Your backyard is as good as, or better, than Facebook lets you believe...

As I ran along this pristine stretch of singletrack, I fell in love with my local trails all over again today. After a week of dark and gloomy days, the sun was out, bathing the trail in dappled light,the dirt and mulch that make up the trail was soft underfoot and my exploratory route led to a new linkup of trails, which allowed me to run even further than I had planned, without ever having to step foot on pavement, or retrace my steps. In short, it was a perfect run and was a great reminder that I love running in Victoria.
It's interesting that I needed to be reminded of that, after all, Vic is considered one of the most desirable cities in Canada to live in with its mild climate and stunning scenery, but I'm definitely guilty of falling prey to the "grass is greener" syndrome. I lust after the tropical weather and alpine vistas that I see others playing in as I get a sneak peek into their "virtual lives" through Facebook, or their blogs. This lust for being somewhere else and envy at the adventures that others have, comes at the cost of not really appreciating what I can do in my own backyard and is one of the problems with the "connected life".
I won't deny that there are many virtues with being connected, I get most of my information from the internet these days. Reading blogs inspires my adventures and often motivates me to get out the door, it also frequently informs what I do when I eventually head out, the problem happens when I start to feel like others have it better than I do.
The virtual illusion that Facebook and blogs allow people to create, has an interesting way of making you feel like others are leading a more interesting life than you. After all, these mediums conveniently allow the "sharer" to create an idealized caricature of themselves. Status updates are interesting, positive and chipper, posted photos capture the most memorable moments of their lives, most of what is shared is offered up without context, leaving out the unglamorous and mundane details, with facts overstated and frequently made up, in a polished perspective that they want others to see. On top of this, apparently humans are hardwired to overestimate how happy others are, a perspective that is summarized in a quote by Montesquieu: "If we only wanted to be happy it would be easy; but we want to be happier than other people, which is almost always difficult, since we think them happier than they are."
I'm not so naive to think that after running in cold and rainy days for five days in a row, my feet tattooed with mud that won't wash off and my shoes permanently damp, as their stink wafts to to greet me every time I enter my front door, that I won't let my mind wander to some idealized place, with warm weather, long steep singletrack trails and permanently blue skies, but hopefully I will remember that the grass isn't always greener and that my backyard is an alright place to play, especially on days like today.
***This blog post was inspired by this article: The Anti-Social Network

Time...

I have a strange, uncomfortable and often contradictory relationship with time. I don't keep a journal or an agenda, however my life is largely dictated by my watch. Like most people, I would describe myself as penny wise, but dollar friendly when it comes to time. What I mean is that I am liberal when it comes to large notions of days, months and years, setting dates, but being flexible with them, understanding that things come up that may affect these plans; while at the same time being rather obsessed with protecting my immediate time as a means of accomplishing my excessive goals and commitments in a given day. This is exemplified both in my studies and my avocation. The legal profession, which I am beginning to dip my toes into, is notoriously obsessed with segmenting time into tenths of an hour as a billing method, while at the same time constantly facing criticism, both internally and externally, for how long justice takes; and my athletic passions, endurance sports based around racing, are equally dependent on a close examination of the clock, with success and failure often determined by infinitesimally small fractions of time, but physical change coming after years of hard work and being largely unpredictable.
I also really enjoy reading books about time. While most of the books have dumbed the material down to a level that I can understand, I enjoy the completely useless and frustrating process of trying to wrap my mind around the philosophical questions that the subject raises, such as:
•What time actually is; •Whether time exists when nothing is changing; •What kinds of time travel are possible; •Why time has an arrow; •Whether the future and past are as real as the present; •How to analyze the metaphor of time’s flow; •Whether future time will be infinite; •Whether there was time before the Big Bang event; •Whether tensed or tenseless concepts are semantically basic; •What the proper formalism or logic is for capturing the special role that time plays in reasoning; •What neural mechanisms account for our experience of time; •Why there isn’t more than one dimension of time; and •Whether there is a timeless nature beyond spacetime. (see here)

