Gil Can Run!A blog on Running and all the crap that runs through my head while doing it

Feb 20th Pain and loss

It’s just a game, but stil what a foolish thing. Impatience never pays:

https://www.twitch.tv/videos/555108158

Feb 2nd Live now!

HCK – Setting up base, Nether, Mob Farm? Later Eggplant Parm https://www.twitch.tv/gilcan

Jan 30th Shameless when it comes to raising money

So I have been doing a fundraiser for WWF Australia for the last couple of weeks, tomorrow is the last day so tonight I streamed some Minecraft, hardcore of course. Anyway, I have had incentives on stream to get people to donate, like $2 to the campaign and I flex my arms, $5 and I’ll do some pushups or situps, $10 and I’ll juggle, $15 and I’ll sing a song, $25 and you pick the song I sing. So a friend comes in tonight and makes a package deal for $100 and asks me to sing Nickleback. I didn’t even know the name of the song, although it turns out it’s their famous one? Anyway, you give me enough money and I’m following all the instructions.
https://www.twitch.tv/videos/544321414

Follow the link if you want to watch.
If you want to donate: https://tiltify.com/@gilcan/gilcan-helps-pouchy-bois/donate

Jan 22nd Changes are coming soon

I have changed things up a bit and started a new way to express myself. Also, Starbucks coffee sucks.

https://www.twitch.tv/videos/539964410

Give a follow at twitch.tv/gilcan

Jul 16th Reasons today made me a little emotional

So there is a lot going on. I’ve been keeping consistent with my running, which is good. Even though I’m way over miles on my shoes, I have no idea when I’ll have money for a new pair, and honestly, I’m not even going to be able to cover rent this month. I’ll catch up and make good on the rent, but oh well.
But anyway, yesterday was the 5 year anniversary of my mom’s house burning down. So that gets me a little worked up. I mean overall, it worked out much better for her. The house needed a lot of work, so luckily it got done, even though it was super inconvenient and really stressful for a year. I’m a bit sad that I’m not in the US to have ice cream with my mom, as has become our tradition for today, ever since the fire. Because that’s what we did, the first night in the hotel the insurance company put us up in. We went to Dairy Queen and got Blizzards. So every July 16 now that’s what we do. We recognized today, and agreed when I go back we’ll get the Blizzards then.
The other thing is, today is the 50th anniversary of the launch of Apollo 11. The first mission to land human beings on the face of another body in the solar system. It’s an amazing achievement and it gets me all sorts of worked up. Why you may ask? Is it the “triumph of the USA”, no. Is it the amazing technology and discoveries that came out of the Apollo program, no again. So what could it possibly be?
Well, think about it. With everything going on in the world at the time, the Civil Rights movement, Vietnam War, all those things, we still managed to work together to make something that seemed impossible just 10 years before a reality.
Hearing the roar of the Saturn V first stage as it lifts the rocket and all its components into the air gives me chills. It also gives me pause to reflect because of all that was going on at the time. Could you imagine how much faster, how much further we could have gone without all that strife surrounding these missions?
Think about this, and this is why I’m so vehement about treating people well. It’s the “Trekkie” in me. If say Donald John Trump and his dad weren’t denying people housing because of the color of their skin in the late sixties and early seventies how many of those children, given a stable home environment, would have gone on to careers in science and technology, advancing our exploration even further? Because someone like Rush Limbaugh told a little girl she had to play with Barbie instead of erector sets, what new design for a shuttle, or launch vehicle never happened? Because of the crushing poverty created by our system and the modern-day robber-barons like Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk, who ironically both have space launch companies, how many poor children were denied the opportunity to study chemistry, or physics, and discover new fuels, materials, means of propulsion that could be taking us to the edge of the galaxy?
The argument is made that our system is what created the conditions to make our landing successful, that it was a victory of capitalism over communism. But I honestly believe we succeeded in spite of our system. Let’s explore this.
There have been countless people born (you’ve heard me say this a million times) who are smarter than Einstein, more talented pilots than Neil Armstrong, braver than Alan B. Sheppard, but we will never know who they are because of where they were born, who their parents are, what tax bracket they’re in, the color of their skin, what god they pray to, or who they love. Our system denies many more opportunities than it creates. When one of these opportunity arises we hold these people up, almost like pornography, to prove how great our system is. In reality, thousands, millions more people end up in obscurity because they do not have the freedom to truly pursue their passion. Everything has become a transaction and everything must profit, or it dies. But that just doesn’t work in the end. Eventually, everything is just profit, and there’s nothing else.
Think about this, even with space now, they’re not talking about finding the origins of the Universe, or seeking out new life and new civilizations, boldly going where no human has gone before, no. They talk about trillion dollar asteroids and figuring out how to profitably mine them. “Oh everyone will be rich,” they say. No they won’t, the capitalists will take the lion’s share. They’ll turn the mining operation into “unskilled labor” and demand that there’s no profit unless they’re allowed to pay starvation wages, and no oversight on the quality of the oxygen tanks.
That’s the world we live in today. That’s where we are 50 years after Apollo 11. We haven’t learned a thing, we’re still on our collision course with our own demise, and we’re still holding back so many millions of people all over the world.
But for a brief time, in the late 60s and early 70s, we showed what is possible, what humanity is capable of and how amazing this solar system, this galaxy could be, if we trashed the same old prejudices, pitfalls, and system that we’ve been been enforcing on the world for centuries.
No music today, listen to humanity roar!

