I wrote the following in 2013, after my relatively poor Chicago Marathon.
I registered for a marathon two days after the Chicago Marathon debacle and it passed this weekend (first weekend in December 2013) without me running it. I spent $130 on an experience I will not get to have. It's not for charity or anything either. I cannot point to one person that will benefit from me not being there.
This hard to swallow pill is a perfect example of the never ending treadmill of race entry fees. In 2013, and I am done racing for the year, I spent $305 on two marathons, $110 on three half marathons, and about $80 on the many smaller races, and I run a number of those short races for free. That rounds to $500 just for the privilege to start the race. That does not include the gas, occasional hotel, shoes, clothing and food that I put into this. I could have Internet at home, instead I choose to pay for a race about every six weeks.
It is what it is. Every race has the no refund disclaimer. There are more expensive hobbies, just imagine if I did bicycle and triathlon racing!
Still, I really enjoy the $10 and $25 races for their honesty. I was not around when races were small, like they were in the 1970s. Perhaps that is part of the reason I enjoy racing the college kids so much still. There might only be 15 people in a 5k race, but the slowest person will run 16:40, and it only costs maybe $10.
Fast forward to today near the end of 2014, and my race entry fees paid this year amount to more than $575 and that's not counting all the travel, hotel in Cleveland, and a flight to Sacramento, California next weekend. I'll tell you what, I really enjoy this sport. I enjoy racing. I am thrilled to push myself to my limits. I'll keep paying the fees, even when they go up. I know that having a medical tent at the finish and drinks along the way are things that I just do not have in training and they enable me to push a little harder than I can ever do in training.
Friday, November 28, 2014
Thursday, November 27, 2014
I'm Thankful I didn't Die on Mt. Everest this Year.
I have a whole lot to be thankful for in 2014, winning the 24 hour national championship, my family, my friends, my job, my citizenship, lots of things. But this year, making it through Everest is a big blessing and I am thankful for it.
Wednesday, November 26, 2014
Fixing the Water Heater Thermocouple
I am insecure about my mechanical skills, so I'm often excited to work on fixing something broken around the house or on a vehicle. Well, my hot water went out Monday or Tuesday and four attempts to relight the pilot light were for naught. A couple websites suggested that the thermocouple is often quick to break and try replacing it first. So I went to Lowes and bought the only one they had, which was only $8. It was so easy, unscrew the old one, pull it out of where the pilot flame goes, put the new one in the pilot flame, and then screw it in, and relight it. It lit up the first time.
Looking into the furnace with the new copper thermocouple. The pilot light was lit, but didn't show up in the picture, interesting.
Pretty awesome. Old home: 0 Isaiah: 1
The broken thermocouple all chared and rusted.
Tuesday, November 25, 2014
Am I a Narcissist?
I was reading comments in an article at a running website, I won't tell which one, but one commenter called the person at the center of the article a narcissist. This started to worry me, so I took the Narcissistic Personality Inventory and scored a 16, and it takes a 20 to qualify as narcissistic. Still, 12-15 is normal, so given one 40 point quiz (statistically not very big) I am more self centered and egotistical than normal. I would admit to that. Maybe that's not necessarily a bad thing, but I do worry about it. Even the word narcissist is not a nice word. It brings to my mind darkness and not the warm and fuzzies that words like sunset, happy, friendly, social, or altruistic do.
I worry that I am self centered and that prevents me from having the kind of relationship I want. I'm not sure it's a problem, I mean, I would not say that I use people, although I do know of a few people in my life that certainly feel used by me. That being said, I think those people might say that they are used by most people, so while I don't feel good about those relationships, the relationships are where they are because I am not sure what I can do to change that perception. In other words, "Haters gonna hate." -Taylor Swift
The antonym of narcissism would be altruism or selflessness. I can site a couple examples where I was selfless, but then again, I spend a fair amount of time taking care of myself. In part it's not really possible to be a high level athlete without taking care of yourself. Similarly, I coached for three years, trying to help the younger generation, and while I plan to coach again, it was taking a lot out of me.
Often I walk with a friend at work over lunch. Something he often tells me, that I would agree with, is that priorities change. Who knows what the future holds? I told my running partners a few weeks ago, "what would I do if I didn't run?" And that is where I am, doing my thing because I know how to and I don't really see a better option at the moment.
What I'm saying is, I don't think I am a narcissist now, and I plan to keep it that way, by occasionally worrying about being one.
