tripu

[Edited on 17 April for clarity, and to add more info]

It’s less than two weeks to the XXXVI Madrid Marathon (which hasn’t been cancelled in spite of what just happened in Boston), and so far our training is going well. My mate Esteban is following his training programme of choice, while I’m sticking to mine [NB: imperial units]. As weekly long runs are usually scheduled on Saturdays or Sundays on virtually all training plans, we have been managing to meet up and run together approximately every other weekend. I love those long sessions with Esteban.

During the last 16 weeks I missed a few training sessions here and there. But when that happened, it was mostly because I didn’t feel well, because of that long spell of annoying rainy weather we had here in Spain, or because I was on holidays with friends, far from home, and didn’t manage to accommodate my training into the plans of the group. Importantly, I skipped almost no session out of laziness or boredom. So barring those occasional misses, my morale and willpower stayed high all this time. I’m quite satisfied with what I’ve done so far.

I started using MapMyRun.com more than five years ago — on February 2008. I’ve been religiously logging every single training session up on the web site ever since. The advantage of a mild OCD like mine is: physical stuff is where you’d expect it to be, data is structured. There are records and notes of most activities or events. Digital items are tagged and classified. So it is easy for me now to look back on my calendar, quickly review the last months (or years) and notice some changes.

This is what the last four months look like for me:

Using that data, plus the prescribed mileage on my training plan, I’ve put together two little charts that summarise my training for #42km. They’re annotated with milestones and some context, so make sure you click for the whole interactive thing:

This being the first time I commit myself to physical exercise in a regular, structured way, it is interesting to notice patterns and reactions that are new for me. (I trained before for several 10–km’s and half marathons, but with no method or programme. Besides, a marathon is a different game.)

I seem to be losing my ability to run fast. My PB in a 10–km race is 45′30″ (13.2 km/h ≡ 4′33″/km); in a half marathon, 1h40′27″ (12.6 km/h ≡ 4′46″/km). I don’t know if this is a consequence of longer-distance training, but I don’t think I would be able to clock those marks today! Now, even during short training sessions I struggle to stay above an average of ~11.5 km/h, while in the old days, training at 12 or 12.5 km/h was the norm. Of course, I’m running much further than ever before. And I cram more sessions in every single week, often running three days in a row, with no day off. I feel a barrier that is almost tangible there — it’s a trade-off: you either train mainly for speed, or for endurance.

The steady improvement in performance is happening faster than I had anticipated. This is good news. In December last year, the mere thought of going beyond 21 km made me feel uneasy and tired. I knew what half a marathon felt like, and it was already tough (or so I thought at the time). So I assumed that the rate at which I’d be improving would decline dramatically as I pushed my body further towards the goal, namely 42 km non-stop. However, after a few weeks following the plan, increases in distance (and time) came naturally, and without (much) pain. In fact, I have been increasing mileage rather casually and with “little” effort. For instance, in long run progression I raised the bar from 26 km to 30.6 km, and from there straight to 35 km — with no distances in between, ie not going for that one extra kilometer in every session. (You can clearly see those “jumps” on one of the charts mentioned above). Of course, having only 18 weeks to prepare for the race, you simply couldn’t afford such a slow progression. It’s good news that you can improve so quickly — I wouldn’t have said so, back in January.

The process might be as fun and addictive as the goal it leads to. In other words, I’m enjoying the journey, regardless of what is the outcome on D-Day. I kind of enjoy going out for a run at night, in chilly rainy weather, and coming back home all soaked up, with stiff hands due to the cold wind, my trainers covered in mud. Now that I’m tapering, I oddly feel that, psychologically, reducing the amount of training is almost as difficult as it was increasing it in the first place. A couple of weeks ago, I felt so strong that I wished the marathon were happening right then, the day after.

Sadly, I’m not paying much attention to nutrition, stretching, cross-training and sleep. But for the first time, I understand that drinking often and replenishing nutrients in-race is necessary. It never really felt that important when I ran 21–km’s. But beyond that distance, your body starts speaking rather eloquently, asking for fuel of various kinds. So now I stock up on supplements for before, during, and after sessions: carbohydrates, proteines, sugar, salt, caffeine, electrolytes. I also tend to eat more pasta, drink more water, stuff like that. I’m no nutrition junkie at all (rather the opposite), but it all makes sense now.