Have fun, keep running, and remember; if Gil can run then so can you!

Jun 28th 7 years running

Today marks 7 years, I say running, but it didn’t start that way at all. It was today in 2012 I started out by walking around my neighborhood. This also means, come October it will be 8 years since I officially quit smoking, and 8 years just passed since an asthma attack landed me in the hospital for 3 days.
It’s so strange, because it feels like I was in high school just yesterday, but the asthma attack, quitting smoking, and starting to run feels like it was in another lifetime. Is it nostalgia? I don’t think so, while the asthma attack was unpleasant, and I hated being in the hospital, and quitting was difficult, none of it was much more uncomfortable than being in high school was for me. I hated it there. So it’s not like I’m yearning for the “good old days” and that makes me feel like they weren’t that long ago, whereas more unpleasant things are so distant, even though they are physically much closer.
More than that, running has given me so much. Apart from the friends in my great running club, and people I’ve met just overcoming my shyness and anxiety during races. It’s given me confidence, direction, it’s helped me discipline my mind, even though I’m still pretty much a mess.
The thing is, I still feel like “ugh running” when I’m out there, but I still wouldn’t trade the experience for any other. And while I’m not out here to break records and win trophies and such, I do like it when I push myself to my particular limit, and exceed said limit. When I put in a super fast mile (relative to me) or a super fast (again relative to me) 5k, 10k, 10 miles, whatever, it feels good. It feels as good if not better than any other sporting/physical accomplishment I’ve ever managed. That includes winning championships/league titles in different sports.
Anyway, I’ve also been hitting some core training, trying out the “One Punch Man workout”. It’s simple enough, but I’ve certainly had to work at it. I’m about 100 days in of 100 pushups, 100 situps, and 100 squats every day, and there are some differences. Apart from physical appearance of more muscle definition (which I don’t care about), I feel stronger. I legitimately feel more stable, more powerful, more capable as far as those muscles go. Some things are easier to do.
It hasn’t coincided with faster running times, as the heat, even in the morning, has slowed me down, along with a nagging injury in my left hamstring, so hopefully that sorts itself soon enough and I adjust to the heat.
My only other issue right now is my shoes are running to the end of their useful running life and I need to put together the money for a new pair. It’s hard when your job only really runs 9 months out of the year, and you ended up with about a month off in the middle of it due to circumstances out of your control. So now it’s a mad scramble to try and find income for the summer. We shall see what happens.
At this point, I need to get ready to go do some things, so I will cut this one short. I just wanted to check in and mark this day with something. It seems like something to take note of. It’s an important day for me. It really is the day that started me on this path I’m on now, today is the day where I didn’t just want to change my life because of a really horrible thing that happened, today is really the day I made that change begin to manifest into reality.

Have fun, keep running and remember; if Gil can run then so can you!

