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