I got so much done today. Had a nice long chat with a colleague, a man passionate about the work he’s doing. And for good reason. It’s important work, and I share his enthusiasm. We talked for 80 minutes, and I think he would have gone on a fair amount longer if I didn’t give him the ol’ “Thank you for your time. This has been helpful, and you’ve been so generous.”
All of that is true. Everyone I am working alongside here has been all of those things, generous with their time and efforts, helpful to a pleasantly surprising degree and very much invested in the work they do. I suppose I have, on balance, always been quite fortunate in this respect. Here, it seems like a constant. Having colleagues like that always makes your work easier. And so I am grateful that a guy who could have done anything else with his Thursday spent almost an hour-and-a-half letting me pick his brain about the minutiae of particular assignments.
I also updated a syllabus and coursework for the new semester. Started looking for new reading materials for a class. And on and on like that for most of the day. It always takes a little longer than I think. There’s always a little more to do than I realize. I inevitably have to put some of it on the list to deal with on my next pass. There’s only so much you can do at one time.
Perhaps the best news is that I’ll only have to redo perhaps 15 percent of the work I’ve done this week.
Small victories can sometimes be found in the smallest obstacles.
Like, for instance, this bike ride I did this evening.
Strava says this was the sixth biggest ride I’ve ever done in terms of elevation gain. It was 3,501 feet. Virtual, of course. But my top five rides in terms of elevation gain have all been virtual. Two of those were in one weekend last February. The other three were from the winter of 2021.
None of that means much. Virtual elevation gain is taxing, but it is hardly the same as doing the real thing. For one thing, there’s no risk of me falling over, which will definitely happen on a real climb one day when I am too tired to get my shoe unclipped in time. For another thing, you just keep turning the legs over, no matter how slow that is.
This evening’s first two climbs were fast. After that, it got slow in a hurry.
None of this is pictured from my time in virtual London this evening. But, during yesterday’s ride, I got this from virtual France. I do enjoy seeing that lighthouse.
Yesterday’s 40-miler was faster than today’s 30-miler. More speed on the valley floor yesterday. Virtual climbing isn’t the same as the real thing, but it will sting.
