Being a runner, specifically with a trail inclination, in the Charlottesville area, I've spent many an hour on the Rivanna Trail in the past few years. Charlottesville's got plenty going for it, but the RT is probably my favorite part. A month ago I attended a monthly trail work day (embarrassingly, only my second), and ended up sort of inviting myself to monthly board meetings for the Rivanna Trail Foundation. The first was last week, and I'm happy to say that not only did they not mind my attendance, they welcomed me friendly and have let me join the board! I'm not entirely sure what that entails, if anything specific, but I love the trail, and am always trying to get people out there on it, so I'm very much looking forward to helping out however I can.
My first task was, sadly, to modify the existing trail map to mark a previously-open section as closed (Sunset to McElroy, down by Azalea Park). At the same time, I was allowed to re-open another section (along the Meadowcreek Parkway), and I think overall there's a bit less red on the map than there used to be - definitely a good thing. This work is a little bit of a stop-gap, as there's plenty of other changes and updates that need to be committed to the map and trail descriptions (old link, but still has some use), but it's a start. It sounds like the board will be happy to let me have a crack at some of the technical aspects of maintaining a correct trail map, with trail conditions and pictures and descriptions and... all sorts of great stuff! Honestly, this is a project I've been tempted to just work on for fun a few times anyway, so I'm delighted to be encouraged to take a crack at it.
Anyway, I'm excited, and thought I'd share. If you're in the cville area and have never checked out the trail before, do me a favor and give it a try!
Tuesday, April 10, 2012
Tuesday, February 14, 2012
Valentine's Day Rambling
My dad died on Valentine's Day, 1991. He'd had lung cancer for some time before-hand, and had been at home in a hospice program for a while, so it wasn't exactly unexpected. I was in third grade, and on the day my bus driver didn't notice that I was on the bus until after we passed our driveway. She ended up stopping at the corner of our property, and on my short walk through our front yard, my mom met me outside and told me the news. At least, that's how I remember it.
Valentine's day is one of the days every year my mom can expect a call from me, though my father's death rarely gets an overt mention. She's never re-married, or, as far as I know, been at all involved with anybody since. I guess my sister and I kept her fairly occupied as we were growing up. She's got some sort of shared plot and headstone already arranged where my father is buried, and I've always wonder if that sort of commitment was why she never found (looked for?) anybody else. Probably I could ask.
It's easy to wonder what affects my father's death has had on my life since - how being that close to death at that age has impacted my view of life and death. An article that's come up a few times recently in my news feed is How Doctors Die (mirror, which I guess is why it showed up multiple times for me). I want to be allowed to die, if I'm in a bad way. Of course, it's easy to say that when you're something like young and healthy. But hey, accidents happen. If I end up a mess in the hospital tomorrow, it'd be totally ok to let me go. Seriously. It's not like I'm doing much particularly useful anyway.
My mother and sister would, naturally, be the most affected if I died, and I hope I don't put them through that any time soon. My cats might go hungry for a day or two until somebody sorted them out, but I'm sure somebody'd take them, and probably do a better job with them than I do. Folks at work would notice I was gone, and I humor myself that there'd be a notable productivity hit in the project I'm on, at least until they hired somebody else. But it's a great place to work, and I don't think they'd have a hard time finding another person who thought so. A friend or two might think about me occasionally, but they'll be fine. Like damn near everybody else, my death would go practically unnoticed in the wider world. The world 10 or 100 or 1000 years from now probably looks pretty similar whether I was in it for a while longer or not. Ok, whatever, butterfly affects and all that crap, I have no way to justify that claim, but it sure is easy to believe. But why should it matter if my life or death goes unnoticed? What's the point of any of it?
I think, maybe, I've always sort of figured there wasn't any real point to any of it. People come and go, the world keeps spinning, the universe goes on. I think this didn't use to bother me. Just enjoy what you're given, and when it's up, goodbye. Lately, I seem to be having a harder time accepting this, and I don't really know why (getting old!). There seems little point to working more hours or less, eating healthier or having pizza and beer all the time, running a bit or just sitting on my ass the whole time, find something more productive to do than reading my news or not, ...
Perhaps it's a growing sense of indebtedness. I've been given more than I deserve - a loving family, health, wealth, leisure, a life of comfort and ease, ... - and I've done f* all with any of it. Isubjected some students to lectures, homework, and exams taught some folks formal symbol manipulation (algebra) which happened to have d/dx or ∫-symbols in it calculus for a few years, but that doesn't make up for anything at all (in fact, I feel I owe them an apology). I suppose you could find people at work who would say that what we're doing saves lives, but it never really feels like that. And why should we save those lives instead of those ones over there? I don't know what it is I should be doing. What could I do that would seem worthwhile? What gives your life purpose?
Unless I'm missing something, I guess a lot of people get their sense of purpose from their religion - I don't have that. I didn't grow up going to church, and, honestly, am glad for it. I figure I'm a bit like Laplace, seeing no need for those sorts of assumptions about how the world works. Mostly I see people's religions as accidents of their birth and the fact that they were, like their parents before them, taken to church before they knew much about critical thinking. And if your understanding about how the universe works is an accident of which country your grew up in, or your parents before you, it can only hold so much truth. Besides, most of the major religions are thousands of years old, and it just doesn't seem like we should be trusting people from that long ago to tell us how things work. We've learned some things since then. But I digress (from my rambling? Is that possible?).
