Prologue

Over the years, I’ve worked harder and harder to find meaning in life. But the more I've looked, the more I’ve wondered if I was going about my search the wrong way.

I've been looking for meaning through experience, but I think now that I've always had it backwards. Life will never be defined by extravagant experience, but about finding extravagance in common experience. So for 2009, I'm going to focus less on living large, and focus more on living well. Each month I'll start a new month-long project (like trying to run 3 miles faster than George Bush), to find uncommon results from common experience. Each project will involve daily activity, so every day of 2009 you can check my progress on the monthly projects and see what I discover.

None of these projects will cost much—in fact, I think most will be free. So if you're looking for a year uncommonly rich, you can join me. There's no membership required, just participate and comment if you want. Either way, get ready for a year I hope is unlike any other.

Epilogue

I stumbled across the finish line, but I manage to complete 8 of the month-long projects successfully. Blogging is now over at Wonderfam!

 
 

It's February, and February was a …

A Month of Accomplishment (about)

 

~ or ~

 

Forcing myself to finish something (about)

 

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25

Dusk runs, painful progress and bathtime

Written by Nathan on January 25, 2009 at 8:26 pm from Uncategorized.

Owing to a few technical hang-ups at work, I missed my planned run time and ended up heading out at dusk. I’ve spent this month, and generally my life, avoiding dusk runs. That’s mostly been a decision informed by my love for life, and my recognition of how hard it can be to see at that time of day. Even through much of my run takes place on sidewalks, I still had a bit of nerves around precisely at the time drivers are most apt to hit me. That said, this as a mostly good run.

Because my iPhone’s battery was dead, this was also my first music-less run. Without my soundtrack, I spent the first few minutes over-thinking my form (or lack thereof) and how good (or terrible) my legs felt. My first mile was in the 7:45 territory — I have only estimates, because without my iPhone I don’t have a proper timer. So my run was patrolled by my wristwatch, with the seconds counted out loud in good ole’ fashioned “one mississippi” style. I hit the 1.5 mark around 13, and the 2 mile at 17. My legs were seizing up and the forecast was dim, but in a fit of pique I decided to try and out-sprint my leg pain. Surprisingly, it worked and I ended up running the 3 miles in 24:15.

That’s my best time by a full minute, despite relatively slow splits. My legs complained bitterly about the punishment for a good time after the run, but notching such a huge time improvement was worth it. The only time the pain was really an issue was when I was giving my two children a bath. The constant leaning and reaching did my slow-to-recover body no favors. But again, the pain was nothing compared to the joy of spending the time with my kids. My wife is due with our third child in the next few weeks, so I’m treasuring our remaining time as a family of four.

Fortunately the incentive to make the most of the time I have with my kids (even more than the incentive to beat Bush) provides plenty of natural pain relief. Tomorrow I’ll probably hit the gym and do something low impact, then I’ll try to get in two more runs before Saturday morning’s early 5k.

(1) Comment

One Response to “Dusk runs, painful progress and bathtime”

  1. John-Erik says:
    January 26, 2009 at 9:26 am

    congrats on the new personal best!

    since returning from Kenya i’ve been able to run every day without much incident.

    last night i ran with a group of friends that are all running the 5k at the end of the month. the community aspect was much easier to run.

    i did a pace of 11 minute miles (which is down from 16 minutes). my second mile was bad but that was due to my wife needing me to come inside and pay the pizza guy.

    at the end of the run someone said let’s do one more so i took it as a challenge to try to beat my record.

    my 4th mile was in 10 minutes which was a great milestone for me.

    today i am celebrating the Chinese new year by going to buy some shoes from track shack and then taking my wife to pei wei.

    see you saturday!

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