my eyes felt irritated all day

 not sure why.

a good day though.

Oh. I had a thought today.

I was walking up the stairs to my apartment and it's like this tunnel that goes through the hillside and at the top of it where the entrance to my apartment is, is this little grassy area and as I was getting to the top of the stairs my head poked out of the stairwell and this little squirrel that was squirreling around in the grass saw me pop out of nowhere and kind of freaked out and scurried away and my immediate thought, my instantaneous reaction was

Oh, what if I was a little kid that saw that I scared the squirrel and got really upset and started crying because I accidentally scared it.

'I'm sorry I scared you squirrel!'

another week another post about sprinting

ok ok ok ok ok here's what I learned.

Ever since I started taking video of myself sprinting I've had the question

why do I look like that?

And also when I watch the elite sprinters I ask

why don't I look like that? how do they look like that?

And I thought I had figured it out and had been trying to get there over the past month by focusing on straightening my leg before touching the ground. The only problem was when I would try to sprint like that I'd run really slow. And then when I went back to just doing what feels fast I would run much faster. So we had to readjust. 

I had a hypothesis so I took video of myself basically running in place but imagining that I had a small roughly knee-high hurdle in front of me that I had to step over. When I went back to watch the video, all the cues and positions that really fast sprinters get into were there. I was doing it. I was doing the thing. I wasn't going anywhere but I was at least moving my legs the way fast sprinters move their legs.

So that was exciting and encouraging. In future workouts, my warm-up is going to focus on hitting those positions and stepping over that imaginary low hurdle (they're also sometimes called wickets) while gradually increasing the speed. I think what's happening is that as I'm speeding up, I'm not able to maintain the form. So I'll do the right form while basically standing still. Then I'll try to go a little faster. And I'll progress over like 3 or 4 reps until I'm not hitting the form anymore. And then I'll just sprint. But one would hope that over time the form I hold at true top speed and my "consciously trying to have good form" form will become more similar.

Yes yes yes. That is the plan.

 

sat outside again today

 it was nice. go to my camp.

gonna start sitting outside in the evenings. maybe during the day. maybe whenever I can

 it's part of my dwelling initiative. it's called sitting outside in the grass. just do it as much as you can.

 people like to bring up the quote attributed to albert einstein "insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results." and in a lot of cases that's true but I do think there's an important kind of meaning that can only be uncovered through repetition. A repetition that doesn't even show any noticeable differences for a long time.

I've been doing these drills for over two years now. Well, I was taught them over twenty years ago but when I wanted to get better at sprinting again I started doing them with intention and it's been interesting how over time they've become different. They feel different. It's kind of like a chant. You say the same words over and over and eventually they take on different meanings than they used to. With the drills I feel different muscles and the movement feels different. 

I would argue some things warrant a little bit of insanity. 

had some good breakthroughs in climbing today

 felt really strong. picked up some things. did some moves and climbs I've been working on for a while. felt extremely gratifying. I think being at home for the weekend and resting and relaxing helped a lot. yay!