Jun 14th Slowing it down and simplifying

No, not my running, if anything it should pick up (as long as I can buy new sneakers at the end of this month). I’ve been staying at it, hot here, so the last couple of days I’ve walked a little bit during my usual route, drank some water, relaxed. I missed the last 10 days because my oldest niece came to visit, and that was nice to show her around and whatnot.
But anyway, what I noticed slowed down was Pride Month stuff. So at the start of June it’s all “pride, pride, pride, remember Stonewall was about riots against cops,” every year. Then the parades happen and that’s it, that’s the end of it, everyone goes silent. I have no skin in this game besides my 100% support for everyone to do what they want, love who they want, and be comfortable with themselves, as long as they’re not harming other people, but it’s a whole month. It’s not a week and a half and then a parade.
That being said, another theme of my thoughts and conversations recently has been around body shaming, and the fact it seems literally everyone has gone through that. Why is this all so complicated? It shouldn’t be, so I’ve decided to write up a simple guide here.
How to “survive” in a “PC” world? I don’t know what to title this, but holy crap is it easy.
Rule 1:
Mind your own fucking business!
Rule 2:
If you’re not sure what to do, refer to Rule #1.
That’s it, that’s the whole thing. It works with the LGBTQ+ community. It works with members of the “opposite sex”. It works with POC, religious minorities, “those kids down the street”, you name the group of people, or singular person and it literally works with EVERYONE!
Now, there are times when you shouldn’t mind your own fucking business. We don’t need rules for that. If someone is literally not minding their own fucking business and trying to harm other people, either physically, or via legislation, because they think it’s their business what other people are doing, because they think their “god” or whatever told them to not mind their business. Well then we need to step in and say, “No, your god didn’t fucking say that, now go mind your own fucking business.” Or whatever the appropriate thing to say would be.
Beyond that, if they continue to not mind their own fucking business, if they start to physically harm people, then hit them with a fucking milkshake, or whatever you have to do, until said person or people knock off their shit and start to MIND THEIR OWN FUCKING BUSINESS!
Generally speaking, I’m not perfect, I make mistakes, I piss people off. But usually when I have a shitty idea about something, it’s about something inconsequential that doesn’t hurt anyone. Like the rank commercialism and capitalism of people whining about “spoilers”. But you know what, it takes precisely .000005 milliseconds to be a decent human being, and usually all that’s required is to midn your own fucking business.
Oh, you’re offended that that person isn’t conforming to your idea of what “proper” love is, ok good, tough shit for you, Mind Your Fucking Business.
Oh, you think that person there isn’t in the “right neighborhood,” Alright, mind your own fucking business. You think “the poors” don’t “deserve” a “handout”, fuck you, mind your own fucking business.
So one of the things Benjamin Franklin (not saying he was a great guy, he had his own issues) did was mint coins. The very first penny he ever made for Pennsylvania didn’t say anything like “In God We Trust.” No, it literally said, “Mind Your Business.” Minding your own fucking business is as American as apple pie, baseball, oppressing POC, and starting wars under false pretenses*.

Have fun, keep running, and remember; if Gil can run then so can you!

*new war on false pretenses coming soon, Iran didn’t blow up any oil tankers.

May 25th Big Election Tomorrow

So hey, I’ve been keeping up with 10k every running day, although on June 1 that’s probably going to change a little bit because I have a very important visitor coming. My sister’s oldest is in Rome right now, and I get to hang out with one of my favorite human beings for a week or so before she goes back to the US, and most things can’t compare to keeping my running going, but there are a few exceptions.
So I’ve been reflecting on a lot of things. Firstly, I have to vote in the morning in the EU parliament elections. I’ve decided to vote +Europa. It’s so hard, because the left is so fractured here. I really would prefer to vote communist, but I know they won’t have a chance at a seat, but it seems +Europa might have a chance at the seat here in Southern Italy. I know that fucking fascist Salvini will pick up the majority, but what can you do, I can’t force people to stop being stupid.
It’s killing me though, watching this slow lurch back into a fascist shitstorm, yet I also want to get myself out of this depression and you know, maybe have a family, just in case humanity can pull itself out of this death-spiral. But that also would require me to go out and meet people, and as I started cleaning my apartment today, I realized how deep my depression has been. Specifically, I just sorted reciepts back to 2017. Which means I’ve just basically been phoning it in since late in 2017.
But at least I recognize the issue and I’m doing what I can to fix it. I can only handle my own problems, I can’t do anything about other people’s problems. I can try and explain to people how they can make the world a better place, and I feel I’ve done that pretty well most of the time. But at the same time, I end up running up against things that make me lose my optimism about the whole mess. A good example, I just get so mad about the whole sales pitch from media companies, conditioning people to get upset about “spoilers” when in reality it’s just a way to cover for really shitty story telling. Yet people get really mad at me about things like that, and claim I’m elitist, but I’m not. I’m about democratization. You should be able to know the story and still enjoy the story-telling, that’s good writing! There are stories I can read, or listen to, or watch, again and again and again and again and always get that feeling of wonder, hope, joy, whatever the emotion may be regardless. That’s because the story is well-told. That’s because the message is right on and the writer, or the orginator, because some stories don’t have a credited author, did a damned good job.
There are stories like John Henry, an American Folk Tale. that I just love, no matter how many times I hear it, no matter how many times I read it.
The point being, a good story is a good story, it doens’t matter if you know what’s coming. If knowing what’s coming ruins it for you, it’s a BAD STORY. And, Avengers SPOILERS, if Steve Rogers goes back in time and lives his life again, and sits there knowing all the bad shit that will happen and doesn’t stop it, HE’S NOT A HERO! He’s a fucking villian and needs to stand trial for allowing all that bad shit to happen. End the fuck of.
OK, onto other things, I am, I’m just really tired, the depression has apparently been kicking my ass for a long time. Hopefully, this is the end of it and things start to come around. I think recognizing it goes a long way. I think I know what I want now. I have been working really hard on a bunch of differnet fronts. I’m just doing my best, like I will tomorrow in the elections and I can only cast one vote, and beyond that it’s up to other people. I’ve told them, Trump and Salvini use the same rhetoric and in the US right now children are dying in custody, due to Trump’s lack of care, lack of ideas, lack of actual plans. I don’t know if people listen, I just do what I can.

