Recirculating Cheese

"We don't rise to the level of our expectations, we fall to the level of our training."
— Archilochos

Just back from a weekend in Princeton at Aikido Camp, where I tested for 2nd dan (2nd degree black belt). I had to show a variety of throws and take-downs against a variety of strikes (overhand, side of the head, stomach punch, and kick) and grabs (shoulder, elbow, wrist, choke-hold, and full-nelson), techniques against bokken (wooden sword), bokken kata, and then freestyle against 5 attackers at the same time. I should mention that the "test" is a demonstration - you'd have to fuck up really badly to fail (and that would reflect badly on your instructors). But you still want to look good, at ease with the techniques. Anyway, total eye of the hurricane, but it felt good, only a couple minor screwups, and I'm told it looked good. Sadly, I don't have any video to show you.

I knew it was going to happen sometime this weekend, just not exactly when. Turns out it was at the end of this morning's class. I had just helped with freestyle on a shodan (1st dan) test, when I was called up for my test. So no time to think or get nervous, just straight into action, and trust my training. I'd had a plan of action, but I hadn't really rehearsed it. I got in a few of the flashier techniques, but forgot about a bunch more. Mostly it was the go-to techniques that were in muscle memory.

Saturday after class, I went for a 6½-mile run along the canal tow-path, and through the Institute Woods. I hadn't been running in over a week, but I like to run when I'm traveling, and I'd gotten lost attempting this run last year. So despite the fact that it was 28 degrees and I was going to be running well into the twilight, I suited up and want out (and didn't get lost). At one point, I ran right past a deer - I heard her when she moved, looked back, and she was just looking at me, like "you know there's nothing chasing you". It was long(ish), and slow(ish), but I determined that I was going to finish with the same good form I'd started. Which is how this ties into the testing.

The photo above was taken right after my test - I'm the disheveled one. Then it was lunchtime, but I hung out on the mat, picking up fine points of technique from some of the more advanced students, and helping an orange belt understand a technique we had worked on in a group together. Sensei says "help each other", but really, we just can't shut up about it.

Later, the traditional celebratory dinner at Popeye's at the Vince Lombardi Service Area on the Jersey Turnpike.

This comes on the 10-year anniversary of my shodan test, which was at the end of Sunday afternoon class, Winter Camp 2007. I know it's a minimum of 4 years before I can test for sandan (3rd dan), but I'm really looking forwad to it. (And then, no more testing - 4th dan and up are bestowed by Sensei. So I better make the most of it.)

BTW, the quote was something I heard for the first time last night, in the middle of a Tim Ferriss podcast on an unrelated topic. It struck me as so incredibly apropos, and such a good description of what happens when shit gets real.

So this is pretty much the definition of a mid-pack runner:

92/193 Overall
61/102 Male
9/16 Male 50-59

So I'm standing on top of the bell curve?

FWIW, 1:54:16 is a personal worst for the half marathon, but whatever, it was a beautiful day, and I did my at-the-moment best, which was actually better than I expected, so yay?

Today was the Groton Town Forest Trail Race - 9.5 miles of "narrow dirt roads and winding single lane trails, with lots of roots, rocks, leaves, uphills, and downhills". I was under-trained and (it turns out) under-fueled, but it was going fine until, around mile 5, I tripped over a root and fell. And fell 3 more times between miles 8 and 9 - stubbed the same toe every time. It's impressively bruised, and hurts like a mother. But I not only finished the race, but sprinted to the finish (because another runner was trying to pass me in the last 100 yards or so - he did manage at the very end, by a shoulder, but I made him work for it :).

("Heja" is roughly "hurrah". We heard it a lot from the spectators.)

Official time: 3:40:59. Gun time 3:43:29, which means that it took 2:30 just to reach the start line. Big races are like that.

And it was a big race. I'm used to scrum starts, but it usually thins out pretty quickly. Here I wasn't more than 10 feet from the nearest runner at any time during the race. When I left the stadium, the 5-hour runners were finishing, still in a continuous stream.

Anyway, call it 3:41, which is a personal best, but still 11 minutes off my goal of 3:30, and 6 minutes off my VDOT estimate of 3:36 (based on my last half marathon). The weather was...not ideal for running. 50F is a little cool, but easily manageable if there isn't rain. Which there was, on and off at first, then continuously from maybe 2pm on. It wasn't heavy, more what the Brits call "heavy mist", but more than enough to soak me to the skin. My bunkmate*, a German who's done the Stockholm Marathon 11 times, says the cold saps your energy as much as the heat. Of course, he says 3 years ago, it was 3C (38F) and windy, so truly miserable. Anyway, he also finished 10 minutes off his goal, but his goal was 3:00.

*I'm staying at the Urban Hostel Gamla Stan. The hotel I was at for business is stupidly expensive this time of year, and it doesn't feel right to bill the project for non-business-related room nights, and I can't justify paying that much for something that's not going to be reimbursed. Anyway, the hostel is cheap and centrally located, as hostels should be, but it's also clean, well-maintained, and surprisingly quiet. As in, I'm in their biggest room, with 16 beds, and there was no chatter in the room at night, and lights were out at 11pm (and most people were already in bed by then). I wonder if Saturay night is going to be a different story; I hope not, because I have to be up at 5am to get to the airport. But 2 of the girls are dressed up to go clubbing...

Anyway, Paul's big adventure in Stockholm. At least I didn't get lost. :)

Running in Stockholm is always an adventure. This time, it was an 8-ish mile run around Brunnsviken lake that turned into 12.5. See, the rule of "keep water to your right" did not account for the canal connecting the lake to the Lilla Värten fjord, and it was a couple miles further north before I realized that something had gone horribly wrong. Yes, I had my phone with me, with free data roaming (thank you, T-Mobile), but I was relying on dead reckoning to guide me, and the GPS running watch to record my mistakes.

