Recuperation, Civic Duty

Today is election day, and I will be voting for the first time as a New York resident. We don't have any really interesting state elections, but the race for DA here in Ithaca has been pretty intense. I'm not entirely sure what else I'll be voting for. It's my understanding that most seats are uncontested. I do understand the positions of the two DA candidates. Sadly, neither of them are campaigning to have those doing community service work build more running trails. It really bothers me that people like to go about talking about how important local government is, and then no one, not even the local media, pays much attention to it. I think it's just another way that young people can be ignored. We have all these great ideas, and when we mention them, we're inevitably told, "that's a local issue." Then, no one wants to bother being a local official. Here, we students aren't really to blame--four or five Cornell students (as in current undergrads and grad students) are running for office. People are all over campus reminding us to vote and telling us where we can find our polling locations based on our address. There's even a map in the Cornell Daily Sun. In Ithaca, it's the adults who seem apathetic. How will "think global, act local" ever work if local politics aren't interesting enough to garner attention? Grr.

In other news, I somehow strained my hip flexor and rectus femoris (that's one of the muscles in the quads), and I'm off running for a while. Actually, they tell me I can run half my current mileage, but only if I run every other day and avoid hills. In Ithaca, that means that I'd have to use the treadmill. I am willing to do that, but I decided not to run at all until I am painfree with regular activities, like standing. In the meantime, I've been cross-training a lot more. The physical therapist seemed really hestitant to recommend the elliptical trainer and cycling, so I have been hanging out at the pool. Thank God I'm a decent swimmer, or I could be having a miserable time. I have rediscovered that 1) I like swimming and am good at it, 2) swimming uses upper body muscles that I have drastically neglected, and 3) no, my shoulders haven't magically spawned new cartilage. I don't think I can handle swimming more than twice a week with this shoulder pain, but at least it's something.

Today, I tried pool running for the first time. It was actually an interesting, challenging workout. I'm glad I did it. I went back to physical therapy today to discover that Chris, the therapist I've been seeing, happens to run the water PT program. So I have an appointment with her Friday morning to learn the proper pool swimming form, plus some other water exercises. Pool running is apparenlty more complicated than it looks.