I’m definitely lucky because I don’t suffer injuries. George Sheehan used so say that the word “injury” pops up every time two fellow runners meet to chat, and rather early in the conversation. During these last years of lazy, unstructured training I think I never had an injury that was worth mentioning. Nothing that forced me to stop for a few days. Even when I had some carefree runs on dirt roads at night. I always thought it was because I wasn’t properly training. Now I have been putting my body under some strain, and still the worst I feel are minor aches in my ankles and insteps every now and then. I know that many runners suffer worse ailments, more often. So I feel fortunate.

On 21 March 2006, Jack Dorsey tweeted his very own “Mr Watson, come here — I want to see you”:

just setting up my twttr

— Jack Dorsey (@jack) March 21, 2006

Roughly one year later, once the service was publicly available, a few of my closest geeks joined Twitter, and I followed custom two or three days later:

Being dragged along by the Twitter hype. Finally.

— tripu (@tripu) March 31, 2007

…which means I’m six years old on Twitter today. By the way, I only discovered that thanks to the new (and long overdue) Twitter Archive service, which works just fine and is a narcissistic delight.

I’m using that excuse to share another bunch of my favourite tweets (as I did back in 2010). For privacy reasons, let me just say that global credit goes to the 354 users I follow, as a whole (some of them protect their accounts, like I do).

Creo que solo tengo 2 velocidades: la “no-hay-mañana” o la “sangre-espesa”. Mi vida se balancea entre un F1 y paseo a lomo de perezoso T_T

meter refuerzos en un proyecto pq lo necesitas en 2 días es como darle un manual de vuelo a un civil en un avión en barrena;muy tardeee

Me llega un mail de renfe con asunto “Los Miserables”. Yo no lo habría resumido mejor.

Señores de la RAE: no es lo mismo “estuve teniendo sexo sólo una hora” que “estuve teniendo sexo solo una hora”. Y sé de qué hablo.

El dinero da la felicidad cuando se invierte en anacardos con miel.

Mi congelador es el único que abres buscando carne picada y te encuentras una batería de portatil. O_o

El nivel de higiene de los aseos de un edificio público es directamente proporcional al valor absoluto del número de planta del edificio.

Tengo una faringitis de caballo. Y no lo entiendo porque ni siquiera hubo penetración.

Veo a unos perros practicando una cata de ojales. Son expertos sumillers. Ladran como diciendo “redondo en boca, con aromas frutales”.

Para que no se me olvide, voy a apuntar en mi agenda para el sábado a las doce: “rascarme los huevos a dos manos”.

Línea 3. Le preguntan a Pablo, de unos 5 años: “¿Te gustan las niñas guapas o las feas?”. Responde: “Ninguna. Me gustan los niños”. #fan

El Resplandor en lasexta3. Una película que ha hecho más por el cine en versión original que mil hipsters en bici sin frenos por la Gran Vía

I’ve seen things you wouldn’t believe. Movie rental stores. Payphones. I once used a paper map. All of it lost in time, like tears in rain.

Roses are read, violets are blue, this poem doesn’t rhyme, get me a beer.

Lo prefiero de engranajes, dice ella, todavía desnuda. El autómata, ardiente y bien armado, la envuelve en su nube de vapor #jretrofuturista

Lo peor de que la ventanilla del coche esté rota y no baje: el ticket del parking. Ni Mr. Bean en sus mejores tiempos.

San Francisco hasta 28 de marzo; Osaka hasta 16 de mayo; Hong Kong hasta 31 de mayo; Estambul hasta 1 de julio. #digitalnomad

Cuando escribo en mi móvil “molaría mucho” mi teclado sugiere “malaria nazi”. Luego me preguntan para qué sirve la lingüística.

Now, a special mention goes to @laquintacolumna, which is maybe my favourite among all (at least in the Humour Dept), and the source of so much ironic wisdom and sadistic amusement:

Desfollowearme romperá la cadena y el pequeño Adriansito morirá de tuberculosis…Avisados quedais.

— laquintacolumna (@laquintacolumna) October 7, 2010

Sueño con hacer un día un tuit y que un rico productor se fije en mi y me lleve a los Angeles para ser su zorra con la excusa de un trabajo.

— laquintacolumna (@laquintacolumna) October 27, 2010

Tus padres siempre te han dicho que no hables con extraños, pero nunca dijeron nada de enseñar las tetas por cam, aprovecha la laguna legal.

— laquintacolumna (@laquintacolumna) November 6, 2010

Los que dicen enseña nacional, golpe de remo.

Amor es cuando follas y ella no te identifica en una rueda de reconocimiento, ¿No?

