proud of this sign

made this at the gym today! Yesterday was a really tough day just being at home and knowing my knee felt really bad. Today I spent most of time at the gym climbing and working on this and coaching and felt a lot better. Knee is still hurt but it progressively improved and I'm confident about tomorrow. 

Anyway, I take a lot of satisfaction in being able to make art at the places I work. I've done art at LKS, MLES afterschool,  Field Camp, Field School, and CHT. And now Rocky Top! Feels good :)

I like Food Lion

I spend too much money at Wegman's. At Food Lion I get what I need for a good price. I just think it's a great grocery store. Is it probably also an evil corporation? Probably. What isn't? But compared to Kroger and Wegman's, it just feels like a nice lil food store place. 

I hurt my IT band yesterday and it's been bothering me all day today. We'll see how it is in the morning. Injuries are always frustrating but I'm motivated to get back to running. I know I'm in good shape.

good hike today with camp

I just want my leg to feel better!

me at races when I finally get in good good running shape again

the usage of thematic lists on Kanye West's MBDTF

phD please...gimme

leg is feeling better

I still can't run but much improved from yesterday. Resting a lot and staying hydrated really helped. Today I climbed in Richmond for about 4 hours and that was super fun. I'm really grateful that I found climbing and that it can supplement running.

It's really frustrating to not feel like I've improved that much in running sometimes. I feel like I'm working hard and that maybe things just used to come easier. But we'll see. I've had some really good runs and workouts so I shouldn't get too down on myself. Things could turn around quickly. 

tough day today

Woke up early to run a workout in the cold. Did some drills and they upset my hamstrings. Did the workout and they never got worse but they've been mad at me all day. Hard day to go around on bad hamstrings and little sleep.

Learned my lesson there.

working on a map

I want war with the mouth. 

Looking through old blog reminds me that I've gotten a lot better at drawing. I'm proud of that. I want to keep going and keep getting better. 

I want to be the kind of person who is motivated by pursuing their passions and the things that make life fulfilling. I don't want to waste my time feeling sorry for myself over things I can't control. 

Camp DnD creations: Lil Baby Tompkins

Lil Baby Tompkins is a small robot you can stumble across in the hallways of the Ars Bogenghitron. He is extremely friendly and cute and wants to be your friend! He looks like a sentient potted plant but he is actually a robot powered by the magic plant that grows out of the soil. Because there is no direct sunlight in the tunnels of the dungeon, the plant must produce energy from some other source...

Lil Baby Tompkins has an excellent ability to hide and will immediately take the hide action in combat or at the first sign of danger. LBT has no attacks but can self destruct and unleash the energy of his unreasonably powerful core. He has cute all terrain wheels that can climb up sheer walls. He is also familiar with the dungeon but is easily distracted and struggles to stay on task.

The goal of LBT is to lighten the mood, befriend the party, and heroically sacrifice himself in a time of need.

Sunday

Good day!

slept a lot. did some drawing. climbed for a long time. bought groceries. Had dinner and watched euphoria at a friend's place :)

my legs are still really sore from the run yesterday. I've been trying to be diligent about hydrating and eating enough protein to recover. 

Tomorrow I'll do a run with some 45 second strides and then Wednesday I'll do the 10 miler course with 6 minutes hard and 3 minutes jog. And then I'll figure out some other workouts later. I'd like to do another quality long run but I'm also going to do a hike with camp on Saturday so I might have to adapt. Maybe long on Friday and then lifting and hills on Saturday. 

when you run so hard it triggers an immune response

It's happened before but when I do a hard long run sometimes I just feel sick for the rest of the day. Anyway, really good one today! In 15 degree temps I went for 48 minutes with Ian and some other charlottesville running guys. Ian ran a full ten miles and I fell off a little after 6 miles but considering some of the terrible workouts I've run in the cold I was pretty happy with today. I'd like to close that gap especially before Ian and I run the colonial half together. 

I think I can get there. I felt really good at the beginning so I think if I work on my endurance a bit and focus on longer continuous workouts then my half marathon fitness will improve quite a bit in the next month. We'll hope for a warm race day as well. 

