While I will not set any speed records, my old body still allows me to go out for a run.
Since the start of 2025, I’ve had the privilege of running in the Florida Keys, North Carolina, San Francisco and Monterey, California, Vancouver, British Columbia, Fairbanks, Alaska, and almost in Keystone, Colorado.
I was all set to go for a run in Keystone, but my body talked me out of it. My body did not like the change in altitude. In Keystone, the altitude is 9,173 feet. Where I live in Richmond, Virginia the altitude is 150 feet.
We arrived in Colorado on Saturday, July 26. By Monday, my body started to feel acclimated.
I know that I was lucky, privileged to be able to go for a run in those different locations. And as fortunate as I was with that opportunity, I still enjoy taking a run in our Richmond neighborhood.
No doubt those other locations offering unique settings for a run, but as Dorothy said in The Wizard of Oz—“there’s no place like home.”
For seventy two years, I have lived in North Carolina and Virginia. The entire southeast is known for its uncomfortable summertime temperatures. When heat, dew point, and humidity conspire to create daytime heat indexes over one hundred degrees, there is nothing like it.
Air conditioners strain, pets are hesitant to go outside, and the air is as thick as pound cake batter.
The sinking of the sun offers no relief. Sure the intensity of the sun is gone, but the still night time air has no pulse. Leaves don’t rustle, and when dawn breaks the temperature will be 75 degrees, with a dew point of 74 degrees, and a humidity reading of 96%—a sauna.
And now, I will confirm for you what you have known for many years now—Bill Pike is crazy— just like Max Klinger from MASH in search of his Section 8. I’m crazy because every summer I look forward to taking an early morning simmering sinner run through my neighborhood in those unbearable conditions.
On the morning of Saturday, July 12, I took a simmering sinner run. I ran the neighborhood 5K route in reverse starting at our house instead of Trinity.
By the time, I had completed my run from head to toe my entire body was soaked in perspiration. I could wring water out of my t-shirt and shorts. When I walked inside our house, I felt like I had walked into a ice chest.
Mentally, the simmering sinner run is good for me. I feel like any meanness in my body has been removed. It has dripped out of my pores.
Following the run, here is the bad news—any removal of my meanness, worry, anxiety, and discontentment is only temporary.
You might be thinking, Bill, why is your satisfactory simmering sinner run only temporary?
Here is my explanation from Dr. George Sheehan from his book Running To Win: “Life is not logical. Life is not rational.”
I think Dr. Sheehan’s assessment is correct.
Speaking for myself, at this very moment in my life, my country, America, is not logical and not rational.
Back on July 26, 1993, using a gift certificate from a friend, I bought Dr. Sheehan’s book at a Barnes and Noble on Parham Road. That store is gone.
I have never read Dr. Sheehan’s book from beginning to end. I have read it in pieces and highlighted his wisdom and wisdom from others that he quotes.
Tonight, I came across this wisdom in the last paragraph of the Epilogue.
Dr. Sheehan wrote: “The glory of God,” wrote Ireneus, one of the early church fathers, “is man fully functioning.” Find your place to do that, and you will find the peace that passeth all understanding.
Again, speaking for myself, America is not fully functioning for the good of all Americans.
For my old brain, this is a concern.
And in that concern is our inability to find our place and understanding.
I fear if we continue down our current path, peace will never grace America again.
August 30, 1971, the Beach Boys released their album Surf’s Up. In case your curious, the album features no songs about surfing.
On side two, there is a pretty, heartfelt song from Brian Wilson titled ’Til I Die. I think about one line from that song quite a bit—“I lost my way.”
A timeline of my life will reveal that I have “lost my way” on many occasions.
And yet, some compass, some internal voice, some nudge, some whisper seems to correct my path.
Isaiah 33:22 states: “For the Lord is our judge, the Lord is our lawgiver, the Lord is our king; it is he who will save us.”
America has lost its way.
I wonder if America can be saved from this dysfunction?
might be baloney 