Berlusconi: “No voy a fiestas salvajes”…Totalmente cierto, las monta directamente en casa…Y las fiestas también.

Follar, comer, cagar / dormir, por ese orden / eso es la vida (Haiku)

“Nena, para que te entre esto vas a necesitar cesárea”…Así soy yo, elegante, modesto y romántico

Sasha Grey se retira del porno…¿Así es como esperais evitar que me suba a un campanario a disparar contra embarazadas?

“Indiana Jones y la última cruzada” es el metro patrón de iridio y platino respecto al que mido el resto del cine.

Una discusión sobre política en la que no se menciona que a Hitler también le votaron ni es discusión ni es na.

Mi innata modestia me impide hablaros acerca del descomunal tamaño de mi pene.

Esa gente que le pone a sus hijos su propio nombre supongo que lo hacen porque “Frustración” no viene en el santoral, ¿No?

Se empieza bajando la tapa despues de mear y se acaba comiendo pollas en baños públicos.

Steve Jobs se pasó 9 meses sin tratar el cáncer porque se creía que las bayas goji le iban a curar…el Leonardo da Vinci de nuestra era…

Esperar a que las drogas y el alcohol conviertan a Justin Bieber en un juguete roto para librarnos de él es económicamente insostenible.

Mucho rollo con el calendario maya, pero el calendario pirelli tiene tetas…Mayas 0-Pirelli 2.

-Qué queremos? -Qué se acabe la corrupcion. -Y cuándo lo queremos? -Después de que nuestro primo el de urbanismo recalifique unos terrenos

En cada video porno se corren en la cara de una,el 90% de internet es porno,los arqueólogos del futuro van a pensar que nos saludábamos así

Con todo lo que documento mis tuits y aún no soy un bestseller…Oh, crueles hados, Por qué os burláis de mi?

Si masturbarse es pecado y suicidarse también, ¿Matarse a pajas desbloquea algún logro en el infierno?

Mi primera orden como dictador global será masacrar a todos los que dicen muffin en vez de magdalena.

Soy ese tipo a quien siempre le pillan diciendo “PEZONES COMO CAMPURRIANAS” cuando de vez en cuando se forman silencios espontáneos.

Dios te quiere de rodillas,el diablo también.La ciencia alarga la vida y lleva al hombre a la luna…No hay más preguntas,señoría

Hablo,no escuchas,tu hablas,no escucho,nos subimos las dietas para farla y putas y nos vamos de cañas (Debate sobre el estado de la nación)

“Presidente, miembros del congreso, yo tengo una bolita que me sube y me baja…” y me iría haciendo el moonwalk #MiDiscursoALaNación

Si vuelvo a escuchar en un telediario que cónclave viene de “Bajo llave” voy a liar un Columbine.

Teniendo en cuenta el respeto que la iglesia siente por la mujer lo que me sorprende es que el Rafita no sea papable.

— laquintacolumna (@laquintacolumna) March 12, 2013

Hablar de humildad tras un besamanos es puro sarcasmo.

— laquintacolumna (@laquintacolumna) March 19, 2013

Para mi próximo truco necesitaré un arco, unas flechas, un diputado y una coartada.

— laquintacolumna (@laquintacolumna) March 20, 2013

In these days I’m brushing up on my #Japanese a little bit.

Two months ago I registered for Nōken, aka JLPT (“Japanese Language Proficiency Test”). Nōken is the standard around the globe for spoken and written Japanese as a foreign language. Official tests are scheduled once or twice a year — it varies from country to country. The test is administered by the Japanese Ministry of Education and the Japan Foundation overseas.

The next test is to be held worldwide on Sunday, 2 December (that is, in a week!). In Spain, it will take place in Madrid, Barcelona and Santiago de Compostela.

There are five levels of Japanese in JLPT (there used to be four), ranging from N5 (very basic use of the language) to N1 (rumour has it that you have to be a direct descendant of the goddess Amaterasu to pass this test). Given how long it’s been since I started studying Japanese for the first time (in London), I guess I should long have passed N4. The problem is, I haven’t been persevering :¬(

In these few years there were many gaps for me, long gaps of months, during which I did not study Japanese, nor did I use it at all. You see, you have this issue with rare languages like Japanese or Dutch (as opposed to the ubiquitous English or French): if you don’t make a conscious effort to study, read, speak and listen to the language (surrounding yourself with native speakers, reading the news, etc.), it is so easy to watch the days and the weeks pass by, with you having had no interaction with the language whatsoever.

