Life Deferred

I went to a retirement party recently and the retiree is moving to the Black Hills in South Dakota. It sounded like he always enjoyed the black hills and enjoyed this little corner of the Mississippi River Valley because in many ways with the hills and trees it reminded him of the Black Hills. As he mentioned a couple times moving back there and building a house and barn I was a bit surprised. He spent most of his life living here, building relationships, throwing parties, and now he is going to uproot to go a place it sounds like he wanted to go for a couple decades. I interpret that message very clearly. I see myself in that story. I like it here and it is a really nice place, a place I could spend years of my life, but my entire career? Am I deferring life right now?

There are other aspects to it, it’s summer camp time of year and I am missing camp and my friends and the daily rhythm of camp. The groggy mornings, where in general there is actually less of a rush to get to work than I have daily to get to my work. Camp also has a sort of relaxed but serious atmosphere. In other words, we nap hard and lay around a fair amount, but everyone knows CPR and gets work done. 

Another strange thing happened this past week. A friend in town asked me how long until I applied for a transfer somewhere else. I was totally caught off guard. I will get back to that, another example in the last week it was evening and I wanted to just watch something for a half hour or hour and zone out, but I realized I have seen all of my dvds and I just renewed my lease for a third year. Three years in one little apartment! Have I developed enough?

Where does this this part of my life fit into my life. At every experience along the way I meet people who have arrived. In high school some people peaked. In college others peaked. Now that I am out in the work force some people have a well paying job, a house, a car, a boat, whatever, and it seems that they have arrived where they want to be. I struggle with this, and I might always. At what point is it enough? I'm not talking about money or possessions, I'm talking about experience. I'm talking about having learned and being done!

I hate myself. I've mentioned that before, and it's really not that direct or sincere. I mean it's like 8% hate, 85% love, 7% ignorance. What I am saying is that the thought of settling, for just about anything, is a hard pill to swallow. The thought of doing what I am doing now at work for the next 35 years is not exciting. The thought of never setting another running personal record is terrifying. Yet especially for running, that day will happen when I no longer set a personal record. There will be a last personal record, probably in my late 30s or early 40s depending on the distance. A run, I won't know at the time, but my last fastest race. A running career is like a life or professional nonathletic career compressed. It begins in the teens and ends in the 30s or 40s. It's a short short time to achieve something surprising. 

Similarly every year spent working for a large corporation is a year not spent at a start up. Every year following the process is a year not creating the process. On a tangent, I intend to file a patent this summer or fall. I have an idea, and no one has ever tried to do it. I'm going to do it. 

What I am saying is that life is short. Our days are finite. My three deceased grandparents lived for 14,630, 25,508, and 31,618 days respectively. I understand that life is not all roses, bills have to be paid, people supported, etc. However, we live in the United States, the richest, or at least one of the richest countries in the world. Yes, it is honorable to spend your life toiling so that the next generation can have a better life, but we are that generation. Let us go out and have a better life. It's not about the money or the possessions. 

Think of it this way, you, and everyone really, has skills. Some skills you are good at and other are too. Some skills you rock the house and you love to do. Other skills you are probably pretty good at, but not particularly fond of. The challenge is to find the what you were born to do. Now, it probably changes over the course of your life, but it might not. The reason it is important is that you will be more productive in your best position. We all know those people, the ones with the magic touch. The person that solves problems by the score. For example, in Davenport there is a guy who fixed things. He welds, grinds, torches, paints, and does what it takes to fix things. He is often the most valuable person as five engineers stand around waiting for him to finish stuff. I don't know much about him but in the moment, watching him work, he was meant to do this.

This if your life, you just spent two minutes reading this. Thank you for reading! Now go out there, do what you do, and do it as the best version of yourself! Life will never be perfect yet that is not an excuse to defer using your gifts to make the world a better place. 

Success to Failure Ratio

How many failures does each success require?

