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RAF480 - Hope for All Mankind · Running: A FEVER

0:08
Welcome to Running: A FEVER.
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My name is Michael Davis.
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This is a show about fitness, diet, and
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medicine.
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My goal, today, is to live a long,
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healthy, happy, active life right up to the
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very end.
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It's all about livin' long and lovin' life.
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Well, today I am back at the Lake
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Fayetteville Trail,
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starting at the parking lot near the Botanical
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Gardens, and I'm taking a walk
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in one of the classics of Running A
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Fever venues today. Lake Fayetteville, it's a beautiful
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day,
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and Lake Fayetteville, a bit warm.
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It is the middle of summer in the
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middle of the United States.
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Today, that means it's about 93 degrees, and
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I'm breathing a little bit harder today.
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I'm
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263 pounds, and it's been a few weeks
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since I've been out exercising anything other than
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yard work. So, I'm glad I'm out here
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today, but it's going to be, I don't
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know,
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we'll play it by ear, but I am
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not promising anything more than a mile today.
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We will see how it goes.
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I made a little life decision, somewhat health
1:51
-related, since my last
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episode that I recorded. I had probably mentioned
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briefly that I was
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considering going back and exercising the privileges of
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my pilot license.
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I have a pilot license, which I got
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back in the early 90s.
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I am a private pilot,
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and I really enjoyed it back then.
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I really wanted to get back into it.
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So, I investigated what it would take to
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do that. You have to have a,
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the license itself doesn't ever expire, but you
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have to have a current medical certificate
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and also be checked out by the FAA
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or a designated examiner every two years to
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make sure you're
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proficient. So, I looked into that, and the
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crux of the matter is, the FAA doesn't
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just
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60 years old. It's been 30 years since,
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been actually 32 years since I got my
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last
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medical certificate, and a lot has happened since
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then. There have been some misdiagnoses and
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various things, diseases I have recovered from, and
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things like that.
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But we're going to require a lot of
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investigation and revealing of some things that I
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didn't want to reveal private medical information.
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And so, I decided not to apply for
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a new medical certificate. Now, that doesn't mean
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I can't fly,
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but it does kind of limit my options
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a little bit. They have a new, something
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I didn't have back
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when I was flying in the 90s called
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sport pilot rules. Under sport pilot rules, you're
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restricted
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in a number of ways, but the most
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important thing to me right now is
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you don't have to have a medical certificate.
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You just have to have a driver's license.
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They figure that for these purposes, if you're
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physically qualified to drive a car,
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then you are physically qualified to fly an
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airplane, which kind of makes sense to me.
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Again, it's not about the technical proficiency, it's
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only about your medical fitness.
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So, there you go. That's what I'm going
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for now.
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And I do have a driver's license, and
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so I've got a lot of catching up
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to do in terms of
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efficiency and knowledge. A lot of things have
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changed since the 90s.
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They really weren't using GPS very much in
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aviation.
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There wasn't even, I don't even know if
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there was a complete,
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or not complete, but sufficient GPS network of
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satellites. I've been reading about the first
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flight around the world nonstop without refueling in
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an airplane.
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This happened in the late 1980s, I believe,
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and they used something similar to GPS then.
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But I know for a while it was
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only available to the military,
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and then the accuracy was not that good
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because they didn't have enough
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satellites to provide the accuracy that you get
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today, where you can actually
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navigate through a building with GPS.
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I think you can only get within a
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few yards or something.
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I don't know. Anyway, that's just one of
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the things that has changed.
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Different classes of airspace, radio calls, and things
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of that nature. So,
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got a lot to relearn and a lot
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to learn, things that I've forgotten, things that
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have changed.
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But my medical history is not going to
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hold me back. The limitations are I can
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only fly under
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visual flight rules, which means I can't fly
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in weather where I can't see, right?
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Using instruments only. So only VFR and only
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during the daytime. And you can only fly
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certain
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slower aircraft, although they've just expanded that quite
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a bit. So,
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the types of aircraft are pretty reasonable that
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you can fly. And I can only carry
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one passenger
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at a time. So, that's how I have
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made my decision with regarding the FAA and
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medical
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qualification. And I got somebody coming behind me
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on a lawnmower. A driver
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wearing a t-shirt that just says parks
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on the back. So, it's probably a department
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that he's in
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from a city or something like that, maybe
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Fayetteville, possibly Springdale. If you know it's right
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in the border here between Fayetteville and Springdale.
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Walking for 12 minutes. Not doing too bad
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here. E-bikes, e-scooters, I saw a
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whole fleet of them
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when I drove up and parked.
