there's monsters. there's real flesh-and-blood demons and they hide behind power and prestige

 does nationalism or the nation state as a concept help to serve the interests of common people or does it help powerful people further consolidate power?

something about knowing you need to drink more water and then drinking more water and feeling better feels humiliating

 'drink more water' is like the 'do unto others' of health advice.

you need to be reminded of it because you aren't doing it enough but you get reminded so much that it stops feeling necessary so it just becomes background noise until you remember, 'oh yeah. it actually IS super important.' crazy

I take some amount of pride in thinking that I took good care of myself and then you find out you aren't drinking enough water and it's like 'well shooooooot' that's really like step one isn't it?

another simple joy in my life

 people notice something I'm wearing or holding and say, "is that new?"

And then I say,

"HA! New to YOU!"

It's a pretty needlessly rude thing to say to someone who's just trying to make a friendly observation but I like to imagine that I have all sorts of esoteric knowledge and wisdom that I've known for years and is only just now apparent to wide-eyed green-horned first-rodeo individuals.

Maybe don't do this one. It never gets a laugh or a good reaction.

I will keep doing it though.

actually, go HARD

 One piece of running wisdom that I've accepted for a long time but recently started to question is the idea that most of training should be done with a controlled approach. If you watch videos of athletes and their coaches doing workouts you'll often hear the coach saying that the most important thing is that they stay relaxed--"RELAX! RELAX!!" The whole video is them screaming "RELAX!!" They'll say that the only time they want to go 100% is during a race or maybe a few key workouts leading up to a big race. 

"RELAX! RELAX!"

The idea is that going too hard too often can fry the nervous system and slow recovery between sessions. It's like there's a continuum between Low Intensity, High Volume that Produces Little Stimulus for Adaptation and High Intensity Low Volume that Produces  High Stimulus for Adaptation. And most training plans seem to want to aim for like 80% Intensity. That seems to be where most people can train the longest without breaking down and still get a fruitful response. 

It all seems very sound and there's plenty of anecdotal and clinical evidence to support it but something really irks me about coaches preaching RELAX! and DON'T PUSH in workouts. Yesterday I was reading this tweet from Steve Magness about how the way the brain and body perceive discomfort is super subjective. If you tell an athlete to relax and go easy, then you're priming their system to notice any discomfort and it tends to make the reps feel harder. By the same token, races where athletes push as hard as they can can feel relatively easy. You're priming the body to ignore as much as discomfort as possible for the sake of performance. 

Caveat: it is absolutely the case that you can assign 4 reps in a workout and an athlete goes way too hard on the first one and can't run the last 3 reps with any quality. But I would argue that thinking about relaxing and staying controlled and patient isn't the only way you can achieve smart pacing. You can try hard and still pace well. 

my favorite use of social media is giving my mom kudos on her runs on strava

 that's a simple joy of my day

I think you should buy a heated blanket

 if I had to guess the percentage of people who own heated blankets I'd say confidently that it's not enough. you need a heated blanket. those things are good. don't believe me? ask me!

Um, yeah, I'm right about that. Heated blanket best sleep you've ever gotten in your life kid don't even question about thinking it. Regular blanket no heat from the blanket whatsoever heated blanket heat from the blanket makes all the difference.