The lunatic rabbits

Things I have learned after prepping for and then going for my first city race:

• Anti-chafing tape feels like a spurious purchase if you're a filthy casual (me), but chafing is AWFUL and HURTS LIKE THE DICKENS, and anything that can prevent that is good. Soft, waterproof plasters are functionally similar, but comparatively more expensive.


• If one is wearing the run's official shirt, test said shirt out by wearing it in a pre-run, to check if it will chafe in new and exciting places. >:(


• Before: always remember to stretch. After: always remember to cool off. Even if they're for short fun runs.


• Bring a small towel to wipe yourself afterward. Sweat isn't as much a problem when running at home since you can shower immediately after, but when you have to travel from the run venue back home, might as well make the trip as comparatively pleasant as possible.


• Put the bib on before going to the venue (using a mirror), unless you have someone to help put it on at the venue.


• Wearing shades is great! They make me feel way less self-conscious about where I'm looking at, especially because of the photographers along the route.


• There are photographers! And you can search the database for your photos based on your race number! But you will never look as cool as you think you do, and that's okay.


• Do not be self-conscious about wearing a running belt, running pouch, or having bulging pockets if you're carrying stuff. Lots of people will be wearing/having the same. A backpack is also perfectly fine. (I don't know why I felt backpacks would be weird, like I assumed everyone would want to run as light as possible.) There will be people in full cosplay, for crying out loud. (I saw a Squid Game guard and a hijabi Loki.)


• Have fun, and don't be pressured to do more than you're willing or ready to.

Vladimir Hamed-Troyansky's Empire of Refugees: North Caucasian Muslims and the Late Ottoman State was a spontaneous get in an unfamiliar topic, and on top of that more of an academic text with dry prose, which made it a bit of a challenging read to get through. When I say "dry" I also mean functional and clear, and it's still a well-written book that lays out its arguments and paints a very thorough picture of the late Ottoman refugee crises and population exchanges with Russia through the end of the Ottoman empire, and with particular focus on North Caucasians and Circassians in particular.

Very new topic to me so a bit of a hurdle in there as well, though I have read about the Ottoman empire before and, well, Armenian genocide and the bad choices through WWI, but this book really delves into a specific topic I didn't know anything about. It's really interesting to look at a time as nation-states were developing and borders hardening, and how that influences choices in which refugees to take and which to reject, and how said refugees were accepted and integrated (well, or badly, or extremely badly) and the political considerations that have so many consequences to today.

Like, of course in the aftermath of various wars, the Ottoman empire would want to get rid of as much of its non-Muslim population and fill that gap with Muslim refugees (or muhajir, as some would describe), with Russia wanting the opposite by getting rid of its unwanted Muslim populations in trade for Christians. It's population manipulation on a grand scale, dressed up in promises of an Islamic empire (dar-al salam) accepting its needy co-religionists into their bosom, but also cold in its usage of those refugees to strengthen borders, improve its tax collection, put pressure on rebellious bedouin, and increase productivity of the land. The implication of the belief coreligionists will be more loyal to the state than not, and is a crucial factor along with ethnicity in actualization of a nation-state -- all elements that play out to painful conclusions through WI and WII, but here are elaborated on in their specificity. The book also argues that some of the mechanisms and lessons these population exchanges were used in later population exchanges after WWI, up to the India-Pakistan Partition.

The book also zooms down, to the human cost of these population exchanges, of what people sacrificed (if they went willingly), of what people did to survive and sometimes thrive, of the desperate attempts to hold on to family and cultural heritage through these upheavals, of those who fled their homelands but returned. Surviving letters are used to flesh these stories out, and the book specifically uses three case studies of North Caucasian refugee areas, with the Balkans representing an area that failed in many ways, and the Levant as an area that succeeded greatly, in part because of the Hijaz railway that allowed economic prosperity up to the future nation-state existence of Jordan (whose current capital is a former refugee site). Interesting stuff, though a little overwhelming in its newness to me.