Think about it, if it was possible to do it best the first time around, we would do everything once and retire. No, from the top to the bottom of achievements there are failures on the road to success. It may be relatively "easy" to climb Mt. Everest today using oxygen and Sherpas, but even today, almost every year a Sherpa dies in the ice fall. A failure for others success. Tumblr was just bought for over a billion dollars, how many other blogging platforms will never be anywhere near that size? For every runner on the starting line of the Olympic Trials there are two or three others that trained hard and put in far more effort than most people understand and yet aren't even at the Trials.

Because I am analytical here are some actual numbers, the Everest total success ratio is 29.44%. Roughly 10-15% of people that run under 2:30 in the United States (550-700 performance every year) end up running at the Olympic Trials. The first rocket the US wanted to send astronauts up on, I don't believe it was Redstone but that program did have 5 successes and 1 failure, had only an 80% success ratio, not good enough for human spaceflight.

The point of all this is that sometimes you will fail. In business I am zero for four attempts (RIC, I-Beam Ice Axe, my unemployment book, and the hangboard). Yet in every failure there are lessons to be learned (advertising, patience and market research, persistence, and advertising respectively). In other words, don't be afraid to fail, because you will fail along the way anyway. Since 2010 my summit to attempt ratio for climbs and mountains is around 20%, because I picked the hard way. Not every climber as weak as me tries to solo the Nose on El Capitan.

Epilogue: Why am I writing this now? Because I am beginning to prepare for an October marathon, and I really want to run 2:17. The problem is that is somewhat better than any other race I have ever run. Going after that goal is almost certainly the way to fail. However, I don't want to run a 2:28 or 2:26. I don't have to actually decided on my goal pace until September, so it's base building time. I have a lot of work to do.

What is My Risk Tolerance?

This is a short post soon to be followed by a longer post with an answer. Once again I did not skydive this weekend. That's like four opportunities I have tried but it was too windy (more than 14 mph). I survived Broad Peak with a death to summit ratio of 9%, although I did not summit. I ride a motorcycle, at least a little bit. Plus I have spent enough time alone in the wilderness to encounter bears in the dark. However, I have never drank so much alcohol that I blacked out or made bad decisions I will forever regret.

The question stands, what is my risk tolerance? How does one measure a risk tolerance anyway? Is there a clear risk and reward relationship? We will think about this before I write a follow up article. Feel free to express your thoughts below.

I Live in Iowa: Week 108

Another busy week in the books! It started with Mother's Day and visiting my family in Madison, WI. Yet another too windy day to go skydiving. For the second time in the last two months my family has gone to an art museum when we were together on the weekend. It's a rather nice thing to do, plus we are getting more comfortable critiquing the art.

Monday once again came early with a trip to Davenport to spend time in the factory. The factory is such a learning experience for me. For example, interchangeable parts is only mildly correct. Due to manufacturing tolerances things don't always fit how they are supposed to. Of course that means change the tolerances. It is a learning experience.

The rest of the week consisted of the normal FEA with a little strain gaging of physical parts. Once again, no job is perfect or will ever be, but I am awfully fortunate to be in the position I am.

Coaching was light for me. I think I was seriously at only two practices. A few of the athletes competed at a last chance track meet and now only two of the athletes are going to nationals and neither do I work with often.

Related to coaching, one of our coaches left this week. S, our throws coach, is going back to South Dakota then to Washington. I will miss him. However, that is how life goes, people move. I have certainly done it enough. Honestly, him and his girlfriend will be close together and that will hopefully be a good thing for them.

Running was great! As it usually is. I ran 21 miles and all of it pretty slow, certainly slower than 9 minute pace. Well, that ends three total recovery weeks. It is time to ramp up again! It is strange, in part I did this to retain some fitness, and I have, although I don't feel the same over rested I usually do after a break. We will see if this is a sustainable feeling to go into a training cycle with. Part of me thinks I will burn out in two months. Another part of me thinks that I will be in the best shape of my life going into this fall. We shall see.

Finally I ended the week up in Minnesota visiting my grandparents and aunt and uncle. I was only there for less than one total day, but it was very quality time. I heard stories I had not heard before, such as the 19 year old draftee who was the platoon leader during a long train ride to Seattle including a two day snowstorm in the Dakotas.

In short, a good week. I hope you had a good week too.

