October 31

AM: 50:00 moderate, elliptical

More cross training today, and it wll continue over the next few weeks to give my legs a break from the pounding of all the mileage. I'm going to shoot for my first "real" run tomorrow morning at the store. I'm headed to Fells Point with Valerie and some friends from college. I considered dressing as a "sexy nurse," the joker, or both, but instead I'll probably be going as John McCain.

You know, I have some reservations about being so unabashedly opinionated on a running/training (b)log. "Patrick, it's running...let's stick with the program. The guys on Deadspin yesterday summed up my feelings on this subject:

Loosen up a bit this week. Don’t get all pissy just because someone said something mildly political you happened to disagree with. Because this shit is kind of a big fucking deal.

I guess what I really mean is, if you don't like what I have to say, the running is at the top. No one's making you read my rambling nonsense. I think this is important, so I'm going to write about it, especially since I spend a lot of my time running contemplating or talking about it all.

It's just a few hours away. The Punk prophet Henry Rollins, interviewed yesterday on DCist, reflected what scares me most this Halloween...and this November. This interview was six weeks ago, so he may not be so fearful at this point. I'm a bit more optimistic:

I think John McCain will be elected president. And I don't have any "Ding-dong, the witch is dead!" celebration in mind for when Bush steps down. The swath of destruction that he and his cronies have left after eight years -- it's not like you wake up the next day and everything is gleaming and all the legs have somehow been rejoined to the bodies.

With McCain, you can almost be assured that, yeah, of course we'll go into Iran, if nothing else to get a pipeline out of Azerbaijan and Turkemenistan down to the Persian Gulf. So there'll be more death. And Sarah Palin? I'm still trying to get my head around what's the strategy there, because Republicans are anything but dumb. Or is [McCain believed to be] so to the center that she's the balance; the anti-abortion, creationist that'll get Arkansas to vote? I don't know.

I want to be wrong. I'm voting for Barack Obama.