Thoughts on decades

We are the cusp of a new decade – shall we call it the 20s? Or as my niece has been posting on Facebook, the “Roaring 20s?” Wasn’t that the Great Gatsby? Didn’t that already happen? The decade in which much of the “Greatest Generation” was born, the decade when my father was born (1928), most of whom have passed on by now? This got me thinking. These past two decades didn’t really have ready-made NAMES, did they? The 2000s? The Oughts? The 2010s? The Teens? Did the period from 1900-1909 and 1910-1919 … did those decades have “names” or not? These are the inane questions that keep me up at night … and that I have posited for years on this fancy blog, which lumbers on for yet another year. For younger generations – perhaps including most of our current team members – “blogs” like this are akin to “snail mail” to most people … a quaint, antiquated way to disseminate information. When I mentioned to freshmen on the team that I post race results and splits on this blog, it was met with a collective shrug. What, it’s not on Insta? Snap? Tic-toc? Might as well not exist!

After more than 4,000 posts – and yes, part of one decade and the entirety of another decade – we will stubbornly plunder forward. We continue, knowing that many (most?) consumers of this sort of information are accessing it through Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat, Facebook, etc. The number of posts for 2019 (well shy of 300) is the fewest in 10 years. Page views are down. Yes, the cumulative page view number is impressive … but it took more than a decade to accumulate that number! Alas, New Year’s Eve lends to introspection – thinking back, looking ahead. Where will we be in 10 years, at the end of the next decade? Will we BE in 10 years, at the end of the next decade? Will this blog be defunct, part of the digital detritus of the constantly evolving world in which we live? All questions to ponder, questions without answers, questions …

While you ponder those questions, please hum along with me and listen to my favorite musician and songwriter, as he ponders some of similar, end-of-year thoughts (see song lyrics below). Happy New Year.

New Year’s Eve, by Warren Haynes

Next year's gonna be better
Next year will surely be the one
And it's right around the corner
Hell, it's just about begun
So what am I still sitting here for
When everyone's inside?
What am I doing drinking whiskey
And looking for a place to hide?

Yeah, old buddy, I sure miss you
You and old "What's his name?"
And I know if y'all were here now
This party wouldn't be so damn lame
There'd be dancing, and fighting,
And cussing, and laughing
Raise our voices to the sky
Bring the new year in right
Instead of watching time go by

Yeah, sometimes I wonder what
The world would be like
If I didn't have strangers as my best friends
I'm sitting here on new year's
Thinking 'bout old friends and old times
We'll never see them again

Yeah, sometimes I still wonder what
My life would've been like
If I didn't have angels at my defense
I'm sitting here on new year's
Singing 'bout old friends and old times
We'll never see them again

But next year's gonna be better
Next year will surely be great
Well, I guess I should say "This year"
Geez, how did it get so late?
What am I still sitting here for?
When did everybody leave?
What am I doing drinking whiskey?
Oh yeah, it's New Year's Eve

Last result of the decade: Katie Miale's PR in the 5km racewalk

And now … the final result on this blog for the decade (more on “decades” later …): Katie Miale participated in the USATF Indoor 5km racewalk championships at Gordon Fieldhouse at Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT) on Sunday. She was aiming for the 2020 indoor USATF 3km qualifying mark en route and missed it by just two seconds (14:42.23). She continued on for 10 more laps to complete the 5km, finishing in ninth place overall and squeaking out a 5km personal-best time of 25:56.04 (her previous best was 25:56.81, set at the 2018 Penn Relays). Katie’s 1600m splits on Sunday: 7:42.34, 16:00.70 (8:18.36), 25:01.44 (9:00.74). Katie was joined by her best friend Carlye and her loyal Marist teammate Hogue, who lives in the Rochester area. At the 2018 Penn Relays, she was accompanied by her coach, Chuck Williams, whose expert training has guided her to a national caliber level in the sport (she qualified for the 2020 US Olympic Trials at 20km racewalk). On to the next decade!

Praise be to the distant sister sun

Thoughts on the winter solstice: As someone who spends a lot of time awake and moving between 5:30 and 6:30 a.m. on most weekday mornings, the sheer volume of darkness and cold that surrounds us this time of year is stark. I mean, it’s the same every year, and yet we speak about it as though what we are feeling in 2019 is somehow unique to this year; kind of funny how that works. Yesterday was the winter solstice, the “shortest day of the year,” in terms of hours of daylight. The truth is, while the next six months will incrementally feature more and more seconds and minutes of daylight, for the next several weeks, we are locked into a whole lot of darkness. We won’t start noticing a difference until late January/early February, and even then, it’s not much. This lack of daylight is sometimes associated with more somber moods, even around the holidays. There’s even an acronym for it – SAD (Seasonal Affective Disorder). Our bodies and minds crave daylight and the great outdoors.

But while this darkness can seem gloomy, there’s something peaceful about it, and about the persistent cold weather we’ve had for the balance of November and December. When I landed at Westchester County Airport on Thursday night after several days in sunny and warm Orlando for the USTFCCCA Convention, the 14-degree air felt like a sudden blast. But even for me, a cold hater, there was something refreshing about that intensely cold midnight air, which was a full 70 degrees chillier than the warmth of Monday afternoon when I went for a long walk/jog around the convention center hotel. That few days in the warm weather sure felt nice, but I’m happy to be home, even in the single-digit mornings, the icy driveways and the too-soon darkness in the late afternoon.

And each year around these dates, I find myself humming the festive, holiday Jethro Tull song, “Ring Out Solstice Bells,” about the winter solstice. The summer solstice may be a lot sunnier, but there is joy to be found in the darkness as well, as these song lyrics attest:

Praise be to the distant sister sun,
Joyful as the silver planets run

As my old coach used to say? Merry Fitness!