Complicated and Complex

The existential problem of Book Shelf Zero is that I think I'm setting up a series of wins, but all I'm really doing is frustrating myself by constantly failing to achieve my longer goals. I'm not sure the outcome is worth the stress. I mostly feel bad about not reading the books I own while buying new books. I may get a few small bursts of glee when I finish a book, but those minor moments get washed out by the constant thrum of failure. Not achieving what I really want is a big problem when it takes me 3 months to read one book. I expect that for something like War and Peace or something similarly gargantuan, but this was The Once and Future King. That book was dense in just about every way possible. The content required effort, the margins were very small, and there were long descriptive passages with very little dialogue. It was a 600 page book that felt like 1000. Definitely worth reading, but it was such a chore. I'm not sure I want to repeat this cycle 170 (at current count) more times.

It wasn't all the book's fault though. The reading timing was bad. I should have had a single New Year's Resolution, get the family settled in Florida. That's what really matters right now. The Once and Future King took 3 months to read because I started reading it right before the push to get my family down here. Weekend trips to Richmond, getting my daughter settled, having my family with me in the house again, these are all things that were far more important than reading. My reading/fitness system works best when my life is calm and predictable. I haven't had a calm and predictable life for two years. I'm gradually getting back to that space. I have to make an effort to get back into regular reading and working out. Sliding into passive living is so tempting. A few videos is so much easier than a handful of pages of whatever book I'm reading at the moment. Well, that kind of depends on the book. I'm reading The Promise at the moment. It's part of my Booker Prize project. Excellent book. This one is complex without being complicated (The Once and Future King was complicated without being complex). I was just going to read a few pages of a new chapter last night. I ended up forcing myself to put the book away so I could get to bed. That reading is fun. That's why I read. Reading to cross a book off a list is a real drag (I guess it's like reading a book for school).

The existential problem is that I set up these goals that just stress me out rather than making my life better. It's the same with my fitness goals and career. It's about wanting to be someplace that I'm not and feeling stress that I'm not there. It just throws a blanket of stress over everything. I end up always feeling like a failure. There must be a better way to live. 

Reading hasn't been a top priority for a few months

I've been reading the same book for 3 months. 3 months! I'd like to finish it tomorrow but I doubt that will happen with the morning walk, watching stuff with Maggie, football, and other stuff around the house. It will be done in the next few days. The Once and Future King will be crossed off a couple of lists. No regrets reading it. I'm not sure if the long reading time is more about me or the book. I'm not particularly enamored with the book, but it's well written with a legendary story and characters. The fault must be mine. I'm going to pass that blame off to the circumstances of my life. I started reading this book right before the family joined me down here in Florida. I was unpacking boxes, getting the house ready, and carrying on everything else that I've had going on. We got back together in July. It's been all kinds of work. COVID took a couple of weeks away too. Yeah, reading hasn't been a top priority for a few months. 

Add running to that list. And eating well. And lifting weights. Rowing. My various side quests that are really my main quests have been sidelined by responsible adult stuff. Work isn't the warm peaceful water that I swam in 10 years ago. I don't have all this extra energy to channel into side projects. Important life things are much more demanding. That's not to say I will abandon or neglect these other things. No, those other things are a key element of my mental health. I need them to operate and maintain a sense of myself. I just need to get more creative with fitting them into the space allowed by a more challenging job and other elements of my Florida life. 

Getting out from under The Once and Future King will be a big step to reclaiming my reading life. I just don't relish picking up this book. It's not a book I crave getting back to once I'm done with my life stuff. The wife goes to sleep and I turn to my phone or the TV. I've been reading a few pages as much I can to just get through it. The next few books I read need to be books that I want to read. Nothing too heavy or demanding for the next few weeks. They don't have to be frivolous. They just have to be something that I want to read. My emotional and mental energy is too tapped in the evening to read something that takes effort. Short books won't hurt. Long books, no matter how pleasant, are their own challenge.

I've embraced walking during my marathon training runs. That's how I run a marathon anyway. I might as well train that way. Pounding away with my pulse up at 170 isn't going to get me ready for the long distances. Doing 10 miles of a 12 mile run isn't getting it done. Better to take small breaks and finish the entire distance than cut runs short. I will use my shorter runs to not walk. No issue including some walking periods while I'm out for 10 or 12 miles. The walk I added to the end of today's run is another nice touch. My heart rate was already elevated. Might as well take advantage of that work and stretch it out a bit. Extra time on my feet won't hurt either. 

Still impressive at 30 years?

