In awe

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  • day272 recovery run

    Run#3 distance 10 mi, GVRAT 58 mi.

    I got lazy of measuring the distances on Google Map. I don’t know how to do it from the phone. There is some problem with the live tracking website, so I am running blind now until they fix it.

    Today run was kind of hard as expected. I walked most of the way.

    On ranking, 13000 people started. My ranking goes from 150 to 75 ish bouncing up and down. I have some fierce competitors. Usually in a big race like this I do fairly well. I think I will be at the top 10% or higher.

    Narative (fiction). The first day was off to quiet start. There was no rush to get to the finish. Maybe a thousand some odd people lined up to start at 1 minute after midnight, the race official start time. It was a massive wave start. Basically people start as they arrived. I needed my beauty sleep, so I was not there when the first wave went off. Actually I didn’t sign up until the day of 12 hours after the race official start. At that point, many already had left. The check in was easy. I threw on my running clothes and shoes and off I went.

    I didn’t really plan to be on the road for the next four months. It was really a flash in pan operation. I had no food on me or drink for the matter. I figured I would go until I drop. Winging it. So I started running. Along the way, I saw people just stopped and hang around. This was one of most casual race I am taken part in. I guess they were done for the day. As I ran I saw more and more people. I caught up with the crowd around mile 5 ish and I plodded on for a few more miles. Most have started to camp here or there for the day. I decided to go on further. There were about nearly 6 or 7 thousand of us, so finding a place to camp could be a challenge. Luckily there were enough land on either side of the road. The neighbors were friendly and welcomed us to camp on their front yard as long as we clean up after ourselves. Not a problem. I have gone camping enough times to know the Leave no Trace principle. (Edit to add: Ah, most took a ride back to Memphis for the night, and I didn’t know and roughed it out)

    This is pretty big deal to have a first ever a race across the state. We have people from around the country and the world joining in on this event. Hey, with the summer Olympic canceled, this is the next best thing. Best of all this race is open to both the elites and the every day joe like me.

    Everyone just chose an area and chilled. I don’t remember seeing any trees around. So people just scattered about. The mighty Mississippi is nearby. I imagine some went fishing. Some were barbequeing. Man, I left my camp stove at home.

    I explored a bit and went to the post office about half a mile away and dropped off a postcard home.

    The first day though, I survived on bananas from the race aid station and candies from the crowd. We were still in a remote part and there is no store around. I didn’t know at that time that the city is about 20 miles away. If I ran for another 5-10 miles or so, I would have reached ‘civilization’.

    Oh well. The next day was a slow start. I was not a morning person. Might be because I went to bed too late the night before. I wanted to plot out a course to take.

    I had a long day and was out until sunset, for a total 11 hours. I really put in the distance. With still 600-ish mile to go, I had to pace myself better. I immediately felt asleep.

    The third day now. I started to feel hey this won’t be over soon. I did not want to go today but realized I can’t stay here. The race just started. I remember back when I was in Patagonia, each morning, we got up, we packed, and on our way. So this is the same. Just keep on treading and repeat. I put in just a nice 10 miles. I started to see some regular faces around me. Hopefully, we will all arrive at the finish line together.

    The next portion of the run will take me away from the city. I don’t know if the battery on my phone will last. So there might not an update until I get to the next town.

  • day271 long run

    #GVRAT run 2. today total 42. Overall total 48.

    I am a bit tired so might not be thinking straight but there are 100 ish more entries so if I don’t put it up, it will passed by and be forgotten.

    The longest I ever ran was back in November for the JFK 50 miler. Today was close. I wish I got out couple hours earlier and I would have done a 50 miler. I was just 8 miles shy. Any way, it would have been too much pressure to run a certain number of miles. I prefer free lance see as we go. If it is too hard cut back, if it is too easy, extend a bit.

    I did not started out wanting to run 42 miles. I didn’t know how many miles I would be running, in my mind, I was hoping to do at least 26 miles and maybe at most would be up to 30 miles.

    I did have in mind to revisit Reston, where I was almost there the last time but was just a few miles short. So today I wanted to get there. I also noted that the Fairfax County Parkway Trail connects to another famous trail, W&OD at Reston. I wanted to explore it a bit.

    So that what I did and it ended up being 42 miles. I came prepare this time with a flash light, so I could find the path after sunset.

    I got to Reston Town Center

    A closer view of the fountain. Reston is the running mecca of Northern Virginia. Many of my races are held here.

    W&OD is a rail to trail. Vienna was one of the train stops. Mural. See viva Vienna. I got to Vienna around 6 pm.
    8 pm now. Trying to get home as quickly as possible. I already put in 30 miles by now. Here is the apt I grew up in (and recently had a dream about it). The neighborhood has developed all around.
    Just a shopping center, but it meant a lot to me. I am now halfway of the final 12 miles, about 6 more miles to go. I have a habit of counting down when I am exhausted. Say if there are only 6 miles left, I will want to cut it down by half, so I would aim for running 3 miles. The time was I think after 9:30. Also this place is near my mom’s house, she said she would be waiting for me. And I was looking forward to it. The shopping center was a milestone.

    My strength didn’t falter much. I ate earlier around 6:30 pm at a Thai place called Tom Yum Thai in Vienna. It was carry out only. I couldn’t really eat my granola any more. I ordered a Tom Yum soup. I was dyhadrated, and did not pee for an entire day! I couldn’t take dry food by then. Soup was really good. I ordered a house salad. It was a good choice even though it didn’t have much calories. The lettuce was what my body need (water/liquid). I sat on the side of the road and ate. It took a while for my body to adjust (cool down) because initially, I had no appetite. I told myself, take as much time I need. I know food is important, so I needed to rest and let my body do its work.

    The reason for this is our digestive system shut down during a long run or intensive excercise, to divert the blood to power the leg muscle, heart and lung. So most people couldn’t eat and even if they did, it would come back out. It is a skill to get the body to do what is not natural. Mostly happen to those who run say 100 miles, but I started to feel it around 26 miles.

    So by 9 pm the food finally settled and I could feel the energy flowing in. It sustained me to the very end.

    By 11 pm I finished the final six miles. It was easy to run in the neighborhood where I am familiar with. I saw many things I want to comment on, like I came across several groups gathering of 6-7 or more people outside, having a good time. The weather was nice, but social gathering such as these are discouraged to slow down the spread of the coronavirus. I have so much to say about this of people not abiding social distancing. It will go in another post.

    I don’t have time to really present how my run would have looked according to the route in Tennessee. I did a partial drive by using the Google Streetview in the morning before the run, and was going to use for this write up. I know I am still somewhere in Memphis.

    My watch data. Recorded 43.8 miles and almost 11 hours. I only counted 42 miles toward the GVRAT instead of 43 miles because I have used about a mile going off the course for say buying food or shopping or sightseeing.

    I ran out of time here and didn’t write about my nutrition plan. I mostly drank sodas, sport drinks, and water. Apparently I didn’t drink enough. I didn’t eat enough either.

    Also I learned an important about outfits . My shorts were giving me rub burn. Don’t wear swim trunk on a long run. Also some of my groin area got bad rub burn. I didn’t apply oil or lube up before the run. A lesson I should learn if I am considering doing even a longer run.

    I am outside of the city of Memphis, but still in its suburb, I think

    https://awesome-table.com/-M6DxXSXO3PkCioEJGRm/view

    meta: various edits. added a link to my progress page.

  • 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