ytterbium

Good work on your 5K! I always call my brother's in-laws my in-laws in-law. I suspect that's not right, but it amuses me.

Hey, Kailer. Just wanted to pop in and say thanks for your efforts to line us up with appropriate newbies. [That's probably not a good phrase; it sounds vaguely dirty or like a terrible ska band or like a cult that tried to make the big time and failed but is still hanging around. But I like messed up phrases, so I'm going to keep it.] But, yeah. Thanks for your bridge-building work!

As a professional grammarian (no, not the jerkish kind), this phrase delights me. I can definitely imagine how brutalawesome a workout this would be.

So, today I made my triumphant (*snork*) return to ultimate frisbee. I used to play, but I haven't in more than 10 years ago. I was never good at it, and while I'm still far from the speedster that tends to do well at it, I am in better shape now than when I was playing. Anyhow, I found a nearby pick-up game and, while it was surprisingly tricky to make initial contact, I joined in today. It was kind of an odd group--really big and not particularly cohesive. By the end there were probably enough people for about 3 games. Some people seemed to know each other, but there wasn't a lot of chatter, and the existence of complete strangers in their midst (I wasn't the only one) seemed to be a completely normal occurrence. The game itself was a lot of fun, although really hard. In part, that's because I had already worked out in the morning and was a bit tired (I was planning to wait until the next game to join in, but I finished some freelance work at the right time and was feeling OK), and in part it's because I've been more training endurance than speed. It seemed, based on my not terribly informed opinion, that the group was highly athletic and not terribly skilled. There were a lot of really low-percentage throws (that required extremely long runs or that were basically toss-ups into a lot of traffic), and while a few of them got caught, most didn't. I don't think that's a bad thing for me, though, since it will force me to work on the speed that that environment requires. Some other goal-wise developments: I FAWMED up (February Album Writing Month slang for "knocking it out really quickly so you can move on to the next song, with the knowledge that you can later come back to improve; it's a neutral if not positive term) my first song and recorded it, although I have a bit of editing to do to semi-seamlessly eliminate the bits where I screwed up. It definitely would need some work if I ever wanted to perform it; apart from the sloppy musicianship, the lyrics are a bit loose; cutting a half-dozen couplets would probably improve it a lot. But I am pleased to have written it; it's about one of the first people to tell doctors that they should wash their hands, and how he wound up being institutionalized, beaten, and killed for it. I've also joined a goal-setting app called Lift. It includes a program for getting from 2 to 6 pull-ups, so I'm going to try that puppy out and see how it works. Beyond that: Oh, yeah, I also started my apartment-hunting today. Now that I work at home, I could really use a place to live that's not a studio, so hopefully that will result in an upgrade to my mood and lifestyle.

Welcome! Kailer told me about your impending Warrior Dashdom--which is a great thing. I did my first one a week ago tomorrow. It was a lot of fun and it's a great kind of mid-term (a few months) goal to be working for. In terms of prep for it: General fitness, obviously, including some running if your goal is to run the course. If the website says the course is hilly, trust them and do some hill work--I didn't (since there's only one real hill near where I live, and just running up and down it over and over again got real boring) and regretted it. The toughest parts of the obstacles for me were the up-and-over parts of the climbing obstacles -- more finding places for hand and footholds than anything else. I'm not sure how to prep for that but it's hopefully useful information. Enjoy it, though: With your training plan, it'll definitely be something you'll be able to do and enjoy.

The past few days have actually been okay, kind of surprisingly. Things that should have been simple weren't... the ultimate group didn't get back to me, and neither did the running group. The ultimate group is practically in my backyard, though, so I dropped by today -- didn't play because it was at the end of a run, but I got the official info so I'll probably join either Saturday or next Wednesday. I also went to the library to examine a copy of the Sunday want ads to see if there were any job categories that were available that I could do that I haven't been checking. So, naturally, they didn't have it. Apparently, the newspaper can't quite manage to find that branch... Of course, it didn't matter; I tried another branch and they did have it, but (perhaps not surprisingly) the classified section is now microscopic. I have started applying for jobs again, depressing as the process is. I'd like to smack the person who developed the template for modern job-application websites--they make the process so much worse for people who have to use them. Song #1 of this challenge is almost done... I've finished the lyrics and most of what I'll charitably call the accompaniment. Hopefully I'll knock the rest out tomorrow and record a quick demo. This is me this weekend. I like the way it looks like I've decided to give up and just let myself burn to death. Also, since I was wearing bad pants that absorbed about 84% of the ponds I trod through, it's pretty lucky that you're not seeing my dangly bits.

Okay, moping done. (At least, until the next sack of crap flies into life... but enough about that.) Time for focusing on the rest of the challenge and beyond. I tested push-ups today--21. That's way down from what I have done in the past, but I think it's kind of artificially low, given that I haven't done any push-ups-for-quantity work lately and that I ate my feelings over the weekend and as a result am today basically an anvil. So my strength & endurance goals for the challenge will be: Push-ups: A:50 B:45 C:40 D:35 Pull-ups: A:6 B:5 C:4 (I'm currently at 3) Exploration-wise: I just emailed for info about both an ultimate frisbee pick-up game and a running group. So there is at least a bit of progress there.