As a consequence, every time I took Japanese up again, it felt almost like starting from scratch.

Two years ago I registered for Nōken (lowest level; N4 at the time), but I did very little study and I failed. This year I’m working a little harder, and hopefully this time I’ll be OK for N5 (still the lowest level by the current reckoning). My grammar and oral skills are rusty, but for the first time ever I actually learnt the damn few kanji that I’m supposed to know.

In the last weeks I’ve been drawing on my textbooks and several online resources to build up that list of kanji. For what I’ve seen, the recommended number of characters for this level ranges between 70 and 120. The actual set of characters also changes a little bit, depending on which source you check. To err on the safe side, I considered a few of those sources and tried to learn every kanji that was listed at least once in any of the sources (of course, most kanji are pretty standard and are listed in all of them).

So this is my definitive list of 110 kanji for JLPT N5 [PDF], which I share under a Creative Commons BY-NC-SA 3.0 licence (if for some reason you prefer an image, here’s a high-resolution PNG).

In particular, my list is a superset (in the mathematical sense of the word) of these sets:

• Yoshida Institute: 103 kanji (there are nice animated GIF‘s of all characters here to learn the stroke order — kanji and syllabaries).
• Tanos.co.uk (Jonathan Waller): 79 kanji.
• Nippein (Francisco J. Gutiérrez; list recycled from Meguro Center): 80 kanji.
• All kanji introduced in unit 1 (that is, the first three lessons) of “Japanese for Busy People II”: 40 kanji.

I use the superb series “Japanese for Busy People” by the AJALT (edited by Kodansha) as my primary textbooks. Most of the time, I’m using volume II, 3^rd edition for kanji reference — to learn the stroke order, meanings and basic kun’yomi and on’yomi readings of each character. So my cheat sheet lists kanji in the order they are introduced in that book.

I added to the list a few other kanji that I had learnt almost unintentionally along the way, either because I often stumbled upon them (曜), because they were simple or had few strokes (田), because for some reason I had looked them up and I thought I might easily remember them anyway (文) or because they were contained in more complex characters that I knew already (耳). In total, 110.

I was tempted to go on and add a few others that I understand by now, too (京 内 朝), but I think it’s best if I keep the list minimal and focus instead on grammar and vocabulary in this last week.

Disclaimer: I’m not a particularly good runner, and I do not know much about running. Or about any other sport, for that matter. I’m probably one of the least qualified people to write anything about the subject. However, since only a handful of close friends read my blog (let me dream!), I can risk giving advice about the matter: it is very unlikely that anyone will follow my advice, and as a consequence get an injury or die of heart attack. Scott Adams, creator of the cartoon “Dilbert” and an excellent blogger, makes a point of often stating, tongue-in-cheek, that you shouldn’t “take your financial advice from cartoonists”. Let me say here that you shouldn’t take training advice from someone who runs only occasionally — and blogs even less often.

Let’s say you want to start running. You might want to do it for the fun of it, to take part in popular races with friends, to stay fit, to live a little longer, to let off some steam or to lose some weight. Or you might be someone who used to run long ago, and wants to take up running again.

Whatever the reasons, one can easily feel overwhelmed by all those training programmes, motivational readings, scary warnings and brainy articles about running.

I think there are just three important things to keep in mind:

#1 Run!

As I get older, it becomes clearer to me that patience and time are responsible for so many individual achievements. I’m becoming sceptical towards that notion that we are so much determined by the set of skills, gifts, talents and limitations we are “given” at birth.

It’s not that I would dismiss nature altogether and put all praise/blame on nurture instead. That would be unrealistic. But I suspect that too often, innate talents and limitations aren’t but a handy tool for us to: a) justify ourselves for not achieving our goals; b) dismiss someone else’s achievements so that we don’t become frustrated by comparison; and c) boost our ego by feeling unreasonably proud for something that didn’t actually require hard work from our part, because we were predisposed to doing it well anyway.

Reaching that healthy balance between being inspired and getting moving by what the people around you are accomplishing, and not becoming perpetually frustrated for not being nearly as good as anyone at almost anything… that is a challenge for me, personally. But I digress.

Back to my point. I think that many things in life that are difficult and will bring you pleasure, peer recognition and/or money depend mostly on the time and effort you invest in them, and on how patient you are. So many things are just that: trying hard, not losing heart, getting better and better at it.

There is another interesting thing about running: the act of running is dead easy — the unfittest of us can run, instinctively. Compare this to the ability to transcribe a choral work out from memory, or the ability to confront a political theory with historical arguments. Running, unlike lecturing topology, is something you don’t have to learn or study. That means you’re off to a good start. You can start today.

