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.
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.
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.
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)
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.
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.
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!
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.
I took the suggestion of exploring some of the neighborhoods around me I am not familiar about.
Having been in the area for almost all my life, I am familiar with most places, or so I thought. There are indeed many neighborhoods that I have never been i , but only passed by in a car. We have mostly nice neighborhoods here in Northern Virginia because we are one of the top 10 or 20 richest counties in the nation, and probably the most dangerous neighborhood is the one I am in, because I am just more familiar with it with constantly hearing about crime reports on those neighborhood apps, such as Life360 or Nextdoor I’m part of.
Yesterday, having nothing more important thing to do, I got myself out the house, just to wander around. I wanted to run somewhere far. So I randomly started off in one direction without having a fixed route in my head. Normally I do have a route in mind – a practice of mine since college – like today we are doing Route Alpha, or Route Charlie, so forth. I gave my routes names. Well I was going to do the same route I have been doing the last few weeks, namely to run down on Stone Rd to Westfield, to Walney, Poplar, then Stringfellow, and turn on Lee Hwy, and back to Stone Rd. It is about a 10 mile loop and I usually add couple miles here and there and would do the loop twice to get 26.2 – a marathon.
This weekend though I didn’t feel wanting to do a loop twice. Having the confident in my ability that I can run anywhere under 50 miles and not get stranded midway, off I went. I didn’t bring water or food except an slurp bar (Science in Action); it is like yoplait but for endurance althletes.
The day was beautiful. I was not in a hurry. I got to Walney but instead of turning to Poplar, I went straight, to a strange road. I was feeling courageous today. The past two years, if I go off to a new route, I would first get into my car drive the route to measure the distance but more importantly to check the trails if it runable. Many times during halfway through a run, you discover that the sidewalk ends where you least expected. So having drive around first, kind of help you to make those safety decision of to turn around, like if the car traffic bad, the road/median does not have enough room on the shoulder, and how long do you have to be on the side of the road if you have to be on the road, stuff like that. Runners have to pay attention to those. Going into a place without first checking it out is not recommended.
Having lived in the neighborhood for 30 years did not really give me an edge. I was not a runner back then and was not much aware about whether a place is runable. This was actually the first time to have a boot on the ground even though it is “my neighborhood”. My impression of my neighborhood changed.
It was a joy to explore a new place. Being in the car in the past, did not give a sense of the how big the world is. I passed through ‘world’ upon ‘world’ today. Walney is a place where they would toll our cars to if we illegally park on the street or certain spots in my neighborhood. I had my car tolled to there once, no twice, couple years ago. I had bad feeling about the place. At that time, I thought it was so far away. My girlfriend drove me there to recover my car. As I ran past it, the light in my head light up. That where this place is. It was just 3-4 miles down where I live and I alway thought it was on the other side of town. 3-4 miles is no longer part of my vocabulary for far.
Then I got to the Lee Jackson Memorial Hwy and I said, oh, this is where we go to the airport. There were many beautiful neighborhoods I saw. One was the Fields of Chantily. I said as went I passed by, I didn’t know there a residence behind all these commercial buildings and shopping centers. Lee Jackson Memorial Hwy is a busy street.
Boy, no one was staying at home at all. Like on my previous three runs, today was no different. Lee Jackson was full of cars zipping by. I bet half of them or even three quarter of them were not essential workers. We were just enjoying being out for after lock-in for a full week.
I never ran on Lee Jackson Memorial Hwy before. I know where it leads, but running is a totally different ballgame. Luckily the entire way was mostly paved. There is a part where if you are not careful you could fall into an uncovered manhole and a 15 foot ‘ravine’, but it was obvious. Just don’t run there when it is dark outside. There is a neighborhood where they have their mailboxes across the street from their house and I thought that is the weirdest thing. Normally, people put their mailbox on their lawn at the curb and not the otherside of the street.
I think by 8 miles, I got to my old neighborhood where I lived during my highschool years. I haven’t been back there except for couple races I did in that area. Again, I felt proud of myself to have ran that far. All these years, I always thought this place is so far to get to. You could say I haven’t really been back to explore around.
The Safeway store is still around. There are many new codominium. They started building those when I moved out. I swinged by my own apartment. It was sad the church Centerpointe Assembly of God is no longer there. The mall across was closed due to the coronavirus. That was a disheartening sign, to see the big mall parking lot completely empty. I only see such a sign in the past when there was a snow storm, even then, usually they would clear the lot of snow by the next day.