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Started on the trail. Never tried one of
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those. I think,
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I would hope they have some sort of
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battery indicator on them. So, you know when
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you're halfway out,
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halfway down, you can get back to your
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car. It's kind of shady.
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I'm on the south side of
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Lake Fayetteville. Shady on this side.
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It's good. Didn't wear sunscreen today.
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I have been
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when I go out to mow and things
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like that. Just got to be aware of
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sunstroke and or
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heat exhaustion. I'm not trying to break any
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records today. Just one of those times where
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it's been a while. Not in great shape.
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I don't mean it when I say Lake
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Fayetteville is beautiful. You
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have some nice woods here.
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I can see a little bit of the
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lake through the trees. It's the middle
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of summer so all the leaves are out.
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Not like winter time and you can see
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all kinds of water.
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But it's nice. Nice to be out here
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in the shade with a canopy of trees
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overhead and they kept it
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pretty nice. You can see where somebody has
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been trimming limbs and leaving them on the
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side of the
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trail. So far today I haven't seen any
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graffiti. I have seen it in the past
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but not today.
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So it's good. So far people are respecting
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the open spaces available to a community of
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human beings.
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I can understand wanting to speak your mind
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and publish your thoughts and I think if
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you want to
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do that in a way where people can
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seek you out and find you.
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That's one thing but if you
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invade a public space and force it upon
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people that's another thing entirely.
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Humans I think are communal by nature and
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for the most part I think
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we do a good job of respecting each
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other. There's always struggles here and there
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and it's always the hope that someday we'll
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all live in peace together but
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it's not the way things are now but
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for the most part we do.
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Really what you hear these big world
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events are really on the outskirts of humanity.
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I know it's easy for me to say
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that as an American
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American in this well-protected country all places
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are like that but I don't know I
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just
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I was watching this show called Star City
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which is about the it's an alternative version
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of the
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space race you know 1960s and 70s when
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Russia and the United States were trying to
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beat each other
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to various milestones and of course that was
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Soviet Russia and things have changed a bit
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I think.
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I don't know much about it which is
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why I went searching and
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found some people were kind of they were
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obviously bilingual and I think they were
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dual citizens as well but they spoke British
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English and they also spoke rutish russian
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and they were you know showing some of
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the you know regular life of Russians when
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they live
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you know where they shop for food and
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all that stuff and there was a some
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good examples of
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Soviet era housing there it's actually in the
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show Star City is was filmed mostly in
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Lithuania
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where they have a lot of this Soviet
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style architecture from the 1960s and 1970s
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got a mile in 114 which is definitely
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around where I'm supposed to be when I'm
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exercising at
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60 years old I believe 112 is the
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number got it on my fridge one mile
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in 22 minutes not too
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bad considering the state that I'm in right
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now but one of the things they said
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was that
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uh there's very little crime in Russia and
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uh something I didn't know I can walk
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around the
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cities apparently without fear being robbed or having
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violence done upon you so at this point
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in time the United States is at war
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and Russia is at war but there are
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probably the vast majority
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of Russians and Americans are not directly involved
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in it we're just getting along
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standing in line yielding the right of way
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not defacing community
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areas with graffiti and so forth that's a
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good thing too bad about the war but
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uh
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I think that you know shows that there
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is a bit of hope for mankind and
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that at our cores
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we are able to get along I just
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need to work on those fringes yeah I
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mean this is gonna be
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a pretty decent workout today and it's kind
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of sad but you know what can I
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say I didn't make it
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so uh got a little hope for myself
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as well individually on my own health if
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I can get out
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of here today and I can get out
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of here the next time I'm available next
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time I have
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an opening in my schedule possibly Thursday you
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shall see but uh
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uh other than that my body's doing pretty
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good I recently had one of those don't
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know what I did
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things you ever have that you wake up
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and you're just in pain and you don't
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know what you did to
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cause it some weird muscles under my arm
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my armpit it's kind of weird never really
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had that kind of
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heat and rest and that did the trick
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a couple days of heat and rest and
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it was good as new
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didn't help that I exacerbated it a little
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bit but uh I recovered nonetheless so back
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to the
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parking lot here you can hear the traffic
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so I'm going to sign off I'll say
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thanks for being
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with me today and listening and traveling along
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this journey of health and fitness and uh
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I hope you are having a beautiful day
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wherever you are and remember if you got
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the fever keep
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it burning if you don't catch the fever
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and I will see you next time on
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Running: A FEVER