In awe

Author: Antin

  • day270 here I go – rat race

    run1 – 6 miles this run. Total traveled for GVRAT so far 6 miles.

    I found myself something to rally around for next few months. When my Facebook notification popped up from one of my former race directors – with something like this: would you like to run across Tennessee?

    At first I was skeptical. Ya you go run yourself across TN. I am interested but I’m not there yet in my ability.

    Then I saw the word “virtually”. I’m sold. As long as I could sleep in my own bed.

    Take my money. Please. I insist. Take a few dollars more for some good cause.

    I paid my entrance fee and off I went during my lunch hour. I am running off to TN for the next three months (virtually) in small cap. Whoo hoo.

    As I ran, I started to calculate the feasibility. Sure, in 100 days, if I do 6 miles a day, will get me 600 miles. 1000k is 621.4 miles. I need about 4 more days. Gaah, I should do about 10k for the next 100 days. It is definitely doable. I can add in 13-14 days of rest (give me 114 days). It will take 3 months and 24 days.

    Here is where my first run ended.

    6 miles, finished at the fire station
    Our humble sign: Welcome to Centreville. I have been looking for this sign for ages. They should put “population: 71,135” underneath (2010 figure)

    My progress is being tracked somewhere on here. You can still sign up for the race [1]. They say they will give a map of my progress by tomorrow. I am doing my own map with some wizardry from Google and images from there to give a sense where I am in Tennessee! Actually after consulting the map, I am in Arkansas. Pretty awesome.

    Virtual run summary. I started at about 4 pm GMT, local time was probably 11. Many probably were there in the early wee hours, maybe 5:00 or 6:00 AM GMT and were already on their way. I didn’t see anyone myself, but knowing the field now have over 12000 entrants, I will bound to run into some. People can still join until August 1. My plan is to start putting in some heavy miles to give enough buffer and maybe if I still feel up to it I will run back to the start in a month or so. Hopefully I will get to the front of the pack soon.

    Today though, I am just easing into it and chose to stop after a brief jog. I did about 6 miles starting from the Mississippi River and running along the levee. And ended somewhere near a post office.

    [1] https://runsignup.com/Race/TN/Memphis/TheGreatVirtualRaceAcrossTennessee1000K

    so here is what I am supposed to run with the help of satellite image from Google map.
    Day 1. Ending point. Landmark. image of what is there. US post office. About half mile from today stopping point.

    I wish I can find some images of the mississippi River of the starting point.

    This is a lot of work to pull images off the web, not sure if I can keep up like this every day. But I really wish to see more of Tennessee virtually through the run. Can’t wait until I get to Memphis or any bigger city!

    There were a lot farm land.

    If I am doing it for real, I would have to find a place to sleep for the night. I wouldn’t have stopped in the middle of the road and call it a day. Today though, being near a PO is good enough.

  • day269 dream

    This has happened to me several times before, all recently within the last couple months, well maybe six months, three or four times. I woke up, between sleep and wake stage actually. My eyes were still closed but I felt I was awake and conscious. I was pretty sure or I thought I was back at the old house but in my present body. My mind pictured everything in the house and if I walked down the hallway, my mom’s room was there. I laid on my bed and felt exactly like I was in my old room. No one was home and no one here either. I had two rooms but I felt I was in the smaller room. My mind said hey, that couldn’t be. It doesn’t make sense. I am living alone now, how can there be a room for my mom.

    I don’t know what age I was in the ‘dream’ but it was so photo, more than photo realistic, it was like I was there. Virtual-realistic if that is a word. Well I think I was in my present age – hence plot hole.

    Even when I woke up, I was still disoriented and really wanted to open the door of my room and peek to see if I was dreaming.

    I guess I missed the old place. I moved about 10 years ago. Gosh, not sure what bring me back to that place. I ran passed it couple weeks ago. It was a feeling that I was ‘back at home’. Even then it didn’t make any sense.

    Maybe because before falling asleep I had a super strong desire wishing I was a teenager again. The mind just laid down the images of what I wanted and I was submerged in it.

    It was one of those weird feeling to relive a moment of my teenage year. Well not like reliving, but more like traveling through time in my present mind and body.

    The weirdest feeling was when I opened my eyes, I had to remind myself, I am now here in the present.

    I don’t usually dream (they say everyone dream but it is just we don’t recall them) and when I dream it was about sleeping in my dream. In anime, there is a genre called slice-of-life, where to me is pretty pointless to watch – I guess it is like reality tv, but usually the main character is doing something irrelevant and there is no plot and sometimes the whole conversation in it is pointless too — well maybe I just don’t get the genre. It is a window into someone’s life at a moment in time and most of the time, that moment has nothing going on. Who would spend all the effort to produce an anime about nothing? But I still watch them, sometimes, because they produce certain feeling – nostalgia.