Sometimes I wonder if people find a purpose in life through a relationship. I could let myself die and nobody would notice, but if I were married, well, there's her to think about - or "In my nothing, you meant everything to me". Actually, I sort of thought I might be heading in to a relationship recently (I was wrong, in case you were wondering (if you've read this far into my neurosis, you'll agree she's better off)), and something like this very thought occurred to me. But, then, it doesn't really seem fair to put that sort of pressure on somebody else. Perhaps a relationship doesn't give you a sense of purpose, it just makes it easier to forget the purposelessness. Find somebody that distracts you and you're set.
Or maybe you find some purpose once you've got kids. Hell of a gamble, and, damn, why should I have kids? I hardly know what to do with my own self, let alone anybody else. Even having cats has made me wonder if I should be allowed to have that sort of responsibility. And, damn, the purpose of your life is to make some more people? Aren't there enough people around? I remember, even in high school, thinking this sort of thing. My mom always says how much she loves seeing my sister and I, how there's little she'd rather do. It sort of makes me sad, that I'm what she has to look forward to, or whatever. A few times recently I've seen my grandmother at family gatherings, and it always seems like she's just waiting to die (she honestly may have said as much herself). Why the crap would I want that? What am I supposed to do instead?
It seems to me, when talking about death and not seeing a point, one's probably gotta get around to thinking about suicide before too long. Not necessarily your own, just the subject itself. Of course, it also seems a difficult topic to talk about. Like maybe if you do people will assume you are suicidal, and will try to "help" you out of it. To be honest, I'm not sure I really see the problem with suicide, why there's such a fuss, or stigma. I've got no plans for it for myself any time soon - like I said, I've got the responsibility of my cats, and don't want to cause a hassle for my family. But suppose, 10, 20 years from now, my family's dead and I have no responsibilities to anybody in particular, and haven't found a point. Why shouldn't I just wander off into the middle of nowhere and disappear?
Maybe I just want there to be no point. It hurts less to fail to achieve whatever goals you've got if you think they're pointless anyway. There's less pressure to make good decisions when it doesn't matter. Want pizza and beer for dinner, cake for breakfast? Go for it! Don't want to do some errand you're supposed to do this weekend? Screw it! Procrastinate! Maybe you'll die in a car crash on your way to work tomorrow anyway. Of course, if you weren't depressed enough about the lack of a point, start making some mildly bad decisions for yourself. Adopt some bad habits. Watch the broken window theory at work in your own life.
So, that's me. Welcome to my world.
Valentine's day is one of the days every year my mom can expect a call from me, though my father's death rarely gets an overt mention. She's never re-married, or, as far as I know, been at all involved with anybody since. I guess my sister and I kept her fairly occupied as we were growing up. She's got some sort of shared plot and headstone already arranged where my father is buried, and I've always wonder if that sort of commitment was why she never found (looked for?) anybody else. Probably I could ask.
It's easy to wonder what affects my father's death has had on my life since - how being that close to death at that age has impacted my view of life and death. An article that's come up a few times recently in my news feed is How Doctors Die (mirror, which I guess is why it showed up multiple times for me). I want to be allowed to die, if I'm in a bad way. Of course, it's easy to say that when you're something like young and healthy. But hey, accidents happen. If I end up a mess in the hospital tomorrow, it'd be totally ok to let me go. Seriously. It's not like I'm doing much particularly useful anyway.
My mother and sister would, naturally, be the most affected if I died, and I hope I don't put them through that any time soon. My cats might go hungry for a day or two until somebody sorted them out, but I'm sure somebody'd take them, and probably do a better job with them than I do. Folks at work would notice I was gone, and I humor myself that there'd be a notable productivity hit in the project I'm on, at least until they hired somebody else. But it's a great place to work, and I don't think they'd have a hard time finding another person who thought so. A friend or two might think about me occasionally, but they'll be fine. Like damn near everybody else, my death would go practically unnoticed in the wider world. The world 10 or 100 or 1000 years from now probably looks pretty similar whether I was in it for a while longer or not. Ok, whatever, butterfly affects and all that crap, I have no way to justify that claim, but it sure is easy to believe. But why should it matter if my life or death goes unnoticed? What's the point of any of it?
I think, maybe, I've always sort of figured there wasn't any real point to any of it. People come and go, the world keeps spinning, the universe goes on. I think this didn't use to bother me. Just enjoy what you're given, and when it's up, goodbye. Lately, I seem to be having a harder time accepting this, and I don't really know why (getting old!). There seems little point to working more hours or less, eating healthier or having pizza and beer all the time, running a bit or just sitting on my ass the whole time, find something more productive to do than reading my news or not, ...
Perhaps it's a growing sense of indebtedness. I've been given more than I deserve - a loving family, health, wealth, leisure, a life of comfort and ease, ... - and I've done f* all with any of it. I
Unless I'm missing something, I guess a lot of people get their sense of purpose from their religion - I don't have that. I didn't grow up going to church, and, honestly, am glad for it. I figure I'm a bit like Laplace, seeing no need for those sorts of assumptions about how the world works. Mostly I see people's religions as accidents of their birth and the fact that they were, like their parents before them, taken to church before they knew much about critical thinking. And if your understanding about how the universe works is an accident of which country your grew up in, or your parents before you, it can only hold so much truth. Besides, most of the major religions are thousands of years old, and it just doesn't seem like we should be trusting people from that long ago to tell us how things work. We've learned some things since then. But I digress (from my rambling? Is that possible?).
