable. The rest: the makeup of an atom, the distance to far-off galaxies, the big bang and evolution (or creation) of man, the resurrection of Jesus, and whether the ladder I am about to climb will hold my weight... we take on trust. We have to believe else we cannot function. Whether or not the likes of Richard Dawkins agrees, it is clear to me that even atheists have to believe / have faith in their tenets.

Of people set in their ways Jesus remarked: neither will they be convinced if someone should rise from the dead. And such conviction apparently comes only as a result of action taken by God on our behalf. Which places me in an unenviable position if I happen to doubt, as I do.

The South Bull Wall

Having already done my customary 4 mile run in the morning,  Ali had an appointment at St Vincents and whilst waiting for her I explored the South Bull Wall, at 4km it is one of the longest in Europe according to Wikipedia. I then found out Ali would be even longer than anticipated so I extended my run to include the Grand Canal basin.  It may look as if I was running on water - in fact the tide was out and the bay is almost level so the sea proper is way, way in the distance.

My track, 12 miles in all

Irishtown power station

Sealink ferry departing

Poolbeg lighthouse

Derek, I believe

Wall art and the lighthouse

Stunning - I don't know who they are though

Complete with fog horns

Howth, from the end of the wall

and in the opposite direction, Dún Laoghaire

Looking back towards Dublin

A cargo ship departing

Another...

The Grand Canal exits through this lock into the Liffey

Grand Canal basin lock

from the Bord Gáis Energy Theatre

Easter weekend

Easter weekend and amazing weather, the temperature in the 20's. Too good to stay at home so having free afternoons I made the most of them and visited some favourite haunts. My method on both occasions was to cycle and then walk / run.  Although not much running. But once off bike I was bare-foot of course. I took a new ascent route through some forestry above Ballyknockan and thus made a round trip. I have a principle that, where feasible, the outward and return journeys should not used the same route.

Saturday track

Ascent through the forest

After the forest I followed a sort of path

Unusual to find company at the summit

He followed me to this pool where I turned back

Mullaghcleevaun in the distance

Descent to Ballyknockan quarry road

After the Sunday meeting and shared lunch I set off again on my trusty bike, this time to explore forestry tracks under Tonelagee. 17.5 miles cycling round trip, max speed 40.3 mph.

My plan was to use the track as a new way to Mullacleavann. But when I eventually got out of the forestry I figured I had insufficient time and so instead turned right towards Tonelagee (3rd highest in the Wicklows). I met three pairs of hikers, and overtook a fourth single man on the way down. I habitually run most of the way down from Tonelagee - it's good for the leg muscles!

Sunday track 6.51 miles

The forest track, Tonelagee in the distance

Showing the layer of peat that covers these mountains

Towards the Wicklow Gap

Having left the forest, looking back towards Mullaghcleevaun

From Stoney Top, the path to Tonelagee summit

Stoney top is hardly a peak in its own right, the descent to the saddle with Tonelagee being slight. The saddle has an area of naked damp peat which is glorious for running barefoot on. I wonder where Stoney Top gets its name from?

Some joker planted this false peak marker

Lough Ouler and me

The quick way down to Lough Ouler

The true summit, Turlough Hill reservoir in the distance

The descent - note the small lake to the right

Wicklow Gap tourist car park

Upper reach of the Kings River, under the main road

The old Annalecka bridge, close to my bike parking lot

Map of the area, my route in red

The map identifies the small lake I saw to the right of the Turlough Hill reservoir as Lough Firrib. No, I have not yet swum in Lough Firrib but I intend to some hot summer day. The red square is where I parked my bike.

You can click on the images to enlarge them.

The trouble with dogma

One of the problems with being dogmatic is if you are wrong. Apart from being like a dog and his bone, the dogmatist refuses to acknowledge and blinkers his eyes to any alternative view. This tendency of humans to think they are right is known as confirmation bias.

Good science eschews confirmation bias and yet how often, when processing a data set in the course of my work or teaching, have I been tempted to exclude a datum because it disagreed with my preconceptions.

My father was dogmatic in his views on eschatology - I cannot even recall what his views were, but he got angry when I suggested things might be different to what he believed. There were a couple of very dogmatic Calvinists I knew in college days and it was futile to disagree with them. I have even been known to be dogmatic myself!

A good deal of dogmatism is expressed in the young earth / intelligent design / Darwinian evolution debate. Whichever side you tend towards you probably hate the arrogance shown by some of the proponents.

Would you be prepared to die for your faith? Personally I think 'faith' is the wrong object - rather, that you should die for your friends? Stories that have this theme are the gut wrenching / tear jerking ones. One step further - the One who died for the sake of his enemies. Would you call him dogmatic? For he insisted that he was the son of God. And there's the rub, like I said in my recent post I have been taught to "hear God and obey" - but to an onlooker who disagrees with my stance I could well come across as being dogmatic.

The link I started this post with suggests that open mindedness is the antidote to dogmatism and I am inclined to agree, except that if you open your mind too wide you invite all manner of nonsense in. That's where discernment comes in handy. But discernment is a dynamically adjusted filter and has to be developed and thus can be mislead. And so people end up believing weird things.

Wicklow Gap and 20 miles

The day after 16 miles on bare feet I figured I'd give them a rest and exercise my bike, which has been a desultory couch potato for some while now, as a precursor to possible longer rides if I get let out on a suitably warm and still day later in the year.

Although the sun was shining some of the time it was cold. Too cold to stop and take photos. Even too cold at the summit to eat my chocolate bar. Total distance 20.7 miles, max speed 35 mph, average speed 11.2mph, elevation gain 475m. So there.

On the ascent a girl cyclist passed me - I called out asking her for a tow. On reaching the summit I saw that she had turned around and was returning by the way she had come and she smiled when I waved. So maybe I am not so looney for cycling there and back for no better reason than the challenge!