    I felt my dream is like that. Those are what my dreams are like. There is no action, I just laid around in my dream doing nothing except thinking of stuffs. Weird. The plot hole happened when I realized I am in a dream and forced myself to open my eyes to find out. I rather dream of adventures and battling monsters, going on quests, those kinds, not the boring kind.

    Is it scary when you realize you might be in a dream and can’t wake up? It happened to me. There is a pause between sleep and awake. My mind convinced me that I was in a dream, so now how do you wake up. I have seen the movie Inception. It was almost like that except there was no sleep machine. But it was a freaky realization…since your mind was telling you that you are awake in the dream. There was that brief pause where I can’t move my body (I guess for transitioning) – or at least I felt I can’t. Luckily I was laying then. And somehow my eyes were closed in my dream but I could see too with my eyes being closed – I guess I was using the mind eye. So I woke myself up by forcing my eyes to open. It took a great deal of effort. When my eyes opened I would be fully convince I am back at the real world. This time though it was easy to wake up. I think the first time it happened to me, it was pretty hard to get out of the dream.

    Am I losing mind? Is this some kind of disassociation?

  • Day268 to Reston

    I chickened out to do my 50+ miles last weekend even though it was a perfect weekend.

    I did a long run though – a 7 hour marathon. Yes it was super long. I did not feel motivated to push myself to run faster. I dragged myself out the house in the morning. That’s good in itself.

    When I started, I was kind of aiming to run for as long as I could until I drop, maybe to midnight. I checked the weather. It was against me, forecasting that rain in the evening and lasting into the next day. I know I might need 12-13 hours to finish a 50+ miles, and so would be caught in it. Not good.

    I was going to try to run a 50 miles any way but only half heartedly. That was the reason the first 27 was so slow. I aimed to save my energy for the second half.

    I had no committed plan in mind when I started off. I was smart enough to bring myself a bottle of water and the runner backpack this time. For food, I was expected to stop back at the house from time to time to top off on fruit cups and all other goodies.

    My route was going to be a 4 loops of 13 miles around the neighborhood, like many times I did before. However having done that so many times already, it would be a boring run. I decided not thinking about it and just go by feel. I don’t know how to explain this. If I feel good I’d run, if not I quit. Yes, it was a very dangerous thought to have on a long run, because I will likely quoit prematurely.

    It took me a while to get going. It was nippy (50-55F) about 10C. Normally cold doesn’t bother me. But recently, 50F was not something I can handle in short sleeves. I put on a second layer with a long sleeves, which was my normal winter run getup when it is 30 F outside. I was feeling wimpy because the cold.

    I walked the first few miles to get my core temperature up. Ditched the outer layer. I tied it to my waist.

    Through out the run it was like this. It was a combination of walk and run and repeat. Note I normally do not walk on my run.

    First few miles. I love this neighborhood and this was where I started to seriously run

    I stopped by my mom’s place, which was around mile 6. I haven’t seen her for two weeks. Of course we kept our distance and I didn’t go inside the house. She came out with water for me. I didn’t need it because I was carrying my own today.

    Normally at this point I would turn around and head back home and then repeat to build up the mileage.

    Today I felt a bit wanderlust. I headed away from my house on Stringfellow Rd (weird name) toward the other direction. I was brave enough to cross the divided highway, Lee Jackson Mem Hwy.

    I don’t usually go here because it is on the other side of the busy highway. It led to a part of the bike trail that I never ran on but it is considered one of the pride trails of the Fairfax County.

    The trail runs along side of the Fairfax County Parkway, which crosses the whole county from the south-eastern end to the north-western end. The road was built recently (about 20 years). Note we rarely laid down a completely new road here. This road was one of the big undertaking.

    This road is long. The mile marker where I entered the road was at 26.5. That was maybe little more than half way. I don’t know how long the road is. Maybe 40 miles? (I looked it up 35 miles)

    First time running on the Fairfax County Parkway. North bound at mile 26

    The bike trail is beautiful. The whole trail is wide and mostly rustic feel and plenty room to run. My goal was to run as far as I could. At that time my mind went into full planning mode. I want to run 26 miles before heading back. However, I might likely get caught by the storm later on my way back and I didn’t have my rain jacket with me. I was not willing to rough it out with the element. I also didn’t have my flashlight. The trail has no street lights and is rather remote from residents and markets.