Sometimes I wonder if people find a purpose in life through a relationship. I could let myself die and nobody would notice, but if I were married, well, there's her to think about - or "In my nothing, you meant everything to me". Actually, I sort of thought I might be heading in to a relationship recently (I was wrong, in case you were wondering (if you've read this far into my neurosis, you'll agree she's better off)), and something like this very thought occurred to me. But, then, it doesn't really seem fair to put that sort of pressure on somebody else. Perhaps a relationship doesn't give you a sense of purpose, it just makes it easier to forget the purposelessness. Find somebody that distracts you and you're set.
Or maybe you find some purpose once you've got kids. Hell of a gamble, and, damn, why should I have kids? I hardly know what to do with my own self, let alone anybody else. Even having cats has made me wonder if I should be allowed to have that sort of responsibility. And, damn, the purpose of your life is to make some more people? Aren't there enough people around? I remember, even in high school, thinking this sort of thing. My mom always says how much she loves seeing my sister and I, how there's little she'd rather do. It sort of makes me sad, that I'm what she has to look forward to, or whatever. A few times recently I've seen my grandmother at family gatherings, and it always seems like she's just waiting to die (she honestly may have said as much herself). Why the crap would I want that? What am I supposed to do instead?
It seems to me, when talking about death and not seeing a point, one's probably gotta get around to thinking about suicide before too long. Not necessarily your own, just the subject itself. Of course, it also seems a difficult topic to talk about. Like maybe if you do people will assume you are suicidal, and will try to "help" you out of it. To be honest, I'm not sure I really see the problem with suicide, why there's such a fuss, or stigma. I've got no plans for it for myself any time soon - like I said, I've got the responsibility of my cats, and don't want to cause a hassle for my family. But suppose, 10, 20 years from now, my family's dead and I have no responsibilities to anybody in particular, and haven't found a point. Why shouldn't I just wander off into the middle of nowhere and disappear?
Maybe I just want there to be no point. It hurts less to fail to achieve whatever goals you've got if you think they're pointless anyway. There's less pressure to make good decisions when it doesn't matter. Want pizza and beer for dinner, cake for breakfast? Go for it! Don't want to do some errand you're supposed to do this weekend? Screw it! Procrastinate! Maybe you'll die in a car crash on your way to work tomorrow anyway. Of course, if you weren't depressed enough about the lack of a point, start making some mildly bad decisions for yourself. Adopt some bad habits. Watch the broken window theory at work in your own life.
So, that's me. Welcome to my world.
Saturday, February 4, 2012
Feed Weeding
I currently have just over 900 feeds going in to my Google Reader account, which looks to average out to nearly 400 posts per day on weekdays, and about half as many on weekends. Factor in work, eating, sleeping, and running, and it may not come as surprise that I don't get anything else done. I don't read the full content of every single article, and a handful of the feeds (and some of the more frequently updating ones) are comics. All the same, I spend a fair amount of time in Reader, and I honestly think a decent amount is worthwhile. I've said before that Reader and running were the two best things I got out of grad school.
As I added feeds, from the beginning of my time with Reader, I tried to put them in folders, and I think that's proved useful. I then have basically two aggregate folders, one ("start") for the articles and a small handful of comics, and another for some of the less-worthwhile comics (I've got an ichc habit, I'll admit it - sometimes, at the end of a long day, the laughs I get are totally worth it). I 'j' through the start items, reading headlines and maybe quickly scanning articles that catch my eye, and star the ones I'd like to actually read. After making it through the "start" items, if I've got time/energy, I buzz through the remaining comics, and then move on with my otherwise incredibly exciting life. I don't have a good feel for how long I spend in Reader in a day, but I wouldn't be surprised to find that it was around an hour. Typically I check in the morning while I'm having my coffee, and then sometime in the evening.
Recently, I found that the odd hours I wake up in the middle of the night and can't go back to sleep make some decent time to actually read some of the starred articles, but mostly that gets saved for the weekend. I love a slow morning with a mug of coffee and a few good hours reading my starred articles. Of course, some of the running I do interferes with this, but that's mostly good too.
All the same, I've been sort of trying to cut back. I buzz through my headlines and on a good week end up with maybe 20-30 items I still want to read. That's somewhere on the order of one article in one hundred. Now, maybe, for some of the articles I appreciate having the ambient awareness of having seen the headline, but I still figure there's a fair amount of cruft.
I claim to want to work on a software project that'll attempt to learn the articles I'd star, but I've been claiming that for a few years, and have yet to do anything about it. I almost made a New Year's resolution to not look at Reader, forcing myself to write my own, but that didn't happen. So, instead, I recently decided to try trimming down my feed list in Reader a bit more manually. Having quit the math and education scene, I decided to start with those two folders. Every feed in each of them is also put in my "start" feed, so what I did was remove them all from that feed, but left them in their respective folders. I let the unread count in those folders go up for a few weeks, and then read through what had accumulated to see if I'd found anything I would have missed. I moved a couple feeds into "start" and out of their respective folder (I've got a growing "misc" folder they ended up in, still a subset of "start"), and am back at 0 unread. I figure I can do this again a few more times in the next month or two, and, at some point, I just mass unsubscribe from anybody remaining in those two folders. Though I recognize optimism as the first step to disappointment, I'm optimistic this'll help me trim down my feeds.
For what it's worth (nothing), I did, indeed, manually go through each feed in my "ed" and "math" folders, clicked the little drop down for each one, and clicked to remove it from "start". Reader doesn't do much about making bulk subscription changes easy, besides being able to upload an OPML file. I actually have, in the past, downloaded my subscription list, changed the xml to accommodate some bulk changes I wanted, deleted all my feeds, and then re-uploaded my modified list. Probably would have been quicker this time too. Alas. Not my only mistake so far this year. Certainly not my last.