Weird confluence of some random events put me in a very nostalgic frame of mind. I dug The Nineties out of my nightstand last night. I bought it back in March and kind of forgot about it. I started reading it last night. My entire high school and college experience are contained in The Nineties. Big things happened in that decade. My senior football season still resonates strongly almost 30 years later. One of my teammates posted an edited version of a playoff game against a rival to YouTube. I watched that tonight. We were good. I'm pretty sure that we would have won the region if the field hadn't been a muddy mess. Football highlights were a big part of the video yearbook that the same guy has on YouTube. I'm in that a couple of times. A random joke in a weight training class is the only time I show up without wearing football equipment. 

The game was played in November of 1993. I was 17. I turned 46 last week. I'm far enough away from that experience that I can appreciate how special those few months were without feeling too pathetic for harkening back to my high school glory days. The Washington Post story about that game notes that we were the only team to score against that other team. I had the chance to be part of something special. Plenty of people never have that chance. That season is certainly the highlight of my time in high school. I didn't have a girlfriend. All the excitement that comes from that experience came when I was in college. I had a mediocre social life. I was obsessed with getting to college. I wasn't very complex (not that many high schoolers are particularly complex). 

It's startling how quickly my mindset reverts when I reenter that time of my life. I wonder what all those people I went to school with would judge the life I've built. These are people that I brushed life with for a couple of years. I only went to that high school for two years. The opinion those people have of me have absolutely no bearing on my life, but I wonder how my achievements would stand up to the other people in my class. Wny is this where my thinking automatically goes when I mentally go back to that time of my life? We're all out here trying to do the best we can. I know the outcomes of a few people from that football team. One is a pilot for Southwest after being in the Navy. Another is a teacher and coach at a high school not far from my Virginia house. I was the right tackle. The left tackle passed away several years ago. The guy who played guard next to me recently retired from the Army. He was a green beret. Our quarterback was a coach for a while. I think he's an administrator now. He got divorced and has remarried. 

I guess that shift to the old comparison mindset is about the fantasies I had about my future back in those days. I just wanted to be impressive. I didn't think much of myself so I was looking to add ornaments to make myself look better. That's why I played football. Being on the football team carried a social load that I would have struggled with had I just been another face in the crowd. I was looking forward to other things that would have added to my prestige. I stepped out of the prestige game to live in a pleasant climate. That's assuming I was in the prestige game to begin with. The truth that a high school student fails to see is that most people don't give two shits about prestige games. Once you're out of the fish bowl of a 1990s era high school, prestigious accomplishments have limited meaning outside of a subset of people playing the same game. Tell another chemist that you have a paper is JACS, they may have an idea of what that means. Tell somebody about that at a high school reunion, you'll get a blank stare. 

So unless you're famous, most people won't be impressed by what you're doing unless they're in the same game. We don't have games under the lights on Friday nights where people can see you out there doing your thing. Even then they're probably just watching Damon Boone cut through the defense. Nobody gives a shit about what you're doing unless it helps them feel better about their life. Eventually it just becomes a question of who is still around to attend the reunion. Eventually, nobody can show up.

Get Serious

I've been wondering if it's time to get serious about my fitness and reading. Yes, this is something I've been saying for years, but pushing things into the future is less and less of an option for me. I have a birthday coming up next week. That's always a good time to reset some visions. So what does getting serious look like?

'

Really prepare for a marathon. I've registered for the WDW Marathon in January. I was significantly undertrained for the same marathon this year. I'm not so worried about my time. The DIsney race isn't about time. I just want to do all the training runs and get the distance. I've tried adopting the run easier approach in my runs this week. I'd like to build up some aerobic capacity and be ready for the 15+ mile training runs that are part of the plan I've followed for my first 3 marathons. Longer runs take time. I will need to get up early, which will require going to bed on Friday night. If I'm going to run a marathon, I might as well go in all the way, right? Cross training (mostly rowing) and a better commitment to lower body and core strength would be part of this as well.

Finally read books I've been saying I'm going to read. My commitment to my Bookshelf Zero project is wavering, but there are plenty of books that I'm still looking to read. My wife left her copy of War and Peace here. I would be happy to give up all my volume goals to finally read that. There are plenty of other worthy selections. I haven't used my time alone to read much (my pace is pretty consistent with how much I read when I'm not living alone). Is it time to stop messing around with random books to read something really significant?