    At that point it was around 8 miles into the run. I know the trail has only a few businesses until I get to the city of Reston. To me Reston was very far away. I know how to get there by car but never attempted by running there before. It is crazy to even think about it. I did a quick math. Normally it would take me 25 mins in a car from my house. I decided to run until 3 pm then turn around assuming I might not able to reach Reston at all.

    It was noon at the time. I was kind of regretted of not accepting food from my mom when I made a stop at her house. I started to feel hungry.

    Fairfax County Parkway is like an interstate, so each exit or cross road is far away. This is good for runners and bikers because we don’t have to stop frequently to cross a road. It is amazing they built skybridges for us on some intersections so we don’t have to navigate through the car traffic.

    I kept on trudging. In the end I saw Reston from the distance as it’s skyscrapers and office buildings came into view.

    Reston being seen from the Fairfax county parkway overpass. The city is our silicon valley here in Fairfax/northern VA. It has many tech companies and data centers. It is still being developed.

    I didn’t get to Reston Town Center, which was about few more miles (three-ish) but I turned off at Target to buy lunch. It was the first store I saw.

    Healthy lunch! Strawberry Banana Smoothie with no added sugar. Forgot to check the calories.
    Adding some more substance to my lunch – Bear Naked’s Granola trail mix. If it is good for bears it is good for me

    After lunch, I decided to turn around. The return trip was pretty boring. I didn’t get caught in the storm. I made a second stop at my mom’s place and she made me a real smoothie of her specialty an avocado smoothie. It was a great boost to my strength. I was at mile 20, generally, hitting my ‘wall’ (my glycogen limit – emptying my energy store). It was 3 pm by then.

    However, I was not as tired as in the last marathon but I just was not as motivated to run. I was still on the fence whether to run another 26 miles but internally I was kind of dragging my feet. I knew deep down I didn’t want to do it. So I was mostly walking the last six miles. I hit the wall I think, but it was not that bad. I was just tired and I could feel my feet was not ready to run the diatance. It was like if I push on some more on, my feet would sustain so injury. Having run long enough from experience you could feel it if you are healthy or not, or know if you are tired versus that your body is about to crashed. It was probably at mile 24. I decided I wouldn’t go out for another loop and called it a day.

    I was happy with the decision to head home. I was hungry. There was no point to drag out for another 6-7 hours when rain would come and darkness fall. The worse thing is to run when I not feeling it. It would be just miserable out on the road. I will save that 50+ miles for another day.

    The overall route and race clock. I didn’t pause my watch even when I stopped at my mom’s place or at Target. I am old school. The clock kept ticking to simulate race condition.

    Final thought? Nothing deep but some observations. I went back to a neighbhood/corporate park I thought was beautiful, however, it didn’t look that pretty on camera. My mood changed too I think. Oh, I came across the sign welcome to Centreville, but my phone was out of battery at the time to take a shot.

    Originally, the purpose (a side mission any way) of this run was to shoot photos for one of my earlier race reports. I think though I was at some of the same places as before but it did not evoke the same feeling. They say you can’t step on the same river twice. I ended up not posting those pictures.

  • Day267 run summary

    Week14

    Nothing spectacular this week. I ran less frequently than I should. I couldn’t remember what held me back. Maybe, because my running usually occurred during dinner time and this week I lost it to my appetite. I have gained couple pounds.

    I really need to push my running to the morning.

    Monday-Friday: none

    Saturday: 27 to Reston

    Sunday: 13 miles around the neighborhood

    It is official that my race in June won’t be taking place. I won’t have to train for it any more. It was a good thing because I was way behind on my training.

    So my next race will be in July. There is uncertainty if the race will remain. July race is a 50K so, not really something I worry about.

    I plan to run a 50 miler in August. I haven’t signed up for that. Will see how the coronavirus turn out by then.

  • day266 kind a random Friday

    This couple weeks I have learned quite a few things from Youtube while having nothing to do. It was more like an excuse of not wanting to do anything.

    –Napal, it is a beautiful country I want to go there trekking someday. It was not on my radar other than the Everest base camp trek.

    –I watched couple videos by Sarala Thapa https://youtu.be/wUon4Npzdis

    Her mini documentaries reminded me of the serious tone from NPR (US National Public Radio) news reports or movie of Dances with Wolves. It was a pleasure to watch. I just love heavy things like this.

    -I know about Bobby Fischer, American Chess champion and herarded as the greatest chess player ever, from a movie “In Search of Bobby Fischer” many years ago but I haven’t looked at any of his chess games. I found stimulating watching couple videos on his games on Youtube. After that, my mind was too tired to continue, but it was well worth it. Plus I learned about a new chess game he invented, chess960.