As I added feeds, from the beginning of my time with Reader, I tried to put them in folders, and I think that's proved useful. I then have basically two aggregate folders, one ("start") for the articles and a small handful of comics, and another for some of the less-worthwhile comics (I've got an ichc habit, I'll admit it - sometimes, at the end of a long day, the laughs I get are totally worth it). I 'j' through the start items, reading headlines and maybe quickly scanning articles that catch my eye, and star the ones I'd like to actually read. After making it through the "start" items, if I've got time/energy, I buzz through the remaining comics, and then move on with my otherwise incredibly exciting life. I don't have a good feel for how long I spend in Reader in a day, but I wouldn't be surprised to find that it was around an hour. Typically I check in the morning while I'm having my coffee, and then sometime in the evening.
Recently, I found that the odd hours I wake up in the middle of the night and can't go back to sleep make some decent time to actually read some of the starred articles, but mostly that gets saved for the weekend. I love a slow morning with a mug of coffee and a few good hours reading my starred articles. Of course, some of the running I do interferes with this, but that's mostly good too.
All the same, I've been sort of trying to cut back. I buzz through my headlines and on a good week end up with maybe 20-30 items I still want to read. That's somewhere on the order of one article in one hundred. Now, maybe, for some of the articles I appreciate having the ambient awareness of having seen the headline, but I still figure there's a fair amount of cruft.
I claim to want to work on a software project that'll attempt to learn the articles I'd star, but I've been claiming that for a few years, and have yet to do anything about it. I almost made a New Year's resolution to not look at Reader, forcing myself to write my own, but that didn't happen. So, instead, I recently decided to try trimming down my feed list in Reader a bit more manually. Having quit the math and education scene, I decided to start with those two folders. Every feed in each of them is also put in my "start" feed, so what I did was remove them all from that feed, but left them in their respective folders. I let the unread count in those folders go up for a few weeks, and then read through what had accumulated to see if I'd found anything I would have missed. I moved a couple feeds into "start" and out of their respective folder (I've got a growing "misc" folder they ended up in, still a subset of "start"), and am back at 0 unread. I figure I can do this again a few more times in the next month or two, and, at some point, I just mass unsubscribe from anybody remaining in those two folders. Though I recognize optimism as the first step to disappointment, I'm optimistic this'll help me trim down my feeds.
For what it's worth (nothing), I did, indeed, manually go through each feed in my "ed" and "math" folders, clicked the little drop down for each one, and clicked to remove it from "start". Reader doesn't do much about making bulk subscription changes easy, besides being able to upload an OPML file. I actually have, in the past, downloaded my subscription list, changed the xml to accommodate some bulk changes I wanted, deleted all my feeds, and then re-uploaded my modified list. Probably would have been quicker this time too. Alas. Not my only mistake so far this year. Certainly not my last.
Saturday, January 28, 2012
Ambivalence
My boss described me as having "that ambivalent Nick look" the other day. This was a little bit of a new one for me, sort of like the time one of my students wrote that I was "aloof" on their end of semester evaluations. I don't know that I'd ever heard myself described in either of those ways, prior, though both are probably apt descriptions.
While I have some vague sense of both words, I wouldn't have been able to particularly correctly define either, if you'd asked me to (luckily, you didn't). I tried to piece together "ambivalent" for myself before looking it up. "ambi"... Well, ambidextrous... so... some sort of plural. "valent"... The valence of a node in a graph is the number of edges hitting it (or so). So... I'm going in many directions? Hit from all sides? Nope. According to etymonline.com, which I enjoy, ambi means both and valent is along the lines of valor, strength, for thoughts in this context (I guess the "strength" of a node in the graph makes sense). So, I'm of a divided mind. Somewhat along the lines of cognitive dissonance, though not exactly, I suppose. Glad I looked it up, because I'd have guessed it meant something more like uncaring. It's not that I don't care, I just can't make up my mind, then. I see many options, but have no way to distinguish them by rank.
Aloof's an interesting one, too. Coming from "windward direction" or "the weather side of a ship" to mean "at a distance." Just as a combination of letters, it's also reminiscent of alot.
While I have some vague sense of both words, I wouldn't have been able to particularly correctly define either, if you'd asked me to (luckily, you didn't). I tried to piece together "ambivalent" for myself before looking it up. "ambi"... Well, ambidextrous... so... some sort of plural. "valent"... The valence of a node in a graph is the number of edges hitting it (or so). So... I'm going in many directions? Hit from all sides? Nope. According to etymonline.com, which I enjoy, ambi means both and valent is along the lines of valor, strength, for thoughts in this context (I guess the "strength" of a node in the graph makes sense). So, I'm of a divided mind. Somewhat along the lines of cognitive dissonance, though not exactly, I suppose. Glad I looked it up, because I'd have guessed it meant something more like uncaring. It's not that I don't care, I just can't make up my mind, then. I see many options, but have no way to distinguish them by rank.
Aloof's an interesting one, too. Coming from "windward direction" or "the weather side of a ship" to mean "at a distance." Just as a combination of letters, it's also reminiscent of alot.