Have fun, keep running, and remember; if Gil can run, then so can you!

May 5th Oops!

So I have been keeping up with consistent running and a core routine. Granted my core routine is a piss-take/what will this do? rip-off of the “One Punch Man” workout. If you don’t know what One Punch Man is, please at least watch the anime, if not read the manga, it may be the greatest thing ever created. Remember, I am always an iconoclast and I love subverting any genre.
Anyway, most mornings I’ve been horribly depressed and/or tired and just it’s been a total bear to get myself moving. But I’ve kept myself moving which is the most important thing to do. As long as you keep moving you’re doing alright. But I digress, I knew the date had changed on the Cathedral Marathon and that it was today, I figured it would be an 8am start.
I left the apartment at 9:45am, figuring the most I’d see would be the 4+ hour people coming down the road when I met the course, as my usual route follows most of the Trani section of the marathon. Figured I could cheer them on a bit and deal with the discomfort of the course custodians, EMTS, Police, etc., thinking I was a runner for a very short time…
Well, it wasn’t an 8am start as I thought, it was a 9am start, so when I turned from Via Mario Pagano onto Via Alvarez, I met up with the leader of the race! Wow was I surprised. So I was telling everyone behind the leader how close they were, I also altered my course to avoid the marathon as much as possible so I didn’t get in anyone’s way. There are no aid stations in Trani, so I didn’t have to worry about that, as for whatever reason they don’t have aid stations until almost the half-way point.
Well, as I ran I started calculating the finish times for the leaders and as I recall I said to myself, “If the race started around 9am, based on them reaching the 15km mark (Trani is home to the 14-17 km marks of the race) at about 9:45, they should finish in about 2:35. This is assuming the race basically started the standard 10 minutes late of everything that is always 10 minutes late down here.
So, I’m sitting here just now and I see the winner finished in 2:40. I have to say, I am really good at that. I personally am never going to be super fast, I’m not slow either, but still. The one thing I can really do is figure out things mathematically.
Anyway, I went from figuring I’d cheer on the middle of the pack people to cheering on the front-runners. And then, since I changed my usual running route to avoid the marathon as much as possible, I also caught the back of the race people which was good. I tried to remind them to just keep their feet moving, it’s only when you stop that you’re in trouble in a marathon, any time is a good time when you complete 26.2 miles, that’s a fact.
Some spectators and inadvertent spectators commented that I should be running, or I was running the wrong way, etc., but I won’t be running any marathons until I back to 100% health and happy with my times. If I’m going to run any races, I will run to comtinue to improve on my PR set in the Cathedral Marathon 2 years ago.
Plus, I want to avoid anything, and all things, to do with the IAAF. Fuck them for their ruling on Caster Semenya. Listen people, we are all born exactly as we are. If Caster Semenya was a man, and she was competing exactly as she was, nobody would say a fucking word about her body chemistry. She is retiring, and that’s sad given how amazing a runner she is at middle distances. But listen very closely, and listen well, just because her body produces certain hormones at a higher rate than normal does not mean she should have to alter that! Nobody would ever ask a man to do the same thing, I also imagine if she wasn’t African, nobody would complain either.
Which brings me to another issue, the Trieste Running Association banning African runners from their upcoming half marathon, fuck these motherfuckers too. What kind of racist, fascist bullshit is this? These bastards need to be told the fuck off. I wrote their sponsors and said I would definitely not be using them. The only international sponsor I recognized was Booking dot Com. I suggest if you give a shit about anything (which if you’ve been here and read this, then you probably give a shit) that you contact Booking dot Com and tell them that they should withdraw their sponsorship of the Trieste Half Marathon, and any other race that uses racism and bigotry as their entry criteria.
The fact is, if you feel a certain group has an edge on you atheltically then YOU NEED TO WORK HARDER. Not ban them from competing, not change the rules to “nerf” them, by making them take drugs to reduce their edge or whatever. It’s up to you to make yourself better, not them to make themselves worse. If you change the rules, or leave people out because they’re “too dominant” then all you’re doing it admitting defeat. All you have done is shown you are lazy and undeserving.
It’s absolutely disgusting and embarassing that this is happening in this day and age, on both counts, of the half-marathon and Caster Semenya. I am ashamed of the running community on the whole here. These are things we need to loudly and vociferously oppose. It’s a sign of these horribly racist and fascist times, that people feel emboldened to rule in this way, and those of us closest to the situation should be the loudest and most forceful in opposition.

