Red Deer, AB

Red Deer South Bank Trail

Run Time: 63:29 + 2-minute kick

All Trails finally comes through. My last stop of the sales day was in Red Deer, and I was driving down to a hotel just north of Calgary, and I took a quick glance at the All Trails app and found a few options not far off the freeway. I chose the South Bank Trail, which, though paved, turned out to have some nice views and little vehicular adjacency.

Great weather for running as well. It was my last night in Alberta, having flown into Calgary, then circled south to Lethbridge and Medicine Hat, then up to Edmonton and back down through Red Deer. I flew in late Monday, so no time to run that day. I was burnt out when I got to Lethbridge. One of my favorite runs of the past was in Lethbridge, but this time my hotel was on the other side of town. No place to run near my hotel in Edmonton either, but at least I went out for a 45-minute walk when I got to the hotel. Salvaged the week with this run.

Before the trail broke away from the roads, I passed several mansionesque houses with wrought iron fences and gates and landscaped lawns and wildlife statues, overlooking the Red Deer River. Beautiful places, but how beautiful would it have to be to endure such brutal winters? I saw a few houses with indoor pools. I suppose comfort would be even more valuable in the Great White North.

Of course, the Edmonton Oilers were in the midst of a potential historic comeback in the Stanley Cup Finals when I was in Edmonton. I saw a lot of Oilers flags. A few of my customers talked about how we were “witnessing history.” One told me about how common it is for Oilers fans to reminisce about “the good old days,” when Gretzky and Messier and Coffey and Kurri and Fuhr were winning Stanley Cups. “These are the good old days!” he told me.

I am an unfanatic Rangers fan. When they make the playoffs and I watch, my lovely wife roots for them as well. This week, during one of our evening chats, she said that, even if the Oilers don’t come back from a 3-0 deficit to win the Stanley Cup, their fans would have the consolation that they didn’t get swept. “The Rangers didn’t get swept,” I said. “Fuck the Rangers,” she said. She might be more fanatical than me.

My interest in professional sports has waned. I especially do not enjoy the pervasiveness of sports gambling. I don’t like gambling, and our culture’s propensity to gamble is more than a little indicative of our disconnect from logic, reason, and clear thinking. If I follow a team or an athlete, and they are playing in an important game or match, I almost would rather not watch. I find it stressful to watch, maybe because it is out of my control. I have learned throughout the years that it does not matter what shirt I am wearing, or what chair I am sitting in, or what is served for a pre-game meal — it is out of my control. Luck does happen, but randomly. That’s what makes it luck. Kind of like winning — or not winning — at gambling.

It does not really matter if the general masses want to pour their money into gambling. It does not really affect me. Except that, if they have a propensity to engage in irrational behavior, and that propensity is reinforced by the “culture” we all live in, they might be engaging in irrational behavior that does (or might) affect me, like voting for Trump, or carrying a gun, or driving like an asshole. So, really, doesn’t anything that condones irrational behavior have a potentially negative affect on us all? Kind of like, if someone doesn’t want to look after their own health, and that irrational behavior eventually results in health care that costs money, don’t we all pay for that in some way?

I suspect these are all examples of the Tragedy of the Commons, or something like that. Random tragedy is bad enough. Why are we commonly courting tragedy?