Saturday, January 21, 2012
Write More
A friend recently told me I should write more. I had just used the phrase "peddle my wares" reasonably naturally in conversation, and I think it caught her off guard. Of course, I wouldn't be particularly surprised to find that she's stopped talking to me, so perhaps I shouldn't use her comment as any sort of motivation... But that's a story for another day, perhaps.
I've sorta been thinking about writing more here anyway. I mean, I've got this space, I'd like to try to use it. Since I basically don't have anything worth saying, though, I've refrained. Apparently some sort of bridge has been crossed, and I'm prepared to babble to you, internet (at least this once, we'll see if I actually keep it up). Lucky you. I think it may be that I think writing helps me organize my thoughts or something (I'm so unique!). While I could certainly just write on localhost and leave you all alone, apparently I'm not going to do that. Maybe the public-ness will help motivate me to keep writing, or to work on my arguments. Or maybe it's a desperate plea for attention. Maybe I don't want to talk directly to any of the people I personally know (due to lack of comfort (why? so I don't have to continue this/a conversation?)), but want to talk anyway.
What will I write about? "They" say to write what you know. Unfortunately, I think that puts me at writing about being confused, with fluctuating levels of depression, and generally not feeling like you know anything or will contribute much. I don't understand much about the world or my place in it. Some online comics, if nothing else, I've seen suggest that maybe this is something that basically everybody goes through, and that maybe I'm just "at that age" (or does it spans ages?).
I suppose an argument could be made that I know about running. Of the last few posts I've had here, several were about running. However, I seem to have found some sort of a place among the Charlottesville Area Trail Runners (thanks, all), and might use space there for whatever running-related things I have to say. (On a side note, if you're in the Charlottesville Area, and looking for a Trail Run, you really should check us out).
Aside from running, I hold a paying job as a computer programmer (technically my title is "Systems Engineer", but most of the best parts of that, which I'm fortunate to spend most of my time doing, are programming). So perhaps I know something which could usefully be shared about... R, or Javascript, or the practice of programming in general. Except I've already got a (also pretty quiet) blog I'd rather use for technical things and, really, I don't even know that much about any of this. I've only got a little experience at this point, and rarely feel that anything I do know isn't already online.
It doesn't seem that that leaves much for me to talk about here. I'm in a mood, at the moment anyway, where I'm maybe inclined to try to talk through some of my general confusion (probably to myself in the open, though you're certainly welcome to comment) (it occurs to me that if I were saying all of these things to myself on a bus, say, people would be giving me all sorts of funny looks). So probably if I actually do end up continuing to write more, here, it'll be very... well, confused. Incomplete. Self-contradictory. Personal? Self-centered. Rambling and pointless.
A wiser fella than myself once said that the unexamined life is not worth living, or so. Of course, other wiser-than-myself fellas have said that life's a piece of s*, when you look at it (this reminds me of the disparity between "the road to hell is paved with good intentions" and "it's the thought that counts"). I guess I'm looking. I may try sharing. Forgive me.
I've sorta been thinking about writing more here anyway. I mean, I've got this space, I'd like to try to use it. Since I basically don't have anything worth saying, though, I've refrained. Apparently some sort of bridge has been crossed, and I'm prepared to babble to you, internet (at least this once, we'll see if I actually keep it up). Lucky you. I think it may be that I think writing helps me organize my thoughts or something (I'm so unique!). While I could certainly just write on localhost and leave you all alone, apparently I'm not going to do that. Maybe the public-ness will help motivate me to keep writing, or to work on my arguments. Or maybe it's a desperate plea for attention. Maybe I don't want to talk directly to any of the people I personally know (due to lack of comfort (why? so I don't have to continue this/a conversation?)), but want to talk anyway.
What will I write about? "They" say to write what you know. Unfortunately, I think that puts me at writing about being confused, with fluctuating levels of depression, and generally not feeling like you know anything or will contribute much. I don't understand much about the world or my place in it. Some online comics, if nothing else, I've seen suggest that maybe this is something that basically everybody goes through, and that maybe I'm just "at that age" (or does it spans ages?).
I suppose an argument could be made that I know about running. Of the last few posts I've had here, several were about running. However, I seem to have found some sort of a place among the Charlottesville Area Trail Runners (thanks, all), and might use space there for whatever running-related things I have to say. (On a side note, if you're in the Charlottesville Area, and looking for a Trail Run, you really should check us out).
Aside from running, I hold a paying job as a computer programmer (technically my title is "Systems Engineer", but most of the best parts of that, which I'm fortunate to spend most of my time doing, are programming). So perhaps I know something which could usefully be shared about... R, or Javascript, or the practice of programming in general. Except I've already got a (also pretty quiet) blog I'd rather use for technical things and, really, I don't even know that much about any of this. I've only got a little experience at this point, and rarely feel that anything I do know isn't already online.
It doesn't seem that that leaves much for me to talk about here. I'm in a mood, at the moment anyway, where I'm maybe inclined to try to talk through some of my general confusion (probably to myself in the open, though you're certainly welcome to comment) (it occurs to me that if I were saying all of these things to myself on a bus, say, people would be giving me all sorts of funny looks). So probably if I actually do end up continuing to write more, here, it'll be very... well, confused. Incomplete. Self-contradictory. Personal? Self-centered. Rambling and pointless.
A wiser fella than myself once said that the unexamined life is not worth living, or so. Of course, other wiser-than-myself fellas have said that life's a piece of s*, when you look at it (this reminds me of the disparity between "the road to hell is paved with good intentions" and "it's the thought that counts"). I guess I'm looking. I may try sharing. Forgive me.
