The Triathlon Is Still The Thing

Shoulder weakness has always been my swim's biggest limiting factor, and my relative lower extremity weakness also holds me back in the bike and run. So for the past year, I've focused on getting my shoulders and legs stronger. Until the last couple weeks, that consisted of consistent circuit workouts. I brought a 44lb kettlebell and elastic bands to work and generally complete a 30-45 minute circuit workout consisting of 3-4 rounds of 12-15 reps of 10-12 different exercises. At home, I have a couple different circuits I rotated through. With each of these workouts, I'm now doing more weight and more reps than I was 6 months ago, so I know I've achieved some real gains. But my IT bands and quads still seize up on me when I try to run more than 3 miles at a decent pace, as they have for the past year. And no amount of circuit training has affected that.

So I decided I had to do something different to get my legs back in running form. Two things, actually:

1. Myo reps training. In just the past week, my strict gymnastic ring pullups improved from 12-5-5-5-3 to 15-5-5-3 and my 155lb back squat improved from 10-5-5-5-4 to 12-5-5-5-5-5. Read the article linked above and try it out. It makes for an unbelievably quick workout, and maximally effective way to get stronger.
2. Deep tissue / trigger point release: I'm upping my game and using golf balls, foam rollers, foam balls, and good old-fashioned hand massage to work out the knots in my legs and rotator cuffs. I'll generally take 5-10 breaths with pressure on one spot until I feel it relax, then move to another tender spot. I'm also still getting monthly 90-minute deep tissue massages, which helps the back, shoulders, neck, and legs stay loose for a couple weeks.

As I head into triathlon season, I'm still not sure I'll be able to complete a run of any distance, so I'll be limiting myself to only sprint distances and only 2-3 races total. Best case scenario, my run is slower but the bike and swim make up for it. I've been swimming at the wellness center since February, and my times are already back to where they were two years ago. I haven't been biking as much as I'd like, but with the weather warming up, that'll be where I put a lot of my energies the next few months. 

As with most things in life, consistency is key. I'm pleased to have consistently gotten three workouts in a week for the past year, which seems to be my sweet spot to both make gains and limit injuries. Without a doubt, having triathlons to train for has given me the focus and motivation to push myself more than I would have otherwise. So what I wrote over two years ago still holds true: the triathlon is the thing that drives me to go harder and get better, faster, and stronger.

Crisis

I'll get right to the point: we have reached a crisis of epistemology. Spurred by a Republican party which played with the fire of fascism for too long, our democracy is back-sliding. Basic facts and reality are no longer accepted by a large swath of citizens. And as a result, domestic terrorism is blossoming like no other time in the past half-century. The die has been cast, and our collective future now promises years of increasing right-wing terrorism, assassination attempts, and instability. And each of the 62.9 million people in 2016 and 74.2 million people in 2020 who voted for the monstrous Donald Trump bears responsibility for this harvest of violence, destruction, and decay.

A decade ago, both right- and left-wing extremists numbered somewhere in the low millions. But since then, Trump and his followers on social media have waged a campaign of conspiracy, disinformation, and misinformation with unprecedented success. Educated, Christian, middle class folks who had a soft spot for right-wing authoritarians have metamorphosed into deranged, conspiracy theory- spouting radicals. So now we no longer have lunatic 2% on each end of the political spectrum, but at least 20% of the United States population has been radicalized into white Christian nationalists / white supremacists under the banner of Trump. Partly as a result, the ranks of leftist radicals have also swelled, though not to the right's extent. The long-term consequences of this metastasis of extremism will be profound.

If you don't believe the rough numbers above, think about how many people you knew 10 years ago who were in the thrall of completely false and idiotic conspiracy theories. Then think about how many you know now. Even though most of us are in a political echo chamber surrounded by a bubble of pandemic isolation, I can still think of a large number of people I personally know or have met who believe a frightening number of outright lies. And you probably do, too. Polls indicate that about a quarter of Americans truly think the election was stolen and continue to believe the storming of the Capitol was justified. 

Folks, this can only end in disaster. Trump has ushered us into a post-truth world, the field in which fascism has always thrived. 

On Sept 30, I wrote the following on this blog:

The biggest question I wrestle with is this: can our democracy survive if nearly half of otherwise normal Americans are living in an alternative virtual reality without any anchoring to basic facts? Even if our institutions survive the unrest that is likely to follow the November election, there is no end in sight to the political polarization and rapid dissemination of fake news and conspiracy theories on social media. No democracy can long stand the onslaught of what I will term Social Media Derangement Syndrome, which all of us are affected by to some degree. For the past decade, our institutions have been living on borrowed time, drawing on the strength of a bygone era, weakening and now cracking under the increasing weight of an unsophisticated populace entranced by their algorithmic social media feeds, beholden to "alternative facts," and susceptible to extremism that is rising on both ends of the political spectrum, but particularly on the right.

There have always been two Americas, just like every individual has two sides. Generous and selfish, sane and irrational, enlightened and tribal, continually coexisting in an uncertain tension, always mixed. But in most people, institutions, and societies, one or the other side predominates. Over the last 13 years, Republicans have increasingly given themselves over the dark side, and now it's too late for them to exorcise their fascist demon. Their electoral strategy now entirely depends on mobilizing their new base of white nationalists and supremacists. The fire they started playing with all those years ago has now consumed them.