Safe Zone

I was all set to write a post about my crisis of confidence (like this is some kind of novel insight into my state of mind). Of course I've written a post with just that title. July 18,2014. Guess I've been dealing with some issues for longer than I realized. My 2014 crisis was rooted in my uncertainty in a new role (that sounds familiar) and a frustration with my commitment to fitness (where have I heard that before?). I speculated on the lack of ego fuel in 2014. No more classes, no more LSAT prep, no more lab experiments.These self selected rite of passages provided a sustained beat of achievements that I relied on for valuation and assurance that I was worthy. Look what I did! I did this too! Here's another one! 

I haven't found a replacement for those challenges. I could change a few details to match my current situation and that post would basically be what I planned on writing tonight. I'm almost 46 (yes, I have not updated my age in my little bio box for several years) and I'm still trying to move beyond the coping mechanisms that I developed when I was a teenager. Not that this is in any way an unusual state. I would guess the vast majority of people keep repeating the same pattern for their entire life. There is a strong pattern of doing very little to put myself at risk in all of my various ego boosting efforts. I'm not one to choose a course of action that would jeopardize my self-image. It's easy for me to look back on how certain girls treated me when I was a teenager and recognize that I was being invited to make a move. Making a move was way too big of a risk in that particular moment. Rejection was way too risky. The risks of failure greatly exceeded potential benefits from taking some chances. 

Rejection is always way too risky. Failure must be avoided at all costs. I repeat the pattern of taking on efforts with enough challenge that I can derive a sense of doing something worthy but with very little downside (as defined by my complicated mental scoreboard). I can take a pretty good measure of what is hard enough to take some work but is still well within my abilities (have to stay in that safe zone). The consequences of (highly unlikely) failure must also be fully assessed. Nothing really bad can happen if things don't turn out as expected. 

I'm struggling to describe the thought process (well, feeling process is more accurate) in the abstract. Let's look at various career choices I made in the five years or so after grad school. It is very clear that the path to positions on influence flowed through the formulation track. If I had been serious about getting into a more influential position I would have switched over as soon as possible. I would have worked harder to endear myself to my superiors and demonstrate that I shared their concerns and would protect their interests. I would have played the game. That's not what I did. I wasn't honest with myself and told myself I wanted more responsibility while doing all that I could to avoid it while trying to convince myself that I was doing what I could to get there. My ego wanted me to be important, but I didn't really want to be important. I wanted to be competent and respected, but I didn't want to give up what I liked or sacrifice my life for a company (well, other managers really but let's just say the company). I wanted what was safe, higher paying role, while failing to acknowledge that I really just wanted to make a contribution and learn something new and interesting. 

Marathon #3

I achieved my primary goal at the 2022 Walt Disney World Marathon. I
finished. Yes I had fun and enjoyed the experience. I really hated
life during my other marathons. I made the decision around mile 15 or
so to just walk hard, try to run when it made sense, and avoid
emptying my tanks all the way. I think it was the right decision. I
have my medal and I will be able to start running again after giving
myself time to recover (especially the chafing on my thighs, brutal).

The last time I ran a marathon I wrote a whole post about what I
needed to improve the next time I attempted the distance. Fielding was
a big topic in that post. I definitely noticed a pick up in energy
after I ate something. If I had only been better trained to actually
take advantage of that insight. I knew that I wasn't physically ready
to take on the distance in a way that would be consistent with how I
like to think of myself as a runner. I frequently forget (or choose to
ignore) that running identity is based on running accomplishments that
are years in the past. My 10K PR, my sub two hour half marathon, my
first sub 5 hour marathon. Those are four or five years in the past.
I'm not that runner anymore. I looked at the times of the YouTuber who
passed me on the course, the guy who hosts the podcast I listen to
(that I found when looking for podcasts about runDisney), and the
people who were in course pictures with me. The version of me who ran
the RIchmond Marathon in 2017 would have beat all of them. I still
think I'm that guy. I'm not.

Yes, I'm older, but the 2022 marathoner didn't put in the miles needed
to be competitive with the 2017 version of myself. I was probably in
the best shape of my life when I did my first marathon. I ran the half
in 2:06 at the marathon. I will acknowledge that I went out way too
fast, but I was only 3 minutes slower than the Patrick Henry Half I
ran in 2015. I probably could have put down a 1:45 half if that was
the target distance. My first half was in 2013. That was 9 years ago
(well, more like 8.5 but let's not get too picky). What I could do
doesn't have anything to do with what I can do now. I can't just coast
on athletic achievements from the distant past. I have to be someone
who runs like this, not someone who ran like that.

