I Won Again (or My Good Karma)

Last week we had our company summer meeting. We drive up to Vermont for 48 hours, have some meetings and celebrate and unwind after a long year. At the last meeting they give away 3 awards... and I was honored to win one. I won the "Making Bain a Better Place to Work" award. It means I've gone out of my way to make new people welcome and generally make Bain a more pleasant place to work. I am very excited. :)

Variations on Chess

Names...

I'm seeing them more and more... people who have these 'double-barrel' last names... what is going to happen when a "Jones-Smith" has a child with a "Johnson-Brown"?

Will you name the kid "[first name] Jones-Smith-Johnson-Brown"???

How to run faster

What I've learnt about running over the last 5 years:

1. Don't stretch before you start to run. Run a mile (~2 km) and then stretch. Stretching before you run causes micro-tears in your muscles. I know there is a lot of information either side of this argument, but this one makes the most sense to me, you need to warm your muscles up before you run.

2. Exhale on left foot to prevent 'Stitches'. This stabbing pain is actually a spasm of the diaphragm and it can leave a runner dead in their tracks. The diaphragm is a muscle that stretches across the chest cavity below the lungs. As we inhale, it expands downwards, and as we exhale, it contracts upwards. The side stitch can be caused by inadequate oxygen delivery to the breathing muscles, the diaphragm and the intercostals, or even excessive deep inspirations and expirations. By exhaling when the left foot strikes the ground, there is less strain on the diaphragm, asthe organs attached to the diaphragm on the left side of the body are not as big as those on the right; therefore,

3. Force yourself to take longer strides. It's so simple, but you will end up running faster.

4. Hydration is the key. I really honestly believe the difference between a good race and a great race is hydration. Drinking enough fluids the night BEFORE a race (and I'm not talking about beer here).

Boston Half Marathon

I signed up for the Boston Half Marathon yesterday. It's on Columbus day weekend, the 12th of October, in just a little over 12 weeks... plenty of time to train and get up to 13.1 miles. Lately (apart from my mishap last weekend), I've been averaging about 12-15 miles a week, I'm going to have to double that at least to get my mileage up...

I'm quite excited, despite my injury, and I will be running it with about 8 other friends, so it should be an adventure. Time to go buy some new shoes and think about what I would like as a target time...

Hurt

So it happened again on Saturday. I was playing soccer and I was kicked. Outright kicked, not even close to the ball in the upper left thigh, inches from where I hurt myself two years ago. I had learnt from last time and immediately laid down and got ice on it. No stretching and 'trying to run it off' this time.

When I got home I took some drugs and iced it for a couple hours and now 2 days later it's doing ok. Sunday was the hardest when I had to stumble down to the phamarcy to get some more drugs (no one was available to help me, and I didn't want to wait too long), but I'm now moving reasonably well. I think right now, 2 days after the accident, I'm about where I was 2 months into it last time, where a day = a month. I'm hopeful to be able to start running again on Saturday, but I'm going to have to take a break from soccer for several more weeks.

Being hurt is just so depressing though. Nothing worse than sitting there waiting for something to get better...

Energy Spent

"I'm not broken just a little energy spent"

--Liam Finn's "Energy Spent"

Killing myself to live

From Chuck Klosterman's book "Killing Yourself to Live":

"She doesn't love me because I love her. That's all it is, isn't it? The fact that I love her makes me completely unappealing. It gets worse, because her inability to love me makes me love her even more - nothing makes me love her as much as her constant rejection of my heartfelt advances.

Without a doubt, not loving me is the most alluring thing a woman can do."

The story of my life. Why is it the ones you REALLY like are the ones that can never like you back?

If I could turn back time

...I would redo the last 24 hours. Otherwise, a stella weekend on the Lake...