So, after scanning in a bunch of old Star Course materials for OCR training, I figured why not toss them up here, too?
(Broken into four parts because while I was originally going to just cram it all into one post, I figured that at least three of the bits were distinct enough to warrant their own things and the fourth was… not so much really, but by this point it was halfway in-between two of those bits, so why not just go for it? And totally not because of anything like this… And oh yeah, maybe in honor of our getting 4th? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯) So!
(And just to clarify for those too lazy to click on the link to Post 4 above [or, well, an inch or two ago], or the “Read More” below – the event was great. The stream-of-consciousness-profanity is about, well… let’s just say that if you didn’t sign up for the event when it was first announced in the middle of 2019, you would have had no idea that it was held this past weekend.)
Continue reading “(RWC 001) 2020̶1: The AAR Itself&Proper (4th)”
… and, fittingly enough, 3 months late!
Overall mileage was down about two hundred and change from the year before (a big chunk of which was due to the week I spent in Phoenix coughing blood and fretting about a pulmonary embolism), but similar race plan as 2018 – focus on bigger, funner races mixed in with some “training runs” and sentimental favorites mixed in.
Continue reading “Running Recappening Redux AKA Part 3R for One-Nine the Gritty Reboot”
A’ight, so my brother and I ran the GORUCK Star Course 50-Miler in Philly over the weekend. Team Sloth, @teamslothgoruck on Instagram. Here’s the rough timeline of relevant stuff, with miscellaneous asides thrown in when relevant, way more memes than are in any way necessary, and a random blurble of semi-related stuff at the end. Steve’s stuff is again in sky blue.
(And in case you’re thinking, “Hey, this intro looks a lot like this one, and even more like this one“, then spot on.)
After performing acceptably at the Philly Star Course last year, it was kinda inevitable that we’d do it again this year, especially after our poor performance in DC. Due to this being our 3rd Star Course, our preparation was a bit more relaxed than usual. For example, I wrote our navigational website AstroNav for Philly 2018, and then made a new version for DC, but I didn’t bother with a new one for Philly 2019 (I started on one, but only worked on it for a few hours before abandoning it). The 2018 version worked just fine, and the one minor feature I added to it ended up not even being necessary.
A’ight, so my brother and I ran the GORUCK Star Course 50-Miler in D.C. over the weekend. Team Sloth, @teamslothgoruck on Instagram. Here’s the rough timeline of relevant stuff, with miscellaneous asides thrown in when relevant, way more memes than are in any way necessary, and a random blurble of semi-related stuff at the end. Steve’s stuff is again in sky blue.
Not every race is a gold-mine of gif- and meme-worthy happenin’s. Some of them are just… about as exciting as you’d think from “I ran for this many hours.”
Or I just can’t remember the details – since some of ’em were almost a solid year ago by now – and will be in no way bothered to look them up.
Continue reading “Running Recappening – Part 2: Electric Boogaloo AKA Fresh for ’18”
A’ight, so my brother and I ran the GORUCK Star Course 50-Miler in Philly over the weekend. Team Sloth, @teamslothgoruck on Instagram. Here’s the rough timeline of relevant stuff, with miscellaneous asides thrown in when relevant.
But first, here’s Steve with his intro – he had to fly out to London for work 8AM the morning after, so we’re going back and forth writing this over email:
Big picture background: Who are we?
Ahem.
– which is completely irrelevant except for, I suppose, nails are… kinda like teeth? (Only not at all really; see previous post) Irregardless! With punches newly arrived from China, I set up the workbench for the final steps!
First up was cutting out the blanks – the brass flats I had were thicker, but could take an impression on both sides, whereas the steel stock was thin enough it couldn’t be double-struck but could be threaded two-per-ring for race info and nail location. After the tiny chop-saw I found proved wholly unsatisfactory for anything more strenuous than wooden dowels, and figuring I’d be cleaning them up by hand anyways, I went with the Dremel.
Continue reading “Orks Use Teef fo’ Money (Charm Bracelet, Part 2)”
IYI, Tony Poe is famous for tossin’ severed heads onto enemy locations and, on one occasion, when his superiors questioned his body counts (this was during the Vietnam War, which makes me figure he must have been paid on a per-kill, piecework basis because this is possibly the only time in that entire conflict where someone on the American side said ‘There’s no way you killed that many of the enemy’) he calmly provided hard evidence to verify his claims.
… By which I mean, of course, he mailed a bag of fuckin’ ears to the US Embassy in Vientiane. Possibly more than once. His personnel file must look like Ed Gein’s Rolodex.
This isn’t that grisly, of course, but – okay, fine, it’s a charm bracelet where the charms are human toenails. There’s some context for this, of course, but if you’re somehow the type who found this, read with bland, placid face about Tony Poe, Ed Gein joke, got to the toenails, and then decided that nope, no context makes that palatable, well… Probably don’t want to make the jump.
Enter a caption* Because the general rule of thumb, according to Jack Foster, is one (1) day of recovery per one (1) race mile.
A warm-up fatass run to start the year. That is, the aid stations were stocked with “whatever you bring” and the water stops at the turnarounds were, literally, dudes with spigots. Still a nice run, even if the trails were primitive enough that at times I was literally tracking the runners ahead of me.
Also, had the following exchange with the race director run coordinator when I finished ahead of my brother and turned to go back to last.
Him: “Drop something?”
Me: “Naw, I’m just going back to run in the last bit with my brother.”
H: “I don’t see him.”
M: “Well, he took a wrong turn going into the second leg, so I’d guess he’s at least a few miles back, yet.”
Don Norum 