{"id":1216,"date":"2012-08-25T20:33:12","date_gmt":"2012-08-26T01:33:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/editors\/?p=1216"},"modified":"2012-08-25T21:01:33","modified_gmt":"2012-08-26T02:01:33","slug":"mutual-inspiration-feedback-loop","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/editors\/2012\/08\/25\/mutual-inspiration-feedback-loop\/","title":{"rendered":"Mutual Inspiration Feedback Loop"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
Photo by Jeep-people<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The rains came at mile 19. If I turned left, I’d face two hilly miles of trails. If I turned right, I’d be home and dry (apart from the post-run beverage)\u00a0in 3 minutes.\u00a0I’d\u00a0wanted to\u00a0put in 21 miles today, since I’ve got exactly five weeks to deflabulate before the\u00a0Twin Cities marathon.\u00a0I was definitely leaning rightward\u00a0until I recalled a conversation with (grad student and TSP board member) Suzy McElrath, where she shared her enthusiasm\u00a0for rain-soaked running.<\/p>\n

So I headed left, plunged down the slippery trail, and staggered up the first big hill, hamstrings\u00a0tight and calves aching. It was just me\u00a0on the trail,\u00a0aside from a gang of\u00a0wild turkeys\u00a0and a few rabbits. It wasn’t a hard <\/em>rain and the cool water felt good. As I\u00a0moved farther from the street,\u00a0everything\u00a0got quiet except for the steady patter of rain and reverberating footsteps.<\/p>\n

I couldn’t see much\u00a0through the rain and fog of my\u00a0glasses, which seemed to accentuate\u00a0the sound. I noticed\u00a0that the rain\u00a0almost hissed as it slid through the willow tree\u00a0by the pond. The big oak leaves\u00a0brought a crisper midrange sound, like the bite of an apple or a ’62 stratocaster<\/a>. But then I turned a corner and hit a patch of broad leaves that looked like rhubarb, close to the ground.\u00a0The raindrops played these\u00a0deep\u00a0and low like timpani drums, but tapped lightly by fingertips rather than mallets.<\/p>\n

Suffice it to say that miles 19 to 21 turned out to be really\u00a0beautiful, and that I wouldn’t have run them at all without Suzy’s encouragement. This reminds me that when\u00a0a university brain mill is\u00a0really<\/em> humming, there’s\u00a0a mutual-inspiration feedback loop between students and faculty, which surely\u00a0ranks among\u00a0the greatest privileges and joys of being a professor.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

So after\u00a0today’s rain-soaked training run, I wanted to\u00a0add a special note of thanks to the TSP grad board as an\u00a0addendum\u00a0to Doug’s post<\/a> about\u00a0the community that came together in Denver. The grad\u00a0board generally toils\u00a0anonymously, though our editorial team and WW Norton take care to recognize their contributions. And, if all goes as planned,\u00a0you’ll soon be hearing more about some new pages on the site to more properly introduce you to their great ideas, vision,\u00a0and scholarship.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Board members like Suzy (at right), Hollie Nyseth Brehm (at left), and their cohorts\u00a0probably don’t know how much they inspire us to build and sustain The Society Pages. But\u00a0when Doug, Letta, Jon and I confront a fork in the road, time and again our grad board pushes and inspires\u00a0us to\u00a0take the route that is both more challenging and\u00a0more richly rewarding.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The rains came at mile 19. If I turned left, I’d face two hilly miles of trails. If I turned right, I’d be home and dry (apart from the post-run beverage)\u00a0in 3 minutes.\u00a0I’d\u00a0wanted to\u00a0put in 21 miles today, since I’ve got exactly five weeks to deflabulate before the\u00a0Twin Cities marathon.\u00a0I was definitely leaning rightward\u00a0until I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":1221,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1216","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/editors\/files\/2012\/08\/Jeep-people.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/editors\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1216","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/editors\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/editors\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/editors\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/editors\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1216"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/editors\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1216\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1226,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/editors\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1216\/revisions\/1226"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/editors\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1221"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/editors\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1216"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/editors\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1216"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/editors\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1216"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}