    It led me to watch many chess videos of the current world chess champion, Magnus Carlsen. It was beyond my ability to follow. Plus, speed chess is not my cup of tea.

    I throughly enjoyed the interview he did with Dick Carvett Show in 1972.

    –https://youtu.be/zIE3CFNpZ5Y

    WW2 Battle of Midway. I want to know more about World War II and I like strategy.

    The video from the Japanese general’s perspective was interesting. The battle could have gone either way. The video puts the viewer behind a ‘fog of war’, meaning you only know about things as it comes and experience confusion occurred during the battle.

    After that, I went on to watch the American perspective and an earlier naval battle of Coral Sea. I love this video. It is likely boring subject to most people, but the narator of this video is excellent.

    There you have it. Heavy stuffs for a heavy time.

  • day265 why I run/blog

    Let see if I could answer this in one blog post. I have been hinting here and there.

    First off, why do I blog? Not in any particular order, here below:

    1. curiosity of WP and blogging as a whole because I never really put myself out there. I do have a Livejournal and a Tumblr but that never really take off, probably lack of community or weird community that didn’t align with me. WP has a good attraction. I see it is working. Some day, I wish to revive my LJ or my tumblr and sync them together.

    2. A memory dump. I have short term memory. I want to jot down something I can look back on. It is a project. More on this.

    3. I want to share with like minded people. I took up running and I started to follow other runners. I want to contribute my 2-cent. In a sense it is my community. When people read my stuff and comment on my posts, it makes me feel appreciated of the time spent writing them. It generates a feedback loop, which is a very good feeling. Running is my passion the last few years and I can’t stop talking about it day and night. WP is a platform I encountered many other runners who blog about their races. Running/write about my runs is one primary reason for this blog as stated in my tagline, and my profile. It is every where on my site in big neon sign.

    4. The life project and keeping myself on track. I started this blog with a goal to remake myself. It has been very hard. Change is never easy. Change means to do something different from what I am currently doing. I wrote several blog posts about transformation. Somehow I want to go from Point A to Point B. This blog serves as a manifesto for that. It is a learning process. I don’t have all the answers. Some answers maybe, and even with the part I do know, it is very hard. I have seen where I took one step forward and two steps back. There are a lot distractions in life. I constantly go from one thing to another. Having this here, and looking at it from time to time reminds me this is what I am aiming for and this is how I see progress.

    5. A place to rant and trying a new idea and/or seeking inputs. In writing things down, I go through a mental process of evaluating my ideas. It slow down my thinking process. Many of my trips started out as a blog post here. I lay out my plan and my evaluation afterward. Occasionally people commented on my posts and it helps me to think more about it.

    6. A place to show off myself of course. I impress myself from time to time. Many things I did, might not be impressive at the time, but after a while, I look back and I am kind of amazed that I did all that. For example, I set a PR (personal best) on a 5k run one summer, and at the time I thought that was not much and I would break it in no time, however, that record has been standing for three years. And looking back, I am amazed that was me back then. I have some of my fans who think I am awesome. I am, but I like that feeling too to be an ‘expert’ at something.

    7. A tool to communicate. This is obvious. All writing is meant to be read. I started running to impress my lady. And I was certain that she would like to read this and be impressed by it. So it is really is for my woman. Unfortunately, she doesn’t read it. Also many (if not all the) people I care about, you can say in the (my) real world, don’t read my stuff. But I have a steady stream of virtural or online followers who I never met in real life (face to face) who do read my stuff, so I am very happy.

    8. Making friends. It ties everything together. I saw some blogs that been around for many years like 5-6 years and the author is fairy consistent in putting out a post every month, yet it has no follower. Only the author know about the site visitor statistics. My point is some author like to write something, regardless it is being read it or not. It seems sad. My blog might be like that too. However, I had couple readers who are actively engage in my posting and it really brings this goal across. Writing is meant to be read and talk about. More than that it builds friendship whether near or far. There is a dynamic. There are people who care about if the quarantine is driving me crazy. There are things I read on here (WP) that really touch my heart.

    I wanted to write this post for a long time. I think I might have done one but I am too lazy to go back to check. That is one of my complaints of WP or blog, that you don’t remember what you wrote and it is difficult to find out. If it is a repetition, I apologize. I repeat myself a lot and tend to forget about what I wrote or didn’t write.

    Second point: Why did I run?

    The answer is simple. woman and passion. I originally planned this to be a separate posting. Until a reader asked me about it while this blog was being prepared. The answer is pretty much the same, so I decided to combine it to one.

