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adventures / history / I do not know what is happening. / photo / running / weekend — Comments Off on A Christmas Eve jog
24
Dec 16

A Christmas Eve jog

We ran 12.64 miles today. We did that on Christmas Eve, and I do not know what is happening. But it was in the low 60s, because we’re back in Alabama for a few days. We ran to the dam, and then we ran over it. I remember being nervous about riding over it as a kid, and then driving over it when I was young, so narrow is the road. But there’s now a nearby bridge that took much of the traffic off the dam and so it seems like no big deal to jog along on the sidewalk, which is about as wide one of the two very narrow lanes.

I ran over that. I do not know what is happening.

There are five turbines inside the dam, taking the flood waters upstream and generating hydroelectric power, 663 megawatts a day. Those turbines can produce what is equivalent to 35,000 horsepower. That’s the most powerful set of turbines in the TVA system, and an impressive degree of efficiency for something developed in 1848.

There are 49 spillways in the dam, and the signs say that if you collected the water from just one gate for an hour you could fill the Astrodome. The lock on the side is the highest one in the country to the east of the Rockies. More than 3,000 commercial and private boats go through each year.

adventures / I do not know what is happening. / Monday / music / running / Twitter / video — Comments Off on It still counts
19
Dec 16

It still counts

It doesn’t matter if it was a training run, or criminally slow. It does, somehow, count, that it was quite chilly and very foggy.

What’s important here is that another half-marathon was put into the books. A half-marathon was completed at an arbitrarily important birthday. (I do not know what is happening.)

(Today, meanwhile, it is 2 degrees. Two. Dos. Zwei. Deux.)

No individual mile splits were good, but that’s not important right now.

photo / running / Twitter / Wednesday — Comments Off on People, right?
14
Dec 16

People, right?

Look, you don’t have to be nice, or even hospitable, like some people are fond of saying. But I’m not asking too much for a little situational awareness. Yes I am, situational awareness has been directly tied to common sense and you can only get that if you’re willing to pay premium prices. I get it.

But still:

The guy stood there, on his phone, for about four minutes. No one else in the restaurant was thirsty, and it wasn’t his concern anyway.

Except for me. I just stood there, watching, waiting, wondering, more and more impressed by his obliviousness. Phones are a too-powerful intoxicant for some people.

Here’s another example today:

This elevator services three floors, you’re not on it for long. How is it that you take off your headband, hang it on the handrail and forget about it by the time you’ve gotten to where you need to be? I don’t bet on anything, but it is even-money that this was another phone-related distraction.

If that thing belonged to the same guy, it would be perfect, but I don’t know that there’s serendipity enough for that sort of thing, an hour and a city block removed from one another.

I do not know what is happening. / photo / running / television / Thursday / video — Comments Off on Last show of the semester
8
Dec 16

Last show of the semester

The sports guys did two sports shows tonight. This is the last one, The Toss Up, a show they launched just this term:

And so this is the last production in the brand new studio, which opened just this semester, in September, actually.

We’re learning where all the lights point and how the buttons work. It’s a fine place and we’re very pleased. It’s a really nice studio, a great classroom and a terrific jewel in the Media School’s crown.

The students are pretty good too, if you like sports talk shows.

You can watch it here:

It felt like 12-degrees today. I ran to work in that. I ran to work. (I do not know what is happening.) It flurried on me.

Last Friday it felt like 31 when I rode my bike to campus. I’m no longer going outside.

I do not know what is happening. / Monday / photo / running — Comments Off on Oh I sat down a lot, too
5
Dec 16

Oh I sat down a lot, too

This was the most notable thing about my weekend:

On Saturday I ran 10 miles. This is a new personal record for run-only. (I do not know what is happening.) I’ve done a half Ironman and that involved a 12.1 mile run and somehow I did that. But this was 10 miles and it was about 38-degrees, which was only a problem at the beginning and the end. The pace was slow, but that was a deliberate choice on top of this pre-existing fact: I’m just kinda slow anyway. But the eighth mile and the 10th mile were the two fastest miles, so that’s good.

How was your weekend?

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