I worry that I am self centered and that prevents me from having the kind of relationship I want. I'm not sure it's a problem, I mean, I would not say that I use people, although I do know of a few people in my life that certainly feel used by me. That being said, I think those people might say that they are used by most people, so while I don't feel good about those relationships, the relationships are where they are because I am not sure what I can do to change that perception. In other words, "Haters gonna hate." -Taylor Swift
The antonym of narcissism would be altruism or selflessness. I can site a couple examples where I was selfless, but then again, I spend a fair amount of time taking care of myself. In part it's not really possible to be a high level athlete without taking care of yourself. Similarly, I coached for three years, trying to help the younger generation, and while I plan to coach again, it was taking a lot out of me.
Often I walk with a friend at work over lunch. Something he often tells me, that I would agree with, is that priorities change. Who knows what the future holds? I told my running partners a few weeks ago, "what would I do if I didn't run?" And that is where I am, doing my thing because I know how to and I don't really see a better option at the moment.
What I'm saying is, I don't think I am a narcissist now, and I plan to keep it that way, by occasionally worrying about being one.
Monday, November 24, 2014
I Live in Iowa: Week 179
Another finished week. Every finished week is a blessing. It's true. There are so many reasons that I should not have made it this far. I mean seriously, I am so blessed, I have so much to be thankful for. Okay, I won't get ahead of myself before a Thanksgiving post about many of the specific things I am thankful for this year. Suffice to say, I have my fair share of things to be thankful for this year.
Work was work. The good news is as we wind this particular project down on our end into the next stage the work load is fairly light. But, and of course there is a but, when there is something to work on, it's usually high priority, high visibility, should have been done three months ago, we messed this up sort of issue. Not exactly the kind of thing that is stress free at work.
More good news about work, as we find a number of small issues and fix them, we are preventing more serious issues from occurring later. It's pretty awesome to know that because I was there, and I measured that thing, and found it to be wrong, we'll get the problem corrected without any delay to the program or significant cost. It's interesting, 97% quality, sounds really good, but on a part by part basis, it's not good at all. If only 97% of the 7000+ parts in your car worked, there is a good chance you would not get to work on Monday.
Running was not good. It started out good with a couple 12 mile runs and some strides. I thought I was recovering from my long pace variation tempo really well, but a little knot, or dare I say it, stress reaction, is currently toying with my left leg and led to my taking an unplanned day off and running 2-4 miles the rest of the week. My high mileage week turned into 43 miles over six days. Not a good lead into a marathon. The upside is, if my body need recovery or cross-friction massage, or whatever, it's getting it. A number of runners have been the kind that trained awfully hard and only when they were forced to rest then ran great races. With less than two weeks to go until marathon day, another big workout isn't going to give me much anyway. The work has been done. The final result is all but trained for.
In college, or high school, going to a state or national competition is often paid for by the school and the cost is neglected. Well, in the post-collegiate world, I spent $150 on registering for the race and another $450 on flying out to California for the California International Marathon. Then there will be the expenses for food while I am out there. I am staying with family friends, so I don't have to get a hotel, which is really nice. The thing is, it's expensive. Even if I could run five good marathons a year, I couldn't really afford to travel so far all the time. At least I couldn't if I wanted to save any money.
Really not much else happened. I ordered an iPhone 5S because my 4S is getting a little more buggy, crashing more often, and I don't like the new 6 and 6 Plus form factors, I am afraid my size small 28x28 pockets won't fit the new phones and it is slippery enough I will drop the thing.
Work was work. The good news is as we wind this particular project down on our end into the next stage the work load is fairly light. But, and of course there is a but, when there is something to work on, it's usually high priority, high visibility, should have been done three months ago, we messed this up sort of issue. Not exactly the kind of thing that is stress free at work.
More good news about work, as we find a number of small issues and fix them, we are preventing more serious issues from occurring later. It's pretty awesome to know that because I was there, and I measured that thing, and found it to be wrong, we'll get the problem corrected without any delay to the program or significant cost. It's interesting, 97% quality, sounds really good, but on a part by part basis, it's not good at all. If only 97% of the 7000+ parts in your car worked, there is a good chance you would not get to work on Monday.
Running was not good. It started out good with a couple 12 mile runs and some strides. I thought I was recovering from my long pace variation tempo really well, but a little knot, or dare I say it, stress reaction, is currently toying with my left leg and led to my taking an unplanned day off and running 2-4 miles the rest of the week. My high mileage week turned into 43 miles over six days. Not a good lead into a marathon. The upside is, if my body need recovery or cross-friction massage, or whatever, it's getting it. A number of runners have been the kind that trained awfully hard and only when they were forced to rest then ran great races. With less than two weeks to go until marathon day, another big workout isn't going to give me much anyway. The work has been done. The final result is all but trained for.