    A woman got me into running of course, but then I found my true love through her. I haven’t gone to bed without thinking or talking about it – day and night it is on my mind and that has been for the past four years.

    The woman I was dating at the time ran marathons. It was natural or so I thought for me to run as well. I loved it the first time I did it. In my mind I was good at it. I still think I am pretty good. My time is decent. It is not the fastest but people would love to do what I can do. Of course I based my time off her time. At that point I didn’t know or realize guys usually are a bit better than women physically. It was not a surprise I could run faster than her. In no time, I was outdoing her. I am naturally an overachiever. But still my aim was to impress her. I think she was impressed! She is the only woman I know who listened to me talk about my race and not get bored and I went on and on 24-7. And you can tell, I was not putting her to sleep with my talk. Many do have their eyes gazed over if I go into it for too long. Hence, I started blogging instead of talking to people about it.

    Today, I have done more marathons than I can count with my hands or toes (well almost). I think I did 17-18 to date, not including the ultras or virtual races. I looked at it and I feel pretty impressed. I remember I was at a marathon finish not long ago (NCR Marathon) and got on a bus to take me back to the starting line. I talked with woman who also just finished and waiting to get back to the start where we had our cars parked. She told me she has done something between 26 or 34 marathons. I had only done about 4 including the one I just did at the time. In my mind, I was wondering when would I be like that. I was floored by her at that time because she was the first person I met who done ridculously a lot of marathons (at that time anything more than the fingers on hands is a lot). She blew my boat out the water. Now looking back, I am not that far behind her. She was telling me she only started a few years ago. It was unbelievable.

    I still run hoping to impress ladies, misguided as it may be. Guys are weird, I tell you or is it just me. I do feel proud of my ability. I am running farther and farther each year (with a goal one day soon I might cross the continent on foot). I think that is very impressive. If I think rationally though, it is difficult to impress the public about running. Maybe impress is the wrong word – more like get them to feel the passion about it.

    Many in the general public cannot really relate to running. To most a 3 mile is same as a 13 mile or a 26 mile (a marathon) because it is incomprehensible since not a lot can run even a mile. At first I thought that was an exception. I went on a hike with this lady once (a hike by the public definition, now a day a hike for me has to be 20+ miles). Afterward, she wanted to run. I think my talk of running was rubbing off me to her. So we ran. It was maybe even less of a quarter mile in she was out of breath (as if she was about to be passed out). I was – stunt. What did I do! She was not running at my speed. I slowed down myself even at the very beginning. Any way, since then I realize I have an ability to run that some people don’t. This point was made clearly to me last summer when I got Lyme disease and couldn’t do any physical activity at all. I imagine now everyone in the public have something like Lyme disease that prevents them from running and enjoying it. That is the key, enjoying. Most people think of running as suffering.

    So whether 1 mile or 10 mile or a marathon, they are all tough distances to the public. I always joke about that a marathon is like a 5k vs versa. In a sense yes. A marathon could be as easy as a 5K and a 5K is as hard a marathon. One mile is just tough for one who has not done it yet and if they try think ya 26 times of that, it is impossible to do that.

    I have a friend who I hike with from time to time. She understands mile and stuff better than me, because she can innately tell you how far a mile is (I can’t do it without a gps watch). She is surprised that I can’t tell how far a mile is even after all these years. She said she just does. Yet if I say I will be running 50 miles or 26 miles this weekend, there is still a disconnect of not understand immediately what that means because she hasn’t run that distance before. I sense the glazed look from her. The crazyness she think I am in. But if I tell her I am hiking 26-50 miles over the weekend, then she gets it. She knows I will be having a heaven of a time. She would say sweet. Enjoy yourself out there, but she won’t say that if I say I am going out to run such and such miles.

    While I talked about running with her, it was like reading from a dictionary. She can define all the terms and stuff but she has no functional understanding about them. Running is not her thing and it was not translatable to her from her hiking experience. That’s ok. That was the reason I have the blog. It captures the feeling that I hope can be lasting memorial of a run or a race that she can understand.

    When you like something so much, you want the people around to get it too!

    I probably could create a big list of reasons why I run like why I blog. Almost each post I have is a reason why I am doing it. The list mirrors the above why do I blog — which now you know is to share why I run. Ha.

    Meta: crazy dangerous undo function in WP app can delete the content of an unpublished post. There is no undo of the undo (redo doesn’t work). Don’t play around with the undo function in the app. I can’t stand the web version either. (Sorry again for those who received this twice)

  • day264 week summary

    It’s Week 13 or something. About 7 more weeks left before my race if there is one.