Then I was pretty much wiped for the rest of the day. Did laundry. Talked to my dad on the phone. 

I'm watching a 2 hour YouTube video about NFTs and crypto and how it's all a scam. 

hello

Hello if you're here from instagram. Sorry that the recent stuff isn't as exciting as the highlights over the years I've been posting on my story. I'll try to make new stuff more in line with that. Go digging around though.

Lately I mostly talk about running and climbing. It's pretty dry. 

If you think about, everyone is from the past. 

sticker pole

I stickered this pole at work

dug out of the snow

I got groceries. Got a Bodo's sandwich. Did some good climbing. Did a little bit of weight room stuff. Then I did 10x hill sprints. 

I just want to run hard and do workouts. I'm tired of being slow. 

snow :/

Did some running for the first time since Friday. Roads and my driveway were a little snowy and icy so I ran to the gym and climbed and coached and ran home. It's frustrating to not feel up for workouts and hard running because of the snow and cold. I suppose if I didn't have climbing I would feel more pressure to run. Rest is good though. 

I think I'll run to the gym again tomorrow. I have to be out of the house in the early afternoon because it's being shown to potential buyers. That's annoying. I need to buy some groceries as well. Maybe I'll do that in the evening. 

Today I drew some and worked more on the game. Coaching was good. We only had two kids show up. I sent a v5 I'd been working on and had did some medium-hard climbs that haven't been graded yet. 

I'm really excited for this game that I'm making. It feels like the convergence of a lot of things I've been wanting to do for years. 

art update

game art for camp dnd. I'm calling it Ars Bogenghitron

much needed rest day

I felt exhausted after traveling for the comp yesterday. It snowed all day so I spent the day on the couch to recover. I think I'll feel good tomorrow. 

I ate an authentic old bay bagel in Baltimore

the light was so beautiful this morning

In Baltimore

Drove up with Taylor today to Baltimore for climbing regionals.

I did my 3rd 1600-5.2k-400 time trial.

this time I ran 4:58, 18:24, 63.9

last time I ran 4:58, 18:26, 65.

Minor improvement in the 5k and 400. I'll say all the times today were worth more because it was very windy. I'm a little confused why I can't run a mile in under 4:50. Based on my workouts it shouldn't be that hard. The only thing I can think is that it's just a little too cold, a little too windy, and I'll need someone to help pace.

Oh well. It's still a really good session. I signed up for the colonial half marathon this evening. It's February 19th. My expectations aren't too high right now. I'll keep putting in good workouts and see what happens. 

Next Week:

-6x800 w/ 3 min rest. 2:24s

-on C10m do 3x10 min with 3 minutes rest

- fast hills

-20 min of X's

need more protein

And to drink more water. 

I was supposed to do a mile time trial today but felt really off and decided to take an easy day and try for tomorrow. Weather should be decent. I'd like to break 4:50 and that should be very reasonable. 

Worked on the camp dnd game more today. I've been thinking about how to do maps and combat and I had the thought that I could have graph paper maps for when characters are exploring and then use the grid map I made for combat. Like in a video game when you switch screens to fight. 

Tomorrow I'm traveling with the other climbing coaches up to Maryland for the Regional competition. Should be tons of fun!

camp dnd

I did some more drawings and made more bottlecaps. I had an idea to put together a big google doc and have counselors and CIT's help write/make things. If nothing else than to give myself extra motivation. It would be nice to have a collaborator.

Had a really good climb today. Fingers feel stiff so I know I worked hard. Ian got back yesterday. He is a good roommate.

good tempo today

Legs were sore but I ran a good medium hilly 5 mile tempo around the neighborhood. Kept it controlled and it went by really fast.

Didn't climb but did some good drawing. Started working on my bottle cap minis for the camp DnD sessions I'm going to try to run this summer. I have a good idea for a campaign that will be easy to pick up and drop into throughout the summer. 

go little lobster

workouts

I did an easy hour of running today. I'm bummed that the trails are still a mess from the snow but I found a gravel road to run on near my house. I felt tired but my legs felt very strong and my form felt really good. 