On top of these brain candy queries, I also enjoy learning about the creative, scientific and theoretical approaches used to tackle these essentially unanswerable quandaries (lots of Q synonyms for questions). It fascinates me that people are willing, and able, to wrestle with questions of such an immense nature. I am also very grateful that some authors are willing and able to summarize the questions and proposed answers in a way that I can pretend to understand. I do realize that my understanding of what I read is either wrong, or the authors are summarizing the material inadequately, in an overly simplistic way, but I am okay with this, since, either way, it keeps me entertained and it's my time to waste.
There is also a large cultural component to time that has had a significant impact on my life. Time was a very loose concept in Nigeria when I was growing up. Because time and punctuality is so reliant on an effective and reliable system, such as working clocks, the poor infrastructure, lack of resources (such as working watches) and overall chaotic and unpredictable nature of life in a developing third world nation meant that time was very flexible, with events beginning when they started, as opposed to beginning religiously at an arbitrary preset time. Nigerians seemed to have an innate sense of when events were about to start and would all magically appear as the event took place. However, it is fair to question whether these two events were in fact coincidental, or whether the event started when everyone appeared, or if everyone appeared when the event started, a classic chicken and egg scenario!
This temporal habit of things happening very much in the moment often lead to cultural conflicts, since it irked the inflexible and challenged the traditionally future oriented western concepts of time. In the west, we are constantly thinking about the future, planning for it in the present, and arranging our lives with future events in mind. An interesting cultural concept that I once read about shows this different cultural interpretation of time quite well. To a certain African culture (I don't remember which one, or even of if they were in fact African), time is based off of an eternal present, with time and events described as either being: yesterday, the day before yesterday, the day before the day before yesterday, or tomorrow, the day after tomorrow, or the day after the day after tomorrow, meaning that to these people, it is always Wednesday! So here's an unsolicited travel tip, the need to understand and adapt to cultural notions of time is referred to as "temporal literacy" and therefore not understanding it is called "temporal illiteracy." Having an appreciation of local habits can save you some awkward and uncomfortable moments and will greatly reduce your stress level in a new setting, but old habits die hard and overcoming a deeply ingrained cultural construct like time is easier said than done!


Why do I bring this up? Well, other than trying to make myself appear more interesting and well rounded than I actually am, I just read a quote that relates to time that I liked (here): "immediacy is the currency of stupidity..." I think I may get this quote tattooed onto my fists, both for personal and external wisdom, as a reminder that a short term, reactionary approach, while often gratifying in the moment, is usually not the best option with the luxury of some afterthought. This can be simplified even further into the old mantra of "think...speak...", or "think...type" for the tweeters out there! ****Don't worry, I do have enough foresight to realize that sharing wisdom with my fists would count as a prime example of why I need this quote given my size and fighting ability.

Now for the punchline, the joke is on you for wasting your time reading this and also on me for typing it out. Add me to the long list of time thieves in your life!

Drug haze....

I had all four of my wisdom teeth taken out on Friday which pretty much put me out of commission for the weekend. I've had a great block of running since early December, so a few days off of running were likely good for my legs. Although I felt okay to run the day after, the combination of pain killers, anesthetic, antibiotics, swelling and surgery are hard on the system and I'd rather not risk any complications by rushing back into things, so I opted to take 2-3 days off and re-assess. The swelling that had given me a much healthier profile than my usual, hard earned, skeletal, emaciated cheek bone look has subsided and I went out for a bop this morning with a youthful spring in my step. I'll keep things light until my system feels re-set.


Drooling, babbling & drugged....


By Sunday I was feeling much better and was desperately craving some fresh air so I went out for a hike. It was interesting to slow the pace down and really appreciate some of the areas that I run through. I'm always struck by the chaotic beauty of West Coast forests:



As I hiked up Mt Finlayson, the clouds started rolling across the gun metal grey sky:


Wet rock is a reality of West Coast trails and makes for some exposed trail:


We rarely have sweeping vistas from our peaks this time of year, but it forces us to appreciate our immediate surroundings; most notably, the striking contrast between the ghostly silhouette of trees emerging from the fog against the vibrant green moss that carpets the rock:

Scott, Anton, Geoff, Dave...

These guys may not remember any of the outings, but I've been running with them quite a bit over the past 2 or more years. Scott Jurek, Anton Krupicka, Geoff Roes (the volume always seems to go down with Geoff speaks)and Dave Mackey are 4 guys at the top of the game in North American, and arguably world ultra trail running. My running has definitely been influenced and inspired by each of them in some way and I look forward to actually toeing the line more often with them in the upcoming season. I know that each one of those races will be quick.
Joe Grant just posted this video from a Q&A that they gave at Sherpas, a great Nepalese/Tibetan/Indian restaurant in Boulder, where they share some insights on the usual questions. There isn't much in here that they haven't said, or that can't be gleaned from their various blogs and interviews, but I thought people might find it interesting. They have all made the Colorado "front range" their home (an area that I am enamoured with as well), so the gathering is a sort of club run dinner. As always, it's proof that each of them has a running "philosophy" that they believe in and follow, based around a love of running and a desire to test themselves in racing. They each have their own take on how to achieve their goals and enjoy their running. There's nothing too structured or methodical in a traditional sense, just consistent hard work.
I also want to thank them (and the internet/social media) for being as open as they are with their training and running experiences. I think the ultra community is richer, and is undergoing a boom in interest, thanks in large part to their openness. If for some reason you can't hear what is said, or would prefer to read about it, there is a rough transcript, and a few more comments, from the evening here:

Boulder Trail Runners - Q&A with Scott Jurek, Anton Krupicka, Dave Mackey and Geoff Roes from Alpine Works on Vimeo.