Saturday, October 22, 2011
Tough Mudder
This morning I ran the Tough Mudder event out at Wintergreen (site of the recent UROC). It really was quite fun, and I'd honestly be tempted to run another (probably not tomorrow, even if they did offer us 50% off).
Originally, I decided to do the run because some folks from work were putting a team together (there's been a fair amount of joking about the electrocution obstacle for the past few months at work). However, it didn't quite work out as a team event for me... by yesterday, one of the guys had bailed, and I had created a scheduling conflict for myself, so couldn't make our designated wave start. The remaining team members had afternoon commitments, so couldn't really wait for me. I figured I'd just go down anyway and see what happened.
What happened was that nobody cared at all about assigned start times, which was nice. You show up, check in, drop your bags, and start whenever you want, basically (I think they really wouldn't stop you from running it multiple times on the day, if you were so inclined). So that was good. I started with the noon group, which I quickly moved toward the front of, on account of starting off basically going up a ski slope. I was surprised (perhaps because I'm not too bright) by all the people walking so much throughout the day. Ok, sure, I can understand not trying to run up a ski slope (though I've recently decided I sort of like testing my going up-ability), but... 10 minutes in I had already caught up to some folks from the wave ahead of me, and I think waves were separated by about 20 minutes. Anyway, I rarely mind passing people, especially on hills, so I'm not complaining.
I was fairly nervous about some of the obstacles (beyond electrocution). I don't have much in the way of upper body strength, so things like 'Get over a 12 foot wall', 'Carry a log up a ski slope', 'Cross monkey bars over a water pool' (the temperature was in the 50s today) had me a bit anxious. I surprised myself with the monkey bars (namely, I made it), and the logs weren't just cut to size assuming people would be in groups (probably I could have picked up a solo from another group, if I'd needed to, but they had individual-sized logs too).
The 12 foot wall I only made it over because there was a great amount of camaraderie among therunner participants, especially at the obstacles. At one of the first obstacles, it looked like some volunteers were there holding up some cargo net to help us sort of get started/finished. What confused me was they had bib numbers on. It took until a later obstacle for me to realize that it was just other participants, helping out (not just helping out their teammates). So at the next cargo net I tried to do my part as an anchor (like I had any idea how to do that, but I tried to do what other folks seemed to be doing), and at various walls I tried to offer what I could to get a few people up-and-over before moving on.
There was always the possibility of simply skipping an obstacle, but there were always lots of folks around the harder ones, which helps the motivation. It does lead to a fair amount of down time, waiting for your turn to try to run up a half-pipe, or get over that 12 foot wall, or crawl under the cargo wire. My overall time was 2:45 (which was probably reasonably ahead of the average - I heard several folks talking about 4+ hour times, and I don't think many people passed me), but I wouldn't be surprised if 20-30 minutes were just waiting around at obstacles. I definitely didn't mind the break, though. Even without the obstacles, that was a tough 10 mile run, with so much vertical gain and loss.
I got a little banged up, but nothing too bad. Mostly just my knees and shins picked up some scratches and light bruising from the crawling around at various obstacles (elbows were probably only spared because I wore long sleeves). I think I picked up a bruise on my hip at the slip and slide (did I mention it was in the 50s?), from the rocks underneath, but honestly that part was smoother than I expected. I'm guessing this is a reasonably typical Mudder experience (plus some additional knee pains on this course - ski slopes, people). My teammates who ran earlier than me, and I ran in to at the finish area, said they heard a guy behind them required medical attention for a broken leg (like, bone coming out of the skin broken). I heard some folks behind me requesting attention on one of the downhills, but I don't really know what the issues was.
The obstacles we actually had didn't exactly agree with the obstacles on the course map, though certainly the most memorable ones are on there, and it doesn't much matter. Mostly they weren't particularly scary, though there was certainly some scattered moments of concern on my part ('that looks like a big drop'). Interspersed between obstacles were a few aid stations. Mostly they seemed pretty simple (coming out of ultras which have had lots of tasty options) - bananas and water (I think there were occasionally some clif products). The water was mostly distributed in bottles (12 oz?), which sort of struck me. It was too much water to drink passing through the aid station, but more than I wanted to carry. I downed what I could, but generally ended up with at least a little left in the bottle before tossing it (ah, waste).
I didn't actually get electrocuted (and my teammate who said he did get hit said it wasn't really too bad), so, for me, the worst obstacle was the 'Chernobyl Jacuzzi' (I think I'm not alone in this assessment). Per the course description:
Tough Mudder bills itself as 'Probably the toughest event on the planet'. I'm honored to consider among my friends people who cover 100 miles on their own two feet in one go (up and down mountains, through deserts, ...) so I can't really say I agree with the Mudder's self-assessment. All the same, it's a fun, festive, generally well-organized event. There was some issue with drop bags today... though drop bags had numbers on them, and tables listed ranges of numbers for drop bags to expect there, the obvious system of putting bags where they should be didn't seem to be in affect today. I don't know how long I spent looking for my bag, and the bag of my teammate, but it was probably on the order of 20-30 minutes. That said, the organizers seem to be on their game, and sent out an apology in the afternoon (before I'd made it back to the parking lot), with a 20% discount if we register for another Tough Mudder in the next few weeks. Parking was well handled, the volunteers were all approachable and helpful.
So, there's that. And now I'm going to bed. Fear not the obstacles.
