Glenn Kubish

I really should have bought the photo. But I was a little embarrassed. Which is all the more reason why I should have bought the photo. Somehow we want to preserve our image only if it matches the innerinaccurate image we have of ourselves. Otherwise it's get rid of that photo! or, as in this case, I'm not going to spend money on that photo! It showed me running along Cannery Row in last year's Big Sur Half Marathon. If there is a pic of a more perfect heel strike, I have not seen it. Heel on ground, toe angled up, aarrghh. Of course, the photo, which I didn't order online, is the epitome of frozen ugliness only if you accept the argument contained in the popular Nature of Things documentary, The Perfect Runner . In that doc, narratorrrunneranthropologist Niobe Thompson introduces us to Harvard professor Daniel Lieberman, whose thesis is that we have been coaxed and persuaded and marketed out of our nature of being barefoot runners. Thompson shoes the differ...

The Big Sur half marathon (pic from Janet) I've thought for a few days now about how best to capture the deep experience of running my first half marathon. It was in Monterey last weekend and it took us along Cannery Row, into Pacific Grove, along the rocky coastline where waves crashed. It was beautiful. And much more.  And I've started and stopped and not been happy with my words and re-started and tried again. And, so, why not try the truth?! The truth is I censored the inner voice that told me to maybe walk up that first hill, the expenditure of energy for the distance covered seeming way out of proportion. But pride pushed me up and then my groins were sore for the next nine miles. Good call. The truth is I was passed by two pregnant women at around the six-mile mark. They were talking to each other and laughing. And I couldn't catch them. I tried. I just couldn't. The truth is I tried to concentrate on my form, not striking my heels. But that made th...

To quote Plato's Socrates only slightly out of context, I know only that I know nothing about chuckwagon racing. But I have spent the last few days at the Calgary Stampede and have gotten to hang out in the chuckwagon barns as part of ATB's sponsorship of rookie rider Codey McCurrach of Eckville. That means taking photos, posting updates via social media, drinking the occasional beer, hosing off the thoroughbreds, having the occasional beer, and hauling hay to the stalls of Primo, Bernie, Ernie, Googles, Mob and the rest of the horse team. As for washing the horses, it's just like flooding a backyard rink. Except there's a giant horse wondering what you are doing, and an even bigger horse called Mike Obrigewitch who is wondering the same. But it's also the easiest post-race job there is. Mike is quite the guy with quite the stories, quite the face, quite the moustache, quite the heart. Mike was Codey's sponsor in the early years, and helped make a call ...

The proverb reminds us that for want of a nail the shoe was lost. Springsteen says everything is everything. The Butterfly Effect reminds us of storms that can be traced back to small changes somewhere else in a non-linear system. Shelagh says everything hinges on your knees. We've been thinking these kinds of thoughts lately because it has become painfully obvious that our dreams of running the Big Sur half marathon in November, that the money it will take to get us there, and that the time consumed by training for all of it rests on our knees. Our wobbly knees. Our almost five-decade-old knees. Wikipedia does a good job underlining the importance of the knees: The non-poetic knee  It is the largest joint in the human body and is very complicated. [2]  The knee is a mobile trocho-ginglymus (a pivotal hinge joint), [3]  which permits  flexion  and  extension  as well as a slight medial and lateral rotation. Since in humans the knee supports near...

One of the most interesting aspects of writing a communication plan is imagining the answer to the question, what does success look like? It's a question good enough to help frame all sorts of projects and efforts in real life. Including the Big Sur half marathon in Monterey in November. Somewhere along the way, Shelagh and I have somehow made that 13-mile run a possibility. I have never run a half marathon. I have run a half half marathon twice. Once, really. The first time, I finished, but came away with a sore left knee. What I remember most keenly from that race is the message I sent to my legs with the finish line in view. "Okay, let's kick it up a gear and sprint to the finish line," I said. "Forget you," my legs said. It was bewildering. I ordered my legs to move faster, and they simply rebelled. I could not run faster. The second time I ran that distance, I couldn't finish. The pain in my knee forced me to stop. By the time I walked the ...