As I continued on the run, I swinged by Fairfax Corner. This is a newly developed area. A misnomer. It is in the middle of the city and they call it the corner. More like a corner store, but man it is not just a store. They cleared the woods, hundreds of acres of land and built the whole neighborhood up during my college years. This place is huge. I came here the last couple years for my 5k races. It is a new development area, high density, mixed zone development. This has been a hip word here in our area. Instead of separating commercial, business, offices, now they build everything into one gigantic place – mixed zone – constant traffic – always people. You have high traffic shopping in the center. You build parking decks and condominium all around it. And they have towering offices surrounding that. It is a whole world inside. Funny thing is there is no school, post office, police station, firehouse in sight. I always wonder where are the schools. They cram maybe 5000-10000 residents in the place and have no school. I’m sure they have done their environmental studies. But if you build it, people will come indeed is true. People really like the place. So Fairfax Corner is like that – a busy place. I saw a lot of people around as I passed.
I continued and headed for my gym, getting back on the Lee Jackson Hwy. Gym closed of course even if the sign says open 24 hours. Note, normally I would be in my car in this stretch because this section of the highway is not runner friendly. It has overpasses and cars going 60 plus mph. There is just a lot going on here. I hated this place even if I am in my car. Yes, lived here all my highschool years and drove this section to school every day. I was thirsty at this time for not bring my usual runner pack. I opened my yoplait-like slurp. It was still wasn’t enough to cure my thirst. Luckily there was a gas station ahead. I stopped there and brought a Gatorade. Yup talk about violating social distancing. Gas station is a high traffic area for the spread of the virus.
I reached the end of the Lee Jackson Memorial and it became Main st. It became Main St after all those crazy overpasses. There was a sign that says 1.3 mile to city center, (Fairfax City that is). I did not continue to the city center. I hated crossing that big street Lee Hwy. We have so many St naming after Civil War generals. It was like a six street intersection there because the four roads coming together at an angle. You have such weird streets at many places in the Northern Virginia area and they created huge traffic mess. All these years, you wonder can’t they straighten out the street? So staying on myside of the street, I turn right on Lee Hwy without crossing it.
This part of Lee Hwy was also new to me. I had never ran here before. There is not a lot of businesses on Lee Hwy. No residence either. There are, but they are all hidden behind out of sight. Luckily they have sidewalks for most parts. I guess this is where the wealthier residents live. It reminded me of being in the redwood forest as I ran through this section of the neighborhood. Surprisingly this part was where I had a lot of uphills to climb. They were not as steep as in DC, but they gave me a decent workout.
Lee Highway was shorter than I expected. I reached back in Centreville around at mile 18. I was disappointed that I still had a bunch of miles left. At this point I hit my first wall (extreme tireness). This is the worst part because when you hit the wall, only thing you want to do is to stop running. And usually my goal is to push to the end. Today, there was no specific end point for me to focus on. Instead, I had to plan on where and how I get in another 6-8 miles. I am familiar with Centreville. From one end to the other is only 2-3 miles. So there were not a lot of running room so to speak. It is like the airplane being out of fuel and you can’t land yet but keep circling around. That what I had to do.
I made a turn into Trinity Center. This is a business park / residential area as well, and has been recently built maybe within the last 10 years. I have been in there once or twice. I was surprised how big it is. It is unlike Fairfax Corner. It is ‘high density’ – well in fact all Centreville is high density, but it was not high foot traffic unlike Fairfax Corner. Centreville back in the early nineties still believed in zoning. We zone all our restarants to one location (outside) and residential on one side separated by a highway. The corporate center though is something new. There were like four business parks in there – parks is really just large parking lots without trees. Large parking lot is like Pentagon large. You only have these kind of lots outside of the city. Oh, they have water fountains and manmade lakes. I am pretty sure they are manmade because those were not around in the past. Horay! It is beautiful though. I love looking at modern business buildings (way better than what you find in DC cement blocks – brutalism).
Centreville has one hotel, well probally two. Springhill suite. I had always wondering who would stay there. It is a nice place, but we do not attract enough tourists here. Not until I saw the corporate parks it dawned on me. Yup for them.
