Running fears, real and imaginary

Warning: this topic degenerates into talk about zombies.

As frequently as I run, I have almost never run scared. Not that I want to run with the fear of god in me, but it occurred to me that most people, including pros, set out to run distance X with effort Y and pain level Z and usually follow through to a tee. Race winners work hard but look relaxed. My idle thought was to imagine how often runners use their skills -however unexpectedly- to save their very lives?

Movie review: Tokyo Olympiad (1965)

A few days ago I decided to watch Kon Ichikawa's 170-minute long Tokyo Olympiad, chronicling the two weeks of competition of the 18th summer games. The games were originally intended to be filmed by Akira Kurosawa, but things fell though after he demanded total control of the opening ceremonies. Japan's officials preferred to hire someone who'd play up the post-war reconstruction and economic growth of the city. Obligingly there are early shots of old buildings demolished to make way for the new 71,000-seat National stadium. It's fair to say the movie was unavoidably inspired by Riefenstahl's 226-minute-long Olympia (1938), an artistically-managed depiction of Berlin's summer Olympic games.

Why only write about running?

Is there some unspoken rule that when you start a blog you are expected to write about a single subject? I have no issue with that sort of dedication, but when the possibilities of topics could be endless it feels self-limiting to pigeonhole yourself by default. It's a personal bias, but I see enough overspecialization in academia as it is. Having said that, grad students tend to be the ones you find most hyper-focused; I feel well-rounded professors should be writing blogs too. So it goes.

McGill Team Challenge

I spent most of Saturday volunteering for the 17^th McGill Team Challenge. This race lies at the midpoint of every Canadian's indoor track season. Six weeks out from CIS and it's time to show your stuff.  The meet was very well run, events started as scheduled, and it looked as though there were enough volunteers to keep things going smoothly. Help came in part from us members of Montreal Endurance, also decked out in our fresh team logo for some free advertising/good PR. My job was to check in athletes before the requisite hour prior to their events. Given the noisy environment it wasn't an ideal job for someone with APD. To me most names sounded the same, especially in French "Did you say LeDuc or Medoc?" Nothing worse than repeating your name while stressed for your race.