beckoning the cow

web of plans

Week 1 update

I shortened the long run to 100 minutes. Still a really quality effort. I moved the workout to tomorrow in hopes that the temperature would drop but it looks like it will be hot and humid anyway. Oh well. I was super tired at the beginning of the week but today I felt more adjusted to the heat and mileage. Overall it's good and I should hit 600 for the week. I might double tomorrow or Friday and do a 30 minute easy run after work.

Lil characters

Plan #338

In addition to running and my after school job and camp and wanting to make a book, I've also been working on a game since like, winter of this year. It's a card game. I have about 120 drafts of cards made on a google doc and about 70 more images that will become cards. The goal is to get to 300 cards and then start printing and cutting and assembling and playing.

I worked really really hard on this project in the spring and then I lost momentum as the summer started. I'd like to get back to it so this is an attempt at doing that.

The game would be a spin-off of apples to apples/ cards against humanity but with illustrations and other game mechanics.

I need lots of nouns to become cards:

- raging polyp
- spatula lips
- wearing the perfect crown
- tired fish
- glib glob glue globules
- the smallest cruelty
-  high waisted thunder pants
- sun in a pinch
- wetted dander
- quad-peg-leg

Look for those cards and a whole lot more in a game I will likely finish at some point.

seeing my little sister

the great thing about seeing someone you know really well after not talking to them for a long time is getting to use a part of your brain that's activated when you're with that person. words and thoughts flow differently--more smoothly. everything connects and lands and syncs up in a way that is freeing and fun.

thanks erin
thanks brain

the boy who went far

the city that lives

Training Outlines

The official date hasn't been announced yet but I'm assuming the 4 Miler is happening on the 4th of November since it seems to fall on the first Sunday in November. 

Below these words here is the outline up to the race. I wanted to be ambitious with the mileage so I combined some of the workouts of 2016 with the volume of 2017. It will be an average of just over 600 min/week for 10 weeks.

I guess the 4 main ingredients are

high daily volume: Monday through Friday the goal is to be running around 100 min a day. Probably a slight dip on workout days. I notice I've done well when I just run a lot so the biggest priority is to run a lot.

long long run: 20 milers. those are good. do them.

workouts: there's less of a focus on structured workouts. I figure one hard aerobic effort per week will put me in good shape. Tempos and long fartleks to get used to running hard again. I chose 5 and then I plan to repeat 4 of them after the first cycle is done and then I'll feel a sense of progress and confidence. Those are good.

SPEED!: this one is always the most fun and the one that leads to injuries. But in lieu of taking days completely off, I like having a day where I try to simulate the best parts of high school track practice. So not worrying about racking up miles or minutes and having fun moving fast. It's the rest day of the week and more about just going fast. Will probably be between 40 and 50 minutes with lots of easy rest scattered about.

The goal for now is to beat 20:31. As I go that will most likely be refined.

All is well. I'm at 314 min for the week. Goal is 520 by Saturday. Will probably end up being higher.

Bean Tree

Mighty good tree right here.

I did some looking and this is a Catalpa. It's got large leaves and fruits that look like BEANS!

That's a thing I learned today and learning is the coolest.

Back to a beginning

I moved to Charlottesville in 2015 to take a job at an afterschool program at this school. I really enjoyed the program and the kids and the school but due to a supervisor who wasn't able to support me I had to leave in early 2017. Well, today was my first day back at the school in the same job. My supervisor seems infinitely better and I feel really optimistic about the year.

I think after school is a great fit for what I love and it really was a shame that I had to leave. I don't regret it because it lead to an opportunity where I learned a ton and changed and grew as a person but I feel like places like after school and summer camps are where I'm meant to be for now. Anyway, I'm super excited and you can expect to see some more Word of the Bird posts very soon because I'm definitely starting that up again. Go back to Spring and Fall of 2016 to find some of those. Yeah. I guess this is another thing that I'll be updating about in addition to running. I know the days are going to be crazy and we have a ton of kids and not a ton of staff and not as well-defined program and expectations as I would like but I love winning kids over and I love building culture so my goals for the year are to get the program closer to what I would like and hopefully establish myself as kind of a pillar of what the program is. I feel like more than anything the kids and the staff just need consistency from year to year. And structurally that's really hard to pull off but...I got nothing better to do for now.

this cool dude

Love this guy

Training Update. Fall 2k18. The Road to the Men's 4 Miler

First, a look at this week's volume from previous years.