Originally, I decided to do the run because some folks from work were putting a team together (there's been a fair amount of joking about the electrocution obstacle for the past few months at work). However, it didn't quite work out as a team event for me... by yesterday, one of the guys had bailed, and I had created a scheduling conflict for myself, so couldn't make our designated wave start. The remaining team members had afternoon commitments, so couldn't really wait for me. I figured I'd just go down anyway and see what happened.
What happened was that nobody cared at all about assigned start times, which was nice. You show up, check in, drop your bags, and start whenever you want, basically (I think they really wouldn't stop you from running it multiple times on the day, if you were so inclined). So that was good. I started with the noon group, which I quickly moved toward the front of, on account of starting off basically going up a ski slope. I was surprised (perhaps because I'm not too bright) by all the people walking so much throughout the day. Ok, sure, I can understand not trying to run up a ski slope (though I've recently decided I sort of like testing my going up-ability), but... 10 minutes in I had already caught up to some folks from the wave ahead of me, and I think waves were separated by about 20 minutes. Anyway, I rarely mind passing people, especially on hills, so I'm not complaining.
I was fairly nervous about some of the obstacles (beyond electrocution). I don't have much in the way of upper body strength, so things like 'Get over a 12 foot wall', 'Carry a log up a ski slope', 'Cross monkey bars over a water pool' (the temperature was in the 50s today) had me a bit anxious. I surprised myself with the monkey bars (namely, I made it), and the logs weren't just cut to size assuming people would be in groups (probably I could have picked up a solo from another group, if I'd needed to, but they had individual-sized logs too).
The 12 foot wall I only made it over because there was a great amount of camaraderie among the
There was always the possibility of simply skipping an obstacle, but there were always lots of folks around the harder ones, which helps the motivation. It does lead to a fair amount of down time, waiting for your turn to try to run up a half-pipe, or get over that 12 foot wall, or crawl under the cargo wire. My overall time was 2:45 (which was probably reasonably ahead of the average - I heard several folks talking about 4+ hour times, and I don't think many people passed me), but I wouldn't be surprised if 20-30 minutes were just waiting around at obstacles. I definitely didn't mind the break, though. Even without the obstacles, that was a tough 10 mile run, with so much vertical gain and loss.
I got a little banged up, but nothing too bad. Mostly just my knees and shins picked up some scratches and light bruising from the crawling around at various obstacles (elbows were probably only spared because I wore long sleeves). I think I picked up a bruise on my hip at the slip and slide (did I mention it was in the 50s?), from the rocks underneath, but honestly that part was smoother than I expected. I'm guessing this is a reasonably typical Mudder experience (plus some additional knee pains on this course - ski slopes, people). My teammates who ran earlier than me, and I ran in to at the finish area, said they heard a guy behind them required medical attention for a broken leg (like, bone coming out of the skin broken). I heard some folks behind me requesting attention on one of the downhills, but I don't really know what the issues was.
The obstacles we actually had didn't exactly agree with the obstacles on the course map, though certainly the most memorable ones are on there, and it doesn't much matter. Mostly they weren't particularly scary, though there was certainly some scattered moments of concern on my part ('that looks like a big drop'). Interspersed between obstacles were a few aid stations. Mostly they seemed pretty simple (coming out of ultras which have had lots of tasty options) - bananas and water (I think there were occasionally some clif products). The water was mostly distributed in bottles (12 oz?), which sort of struck me. It was too much water to drink passing through the aid station, but more than I wanted to carry. I downed what I could, but generally ended up with at least a little left in the bottle before tossing it (ah, waste).
I didn't actually get electrocuted (and my teammate who said he did get hit said it wasn't really too bad), so, for me, the worst obstacle was the 'Chernobyl Jacuzzi' (I think I'm not alone in this assessment). Per the course description:
Jump in and out of an icy mixture of assorted carcinogens. The additional limbs you'll grow will surely help you on later obstacles.The key word here is 'icy' (carcinogens maybe meant food coloring... I think my pool was purple). I mentioned it was in the 50s, right? So, this was one of the obstacles with a slight backup. We're standing there in line and see an earth mover sort of vehicle off to the side, coming up to the side of the shipping containers we're about to hop in. We notice the bucket it's about to dump is full of ice, and start yelling at the people ahead of us to hurry up. Alas. Ice was dumped, and then I got my chance to jump in. Damn that's cold. Oh, and there's barbed wire over a wooden divider in the shipping container, which you have to go under. Head fully under in icy water. Brrrr. I got out and took off in a run, trying to keep moving, and not thinking about the cold. One of the nice things at the event was that the cold (in general, not just from this obstacle) was anticipated, so they had lots of those metallic space blankets around (I don't envy the clean-up crew). I was able to mostly keep up a jog, so on the next up-hill in the sun, I didn't feel too bad. For folks taking things at more of a walking pace, the space blankets were (presumably) basically a necessity.
Tough Mudder bills itself as 'Probably the toughest event on the planet'. I'm honored to consider among my friends people who cover 100 miles on their own two feet in one go (up and down mountains, through deserts, ...) so I can't really say I agree with the Mudder's self-assessment. All the same, it's a fun, festive, generally well-organized event. There was some issue with drop bags today... though drop bags had numbers on them, and tables listed ranges of numbers for drop bags to expect there, the obvious system of putting bags where they should be didn't seem to be in affect today. I don't know how long I spent looking for my bag, and the bag of my teammate, but it was probably on the order of 20-30 minutes. That said, the organizers seem to be on their game, and sent out an apology in the afternoon (before I'd made it back to the parking lot), with a 20% discount if we register for another Tough Mudder in the next few weeks. Parking was well handled, the volunteers were all approachable and helpful.