Home from the Warrior Dash. I had fun. But it was also pretty disappointing. It was supposed to be an Event—a day that I trained for for a long time that would serve as a good milestone of how far I'd come and a good indicator of what I can do. And instead, it was a pretty mild workout with some somewhat unusual equipment and some very long mandatory rest periods. From what I've pieced together from what I heard from other people who have experience, Red Frog (the company that puts on the Warrior Dash) really biffed it, with a lot of logistical issues. From my standpoint, I can (sort of) accept the long lines at the obstacles (although I also sort of can't; people who did it last year told me they didn't have that problem, and while I think they had more sign-ups this year, I think that should have triggered someone to think that they should have also added capacity). What bugged me more was the lack of capacity on the runs on the course—there were plenty of places where the course was fenced in to only the width of a few people, which created huge bottlenecks, even though we were just running through a field where there should have been plenty more room. There were other bottlenecks due to the course going through the woods on very narrow paths that, today at least, were wet clay that had absolutely no traction. There was one official obstacle where we had to climb a muddy slope, but the only difference between that and about 3 other places on the course was that it had a rope we could use to help us up. There were also downhills where you really could only safely get down by sliding. The obstacles were generally pretty fun. Nothing was physically too difficult, although there were a lot of things to climb over where the 'over' part was the real challenge, because the foothold was well below the top and there wasn't a good place to put your hands. I didn't complete one of this type of obstacle—it was an extremely bottlenecked one, and particularly treacherous because it was taller than the others, and the other side was a ladder down with the first foothold also well below the peak. I didn't think I could get my legs over and keep enough control to hit that foothold on the way down and not kick a neighbor in the face, so I got out of the way. That one kind of annoys me, though. I think the general concept really contributed to the bottlenecks, since the tops of climbs were slow for everyone. (I'm frankly surprised there weren't a lot of falls and injuries; happily I didn't see any, but they were places without huge margins for error.) I'm going to give myself a B for that part of the challenge. While I didn't hit the letter of my grading scale, I'm pretty confident that without the kind of artificial factors that I've mentioned, I would have. I just really wish I'd have had some chance to.

Less than ideal pre-race day... highly stressful due to work and some clients who hated what I did, but didn't want to let me know what was wrong with it. Yahoo. But I did a gentle warm-up run... a total of 3K running, but alternating running and walking each kilometer. Got everything (I hope) I need prepared, and about to go to bed so as to pick up the rental car early and do the drive down, as I've described to friends, "an hour down some highway, I'll figure it out then."

Just make sure it's a pack of wolves trained to lick you so much you get completely covered in slime, rather than bite. The favorite obituary I've ever had to write (and, yes, I know it's wrong to have one, but I took a *lot* of abuse at the hands of the members of the association where I was working at the time) was about someone who was killed by a pack of wild dogs, and I'd rather that didn't happen to you.

Wowza! Even if the course was a half minute short, that's impressive.

Go, Dizz, Go! (Also, don't overheat.) It looks like we shall be pushupping together this challenge. Cool!

Indeed. It's one of those things that should be savored, but only about once per decade.

So, I just ran 5K in 26:45, according to my phone. (Actually, it could have been 26:35 or 26:25; I don't really remember, since I went a bit beyond that, but I know that the number Zombies, Run said started with 26 and ended in 5.) For comparison, the 5K I ran last fall I did in 28:17. I'm at least tentatively planning on doing the same one again this year. (I don't exactly like the idea of dropping cash to run the same paths that I do regularly, but it's a fundraiser for the museum where I volunteer, so the combination of that, the official time, and the free post-race banana make it worth it. The two tickets to Medieval Times are a nice idea, but since that's way out in the burbs in a not-easy-to-reach-without-a-car place, they didn't wind up having any value for me.) The stretch goal that I haven't vocalized to anyone else yet is 26:00. Not sure if that's actually in reach—I don't think I'm going to be focusing on running as much for the rest of the year—but it's not ludicrous. In other news... I did my first two job applications in a couple months today. I'm not exactly thrilled about picking up that 4-year exercise in futility and humiliation again, but it is necessary to do. Today, at least, I was able to ignore some of the less pleasant memories and just do the things, so that's nice. Songwriting: I've started on song #1, in that I've picked a subject and title and gotten a bit of chorus written. I'd meant for these songs to be the intersection of science and comedy, so naturally I picked a really rather depressing and kind of horrifying topic for the first one. So it's not going to be funny, and I'm okay with that. Exploration: Pottery classes are a possibility. Not a good one, though, because it would cost $255 to make a bunch of pots that I have no interest in possessing. I haven't done any work explicitly on the push-up or pull-up challenges, and frankly probably won't until next week. I'm into taper mode for the Warrior Dash.

No dog currently, but I did agility with my mom's dog a long time ago ('94ish). Lots of fun and a pretty active activity for both dog and person. Human overcompetitiveness can sully the experience a bit, although that's true for anything. (For those who don't know: Agility is basically an timed obstacle course for the dogs. Roughly half jumps of various types (it was originally an offshoot of horse jumping) but also tunnels, ramps to climb over, and poles to weave between.)