Some pundits are saying that the Republican party still has a choice between continuing to rely on misinformation, fear, prejudice, and intimidation, or coming up with serious policies and going intellectually toe-to-toe with Democrats like in the good old days. But they truly no longer have a choice. Everyone in the party who can do math knows that they can't afford to lose the white radicals who now comprise 50% of their party. As I wrote on August 26, "by embracing Trump, with full knowledge of his charlatanic, ignorant, amoral, narcissistic, and authoritarian character, the Republicans' last chance to save their party from fascism was lost."

Republicans are completely bankrupt of policy ideas. The popular appetite of the 80's and 00's for more tax cuts is gone, and the vast majority of people on both the right and left actually like the fruits of Big Government, regardless of what some say. As evidenced by their rejection of the science of climate change in favor of the fossil fuel industry, their inability to rein in Big Tech, their susceptibility to an authoritarian, their neglect of growing income inequality, their spectacular failure to "repeal and replace" Obamacare in 2017, their utter lack of a party platform in 2020, and a host of other disastrous deficiencies, they have no vision for solving the massive problems facing us in the 21st century. Their only recourse now is to perpetuate the flood of conspiracy theories, misinformation, and disinformation so that even more people will be radicalized to their side, and to intensify their suppression of voters of color. 

So Republicans are lost. What happens next? The possibilities are uniformly violent, frightening, and dystopian. I conclude my August 26 post by noting:

Though most of the ingredients of fascism are in place, they have fortunately not been systematically employed. Trump is too focused on having his fragile ego massaged on a daily basis and lacks the strategic mindset needed to effect an overthrow of our longstanding democratic institutions. But they have been weakened, and the cracks are apparent. My greatest worry is that in 2024, 2028, or 2032, a truly Machiavellian character will emerge from the morass of the Republican party who will attempt a systematic dismantling of our democratic institutions. This will no doubt be fought tooth and nail by Democrats. But after the last four years, there remains no doubt that the vast majority of Republicans will go right along with it. And that might be enough. 

I have often wondered if charlatans like Ted Cruz, Josh Hawley, Mitch McConnell, and Lindsey Graham who obviously know that they're gaming a broken system realize just how dangerous a game they're playing or how fragile our system has become. Until January 6, maybe some of them didn't fully realize it. But there can be no doubt that every Republican politician now knows the stakes. Yet on January 7, in objecting to the Electoral College count, 121 Republican representatives and 6 Republican senators decided to keep playing it. Which tells me that even an unlikely Senate conviction of Trump for incitement to insurrection, which would require 17 Republican votes, cannot rid the party of the nihilism in its political ranks, much less the derangement of its supporters.

So what does this mean for the rest of the country, for Democrats and independents? 

For one, we have to be prepared for increasingly contested, divisive, and violent elections. Republicans will intensify their efforts which started after Shelby vs Holder in 2013 to suppress voters of color. Voter intimidation tactics not seen in over half a century will return. Militias will become more organized and go more underground. And more assassination plots like those seen this fall in Michigan will crop up. Unfortunately, FBI prosecutors have been discouraged from investigating right-wing extremists over the last four years, since they constitute Trump's base, so law enforcement is starting from a disadvantage. We can only hope they are good at playing catch-up. Though I'm still ambivalent about the advanced surveillance capabilities of the US government, hopefully they will be put to good use in this fight.

Another implication is that Democrats must take a stronger stand against extremism in their own ranks before it metastasizes and seizes control of the party. If not for Joe Biden's leadership, Bernie Sanders would have probably captured last year's nomination, lending credibility to Republicans' assertion of the radical socialism of Democrats, and leading to the alienation of millions of moderates and certain electoral defeat. Close to 40% of Democrats supported Sanders in both 2016 and 2020, and despite their noble policy aims, his supporters' zeal has led some of them into dangerously illiberal "cancel culture" territory. So mainstream, center-left Democrats must continue to keep a united front against the encroachment of the far left if they are to maintain their fragile electoral supremacy. Just because Republicans keep banging on about the danger of the radical left doesn't mean there isn't some truth and persuasiveness to it. 

If there is any hope to derive from January 6, it is that moderates will continue to be repulsed by fascist Republican tactics, and side with center-left Democrats in coming elections in the defense of freedom, democracy, truth, science, and justice. Millenials and Generation Z recognize the historical stakes, and we are growing in numbers and power. But regardless of where the electoral currents of the 2020's take us, we are facing a terrifying ride through a tsunami of lies, extremism, violence, and danger. So let's all lean in. Hopefully we'll get through this.

For Further Reading:

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/09/magazine/trump-coup.html

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/06/us/politics/trump-speech-capitol.html

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/11/us/politics/republican-party-trump.html

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/06/opinion/impeach-trump.html

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/09/opinion/capitol-attack-racism-america.html

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/15/opinion/trump-second-impeachment.html

https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2021/01/16/trump-extremist-republicans-insurrection-459732

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/16/opinion/mitch-mcconnell-trump-impeachment.html

https://thetriad.thebulwark.com/p/the-politics-of-power