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PLAY & WIN
I have been putting the 80/20 running rule into practice. The principal is simple. Instead of running to your max you run at a comfortable pace for most of your running instead. Instead of pushing yourself to be fast, you push yourself to have endurance. You train at a pace that is 80 percent or less of your maximum, to perform better when you race.
The concept is rational. You could train to your max but by doing so you tire yourself emotionally, physically and mentally. Instead of improving you hit a wall. The 80 percent rule builds on the idea that by training consistently at a lower intensity 80 percent of the time you build stamina and endurance.
With the Garmin program by Greg I find myself having to slow down, rather than speed up. I find that I need to run at a pace that is easy, rather than strenuous. With other coaches they say “do 150-200 steps for 30 seconds, then do glides etc.” Others say “Run this distance” and “Now run that distance”.
I prefer the coaching I have now. “Run at this pace for that duration” It isn’t about distance, and it isn’t about duration so much as it is about pace. I have to consciously tell myself to slow down, to take it easy. It isn’t that far from running pace. I know I can run faster. I need the discipline to slow down.
I am avoiding speed because I want to keep my knees from hurting. I want to strengthen them gradually, by training at a lower intensity, to give them the time to adapt and toughen up. This isn’t about speed. This is about being able to run sustainably for longer distances, without discomfort. Today I felt that I am getting to that goal. I felt that I could run for longer.
I actually stopped running because a dog, that was not kept on a lead, showed interest in me, and then charged me. I left the road and it followed, so I stopped in a field. For an instant I was convinced that I would be bitten today. It felt that way. I thought it had finally happened again.
Normally I would avoid a car, especially one that stops there, because usually dogs jump out and tend to charge. I didn’t turn around and change route. My habit of turning around and choosing another route, is justified after what happened. I hate that I keep being attacked. No, the dog didn’t bite me, but it did run after me. Dogs do that. That’s why I walked with hiking sticks before. That’s why on one route I picked up a big branch.
Dogs scare me. They threaten me several times a year. If I had continued running it would have bit me. I had to stop, so that it would stop. I am tired of overcoming my fear of dogs on every walk. I am even more tired of having my fears confirmed by these attacks, several times a day. I class a dog that threatens or runs after me as an attack.
Next time I will walk the other way. I will not walk towards a car that is stopping. Once again my fear is justified.
For years I didn’t watch many films but recently the habit has returned.
I am used to watching English or French films about the First and Second World War but recently I watched Blood and Gold, in German, with English subtitles. It’s interesting to watch a German film rather than a European one, for a different perspective of the war.
The film is set right at the end of the War, days before the Allies liberate Germany. Apparently some gold was left behind and promised to a guard but other people hid it.
The story is well told and I enjoyed it.
This is another, recent German film, set on the First World War, rather than the second. It follows a soldier from conscription until he is on the front line fighting. Some of the scenes and imagery of this film are interesting and unique. I think it’s another film worth watching. I like the cellar scene. I also find other scenes quite interesting.
Fury is an American film showing the war from a tank crew’s perspective. A typist/clerk is signed up to be part of a tank crew and objects to this, as he doesn’t want to be involved in killing people. Eventually he changes his attitude.
If you watch just one scene of this film watch the scene in the apartment after a town has been liberated. It shows a glimpse into what life could have been like, during the Second World War.
If I was to be absurd about this film I would say it reminded me of Black Hawk Down, but with a tank rather than a Blackhawk helicopter.
Twenty years ago I watched plenty of film genres but found that war films are my favourite genre and this holds true today. Every war film is a different story, and with war films you’re not envious of their lives. You feel empathy for their situation, and you feel compassion for moments like the one in the apartment, but at the same time, you don’t feel bad about your own life. That’s what I like about War Films. You don’t feel Fear Of Missing out, FOMO. For the most part you want people to get out alive, and without being traumatised, whenever possible.
In contrast, with normal films, and especially during lockdown, you’re jealous and envious of their lives, and miserable about what your own life is. During the depths of Lockdowns people living alone were completely isolated. We still are, but now it’s a moral and ethical choice, rather than no choice at all.
That I can watch films, even if they are just war films, shows that I have recovered from Pandemic solitude. I am getting the ability to watch television series, and even films again. That’s encouraging.
During the worst of lockdown, and even after it was decided that vaccines alone were good enough, and people decided to deny that Long COVID was a risk, we could see a massive difference between parents and people without children.
Although parents speak of the hardship of being trapped in apartments with their children unable to play outside, they had normal lives within the home. Feed, cook, play, work remotely, feed cook, play, work remotely. They were isolated, but within a family, within a social group.
Compare that to the complete solitude of people living alone, without children, without a lover, with nothing.
That solitude still hasn’t ended, and never will, for as long as the friends of COVID continue spreading COVID, and running the risk of Long COVID.
On Twitter, and to some degree the Fediverse, we see that some people still take the pandemic seriously, but they are few and far between. That’s why absurd people like me mask. I’m absurd because pretending the pandemic is over, like everyone else does, would be easy. It would take a mental switch and I would be normal. By normal I mean absurd.
