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The Making of a Dumb Datum

Imagine 10,000 years in the future. Two archaeologists are digging a site, and they find the remains of human bones. They take those remains to the lab, perform tests on them, and try to reconstruct the habits and lifestyle of that human. Say those bones belong to me. They are trying to find out my story, how I lived, what I ate, where I traveled, etc. Once they find all the info they need, they toss it into a museum where they store all other such ancient human remains they find. I was essentially one data point to them in trying to understand how humanity evolved over time. Or I can also call myself a “datum”, the singular form of data, literally one piece of information to solve a bigger puzzle. Honestly, I don’t need 10,000 years to become a datum. I am already a part of several datasets people use these days to study many things. So for that objective learner, I am already a datum. Now let me get to how I got the dumb part of it. I have had an interesting and eventful life so far...
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Miles 1320 - 1330

1.     I started to like the German word ‘Zeitgeber’. Zeit means time and geber means giver, so it just means time-giver. Zeitgeber sounds like a cool protagonist in a sci-fi novel with the power to extend people’s lives. I should go back to writing plotlines for stories like I used to do in high school.  Or maybe I should just write the whole novel, I have enough time and if it turns out bad, I can always tell people AI wrote it.

2.     I see a Condom Zone shop on my running route every day. But today for the first time, I paid attention to the logo on that shop’s sign board. I initially thought it looked like a chicken strip placed inside a taco, but upon further thinking, I might be wrong.

3.     I attempted nasal breathing intentionally during the morning run today. I was able to maintain it during easy miles. But once I started running hard and fast, I was sucking in oxygen with my mouth open fully, like I am one of those Game of thrones dragons breathing out fire.

4.     I am turning into a complete believer in the relationship between the weekly running volumes and marathon race times. Last year, I charted the avg weekly mileage for some of the runners on my Strava, who were training for marathon with similar time goals. Ones who maintained a 40 mpw average barely managed to hit sub-4, whereas those who were inconsistent with their weekly training volume managed to miss sub-4 despite being on target pace for first 20 miles, because their legs gave up in last 6. I first hand experienced this in Eugene when I was on target for 3:45, but my legs gave up after mile 18 and I had painful cramp in my left calf for last 6. I barely trained for six weeks due to my injury, and it clearly showed that day. Maintaining high training volume forces me to run on tired legs, strengthening them enough to not blow up at mile 20. So, when I ask myself why I am running this much, I will just tell myself all this.

5.     Real Madrid completing a comeback in the dying minutes of the game today reminds me of good old times. Sergio Ramos springing up from defense to score those last-minute headers, Toni Kroos laying down those long balls, Modric’s silky ball control, Cristiano appearing out of thin space to finish those chances, and Isco. I loved Isco, such a magician on the ball, and him leading the diamond midfield formation under Zidane was such a good time in my life. I hate how things eventually progressed. Isco got washed up, less said about Cristiano is better and it has already been 2 years since Kroos retired. A reminder to enjoy and appreciate good times more while they last, but for now Real Madrid suck.   

6.     Blue Sea by Ricewine is a good song, which is exactly why I should stop listening to it.


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