I got some good sleep the other night and my congestion cleared and it wasn't windy and had a pretty great run.
The Suit and Tie Challenge. Wear a full suit and tie for the entirety of a week of camp. You're not allowed to take it off for any reason. All activities and the entirety of the camp day must be spent in full suit and tie.
I think I might have allergies? I'm not sure. This cold has stuck around for a long time but it hasn't developed into anything like a real sickness. Maybe it's allergies? Either way my sleep has not been great for a bit because I'm congested and I'm kinda dragging a little. On top of that I've been doing a lot of physical activity between running, climbing, and a little bit of lifting and then I got roped into helping out at the gym last night which I was happy to do but still. I'm tired. I feel not great. But that's okay. That happens all the time.
Overall it's been a great start to the year. I really can't complain. Stay the course.
Future Andy, it's me, Past Andy. If you're reading this then that means it's the summer and you're doing camp and you've been tasked with coming up with some sort of activity for the kids. This is it. I've got the activity. I'm currently sitting at my table drinking coffee and looking out the window. It's March 8th, 12:11 pm. I've just come up with this idea in the time it took to open this blog post and go get another cup of coffee.
The Numbers Game
Load up a random number generator that contains the numbers of people in camp--campers and counselors. Ritualistically assign everyone in camp a random number. Their job is to know their number and its properties and discover the numbers of others and their relationship to that person based on their respective numbers relationships to each other.
Strings of consecutive numbers: This is your tribe. Your clan. Your wolfpack. Your crew. Your entourage. So, 13-14-15-16...etc that's a group and a team. The numbers must be consecutive though. If you've got a group that's 24 through 30, you can't let 32 join until you've found 31. The highest number is nominally the leader of the group. Whatever that means
Evens and Odds: Even and Odd numbers generally dislike each other until they are part of the same number string. At the risk of stereotype:
even numbers tend to like things like jello, haikus, dismantling existing power structures, listening to music, looking at moving water, and wheels
odd numbers tend to be a little more idiosyncratic and like chlorophyll, iridescence, logic puzzles, pungent aromas, reform, what St. John of the Cross referred to as the Dark Night of the Soul, looking at cloth, bread, butter, and monster truck shows
Prime Numbers: prime numbers are notoriously elitist. They really don't like to talk to other people who aren't prime numbers. Even in the same consecutive number string they will really only want to hang out with other prime numbers.
Perfect Double/ Perfect Half: If someone's number is the perfect double of your number then they are your parental unit. If someone's number is the perfect half of your number they are your child unit. Odd numbers have parents but don't have children. Do with this what you may.
Same Number/Evil Twin: Assuming the random number generator allows repeats, if someone gets the same number as you, you are considered evil twins.
Soul Linked: If you and another set of numbers are able to form a sum together, that means you are soul linked. So if you are 5 and you find 13 and 18 then the three of you are soul linked because 5+13=18. You can make the equation as large as you want as long as every number is used and part of the equation. So you could 6+11+25=whatever that equals, 42? Whatever. If you're soul linked with someone that means you all share a special soul link secret of your choosing and you say hi to each other and you give high fives and good jobs.
Destiny Bonded: If you are in the same consecutive number string together AND soul linked then you form a destiny bond with one another. This is like a super important group. So, for example if there was a string of numbers like 4 through 11 then 4,7 and 11 AND 5,6 and 11 would each have a destiny bond with 11 being part of both destiny bonds. If you are in a destiny bond then you do the macarena AND say the pledge of allegiance AND sing the national anthem. Also you have a secret token that you all share AND an additional destiny bond secret AND you give double high fives and double say hi's. With like three i's. hiii.
The Freedom of Information Act aka FOIA aka FOIA request: If you are a two digit number then two single digit numbers OR two two digit numbers that each contain one of your digits can form together to file a FOIA request and ask you one (appropriate) question that you must answer truthfully. So if 3 and 7 join up then they can ask a one-time question of 37. Or, if 64 and 51 team up then they can ask a question of 56, 41, 65, etc...
