Slow Saturday

We did very little today. With the birth of the pups, we stayed close to the house … so I did stuff like, run, cut the lawn, and tried to play with /manage a model where I could compare a ridiculously fine grained level of data between my Barr Trail Run and Pikes … yeah, geeking out in Excel. But given the different starts, etc – it is not as easy as it might sound (if you want to get it very correlated).

But as I was on the computer, I got a good deal of info and data flowing in. Some might argue TOO much. I, probably like a lot of folks, have scrunched my forehead about the popularity of twitter. (come on, what the heck do I say in 140 characters or less?) But using Tweetdeck, a search term or two (#transrockies, #lt100 for example) and suddenly I have a pretty good pulse on the world I care about on a slow Saturday.

This sort of news feed communal input thing is incredible … In an ultra race where a person with a cell phone can provide faster updates than an aide station, it is pretty incredible. It is important to note – those inputs come with a risk: they might be wrong. Being the first to put up information comes at a risk of not having it right. It seems that in the Twitter world – this is okay, an acceptable risk … Just know it is there.

Anyway, from over a 100 miles miles away … I tried to keep on top of what folks were doing in a hundred mile race, while cutting the lawn, and doinking around the yard. And thinking a lot about ultras. This was while I kept running outside to check out the F16 buzzing overhead for the local air show. It was cool to see the astonishment in my son’s eyes of the technology, the physics – even though he could not explain it any other way other that “THAT IS COOL!” I felt the recollection bubble up of days and (many cold) nights on the flight line where the sound of such birds were common place and no big deal … and the odd juxtaposition of awe of the power of such planes and the absolute destruction they could cause.

Anyway! USATF 100 news:

Rogue Valley Runner Erik Skaggs wins the 2009 USA Track and Field 100 Kilometer Trail Championships at the Where's Waldo 100K Ultramarathon.

Someday maybe an ultradistance will be an Olympic sport. That would change the whole game … I am not sure how I feel about that. I sense an old curmudgeon in me not wanting it … sort of the way there are those who never want a start up company never wants to go corporate … but the game gets a whole new level of serious when you go there. And that ain’t a bad thing … or is it?

Interesting post by Gordo on how the aging of elite athletes will change the nature of that game …

Thought provoking different opinion on man or woman conversation … (and again, it all reflects why I got to a place of “I don’t care – I am more interested in what YOU are doing).

… okay off to “watch” Leadville.