Macca speaks

Although I'm more of a trail runner these days, I'm still SUPER into triathlon. I'm not quite as obsessed as I once was, but I still follow the sport closely. It's a career and a lifestyle for my wife and best friends, so I can't help but be immersed and influenced by it.

Thanks to slowtwitch.com, I just came across these interviews with Chris McCormack (Macca), this year's Ironman Hawaii winner and one of the biggest champions and personalities in triathlon. It's an interesting candid look into what makes him tick and some of his insights on the sport in general. I think that any sports fan, and particularly endurance sports aficionados will enjoy them:

Part 1:


Part 2


(***Simon just posted another awesome Macca interview with www.firstoffthebike.com; he really is an interesting character and a great champion)

Since I am sharing other peoples' wisdom, as always, coach Gambetta has an interesting post entitled Just Train up on his blog. It's essentially a rant against over-complicating training, focusing too much on the extras at the expense of a good old fashioned, well thought out K.I.S.S. training plan.

Gambetta also posted a Ken Burns Commencement address to the graduates of Georgetown University, to which he added some of his own commentary. Some of the thoughts resonated quite strongly with me (Burns's words in bold):

As you pursue your goals in life, that is to say your future, pursue your past. Let it be your guide. Insist on having a past and then you will have a future.
Be careful that you are not living in the past, learn from the past, use it as a reference point
Do not descend too deeply into specialism in your work. Educate all your parts. You will be healthier. Replace cynicism with its old-fashioned antidote, skepticism.
Be a generalist, follow your curiosity, go outside your field and see how others think and do.
Don’t confuse success with excellence. The poet Robert Penn Warren once told me that “careerism is death.”
The pursuit of excellence has it’s own rewards.
Insist on heroes. And be one.
Be the best you, you can be, regardless of other people’s judgments and expectations.
Read. The book is still the greatest manmade machine of all — not the car, not the TV, not the computer.
Get off the Internet and read real books, get familiar with the library and all it’s resources. Build your own library.
Write: write letters. Keep journals. Besides your children, there is no surer way of achieving immortality.
Writing a journal, a bloging even tweeting gives you a focus. Write for yourself, no one else needs to read it.

I really like the "Replace cynicism with its old-fashioned antidote, skepticism" line. What I understand him to be saying is that skepticism requires critical analysis and forming an opinion, while still being open to the possibility that other opinions and point of views might be right, or at least have something to offer; while the modern default to cynicism (not to be confused with the Greek philosophical view), simply assumes the worst of other, or contrary views, without a rational consideration for what was actually said and what the speaker meant. Not to get too deeply into it, but I would argue that this default to cynicism is at the heart of political apathy and largely guides political discourse. A shift to skepticism would raise the level of accountability and would require well reasoned and well argued political debate, improving the overall political climate.(***not bad range eh? from Macca on winning triathlon to a cure for political apathy)

A video, some pics and a few words...

Here is my first attempt at editing a video of one of my runs. The run was at Namadgi National Park, along the Australian Alps Walking Track, with a side trip up Mt Tennent. It's a bit shaky, the editing is rough and the image isn't as crisp as I was hoping-but it's a start right!

Australian run from Adam Campbell on Vimeo.

Some other images from my time in Australia:
These pics are from an amazing 3.5 hour run I did around the beautiful Tidbinbilla Nature Reserve. I ran up to a high ridge and summit at Camel's Hump, hoping to catch a view, but it was completely clouded in and quickly became my coldest run in Australia. The trail was great for 9/10ths of the way, followed by some thick "bush bashing" and a trot along a very exposed area of rock. I have more pictures up on Facebook.


Lauren and I also spent New Year's at Tidbinbilla, where we had a beautiful picnic spot, surrounded by animals as the sun was setting. It was a great way to wrap up the year:





I'm back in Victoria now, getting ready for my last semester of school. On top of getting out on the trails over the weekend with the crew, I was treated to a flight around scenic Victoria, on a spectacular afternoon by Jeff Bujas. He is a former national team rower and world championship medalist, who is continuing to pursue his passions. I have serious respect for his drive, he has worked some thankless jobs to fund his goal of becoming a commercial pilot and has been generously sharing his air time with friends, so thanks. Also, maybe not the most environmentally sensitive way of scoping out trails, but I found some amazing looking tracks around Goldstream Park from the air that I plan on checking out this winter/spring:


Apparently they let guys like this fly, I have now become a train person!