When Camus wrote about the man is absurd for not feeling grief, he was speaking about the absurd individual. I think that today it is society that has become absurd, and the individual that has become rational. The rational wearer of a mask. The rational person who does not want to see the pandemic as over, only to get Long COVID, and regret it for the rest of his life.
I saw two articles in the last day or two, about how Long COVID is incurable for 75 percent of those who fall sick with it.
When I return to having a normal life, of flirting, doing things socially, and more, I will be able to watch normal things again. For now the war film genre fills a need I need, to feel empathy for others, without feeling sadness for myself.
When some people see that it’s grey or rainy they don’t want to go for a walk. They don’t want to get rained on and they don’t want to experience the discomfort of being in a wet environment. I don’t mind the rain. I don’t mind wearing a rain coat and rain trousers, and waterproof shoes, and ensuring that I don’t need to fiddle with the phone when my hands are wet with rain.
I think tbat one reason for which I’m fine with walking in full rain gear on a rainy day is that I used to drive in a dry suit, and that at the end of the day walking in the rain is not much different from dry suit diving. In both situations you’re wearing cloths to keep warm, with a layer of protective gear over the dry clothes.
One of the problems with walking on a sunny day, after a day of rain is that shoes get extremely muddy, as do trousers, but that mud is just viscous enough to stick to my shoes. It’s the day after heavy rain that it’s awful, because shoes get muddy and when shoes get muddy I sit on the stones and scrape away the mud from my shoes. This takes several minutes. ¨
My shoes get muddy because whether I am on agricultural roads, on main roads car drivers will drive so fast and so close that I am forced to walk in the mud. During a drought this doesn’t matter, and it doesn’t matter when it’s raining. That’s because when it rains water soaks shoes. Mud doesn’t stick. My shoes look good as new, and that’s a great advantage of walking in heavy rain.
Rain also changes the landscape. What is a road, in dry weather, becomes a stream. What is usually an orchard with grass growing between the trees becomes a pond with trees, a mangrove. I might be pushing our imagination a little with this image.
There is one massive disadvantage to rainy days. My coat drains onto the tile floor and I need to keep mopping it up, to avoid stains from forming. I often have to mop the floor where the coat was hanging on the back of a chair. It’s hanging from a chair because if I let it drain on the coat rack it will soak the ISP device.
As I write this blog post I am struck by something. It’s the 30th of december and I’m speaking about rain, with barely a thought for snow. Facebook reminded me that 12 years ago we had snow on this day. According to the Apple Weather app the normal temperature range for where I am is from -6°c to 4°c. It’s 9°c today. At lease precipitation is 7.3cm above average, so that’s one plus. If it was cold we would have a nice snowy landscape.
When it’s almost always sunny people like me get fatigued with the sun, and rain becomes a rare treat. In the same way that we used to think that it’s a shame to stay indoors when it’s sunny, I now find it a shame not to go out when it’s raining. At least when it’s raining the landscape changes, the walking paths are quiet, and my shoes are spotless when I get home. Usually the morning frost makes the ground muddy and I need to clean my shoes before entering the building.
Maybe I’m ready for the Camino Primitivo. If it rained for the entire time I might still be comfortable, especially if I sleep in a building every night.
Today I noticed how quiet the world, or at least the area in which I was walking, was. I saw very few cars, very few people walking, and very little noise from other people.
This doesn’t mean that people weren’t out and about. Although my route was for the most part deserted of people I did encounter crowds at two or three points. I think a man said “hello” but I ignored him for the cardinal sin of not walking single file, down a path, with his companion during the closing days of a pandemic.
“What does it matter?”, you may ask. I would love to do a group hike or a group Ferrata but I can’t because from a scientific point of view Switzerland is not yet clear of the virus. Meeting in groups of more than five is currently still forbidden. The groups I usually go with could be up to twelve people or more. I don’t know how long I will have to wait for the opportunity to do social activities once again.
Yesterday I went for one of my usual one and three quarter hour walks and when I came into one village I noticed a green cupboard so I opened it and looked inside.
From the quote on the front you would guess that it has something to do with books but I came from the side, and didn’t notice the writing until I had opened it. It is filled with books. Five shelves of books. The shelves are not just filled with one row of books. The books are two to three books deep. This cupboard is filled with books. If you want to own a lot of books then this is the system to use.
I felt real joy at finding this cupboard. Not only is it close to home but it is really filled with books. You could easily spend half an hour going through all the books, to find something to read. I didn’t expect that such a site would fill me with happiness but it does.
Every time I come across a village where there is a library like this I am happy. I don’t think I have any desire to read most of these books. It’s just that I love that we don’t need to keep hundreds of books at home, to have hundreds of books to read. With lending libraries like these in every village we have a vast choice of books to read, then then share. We have enough to read, for years.
When I was a child we had book libraries that opened for a short period of time on some days. We also had book shops where we could buy books. Now that book shops and libraries are rare due to people buying books online, it’s nice to find book lending libraries like this.
I am not writing where it is, on social media, because I don’t want thieves to go and empty the books.
Some people look for geocaches. I look for these communal book lending libraries. Every village should have at least one.