    Total is around 25-30 miles something. It is much much less than I want, but what do I do? I am sorely distracted by the coronavirus as you can tell from my previous posts.

    Monday – 4. I felt so guilty of not doing my daily run, I got out and ran on my supposingly rest day. Monday usually my rest day. But what to rest when the whole week has been resting.

    Tuesday – 6. I think was 6. I don’t remember how I feel. Usually bad. I haven’t workout at my max heart rate and now each run is like a struggle.

    Wednesday. 7. Might been more. I think I really enjoyed the run by today

    Thursday. I think was 0. I think I goofed off that day.

    Friday–Saturday. 0. I started to have amnesia. Each day blended together. I felt I did go out and did 10 miles but the memory was so vague. I don’t remember what happened. Then for Friday night, I planned to wake up at 3 AM to do my 52 mile run on early Saturday, but it wasn’t meant to be. I chicken out. The weather wasn’t too good, the wind was strong, it was cold. yadda yadda. It was raining. I then went to bed again around 6 am in the morning and woke up at noon time. Nope still not good to run. I went back to bed around 3 pm after eaten lunch and did my laundry. Woke up around 6 pm. The weather was nice then. Sunny. Nope don’t feel like running on an empty stomach. More the same until Sunday morning. I laid in bed at night and watched videos.

    Sunday 12-13. I felt I had another chance to do a run. Woke up at 3 am again but it was too dark outside to be running. I was a big wuss. I didn’t get out the door until it was 4 pm more than 12 hours later. Doing just one loop. Yay. done.

    I don’t know. Actually I do know myself. I hate long runs. The thought about it would make me want to put it off. With run. I have to just do it. It is not bad once I get going. The hard part is to get going. Or I have to lie to myself, like let go for a walk.

    I hate being the only one out there. The cold and dark thing bother me. However, those were exactly the things/feeling I like. I like being alone by myself on the road or in the woods cranking at it. Weird. I can’t explain it. It is a both a love and hate. When I run I feel to be myself – the real me. I am not very good at it but I do feel I am in my element. I am in my world and I could go on and on. The world disappears before me. Pyschologically, probably is disassociation. I am in my own world. There is a peace there.

    Then of course I get exhausted, and nothing matters any more by that time, and I couldn’t keep a single thought straight, yet my body is still able to hammer away. During the run, I had clear insight of how to describe it and then it became incomprehensible now. Readers will have to wait till next time when I remember about this. I hate to get that tired and yet I love it.

    Injury: I don’t really have any yet. I know it takes time to build up the base again. I wish running is easy. I can tell by fourth and fifth run my legs do not like me very much. They are hinting saying they are not ready for this. Running involves luck. I am not always at my peak. I feel it takes luck to have everything together – my mental game and my body to coordinate together. Finger crossed no injury.

  • day263 cabin fever

    I am losing my mind. It is not even a solitary confinement, but it feels like one. I don’t know how prisoners are dealing but this is tough.

    I want to get outside. There is nothing normal about staying at home. First couple weeks seemed great but now, it is like how long do I have to stay like this. I can’t stand it. I literally feel like I am losing my mind.

    Such a strange day every day.

    I now kind of have to resign to the fact that it might take a long time – we are talking about months – maybe another 2-3 months. Our governor gave a date of June 10. Not sure what that date is, but it is telling us nothing is normal until then. However, our number of infections is still rising, but at a slower rate than the day before. It is still rising. We have not hit the top of the curve yet. The date for that is April 26 for our area. One more week.

    I have to remind myself not to get a false sense that we are improving by looking at New York. They hit their apex of the curve and is on the downward slope or plateauing. We like to think we are too on the downward slope for our area too. Nope. We are like two weeks behind them. We are still on the upward side. But people are out and about now. Or is it just me?

    Our state is also doing better than our neighboring state or the capital (DC). It might make people, myself included to think everything is better now. There is now traffic on the road!! Not proud of that but see people can’t put up with this crap any more. Yup, Viriginians should be out protesting. People around the nation are shaking their heads at us. I blame cabin fever. I wish to hear from our governor to tell us, you guys need to stay inside.

    I have done that this weekend.

    On Friday, the parking lot at my food store was full! When I went in, man, the place was packed – I am exaggerating but there were a lot of people – I turned around and headed back out the door. There was no need to fight with all the people. I know, it was a peak period, and everyone wanted to buy food to make dinner etc. I usually shopped around 9-10 pm and it is much less crowded, no line at the check-outs. It’s just hard to change everyone’s behavior – why do everyone feels they need to go to the store right before dinner time? Me included.