In college, or high school, going to a state or national competition is often paid for by the school and the cost is neglected. Well, in the post-collegiate world, I spent $150 on registering for the race and another $450 on flying out to California for the California International Marathon. Then there will be the expenses for food while I am out there. I am staying with family friends, so I don't have to get a hotel, which is really nice. The thing is, it's expensive. Even if I could run five good marathons a year, I couldn't really afford to travel so far all the time. At least I couldn't if I wanted to save any money.
Really not much else happened. I ordered an iPhone 5S because my 4S is getting a little more buggy, crashing more often, and I don't like the new 6 and 6 Plus form factors, I am afraid my size small 28x28 pockets won't fit the new phones and it is slippery enough I will drop the thing.
Friday, November 21, 2014
Amazon Doesn't Really Make Much Money
About two months ago I read this little article about Amazon, and it is interesting. Basically, Amazon is putting all of it's potential profits into expanding or reducing costs. Yes, it often takes money to save money in a structural way. Great example, I can take 100 kg of weight out of a big machine which will save money on every machine we build, but it's going to take four months of a full person engineering, which costs money.
In some ways I oppose Amazon, because I sometimes fear they are becomming a monopoly yet I still use their website monthly to buy things, like books or running shoes. However, in this case, I have to respect Amazon and Jeff Besos for doing something less conventional than trying to extract all the profit from the business. Often as I research companies to invest in, profit seems to drive so much, it's unusual to hear about a different strategy like fueling growth and cost reduction with all of the excess cash. I have not invested in Amazon, and I don't really have any plans to. I don't understand enough about the logistics business, online sales is a competitive arena (despite what I say about a monopoly), and sometimes Amazon does things that may not be in the best interests of authors (me being an author, it's a little emotional, even though ebook pricing is probably better when it's lower, it would still be nice for authors to set their own prices).
In short, Amazon shows that you can last over two decades and grow into a company with tens of billions of dollars of revenue without extracting billions in profits.
In some ways I oppose Amazon, because I sometimes fear they are becomming a monopoly yet I still use their website monthly to buy things, like books or running shoes. However, in this case, I have to respect Amazon and Jeff Besos for doing something less conventional than trying to extract all the profit from the business. Often as I research companies to invest in, profit seems to drive so much, it's unusual to hear about a different strategy like fueling growth and cost reduction with all of the excess cash. I have not invested in Amazon, and I don't really have any plans to. I don't understand enough about the logistics business, online sales is a competitive arena (despite what I say about a monopoly), and sometimes Amazon does things that may not be in the best interests of authors (me being an author, it's a little emotional, even though ebook pricing is probably better when it's lower, it would still be nice for authors to set their own prices).
In short, Amazon shows that you can last over two decades and grow into a company with tens of billions of dollars of revenue without extracting billions in profits.
Thursday, November 20, 2014
The Truth about Expeditions
I read a little article yesterday and at the bottom he addressed some issues of not telling the whole truth about an expedition. I've seen or heard of them all happening.
In many ways it degrades the experience. In other words, I wish that Mt. Everest was a big version of Longs Peak. An interesing objective, with lots of epic potential, but also something accessible that doesn't capture a huge media circus for people who are guided up the normal route. People have died on the Keyhole route of Longs Peak just like the South Col of Everest. In other words, soloing the Diamond on Longs Peak in the winter is a tremendous accomplishment, and not nearly the same as hiking the Keyhole on a nice August day with a guide.
This relates to my views on innovation, I feel there is very little real innovation. Most of the time innovation is the remix of other existing ideas. Is it innovative for this year's model of car to get 40 mpg when last year's had 39 mpg and the only difference is reducing the coefficient of drag by .01?
The point is: "...the truth will set you free." John 8:32
In many ways it degrades the experience. In other words, I wish that Mt. Everest was a big version of Longs Peak. An interesing objective, with lots of epic potential, but also something accessible that doesn't capture a huge media circus for people who are guided up the normal route. People have died on the Keyhole route of Longs Peak just like the South Col of Everest. In other words, soloing the Diamond on Longs Peak in the winter is a tremendous accomplishment, and not nearly the same as hiking the Keyhole on a nice August day with a guide.
This relates to my views on innovation, I feel there is very little real innovation. Most of the time innovation is the remix of other existing ideas. Is it innovative for this year's model of car to get 40 mpg when last year's had 39 mpg and the only difference is reducing the coefficient of drag by .01?
The point is: "...the truth will set you free." John 8:32
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