I've done two medium hard days of climbing before today and I thought I might have enough energy to send the 3rd v5 in the steep room and I did! I was really happy about it. Yesterday the last move seemed super scary and impossible and today I got it first try. Then I worked a little on another climb and finally got all the moves but was too tired to put the whole thing together. Next time it will go for sure. Definitely need to rest tomorrow and do no climbing. 

Afterwards I climbed a little on the moon board with phyl. It was fun! I've been intimidated by the moon board for a long time but I was able to do some little moves and I can see how it can make my fingers and climbing a lot stronger! I'm excited to use it more. 

Really proud that I could put together 3 days of good climbing. I'm getting stronger!

socially healthy

I don't think I already wrote about this. I've been meeting new folks lately and having lots of good interactions, especially at the climbing gym and seeing my social health improve brought into focus how poor it was previously. I mean, it wasn't terrible but I feel much happier now. 

To be clear, it's not like I was unhappy or doing bad, I knew for a long time that my social life had changed when I wasn't at camp/ since I've gotten out of college. But I had accepted that as normal and now I'm sort of seeing a way in my normal adult life that I can feel more social. Which is exciting :)

post steep room v5

felt really low energy at the start of the day and into the afternoon but then got invited to watch a show with some folks and had a really good climbing session and ended up doing a little workout and some hill sprints around 11:30pm. that's when my body felt good!!!

Hills

Woke up early to judge a mock competition to get our climbers ready for regionals in a week. Climbed for a few hours after and get really close to sending a climb I've been working on for a while. I'm excited to get it soon.

Then I rested for a bit and went out for a run as the sun was going down. My friend Peyton recommended I do some hard 3 minute hills to work on my speed endurance so I found a steep hill by UVA that took just under 3 minutes to run up. I did that 6 times and felt pretty great. It's nice to be able to do back to back workouts. I think the past two days will really be good for my fitness. Tomorrow I'll probably just do a shorter easy day and then get ready for a harder effort on Tuesday. And then if the weather is nice Thursday I'll repeat my mile, 5.2k, 400 test. I anticipate it will go much better than before. 

These hard runs knock me out afterwards. It's really hard to do anything in the evening other than rest. I feel fortunate that I am able to rest.

I have some big ideas for a book project I'd like to do for camp. 

cold workout

I've struggled with running in cold temps before but today I had a really good workout on the track in the cold. I was able to work hard and feel good and run the times I wanted to run.

1600, 3200, 3200, 1600

5:38, 11:13, 11:12, 5:26

I'll take that. I also spent a lot of time drawing and making stickers. Today was my first full day in my house since Monday. It's been an eventful week! Being away from home and without power was tough but I think I managed okay.

I'd like to run under 55 minutes this March in the Charlottesville 10 Miler. Better start getting fitter!

today I ran from

the corner of main and JPA to the end of maywood ln in about 5:05. that's pretty fast!

yesterday i had no power

but I stayed with a friend!

me in response to losing power from snow

I've learned nothing from this. no perspective has been gained and I fully intend to lean even harder into the worst aspects of my personality. good day.

today it snowed

yes snow. everyone was surprised. it was warm and then all at once lots of snow. many trees broked. many powers lost.

Andy ran to the climbing gym and climbed for 4 hours and then ran home. What a day. What a move.

Very successful. 8/10 day.

holiday energy

I think days like the solstices and the new year and the start of summer and other special occasions really do have a unique power to them. Not necessarily for the reasons we celebrate them but I think the air on those days is primed for changes and shifts. You know, things will be the same way for days and weeks and months and then suddenly it's different. And I think that can happen any day but in my experience and selection bias it seems like it tends to happen around these special days.

I don't know, I like that idea of a holiday. Not so much centered on traditions but when your everyday can shift into a new kind of everyday.

my plan was to blog every day

And I literally missed the first day.

BUT

I'm still awake from the 1st. So I'm counting this as the first. 

today was great. 9/10