    Why is our state better than the neighboring state? I don’t have an answer.

    My guess is there is a river separating us and ‘them’. DC of course is a hot spot just because it is more densely populated, and more people going in and out (tourist, business, govt offficials, commuters, etc). Note that there are a lot of essential employees since our federal government has not shut down. People still need to go to work.

    They also say wealth disparity can affect the number. If we are wealthier that could explain it. But I don’t think we are wealthier than Maryland, at least Fairfax County vs Montgomery County or Howard County. But VA is always perceived as being richer. I could look up the stats on this. [1] Can’t really tell from the stat. MD spent more per capita in 2016 data than VA. I looked up the county budget too, it seems Montgomery budgeted for $4.6-4.7 billion in revenue 2018. Fairfax budgeted for $4.1 expenses in 2018. not apple to apple, but seemed to be about the same, with Maryland having a slight lead.

    Back to geography, our northern Virginia land area is smaller than Maryland side. Maybe a third of the total Washington region. That could explain why we have a bit less of the infections (about 4000 cases difference). We have less metro stops in VA for the same reason.

    Why does it concern me? Because the overall rate seems lower here in VA makes me and others feel we safer and we are doing the right thing! Thinking deeper at the reasons behind it can reveal a fallacy. I think though the northern VA might have the same rate of infection as DC and MD, or we might even have more than them – it is just our statistics might be skewed because we have more land/people in the country side who haven’t caught the infection yet. We don’t have a regional specific statisitics. Our state population is larger but more spread out and they are all far away from the northern Virginia, so making the numbers seem fewer infections per capita. This might give us a false sense of security, because watch out now that people here (myself included) started going out their houses and we will increase the rate of infection!

    Some say Governor Cuomo’s briefing is like a father lecturing his children. In a sense he is. I like that – yes stop fooling around people – kind of talker. We know we shouldn’t be out, but having someone being ‘mean’ and lecturing us about it is helpful. Otherwise, I will be running about.

    I feel in Virginia, we don’t have that fatherly figure imploring us to stay in door. Instead, we have the President next door telling us to protest to our state for a quick reopening! I think we are going to whether or not our President is encouraging it or not.

    [1] https://ballotpedia.org/Maryland_state_budget_and_finances#Estimated_2016_expenditures

  • day262 midweek look

    I hope to do a post over the weekend, so this is more like a mid week posting for me, but to you readers, it is weekend already.

    Time flies. While in college, my roommate used to tease me whenever I said time flies. He would ask me to show him how does it fly or something like that, because he likes to be very literal — since both of us were majoring in engineering, we were literal and only say things with precision.

    Time does fly. Oh Boy. I can’t believe a week has gone by. Not just a week, but a month. Five weeks I think of being stuck at home, 40 days to be exact since we have the first coronavirus case in the DC area. Why does it matter? Like everyone because of it, our lives – my life has been turned up side down. I know, I can’t consider myself suffering – having read and saw on the news of those who lost someone in this pandemic. Or those whose job was lost from the all the closings. I read a sad posting of a runner losing her father to the virus on here WP. Not sure if it is alright to share it, because it is not my story. Yet, it was very touching because it brought the virus to a personal level and not something I read on the news. [1]

    My personal experience during these five weeks was not bad as all. As I wrote in other entries, it was more like a dream vacation. I am working from home of course, so it was not like a vacation-vacation per se. But it can be as relax as it can get. I won’t go into the details, but you can imagine. I do dress up each day and treat my work as if I am at the office from 9-5. I have a separate area just for work. However, all work is hectic and burdensome – real pain in the butt – if I have the choice to retire, I would, except I am still too young. Everyone say I have 30+ years to put in my due. More on retirement in another post – I try to be one of the FIRE, google it.

    So working from home is not coasting at all. There are a lot I can say about it. My stress level is through the roof, yes coping with the virus plus just normal business cycle, we have a lot work – not a down turn at all for us, plus our company is in a transition to a new ownership, and plus a relocation of office. Yes, everything is through the roof. Virus thing and closing regulations are not helping when you need to get certain things to happen by a certain date. Things go wrong when they are not supposed to go wrong. I think like an engineer you know. We should have everything in control. I won’t get into it, but that is the stress of required me(or my company) to do the impossible each day.