2016- 8/14-8/20: 382 min.

2017-8/13-8/19: 367 min.

2018- 8/12-8/18: 478 min.

Hooray! I ran much more minutes this year! In 2016 though I ran a 4:45 full mile by myself in 90 degree heat on the 14th. Don't know if I'm in shape to do that right now. But I did run a 70 second quarter in sandals yesterday in 90 degrees. So...kinda comparable?

The year to beat is 2016. In Fall of 2016 I ran 20:31 for 4 miles at the Men's 4 Miler on 11/6.

That is about 12 or 13 weeks away.

In 2017 I was hurt all Fall and ran a ton of miles but never raced and got injured the DAY BEFORE I was going to race.

In 2016 from 8/21-8/27 I ran 409 min. In 2017 of the same week I ran 482 min. So this coming week I'll aim for like 520 minutes.

The big goal is to better the training from 2016. In 2017 I had much higher volume but fewer workouts. In 2016 I had great workouts and really good volume. So this year will try to take the best of both.

Volume in 2016 from 8/14 to 11/6 (12 weeks): 6,407 minutes. Or about 533 min/week.

Volume in 2017 from 8/13 to 11/4 (12 weeks): 6,902 minutes. 575 min/week.

What's crazy is that in 2017 I was only running 6 days a week because every Saturday I was working for 15 to 16 hours. So I could have easily averaged much higher every week. In 2016 I was doing that off 7 days a week. But in 2016 I was also deliberately taking easy weeks every 4th week to allow myself to recover. It all balances out. This year I think I will run every day and have some lower weeks. I'll probably focus less on workouts than in 2016 but have more intensity than 2017 which was mostly easy easy runs because I was training through a foot injury that was really aggravated by anything fast.

Anyway, more updates might follow. I felt really motivated today to get after it and get back in racing shape. Other times I've felt less excited about the prospect of hard running again. It's really good to be healthy and even though it's been a really long time since I've felt significant progress in my fitness, I can tell that it's still there. So now is the time to really find out what I can do!

goal for 8/19-8/25: 520 minutes!

Rejected Internal Organs pt 3

The Stenatal Tubes

They were going to be like the ear canal but in your right hand. So you could hear through your hand kinda. I mean it would still be muffled by skin so that hurt its viability a lot. It was felt by some that placing a lot of the major senses all in the head was risky. Why not have the hands as a back-up? 

Rejected Internal Organs pt 2

The Speft

We all know the gallbladder is designed to hold bile produced by the liver. It's shaped like a plum and is basically nothing but a huge liability.

The speft was in heated competition with the gallbladder to see what would go beneath the liver. Clearly the gallbladder had an inside track and worked some connections to be selected because the speft wouls have been far superior.

The human speft would have stored bones and seeds that we otherwise have to spit out or eat around because we lack the proper organ for digesting them. The speft boasted an even more powerful acid than the stomach and had a grinding mechanism like those things that eat cars in junkyards.

Unfortunately for the speft, this also all came at a very high energy cost and the brain, being the greedy organ that it is, insisted that it could just figure out what was easy to eat or not.

Rejected Internal Organs pt 1

Little known fact: before the human body was put together, a global search was launched by our ancestors to see which organs would be selected for the naked ape.

Recent searches into records made on mud and branches and stuff have revealed some of the organs that did NOT make the cut.

Today, the BLERM.

This fleshy pink sac was intended to sit next to the stomach and store mucus under pressure. In the event of danger, the Blerm would activate and cause a projectile stream of vomit to facilitate escape. Unfortunately for the Blerm, the judges and audience felt it would potentially hinder eusocial behavior.

Auto-portra-graphy

Some things I like to draw

happy just

the bolbicorn

them kids in the woods

sleepy the hobo clown

she sleeps where she can

your daily mushroom

Sentence of the day: Horses eat cars.

classic mushroom of the day

if you're here, because you probably are,

then it means you're the result of something that knew how to remake itself again and again

so, if you're looking for something to do, that might be a good start.

stars, DNA, words, whatever

camp is over now my children

i must return to the wood& rest

camp farm boy

Your Daily Mushroom

Caught this one growing out of some mulch outside the blazer cabin.

Mushrooms don't grow towards light.
They grow from within. Eating and digesting what is in the underneath.
Bursting forth for maximum spreadage. What a powerful display.

Backitude with Gratitude

shirts I made