So how do I go about reclaiming my former prowess? Realizing my run
1000 miles resolution is a good step in that direction. A big part of
running is volume. I will get on my 5, 5, and 10 plan next week. Those
numbers are just guidelines. That's the minimum I need to hit on my
primary runs to get to 20 miles a week, which will get me to 1000
miles. The volume is just a part of it though. At the end of the
marathon I ran for short spurts. I focused on my form. There was a
difference. I've been so much slower this year. I just can't get down
to the times that I used to run. I have no doubt that my mechanics are
playing a role. Better knee drive, more open stride, better push off
or something could all be a factor in my pace. I will pay better
attention to my form as I ease back into my regular running routine.

This form thing isn't just idle speculation. I did some intervals on a
treadmill where I got the speed up to a point where I had to really
concentrate on how I was running to keep up. My next run outside was
much faster than previous runs (and the runs soon thereafter). My
effort didn't feel any harder, but I was moving much faster. That
should have been my cue to really dig into form and find a way to make
that kind of effort a permanent part of my running. I didn't. I just
kept on doing the same old thing.

I'm proud of finishing this marathon, but I want my running reality to
match what I have in my head. (That's actually a pretty good summary
of all my goals). I just got a very real (and accurate) picture of my
current fitness level. I know what needs to be done to make my
imagined reality my actual reality. Lots of sweating in Florida
humidity while staying aware of what my knees, hips, and arms are
doing (and building up the strength of my lower body and core when I'm
not dripping sweat).

Marathon #3 incoming

It's going down Sunday morning in Walt Disney World. In a way, my
entire distance running effort has always been aimed at making it to
this race. I was running regularly before our first trip to Disney
World (as parents anyway) in 2015. I'd done the Patrick Henry Half
Marathon in 2013 (injury got in the way of me running it in 2014, damn
calves). That 2015 trip was the weekend after marathon weekend. I had
never heard of the Dopey Challenge before that weekend. I read about
the races while laying in bed after we turned out the lights so my
kids could sleep. I wasn't so sure about the Dopey Challenge (I don't
really have any desire to do it, getting up that early 4 days in a row
would be brutal), but I was very intrigued by the marathon. I ran the
Patrick Henry again that year (I was actually just recovering from the
injury that prevented me from doing the PH in 2014 while during that
Disney trip). I wasn't as fast as the first time I ran it, but I felt
like moving up to the marathon was the right next step.

I ran my first marathon a couple of years later, the RIchmond marathon
in 2017. I just looked at my Garmin data from that race. I ran a great
first half but really struggled in the second half. I was reasonably
well trained but had no idea what I was doing and really struggled in
the second half. Tiffany and I did the half marathon at Disney World
in 2018. It was a great trip to Disney, but the race was less than
stellar. It was very cold when we were standing around for a couple of
hours waiting to start the run (in the middle of the night) and
Tiffany was not really in half marathon shape. The race was very
stressful. It was not the experience I really wanted. My big lesson
from the 2018 WDW half was that it pays to submit a time to get up in
the starting corrals. Lots of people do a run/walk combination at
those races. That's not really my style so I always planned to make
sure I had a good qualifying time to ensure that I could get out of
the mass of run/walkers if I did another runDisney event.

Getting a good time for the marathon sounded like a good idea, but the
logistics were a bit of a challenge. I ran my second marathon, the
Marine Corps marathon, in 2018. I paced myself better, I didn't
collapse until after mile 20 versus about mile 15 for the Richmond
marathon, but I did not fuel very well. I just had nothing left in the
last couple miles of the race. I was very grateful for the snack boxes
that they handed out at the finish line. My time was just over 5
hours, which really wouldn't have done me any good for the WDW
marathon, but I left that race really wanting to figure out how to
complete a marathon feeling strong. The logistical challenge for
getting a time for the marathon was the timing of these two marathons,
which are the marathons closest to where I used to live. They are both
in the fall, October for the Marine Corps and November for Richmond.
That is after the deadline for submitting times for the Disney race.

Logistics for getting to the Disney marathon got much easier when I
moved to Florida. The parks are a 2 hour drive away now. I can work
all week, like I did this week, and head to the resort on Saturday for
the marathon. No flights, no day long drives. Just a short drive and
I'm there. It won't really surprise me if this doesn't become an
annual thing. It's just so close. My running is always better when I
have something to train for. The big block for me in marathon training
are the long runs. Anything over 10 is just a real struggle. My
primary motivation in signing up for the WDW marathon, aside from it
just being a long standing bucket list race, was to get back to
training runs longer than 5 miles. I've accomplished that so I have
achieved one marathon goal. Having a marathon in the distance will
give me a reason to put in longer runs every week.

My goal for Sunday's marathon is simple. Finish. I would also like to
avoid injury. If those things happen, that's a win.