Have fun, keep running and remember; if Gil Can Run then so can you!

Apr 11th Do the Right Thing

So it’s fairly easy to sit here and talk about ideas, ethics, morals, the way you see problems and trying to identify solutuions. But it’s another thing to actually be out in the world and do something about it.
My run today was going along fairly well. I’ve been healthy and putting in good times, getting faster, stronger, better. But today something took me out of my zone and I wasn’t able to recover.
So as I got to about the midway point of the out leg of the run, there was this guy about my age, across the street yelling at and pushing a guy, probably about my father’s age. Now the older guy wanted no part of it, his arms were up in a defensive posture and he was backing away the entire time. There were probably half a dozen people on the sea side of the road just going about their business. But clearly there was this fight happening and the older guy didn’t want any part of it.
So I ran across the street and started yelling at the younger guy to knock it off. Which he did as he tried to dismiss me and tell me to mind my own business. Well here’s the thing. It’s not like this older dude was wearing a nazi uniform, not like he was trying to accost someone or anything. I don’t know what preceeded the pushing and yelling, all I know is the old guy clearly wanted nothing to do with it.
So thinking everything had calmed down, I start on my way again, only to hear the younger guy start up again. I turn around to break them up again, but this time another runner had crossed the street and taken my place. I still returned to the far side of the road just to keep an eye on things until the older man had gotten in his car safely. The younger guy was staring daggers at me and I stared right back. He tried to explain something but I wasn’t listening, I didn’t care and I don’t care. It really doesn’t matter what the issue was there, the older guy wasn’t fighting back, he wasn’t being aggressive, at that point you can’t continue.
People are so used to looking the other way, they’re scared to speak up. I’m sure some of my friends will chastise me and remind me that I “don’t know who those people are, maybe that guy is ‘Ndrangheta or some local criminal, maybe he had a gun…” I’ve heard it all before, I don’t care. I know what’s right and what’s wrong, and I’m going ot act on that regardless. That is what freedom is. Looking the other way, being afraid of what may happen, minding your own business, that is living on the side of the oppressor. That is what oppressors want. Sure it’s great they have some true believers that will follow their orders, but the thing that makes them truly effective are the masses minding their own business, just trying to get by and not get hurt.
Well, if someone else is getting hurt due to my indifference, or my fear, then I am also to blame. Can I stop all these things from happening? No, but I can stop what I see when I see it, and if everyone did, then these things wouldn’t happen, because no I can’t be everywhere at once, but someone’s always somewhere, and if we’re all doing the right thing, then the wrong thing can’t happen. The problem is, it takes all of us, and it takes courage, and it takes effort. Did I want to stop my run, come out of my zone, jeopardize my health and well-being? Nope. Did I worry that I may have to end up taking the old guy’s place, and bear the brunt of this other guy’s aggression? Yep. But that’s life, that’s the thing. Nothing will change if we don’t actively change it. We have to stand up and we have to stand up now. We have to reject these fear-mongers, these oppressors, and we have to do it at EVERY LEVEL. From the guy on the street trying to beat up the old man, to the politician in parliament trying to punish the poor for their poverty, hurt women because they thin kthey should control them, torture the LBGTQ community thinking that electroshock torture will change them, oppressing minorities because it gives them a cheap source of labor, and it’s easy to vilify them in order to whip up those true believers into a frenzy, trying to outlaw a religion, mostly for the same reason.
We need to stand up against these things, and you know what, no grand revolution is happening anytime soon. Not until we all pull our heads out of the sand and we all start demanding a change.

Have fun, keep running and remember; If Gil can run then so can you!