Forget Running When Training for a Run

The article below is written for the Around the Bay Road Race social media strategy, in preparation for the 120th Around the Bay Road Race in #HamOnt.

I should start out by stating that the following diatribe is by no means a professional opinion on effective race training.  I have been running since high school cross country, have done a number of marathons, half-marathons, a handful of adventure races, and soon, nine consecutive Around the Bay Road Races.  I have even managed to get relatively decent times.  Often in spite of myself.

Like most people, my running training has - and is - continually evolving through trial and error.  I can easily say that one of the biggest training errors I have made, once upon a time, was running, a lot.  I used to believe that to be prepared to perform well on race day, I had to be running consistently, and at consistently high distances.  What this lead to was plateaued results, IT band injuries, sore knees, poor agility, and terrible performance in other sports.

It was frustrating, although I would readily admit that I was only an amateur runner, I still could not understand why I was not able to get any faster and stronger.  In fact, I generally found that instead of getting better, my form and overall feeling would get worse.  More importantly, this "feeling worse" even extended to how I generally felt on a day to day basis.

This was until I actually put a bit more effort into researching the training techniques and approaches of different types of amateur runners.  I was intrigued, particularly with, say, cross-fit athletes, and the way in which many actually wouldn't run much at all (and certainly less than me), and yet perform really well (and certainly better than me).

Roughly 14 years since I first started running, if there is one thing I have learned about both feeling prepared for a race, and performing well during one, is how important it is to vary your training.  Moreover, how important it is to all but forget about running, and engage in other activities to round your body out.

Yes, running is still the priority preparation exercise, but whereas old me would have only focused on pounding the pavement, new me now only uses running to benchmark mileage, and to gauge distance capability.  Otherwise, in any given week, I will also do:

• Swimming.  I enjoy doing this for the low impact, the inherent refreshment and feeling of vitality, and the overall body work out. 
• Boxing.  I love going to McGrory's, at the corner of Barton and Sherman in Hamilton, and wailing on a bag.  Boxing provides great agility training (approximately 60mins of a 90min workout do not even involve punching).  As well it releases aggression and boosts confidence in a way running never can.
• Weight Training.  One of the biggest mistakes I feel like I always used to make was not properly integrating weights into my training.  Suffice to say, heavily weighted squats, deadlifts, lunges, and other compound exercises are among the best things you can ever do for yourself and your body. 
• Sprints, Stairs, Spinning.  These three are kind of a no-brainer, but still a lot of people don't do them like they should, myself formerly included.  

Since re-aligning my training ways last year, I have seen a great improvement in my running performance, and overall body feeling.  I am stronger, faster, with better form, and have happily achieved new personal bests.  More importantly, I no longer have to endure the mind numbing boredom of running long distances nearly everyday in the weeks leading up to a race.

Of course, I have learned all of this just in time for a new challenge, being 30.  Now I need to learn proper and effective recovery techniques for my no-longer-irresponsibly-20-something-body.  Wamp WAA*

Nine times around this, across nine years.

Facebook is Doing Just Fine

This article, titled "Facebook is Doing Just Fine," I wrote for the FACTOR[e] On The Floor blog.  It was published on February 12th, 2014.

We consistently underestimate Facebook.  We underestimate how much it has, and continues to, change communication, society, and indeed, the world.  Moreover, we continue to underestimate its performance, identity, and future as a company.

I have written before on my skin-crawling revulsion for people’s claims of Facebook’s decline, or premature declaration of death.  It.  Is.  Always.  Bunk.  

It is the social media reporter/researcher’s equivalent of being the “boy who cried wolf.”  It is grandiose, and attention-seeking.  And as I advised in the piece in which I decried this phenomenon, this sort of prediction is typically made by someone whose skills and expertise are also bunk.

Shockingly, in mid-January, Princeton University also joined this canon of misguided critics, by releasing a scathing study stating that Facebook will lose 80% of its users by 2017.  As a result, for at least the next 48 hours that followed, anyone who wanted to baselessly appease an audience was more than happy to report it as a valid headline (I watched, disappointed, oatmeal bowl in hand, as CBC Newsworld broke the story first thing in the morning). 

I will not go into why the study was flawed.  Particularly when Facebook did it better than anyone could by using the same mistaken methodology to prove that by 2021, Princeton would lose 100% of its students.  Suffice to say, Princeton was wrong.  

However, being the venerated Ivy League institution that they are, they can be forgiven.  They are not the first, and will definitely not be the last to make such a claim.  And for those who would like to in the future, I would like to offer a couple contemplative points of consideration on the social network’s past, present, and future.  My hope is that perhaps this will give pause before one decides to ring the old Facebook death knell.  

Past 

Mark Zuckerberg had no vision.  

Now this is not a jab at him, it is just me being sensational.  What I mean is that Zuckerberg had no idea of the greater significance of what he made, when he made it, and particularly its implications and the potential for what it could become, whether in communication, business, tech, politics, or society.  

Really, who could?  It would be like expecting the inventor of the wheel (or at least a medieval wagon-maker) to be able envision a combustion engine.  

