Wednesday, December 3, 2014

Twos

As of my 7 mile run this morning in the very light rain at about 37 degrees, I am up to 2055 miles.  No longer a quest for 2000 miles.  Now just trying to see if I can reach 2200 by the end of the year.  Then, I won't try (at least for a while) to run more in a year.

Yesterday morning was a bit of a crazy run.  I went out at about 3:45 for a run.  I needed to be home for a 4:30 AM call from colleagues in Durban.  In any case, I ran my 5 miles, came home, entered the data into my log of miles for the past several years, and looked at my cumulative total for the year. It was 2048!  And what was my first thought as I sat down to wait for the call from Durban--"Wow!  That's 2-to-the-eleventh [power] miles."

OK.  I know I love numbers.  And I know I love running.  But what kind of nerdy nut-case immediately thinks about the fact that his total mileage for the year is 2-raised-to-the-11th power miles.  And why do I even know that?

I found joy in halving and doubling as a child.  So I knew all the powers of 2 up to 65536--or 2^16.  Or 2^8 (a number that could be represented on one eight-digit byte of data) squared.

Amazing it is still so close to front of mind for me.

So, anyway, I thought I should reflect on eleven two's that have something (even vaguely) to do with my running this fall.

Here they are:

(1) An obscure reference I made to my wife after my run, saying I had "two chances to ask animals what time it was."  (This is another way of saying I saw two foxes on my early morning run with reference to the children's game, What Time is It, Mr. Fox?

(2) I had two pieces of semolina bread with olive oil and salt for breakfast yesterday morning after the run, the call, some work, and a shower

(3) There were two members on marathon relay team on Saturday.  And we both enjoyed the experience although we did not get a trophy as I'd been luck to do two years ago.

(4) In the past 11 days (as I write this) I had two race PR's.  I never thought I'd PR in both the marathon and the half that close to each other.

(5) In between the PR, I ran a Turkey Trot with two of my sons.

(6) After my races, I hand wrote two thank you notes.  As I noted on social media yesterday, "Thank You" is a very powerful thing to say.  It is an even more powerful thing to write out by hand in this day and age.

(7 + 8) In the marathon relay, to destroy my past running demons, I had to take two hills in the last two miles at a 7:10 pace or better

(9) In the past eight months, I've learned just how much the lessons that can help me to improve in two parts of my life (work and running) are so very similar.

(10) Between running and visiting family for the Thanksgiving holiday, I made two trips to the Philadelphia metro area in a week.  And that had made me very tired.

(11) On the day of the second race, my wife and I were doing two very different activities--skiing and running--where each asks of the other "why would you ever want to do that?"  But we each have our own thing and we stay happy and married. 

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