Products: This is like soul-linked but with multiplication instead of addition. So if you are in a group that forms a product then you are um... A SECRET CABAL. So like 3 and 7 and 21 could all be in a secret cabal and they would form a secret plot that they try to enact secretly. do with that what you will.
Digit Brethren: If you and another number share exactly the same digits, just either rearranged like 63 and 36 or doubled like 5 and 55 then you are digit brethren to each other. This means you do that gladiator handshake with each other and say "BRETHREN!"
That's all I can think of right now. The idea is to make it ridiculously elaborate and whatever other number relationships you can think of you can make up another name for. And then the goal is to give people a reason to interact with each other and have a connection based on a completely arbitrary distinction. You know, that feels nice. When people have a reason to talk to you and say hi and give high fives and all that.
last week was a down week in mileage but what I did was take that extra energy and climb more and it left me feeling about the same amount of tired than if I was still running a 75 mile week
I did a hard run last Sunday and didn't feel recovered in time to do another workout on Wednesday. Then I got a little bit of a cold on Friday but it was such a baby cold.
I like training and I really enjoy doing workouts but I realized that now that it's the month of the 10 miler I've been putting a lot of pressure on each workout to really show that I'm ready to accomplish my goals. I think I've fallen into a bit of a mental trap where I'm afraid of the workouts because if they don't go great and tell me I'm absolutely ready then I'll feel like I've failed. Which is not what a workout is for. A workout is just a stimulus to increase fitness. It can provide information on how a race would go but that's a much more anxiety inducing way of looking at it. Anyway, yesterday I did 8 steady miles at Keene and I did a good job of focusing on getting a good effort and not worrying too much about what it means.
I'm enjoying doing 6 to 8 mile tempo/threshold runs at a moderately hard effort. It's how I did a lot of my training in college and it's funny how things repeat because back then I thought it wasn't very serious training and it was just what our team did when we met up and wanted to push the pace and that real runners were doing formal workouts and things. Recently though the running world has become infatuated with the idea of threshold training and accumulating a high volume of moderately hard running. And so here I am once again doing the same thing.
Anyway, since September of 2022 I've built back up to the point where I'm doing these runs about as well as I ever did them in college. Yesterday on a loop with rolling hills I managed to average 5:50 pace and feel fairly in control. I'm confident I can get that down to 5:40 pace and maybe in a year feel that way at 5:30 pace. If I could do that then I would be extremely confident in races. That would be 'best shape of my life' conditions. And I don't think I'm too far off.
Anyway, last Fall I averaged about 65 miles per week with 3 workouts of threshold/sub-6 miles per week. Then from December until now I bumped my weekly mileage up to 75 and focused on 2 workouts with one of them being a longer run of 15 to 17 miles. March will be one more week of 75 miles then two weeks of lower mileage leading into the 10 miler on the 25th. The last week of March will basically be a total rest week with very little running and then another rest week when I go to Costa Rica for the first week of April. I'm looking forward to that rest.
April and May will be focused on getting ready for the downhill mile at the start of June and then the summer track meets in July. I'll go back to running 60 to 65 miles per week and run a VO2max workout on the track about every 10 days. something like
Mon: 10 miles easy
Tuesday: 10 miles easy
Wednesday: 6x800 fast with equal rest OR 5 to 6 miles at Riverview steady--aiming to run 5:40 pace or better
Thursday: 10 miles easy
Friday: 8x200 or 8x300 on the track
Saturday: off
Sunday: 8x1000 fast with equal rest OR a hard long run (14-15 miles) at a fun hard long run spot
And that brings me up to the summer when camp starts. And we'll figure that out from there.
rules for living
-crush some dinner
-do a run in the woods and look at the pretty yellow flowers popping up and say 'hello'
-did you know that flowers come up early in the spring so the plants can take advantage of all the sunlight freely available because the trees haven't turned green yet? then they go back underground and stuff
-this isn't in a specific order
-love your family
-go to the climbing gym and climb stuff and try hard and have positive interactions
-make dinner
-sleep a restful sleep
-maybe draw something
-draw something that you like
It's not that hard. You spend the first 30 years of your life just clearing away obstacles and then you just stack good days. Stack em to the heavens. Stack em to the heavens. I can write a song called stack em to the heavens.