    I keep saying each day is like the day before and each week is like the week before. The only thing changes is how the coronavirus is spreading. In our community, we have over 1000 infections (1375). We have about 1 million people in our county. So it is 1375/mil, and can be thought of roughly is 1 in 1000 (my neighboring state and/or county is double that even though we are identical in every way – I will write in a separate post why that is if I get to it – make you think how the statistics is being counted). What this means is there is likely within a typical week, I would run into one person who has it. And this is the known infections (what is counted). They say the unknown (unreported) numbers of infection might be has high as 10 times that, so at 1 in 100.

    Well I don’t think I would come into contact of 1000 people in a week especial now in a lockdown mode or else I am not locking down. But think with me, would a store or restaurant (carry-out) has 1000 customers in a day or in a week? I do go to the store at least once a week. Granted that those who know they have the disease would be in isolation. However, the spread is still ongoing even after a month, meaning there are still those who are carriers but don’t realize it. So 1-1000 is not farfetch at all. The window of me come in contact at that brief time is small, but in the back of my head, it is telling me, some time during today or this week, someone with the virus has passed through here!

    The scary thing is I read about a store that was rumored to have 16 infections with many coming from the store employees – and the store is still open. This is a store I used to go to when I was still at work, but I haven’t gone there now since working from home. If readers want to look it up, search for Logan Circle, DC and Whole foods, infection. I won’t provide a link. This is the one that was published in the national newspaper. But the point is, how many other stores also have ‘cluster of infections’ like this except we just don’t know about? I suspected many stores are like this one and this particular store is not an exception but the norm. Hence it is still open and operating as normal!

    If not for the virus, I can say with certainty what I will do over the weekend. I do have plans, but nothing is certain. Ha, this is reason for this post. Not about the virus, but my life. Yes, let get on with it and be safe about it.

    One of the plans is to run a 50 mile this weekend. If I could pull this off, man, it would be one hell a weekend. It might be a 15-16 hour run. So I was thinking of starting at 3 am and finish around 6-7. I wouldn’t want to finish in the dark. I rather stsrt thr run when it is dark than finishing after sun is set.

    I haven’t decided which day to do it on, Early Saturday or Sunday morning?

    Also, would I quit when it becomes too hard? Last time I did it, there was no option to quit halfway because I was in the woods and usually 10-15 miles to the next aid station. The only option at the time was to run and tried to reach the aid station. Now, it could be very tempting to quit any time before the finish because the house wouldn’t be too far to get to and there is always uber (ya coronavirus etc, bad not social-distancing), but bailing option is available if ever comes to that.

    I might be too chicken to do it this weekend and would have to defer to the following week or even one after. Any way, Happy Friday!

    [1] https://ariruns.wordpress.com/2020/04/12/this-wasnt-supposed-to-happen/

  • day261 week summary

    Total: 34

    Monday – Friday o mile. Can’t remember much. There were couple days I dressed up to do a run but then wimped out at the last moment after sticking my hand out the door and pulling it back because the weather was too ‘cold’ or it was raining. There was even one night I fell asleep in my running clothes because I was too lazy to change them back – lucky I didn’t put on my running shoes. Weather has been on the cool side for us. High 50s to low 60s during the day, but fell to 45 ish at night. It was not too cold to run, but I have been wimpy lately and looked for all kinds of excuses to stay indoor.

    Saturday 24. Did my around the neighborhood tour. It was my first ever to expand a bit outside of my comfort zone. My goal one day is to run across the town (the big town, into DC and beyond), which is a big project, yet I almost have everything in place for it now. Maybe next weekend or the week after, I will do it.

    Most of my training runs for the past couple years have been in DC but I am not as familiar of the area around my house on foot than at my workplace. The lockdown has been an opportunity for me to explore more places nearer to home.

    Sunday: 10. Going back out on the second day gave that feeling that all your bones in your body are broken. At every position I turned during my sleep, my bones would crackle. It feels good too but I am a bit worried that I am getting old. My fitness level has dropped significantly with the last four weeks of staying in. It used to be that I woke up and I was all refreshed to run again.

    I had a wonderful time pondering on the meaning of life on one of my runs. I think it boils down to having able to have Choices in life. Sometimes I felt I didn’t have much choices, and felt stuck. Then I saw the choices I made and was thankful I have them. I was thinking what is driving me on? I work to have money so that I can run. Why am I running? Because I want to reach a certain goal, like to run fast enough to get into the Boston Marathon. That makes me happy.

    We are ultimately pursuing something that satisfies. The process of the pursuit gives meaning to our life. At least that for me. Hunkering down inside slaving away at my work so that I could be outside and run, brings smile to my face. Then it also makes me smile when I come back in limping because I am so tired that I can’t hardly stand up. I like the irony. I ask myself all the time, do I really like running that much.