Training Log Archive: iansmith

For most of my life, I have desired to be strong: to have resilience, fortitude, and perseverance in every aspect of my life. I think my original motivation was my from my youth; people who were competent to face challenge were prepared for life and the difficulties and opportunities it presented. In my youth, I focused on mental strength: on knowledge, reason, and intellect. I pondered areas of my life and asked questions of myself. As I grew older, I sought to be strong emotionally, socially, physically, organizationally. I wanted the capacity to lead people, the ability to connect on many levels with individuals, the power to face physical obstacles and overcome them. I wanted to have a general measure of competence in every aspect of my life. That has contributed to competitive nature; competition offers refinement and development of skill. You can observe how others face problems and learn from them.

The obvious question both of this approach to challenges and of early schooling in general is to what end you are preparing. Strength is useless without purpose; the reason to build strength is to achieve some objective. That objective may be simply surviving the obstacles of life or accomplishing some great deed. Perhaps it is enough to pursue life seeking happiness, enriching the lives of and loving others and in turn being enriched by them, solving problems, and righting wrongs and injustices. Maybe maximizing our global utility function is a good objective, a valid purpose for our preparation and existence. Seeking a righteous life raises questions about the nature of our moral code; I will share a summary of my thoughts in a later entry.

In the interim, perhaps bereft of a well-defined goal, I will continue to aspire to strength.

C • Maybe 2

Benford's Law of Controversy:
Passion is inversely proportional to the amount of real information available.

Clearly, I need to read Timescape.

While I was initially reluctant to go running, I decided that I both needed to continue my training and take time to think. My audiobook, The Desert Spear, beckoned to me, and I prefer to run while I listen than sit idly.

My lower right calf intermittently twinges with pain. It is a bit higher than my Achilles' tendon, but I am concerned there may be a serious problem. My training regimen has not been severe in the past 8 weeks (about when the problem started), so I don't think rest and ice will have much effect. I may see my doctor about it if it continues. On an entirely unrelated note, I'm running a mile race tomorrow. Yay prudence.

I finished the session with a stop at a playground, where I did 20 pullups, 50 crunches, and 24 pushups.