BTW, this is part of the Royal National City Park, a really nice collection of greenspaces, some quite close to the city center.

Remember this? Of course you do. Part A was this morning: half-marathon in 1:43:26 — 94/936 overall, 6/27 in my division. Yay, Personal Record, rather better than my 1:49 in the previous halfs.

According to the VDOT calculators, this is predictive of a 3:36 marathon, which would also be PR, but not enough to qualify for Boston. Oh well, we'll see. Part B is tomorrow morning (at !@#$ 7:30am). If you want to stalk me, RaceJoy is tweeting status on my behalf (@chickenhaiku), at at least the start, midpoint, and finish.

I'm doing this thing in May: half-marathon on Saturday, full marathon on Sunday.

This is stupid on a number of levels, not least (in fact, mostly) that it's 6 weeks from now, and I haven't been training, although I haven't stopped running entirely either, so that's like low-level training, right? And then there are the coaches who say you shouldn't do races back-to-back, meaning within a couple months of each other, and you should definitely take a week off running entirely after running a Big Race. But maybe that just means I shouldn't run Seven Sisters the weekend before, right?

There's no discount to register for both races, but the Challenge does include a "free" finisher's jacket and an extra medal, so that's something?

There's apparently a thing where I can have it spam my progress to Facebook and/or Twitter in real time, but I haven't decided whether I hate you enough to do that. Lemme know if you're that much of a voyeur (and you think I should be that much of an exhibitionist).

Someday I'll get back to doing regular updates. For now, random thoughts, not even the most important ones.

I gave blood at Arisia. I usually give to Children's Hospital, but since they moved their collection from Sunday to Friday, and since we had a hella time getting to the hotel (fuck you very much, Auto Show, on top of normal rush-hour traffic), I gave on Saturday to Mass General. But that's not the point of this, which is when the intake nurse took my blood pressure and pulse, found them kind of low, and asked if I was feeling okay, or was I just athletic, and I said "I'm a runner". And the point of this is: when did I cross the line from "I run" to "I'm a runner"? When I signed up for my first marathon? When I actually did it? When I signed up for my second marathon?

Also, when I got to Arisia, I almost immediately went into post-con crash, where I was like "I've worked so long and so hard for this, and now it's here, which means it's almost over, and I'm already missing parts of it, and I can't possibly Do It All, Aieeee!" Eventually I had drinks with friends, and got over that. But damn, that gets me every time.

Also at Arisia, I was(?) recruited(?) to do...something(?) for MidAmeriCon, the 2016 Worldcon in Kansas City. The first conversation was with Geri Sullivan, a graphic designer who I admire and respect infinitely, and whose approval of my work means more than you can possibly know. (And who will probably never do any design work for Arisia, alas.) But she introduced me to the co-div-head for KC, and we had a feeling out/bitch session during the crispy hours of Monday afternoon. Either nothing will come of it, or (more likely) I'll have more unpaid work. (The other co-DH is someone I worked with on the Montreal worldcon.) So, yay?

Tangentially, I've realized over the years that Worldcons may be bigger and more complicated than regionals like Arisia, but they don't necessarily do a better job of it. To begin with, each Worldcon is a one-off, so they don't always learn from their mistakes, despite having a substantial overlap of senior staff. Plus, they don't have their own stuff, whether it's Art Show framing and pegboard, or A/V equipment, or even Ops radios. At best, it's a pot-luck. At worst, everyone brought potato salad, and no one brought plates. Anyway, I was telling Keri about sending my first Souvenir Book to press, worried that I'd made a ConDigeo level of blunder [looking back, 10 years later, it's still a fine piece of work, thankyouverymuch], and she was bitching about LoneStarCon, which never settled on a single logo, but had two logos that were used haphazardly, depending on who was producing what piece. But she's got a style sheet for KC, which makes me very happy.

What else makes me happy? Relationships that somehow haven't exploded into fiery bits. Friends who somehow aren't dead yet. Parents who same. File under "Fail to Suck."

I'm doing this thing on Sunday. It's either going to kill me, or it'll be epic. (Historically, it was both.)

Anyway, if you want to stalk me, you have a couple options.

1) We're RFID-tagged, and they're set up to send notifications to whoever cares approximately every 3 miles. Register for email or text here.

2) If you want to stalk me in person, they have some recommendations. If you want to see the epic finish, it's at the Tsongas Center (but remember that driving and parking in that area is going to Really Suck(tm)). Look for the long-hair in the orange shirt and blue shorts (with matching shoes :).

Today was the Wilmington Half Marathon. It was unseasonally hot, which was tough, but I soldiered through. I finished 48th overall (out of 214), and 7th in my age group (out of 30), so not a bad showing. Still, less than a minute improvement over my first half.

These are the shoes I ran in:


Or rather, they're my original pair of 580s. I ran those into the ground, and got a new pair on eBay (because New Balance seems to have discontinued that pattern). They've been good to me, and they're what my feet are used to (and they're *so* fabulous), so they're what I wanted to event in. BUT. I did a 6-miler in the new 580s on Friday, but this was the first long run I've done in them.

Don't run 13 miles in new shoes:


The right heel was as badly blistered/scraped raw, just not bloody. OTOH, they didn't hurt until I got in the shower.

So that was tactical error #1. Tactical error #2 came at the mile 12 water station. I was running with a bottle of Gatorade, so I'd been taking the water from the water stations and dumping on myself for cooling. Except at mile 12, they were handing out Gatorade. Which I dumped all over myself. So I finished the race sticky and vaguely lemon-lime flavored. At least it wasn't at the beginning.