By this time, I still had six more miles. I made a figure eight loop. It might seem small on the map but that was like four mile run. I ran to my sister’s house on the other side of Centreville – also I rarely traveled there. She lives on the south side. I hate crossing the big highway, Sudley Centreville Road. Luckily, no one was home – or they kept strictly to the social distancing as they should and didn’t open the door – good for them. I shouldn’t even be tempted to go there, you know. They (general advice) say no visitation for nonhousehold member.
Then I headed back home as the sun was setting. I was thristy again. Sorry for myself of not bringing my own water. At that time, I was struggling with my second wall, and it was worse than the first. I couldn’t stand up at the moment. It felt as if ants were crawling on the back of my legs. I stopped to walk for a mile or so. It was only mile 22. The legs got better after resting. I almost thought I couldn’t make it home. Two miles away and can’t make it back is unbelievable after having run 22 miles.
I got better as I sighted the street Stone Rd on top of the hill. I did not want to get 26.2 miles so I stopped at mile 24.5. It was pointless to go for two more miles just to say I ran another marathon this weekend.
Something can be said about geography and its significant to us as we attached meaning to it. I ran about and saw various places where I grew up in. I saw the place where they impounded my car, the place where I had my first car accident, then the place where I had my second car accident. Is there any happy places? They are places where it leaves a strong impression in me. I love my car as you can tell! Yes, it was very nolstagia when I passes through places I hasn’t been to for long time. Or places where they changed so much in the past few years like the Fairfax Corner or the Trinity Center.
Map of my run in a pizza slice shaped. The left edge of the triangle is Stone Rd/Westfield/Walney – the same road changes name three times. The top edge slanting down is Lee Jackson Memorial. The Bottom is Lee Hwy. Fairfax Corner is the little notch near where the top edge crossing the bottom edge. The figure 8 (with three circles connecting) is part of the Trinity Centre. In Centreville, word center really messes me up – it spelled centre here to match the name of our city.
Blog. When I started blogging and following other people blogs, I often came across a few of the posts, that started off apologizing to users that they have been away for a time. I have seen blogs by the way side. I have one of mine too on livejournal that I haven’t updated in years. I have been telling myself, I try not be like that to leave for a long time without a heads up. I told myself, I will keep up with my blogging. I know it is mostly for my own benefits.
So I took a week off from here last week. It was not intended but might be becoming a habit for me, because I have nothing to write about in this coronavirus time. I usually blog when I have running to do and thoughts come to me that I can’t wait to write them down. I still can run, but I haven’t. No sure why is that. I know I could go outside each day and at least walk around the neighborhood for my own good. Instead, I’m just doing so vicarously by reading other people’s posts on here.
It is just that I like do things by a set routine. I wake up at a certain time, go to work at a certain time, train or run at a certain time and repeat them the next day. And of course I go wild on the weekend.
The truth is I am not so much worry about the coronavirus of how it affects me. Some people I know is deathly afraid of it. I know I can die if I catch it. At a time, yes that can be scary. Now though things seem to be getting better. I am not down playing it, but it is more a society problem than a personal problem. More a concern is like how and when are we getting back to work. We have a big problem on that front as a nation. Not just us, by around the world as well. I have been following the news in Hong Kong and they are just as bad on the economy side though they did pretty well on the virus containtment side.
But this short three weeks, now a month (if counting since March 7, when Virginia–DC area had their first coronavirus case) my schedule has been completely off. I could still try to keep the same routine, but really it is not the same. I only do two things now. Wake up, lay in bed for long long time then get to work, which is just me walking to my living room where my computer is, and then at the end of the day go back to my room. In between is cooking, getting food, throwing away trash, etc. That’s pretty much it. No trip. nothing after work hour. No TV or netflix because we don’t have those. Yes, reading blogs is my thing. I love those of you who post three or four entries a day!
My social run group and my church too, meet online. We do Zoom calling. For me it is kind of silly to do happy hour over Zoom conferencing. I haven’t joined my social running group for that. I should say toast to you with my milk glass. Cheer!
One benefit is I am saving a lot of money! Zippy. I was down on my luck — if I can say that, for overspending at the beginning of the year, and it got me to see what it means to live from paycheck to paycheck for a short time. With the coronavirus, I have nowhere to go. So my expenses basically has drop to zero, except for food and phones and some fixed payments like rents and loan payment. Thank you for all the hotel bookings, they were willing to refund me! At first I thought those thousands of dollars going down the drain. Zup, I am hording in cash! I saved thousand of dollars too for not eating out and or on transportation. Can you believe my commute cost me a thousand per month before? Food was too! Ya got to think what kind of food I ate that cost so much. Now only couple hundred for cooking my own meal. No more having to pay for parking for work! No haircuts either. I’m becoming a caveman.