How to Construct a 200 Mile Week?

I'm tired of running 2 miles at 9:15 pace. My legs are tight, because I don't have the chance to stretch them in the stride of a half decent pace. The thought of trying to run a 200 mile week is taking hold in my head. Lindgren did it, and was amazing after. Others have popped that kind of mileage successfully. I'm not proposing a long term 200-mile-weeks-until-I-break endeavor. No, I'm simply suggesting a one time, seven day runfest.

Why? Because I want to know what is possible. I've run 140 miles in one week, and the 21 mile long run to finish that week was my third best long run ever, and the 23 mile run I started that week with was one of my best two long runs ever. It can be done. I did fall apart after that week running only 64 miles, but including a day off and a taper for my half marathon PR. Also, honestly, I feel that a marathoner needs times running significant mileage, such as the mid to low triple digits per week while running some of the hardest workouts. I feel a supercompensation week would teach me how to recover even better and prepare my body for weeks of 130 to 150 miles in August or September. Finally, after first running 100 miles in a week, all of the sudden other long distance objectives appear: Running 200 miles in one week, running 100 miles in one day, six day races, Badwater, not to mention the incredible pace of recovery and general running fitness felt during those high mileage weeks.

So, how does one construct a 200 mile week? First of all, my week starts on Sunday and ends on Saturday. The weekends are my best chance to get in a lot of miles and recovery from the immediate damage. I have had three 30-32.5 mile days of serious training, averaging under 7 minute pace per mile for all the miles. I figure to just bump that up a little, say 35 and do it twice in one week, easy. That leaves 130 miles in five days during the week. Just 26 miles per day. I have done over 20 miles on weekdays a number of times, so 26 shouldn't be too hard. My aim will be just to double on the weekdays although I may triple on the weekends. I regularly run 8-9 miles in the morning, so I will probably aim for 10-11 miles in the morning, which I have done a couple times. That leaves 15-16 miles every afternoon. I have done that a number of times too, so again alone it doesn't sound too hard. The difficulty is running 35 miles on Sunday, waking up on Monday to do 10 miles, doing 16 miles that afternoon, then waking up again the next day for another 10 miles. I will definitely drink coffee that week. I'm thinking maybe the week of June 9th to 15th, we will see. I would like to get in one hundred mile week before then.

In short how might a 200 mile week look by mileage and time of day:
Sunday: 5 AM, 22 AM, 8 PM
Monday: 11 AM, 16 PM
Tuesday: 10 AM, 16 PM
Wednesday: 8 AM, 15 PM
Thursday: 11 AM, 16 PM
Friday: 10 AM, 16 PM
Saturday: 8 AM, 20 AM, 8 PM

It's Bicycle to Work Week!

I bicycled into work today! Six miles and 25 minutes of fun, which was too fast because I was sweating a fair amount when I finished. The point is, save yourself some gas this year and ride your bicycle to work a couple times. Personally, I save about $2.50 every time I bicycle in. Plus, I feel environmentally friendly too because I make less emissions.

95th Percentile Unusual

I have been labeled as a hipster lately. Personally I've been calling myself alternatively a yuppie or a dirtbag depending on the circumstances the last seven years. I realized that people like to be part of a group, and basically normal, but with a few unusual skills or stories.

We were sitting around in a group and people were telling stories about an extreme event they had gone through. I wanted to bring up one of my Asian experiences but I didn't because it was so far beyond the unusual experiences everyone was discussing that it was a conversation killer. You know what I am talking about, the story that no one has a response to or a more dramatic story to follow up. I realized that the stories being told were 95th percentile unusual versus the story I had which might have been 99th percentile unusual.

It is strange to see people interact with extreme circumstances. On the one hand they are more rewarding the more difficult and exclusive they are. However, one step towards the extreme is a step away from the normal, the accepted, and conversation about the weather. In other words, do that crazy thing you want to do! Just know that after you do it your relationships will change because others do not understand your experience. I guarantee that if you move from the 95th percentile unusual to the 99th percentile unusual the reward of the experience will be worth it. You will know yourself far better and understand things that others do not understand.