Running better, faster, farther is a matter of having run a lot. Like so many other skills. And you already know how to do it. So just keep on running.

#2 Push yourself a little further (I said “a little”)

Staying within your comfort zone when you go out running means that you’ll soon become bored. Plus, your performance will halt, or at most improve only marginally. The consequence is that you will likely stop doing it sooner or later.

Sure, jogging short distances at an easy pace has benefits in itself: you could be an infallible robot and spend decades treading the same route, always clocking the exact same time, come rain or shine. That will definitely keep you fitter than TV, help you switch off from work and provide lots of quality time for reflection. You could even run into your “better half” one day, and be happy ever after!

But.

Once you’re at it, are you sure you don’t want to give it just a little more? Given the possibility, don’t you want to be a slightly better runner in a year from now? Are you sure you won’t enjoy the experience of running along tens of thousands of other people in a race? Don’t you want to know what an extra shot of adrenaline tastes like? Seriously, are you going to settle for an easy jog, forever?

Amateur runners get all affected throwing cheap metaphors at this sport. “I run to be a better person”, “running to overcome your limitations”, “a runner builds strength of character”, and that kind of stuff. But I think we often feel about it that way!

Every evening we set off for a slightly faster session, every morning we are not deterred by the cold or the rain, every time we’re “almost done” and yet find ourselves doing one more lap… every time we do those things, we get a little drop of fuel and confidence to spend in other areas of our lives. The bottom line is that suffering a bit and challenging yourself does pay.

There is an important warning to make here, though. Pushing yourself doesn’t mean suffering as a rule. If you do so, you will quickly get injured or develop very negative feelings towards training. Either case, we’re back to square one. It’s not worth it.

Haruki Murakami, himself a passionate runner as well as a world-renowned novelist, says: “Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional”. Unless you’re an elite sportsperson, don’t get all excited by this motto. Don’t mistake effort for pain. For most of us, mere mortals, real pain has to be moderate and occasional. Otherwise, it’s a signal we’re doing something wrong.

In particular, pay attention not to stay beyond your aerobic heart rate zone longer than strictly necessary. I believe that you don’t even need a heart rate monitor for that: the golden rule when training is that your pace should be low enough to let you talk with a buddy while you two are running — not out of breath. Of course, that does not mean you should talk. It only serves as an indicator and a reference. Also, if you feel too hot suddenly, or your face or ears become red, it might be a good sign that you are overdoing it. Finally, apply common sense and be rather conservative with your knees, calves, ankles, soles and toenails; don’t overlook the signals they send you.

#3 Don’t let unimportant stuff distract you from running

What I mean by this is, don’t waste time or money in complex training programmes or needless gear. Jogging is so convenient, among other reasons, because it is inexpensive and almost immediate, and because you don’t need fields, balls, diving regulators, bows, carabiners, goggles or any other special equipment to do it. You can get yourself a decent pair of trainers for €150 or less.

This characteristic is making it even more popular nowadays, when some folks no longer can spend time or money booking courts or organising ski trips.

You don’t even need other people to run — teammates nor opponents. (But you’ll definitely have more fun with friends.)

It is tempting to buy those glossy magazines, read the latest book, invest half of your monthly pay in the lightest pair of shoes or spend hours online looking for the ultimate running computer, which will make your mates drool. Or write for your blog an entry entitled “How to run”. The fact is, you don’t need any of that. That energy you should be spending on running, full stop.

If you are the sort of person who needs those earthly rewards to stay motivated, that’s fine — to an extent. In my experience, it is easy to become trapped in the realm of everything-that-revolves-around-running-but-isn’t-actually-running. Don’t fool yourself into thinking that you need more than a bare minimum of information and very simple running gear to be a runner.

Get out and run.

Photos: “rain runner” by Sam Javanrouh, “01.Rain.DCS.WDC.12jul06” by Elvert Barnes. Thanks to them for licensing under CC.

My company is looking for a junior programmer to work as a UI developer with us, here in sunny Madrid, Spain.

We are a small team of engineers and designers building bespoke software for several medium and large companies, and also publishing our own free applications and development frameworks. Our focus is on usability, aesthetics and performance. We pay attention to detail — obsessively. The team speaks cross-platform and mobile. We dig Apache Flex, Adobe AIR, HTML5 and other related technologies.

Are you interested? Do you know someone who might be? Contact me.