Do I find myself having more time? I don’t know. Time is a fixed quantity. I should have 3-6 hours more, however, they get filled up with random looking out the window time. Navelgazing? Gosh, I hope it hasn’t been just browsing the web.
I finished reading a web novel this week and reread couple of the old ones and currently do not plan on starting on another 2000 chapters book. I don’t plan to do any review on them. The current one I finished is “Sovereign of The three Realms” (SOTR). Eh. Not recommended.
I have more complaints about the website than the novel. It limits how many chapters I can read unless I pay. I don’t mind paying, but the site organization sucks. Unless there is a compeling novel I want to read, just randomly browsing for one I like is a very difficult thing to do on that site. I won’t say the name. It was like reading on my WP site. Even if I know a particular book or chapter I want to read, it was very hard to get to it. I thank them for offering bookmarking. I could use my own bookmark as well (I usually don’t close my browser now, just keep the page opens until next time).
True though, I haven’t been paying for their novels in the past and had enjoying reading for free for last couple years. Thst is like 10k plus chapters. Oh gosh, what a time drain. Now they made it impossible to binge read, unless I pay. So I have been searching for a new site. I am a hypocrite, haha :). I really do appreciate the army of volunteered translators that make reading novels in other languages possible for English readers.
Is it week 10 or 11 of my training? I lost track. Usually by the 10th week, everything fall apart. This time is no different.
I wrote this entry last week but lost it as I was about to publish and now finally found it again. How do you lose an entry? Ask WP. At that time, I didn’t know how, but now I found it was in the webpage folder instead of the blog post folder. So weird, you can’t move a post from one folder to the next. Does that make sense?
Bear with me if it seems to be the same stuff I wrote last week. I have short term memory.
total mile: 26
Monday/Tuesday rest: 0
Wednesday: 0
Thursday: forgotten. probably 0
Friday: 0
Saturday: 26
Sunday:0
It has been another crazy week. This week was worse than the last. I had ton of time, yet very little running done because of the coronavirus.
Now I don’t have a 3 hour commute (roundtrip) every day. It is almost a vacation I always dream about. Every day is a Saturday. Almost. Yet, the reality of being stuck at home is no fun. I didn’t get to do what I need/want to do. No one to blame but me, for being too obssessed with the news.
For running, I am doing the same route. There are tons of neighborhoods I can run to, but I have been sticking to running the boring same route of back and forth in front of my house.
By the way, our county finally closed all the public parks. We haven’t done so at the national level yet. It is getting there. They closed the parks for cars. There are parks I can still run to without driving there. Our quarantine enforcement in our area has no bite. There is no street closure. We do it in some places, but the idea is not to limit movement, but prevent people from congregate at a location. No one is being pull over by the police for violating the ‘essential’ travel only. That bother me when I look out at the street and see so many cars. Basically people still can go where ever and do whatever they want. That should be good for me, right?
Along with everyone, I just can’t wait to have it over with. On one hand, it seems impossible to get everyone following the quarantine order. The other hand, we have shutdown the city like never before. However, there are too many people deem themselves essential. It is a disease we don’t see affecting us immediately due to the long incubation period and the infected can be without any symptoms but still can spread to others, which many didn’t realize. It might bite them two or three weeks from now. We are not fighting today battle. What we do now affect in 2-3 weeks time.
So it’s supposed to last 2-3 more weeks according to the New York governor before it gets better. New York is taking the lead and all eyes are on them. Our area is now maybe a month behind them (4000 cases, to theirs 130000). NY seems to slowing their curve today. Our area is slowing a bit too, it is no longer doubling at every 4-5 days as before or even freaking every 3 days sometimes, so that is some good news, but it is too early to tell.
The cost of the policy to shutdown the state/country is huge. There is also a cost if we do nothing. Some states still do not have a stay-at-home policy due to the low count of infections in their states. There are some who question if it worth it. Mayor of New York, said yes. For each life saved is worth the economic cost.
There are some good news that a cure or vaccine might be possible. Hopefully, everything will be over when the summer comes around. Hopefully not too long, so we can all get back to work.
In awe 