So, there's that. And now I'm going to bed. Fear not the obstacles.
Thursday, July 28, 2011
Questioning Running
On my run yesterday, and probably a fair number of other runs in the past, I was sort of wondering what I was doing. Why am I getting up between 5 and 5:30 to start an hour-long run (say) around 6:30, all before a full day of work? And maybe running in the evening? And probably waking up earlier on the weekend to run even longer?
These aren't particularly comfortable questions to be thinking about less than an hour in. Running on my own, around town, it becomes pretty easy to bail early on whatever mileage I had in mind for the day. Not exactly a good training strategy.
But then, what, exactly, am I training for? I'm not currently signed up for any runs at a mileage I'm unsure about. I've now got a 10k in a few weeks (as part of a team relay triathalon), and the Tough Mudder in October, but that's all I'm currently signed up for. I'd like to do Boston in the spring, but that's still a while.
The big race on my mind is the UROC 100k at the end of September. I know I'm not one of the "Champions", but the race is for anybody, and last year I decided that my goal for this year was to do the GEER 100k, which has become UROC. Of course, my goal also included the Bel Monte 50 miler in the spring, which I bailed on pretty early in. That means my longest run to date is 36 miles, and lately I've only been averaging about 60 miles a week. I'm supposed to translate that into 60 miles in a day, 2 months from now? I kind of doubt it. And my thought is that if I'm not sure going in that I can finish, and that I want it enough, that I'll just quit again. It's sort of what I do. "When the going gets rough, I'm getting out of here."
So I think maybe I've been questioning running a bit because I'm antsy about that race, afraid of failure and all that.
Yesterday, I was thinking that maybe the ultra running I've had my eye on for a while isn't something I actually want for myself as much anymore. Sure, I want to want it, but I'm pretty lazy. I was thinking that maybe I've been thinking for that past few years that I wanted to run ultras because I didn't like grad school. My last few years of grad school were... not good. Probably I was "running away," which, I reckon, ultras are probably good for (not that that's why everybody does them). Perhaps I'm not actually "running toward" any sort of goal like "testing myself" or for some sort of "real" experience. Now that grad school is finally over with, and I've got a great job that I love, maybe I don't actually feel the need to try to run 50, 60, 100 miles in a day. Maybe I could be perfectly happy spending some of the time I'd need for training on other things, like more programming, reading, learning to cook, being home so my cats aren't quite so lonely (and therefore obnoxious when I am around). Maybe I could be pretty happy running 50-60 mile weeks (less?) and occupying my other time/energy other ways. Stop stressing about making sure I get whatever miles in.
Maybe I'm just tired, either from not enough recovery time in my running, or the 57 hours on my last weekly timecard at work. Or maybe it's just the heat talking. After all, running to the tops of "mountains" makes the views that much grander, and whatever large meal afterwards practically justifiable.
Well, whatever. I took today off (from running). Perhaps I'll get my shoes on in the morning.
These aren't particularly comfortable questions to be thinking about less than an hour in. Running on my own, around town, it becomes pretty easy to bail early on whatever mileage I had in mind for the day. Not exactly a good training strategy.
But then, what, exactly, am I training for? I'm not currently signed up for any runs at a mileage I'm unsure about. I've now got a 10k in a few weeks (as part of a team relay triathalon), and the Tough Mudder in October, but that's all I'm currently signed up for. I'd like to do Boston in the spring, but that's still a while.
The big race on my mind is the UROC 100k at the end of September. I know I'm not one of the "Champions", but the race is for anybody, and last year I decided that my goal for this year was to do the GEER 100k, which has become UROC. Of course, my goal also included the Bel Monte 50 miler in the spring, which I bailed on pretty early in. That means my longest run to date is 36 miles, and lately I've only been averaging about 60 miles a week. I'm supposed to translate that into 60 miles in a day, 2 months from now? I kind of doubt it. And my thought is that if I'm not sure going in that I can finish, and that I want it enough, that I'll just quit again. It's sort of what I do. "When the going gets rough, I'm getting out of here."
So I think maybe I've been questioning running a bit because I'm antsy about that race, afraid of failure and all that.
Yesterday, I was thinking that maybe the ultra running I've had my eye on for a while isn't something I actually want for myself as much anymore. Sure, I want to want it, but I'm pretty lazy. I was thinking that maybe I've been thinking for that past few years that I wanted to run ultras because I didn't like grad school. My last few years of grad school were... not good. Probably I was "running away," which, I reckon, ultras are probably good for (not that that's why everybody does them). Perhaps I'm not actually "running toward" any sort of goal like "testing myself" or for some sort of "real" experience. Now that grad school is finally over with, and I've got a great job that I love, maybe I don't actually feel the need to try to run 50, 60, 100 miles in a day. Maybe I could be perfectly happy spending some of the time I'd need for training on other things, like more programming, reading, learning to cook, being home so my cats aren't quite so lonely (and therefore obnoxious when I am around). Maybe I could be pretty happy running 50-60 mile weeks (less?) and occupying my other time/energy other ways. Stop stressing about making sure I get whatever miles in.
Maybe I'm just tired, either from not enough recovery time in my running, or the 57 hours on my last weekly timecard at work. Or maybe it's just the heat talking. After all, running to the tops of "mountains" makes the views that much grander, and whatever large meal afterwards practically justifiable.
Well, whatever. I took today off (from running). Perhaps I'll get my shoes on in the morning.
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