Certainly he has greater vision now, but remember that this also due to the multitude of brilliance that surrounds him, is employed by the company, and is driven by the very fact that Facebook is a social endeavour that, by and large, the world has bought into, participates in, builds, and guides on its way.  

So, to those considering making a claim on its longevity, remember that Zuckerberg beat you to it, and he has since proven himself wrong.

Present

Ironically, while facing the claims of decline, or losing 80% of its users by 2017, in late January Facebook still pulled in record numbers (stocks at an all-time high, $2.6bil revenue, and continued overall growth).  Although traditional business metrics may not be the most accurate representation of a company’s future, they certainly present a position that is difficult to argue with.

Additionally, a frequent claim is that despite its continued increase in users, Facebook is declining in popularity among youth, particularly teens.  This is true, but as Mashable reports, it is also levelling off.

Moreover, this points to Facebook’s adaptability.  It is always worthwhile to note that while Facebook is trailblazing, it was not a trailblazer.  It asserted itself because it was able to read the failings of companies that came before it.  As a result of that foresight (derived from other’s hindsight), and now given its current size and resources, it is able to read, grow, and evolve from its own mistakes. 

In regards to the youth, and services that they may be going towards. Sure, SnapChat, and WhatsApp exist, but they are merely components of the broader services that Facebook does, can, and could provide.  If anything, what they expose to Facebook are merely gaps to fill, and when they cannot fill them by acquiring them outright (as Facebook did with Instagram, and has tried with SnapChat), they can just look to provide a similar service that renders the "offender" all but irrelevant (as Facebook did with FourSquare).

Future 

I really don’t know where to begin here, and could go on for days.  

So let’s say, Warren Buffet.

Warren Buffet will not buy into Facebook, because for him, simply put, it is “unproven.”

However, that’s also the key to why Facebook will not decline, because it simply can’t be proven.  Being the leader in an industry that both shapes, and is directly shaped by human interaction and behaviour, makes you less a business than it does a living, breathing, evolving organism.

Facebook has shown this capacity to evolve, moreover, that this capacity is born out of the participation of people worldwide, the production of content, the creation of data, and the desire to share.  Original iterations of the site recalled platforms popular among youth of the day (MSN chat, ICQ, email), on mediums that were equally as popular (desktop PCs, laptops).  Now, we already see Facebook moving to encompass current communication trends (focused circles, privacy), and on prevailing mediums (mobile).  

Facebook is a company, but it is also an entity, much like Google, it is something that cannot be defined (i.e. Google is NOT a search engine), as such, is incredibly difficult to identify as a “prudent investment” by traditional financial means.

More importantly, Facebook is not “social media,” and for that matter, neither is social media a “thing.”  We need to stop thinking this way, Facebook IS social, and social media IS human communication.

A Child's Christmas in Hamilton

"We knew it though, that he would come, that he did come, that he will always come.  We knew from our joy and his merriness, the elation in our hearts rising like the height of his sleigh as it soared over the Skyway Bridge, his magnificent reindeer running on the cold, Ontario night-air, south-westerly careening above and across Burlington bay."   

I had always been a great fan of Dylan Thomas' prose A Child's Christmas in Wales.  From the age of four it had always been a family tradition to watch the short Canadian/UK film translation, starring Denholm Elliott as the nostalgic Welsh grandfather, regaling his grandson with the story of what Christmas was like when he was a boy.

As such, it was in 2009, or so, that I had first thought it would be fun to write a similar prose, written in a Thomas-style, on the experiences of being a child celebrating the holidays in 1980s Hamilton (the same time when I would have first heard Thomas' piece).  Therefore, I began what would become A Child's Christmas in Hamilton.

Unfortunately, despite starting it, it quickly fell to the back-burner until November 2012, when factor[e] design initiative was considering unique, philanthropic projects it could pursue in the holiday spirit.  I pitched it as an endeavour that could simultaneously showcase our in-house talents for writing, illustration, print-design, and layout, while also being sold locally in Hamilton, Ontario for a charitable cause.  It was accepted, and once again, the project was underway.  

With illustrator Chelsea Robinson, and designers Michelle Hayward and Parker Martin covering layout and design, factor[e] published the book in December 2012, and for the past two years has been sold at various locations locally during the holiday season.  With all proceeds going to the local charity, City Kidz.

This was an exciting, and well received project to be apart of.  Moreover, it re-solidified my interest in personal, creative-writing.  An interest that frequently wavers in my motivation.  My hope is that we can continue to put it out, year after year, and see it grow as a traditional holiday story, woven into the culture and heritage of Hamilton.  However, even if it just makes someone smile, considering their own happy holiday memories, I'd be glad for it. 

For more on my reasons for undertaking this project, see here.

"Buildings build a city, and people populate it, but cities are truly made by stories.  Our identities, and indeed Hamilton’s identity, is shaped by shared experiences in a shared geography.  There are many tales of Hamilton, many factual and many fictional, many small and many big, many short and many long.  The more we write them down and share them with each other, contributing to our mutual culture, the more we can understand each other, where we have been, and where, as a city, we are going together. ...Read More" (Stories and The City, factor[e] blog, December 2012)

See below for local coverage it received upon its release:
CBC - Hamilton
MonkeyBiz.ca