On Running Injuries

Six months into learning to run, I guess I get to claim my first running injury. I sprained an extensor during a training run last weekend (on the brutal Rachel Carson Trail), and ran 36 miles on it yesterday. I wasn’t sure how it was going to hold up. Answer: not great. I can still discern the outline of an ankle, under that pulpy mass. Alas–I’m not alone.

Injuries are endemic to running–to the point, in fact, where many non-runners associate distance running with destroying one’s body. Some have blamed Nike (et al) and the advent of the modern running shoe–and in a sense, perhaps they’re right. I think that the surety of getting injured from running boils down to two things:

1) We’re not conditioned for what we set out to do. Not a lack of training, but conditioning. We’re creatures of comfort, knowledge workers, armchair jockies. It’s not the demands of running a hard race or pushing hard during a workout–it’s the contrast between being sedentary 92% of the time, and then making strong, specific demands on a body conditioned to the contours of an ergonomic desk chair. The body’s had no opportunity to develop the strength necessary to protect itself. (I herniated a disc in my lumbar spine in the same manner–throwing myself into trail work without adequate transition. It’s not that cutting on a two-man saw and lifting 100+ lb logs necessarily leads to injury–but it’s liable to if you’re a 140lb weakling with little recent experience lifting anything. The protective muscles just aren’t adequately developed.)

2) Modern shoes. They’re not the culprit–they’re just enablers. Modern shoes turn our feet into little tanks, and let us beat on our feet and our bodies in a way that evolution never prepared us for. Cushioning itself isn’t the enemy. Cushioning just allows the body to absorb bigger impacts. If running barefoot or in minimalist shoes results in fewer running injuries, it shouldn’t surprise–doing so also concomitantly results in fewer podium finishes. Refer to #1. Modern running shoes are technological marvels that allow us to exceed what was physically possible prior to their advent. If you want to spare yourself from injury, steer clear. Running shoes are aid. Running shoes are doping. Still going to strap those weapons of joint destruction to your feet? You’re going to get yourself hurt–but you just might pick up a few ribbons along the way. What were you saving your body for, anyway?

The Measure of Happiness

A letter arrived yesterday from the Social Security Administration. Making an exception to my usual mail-handling approach of letting letters wither, unopened, in a heap, I opened this government agency notice hastily. Instead of the bad news I expected (“Dear Mr. Egge, your Social Security Number has been revoked!” or, more probably, “Dear Mr. Egge, you owe us money!”), inside I found a notice of my paid social security taxes, and a promise that, someday, should I become disabled or retired, I will receive payments in kind. Nice!

I also found in this charming little missive a yearly summary of my entire taxed earning history. Apparently, yes, someone is tracking these things! Here the mail randomly brought me a document created by a government agency with fourteen years of information about my earnings. Being the data nerd that I am, I immediately entered this data into a spreadsheet and began creating charts.What correlations or insights might I find?!

But first: a brief digression into the ebb and flow of happiness through changing circumstance and the passage of time since becoming a sentient being (which I consider to have occurred for me at around the age 16). My last years of high school were golden. Breaking up with my high school girlfriend and starting college brought me bitterly low. Going abroad my sophomore year restored me. I returned with a new-found sense of self, and enjoyed three halcyon northern years rich with friendship, intellectual engagement, “college” shenanigans, and the occasional adventure.

The working world found me in 2009. My employer was generous but my situation was not: I worked hard at a stressful job and made good money, but struggled to find community. It wasn’t until I finally fled Phoenix that I recaptured happiness in life. Oh, Colorado–what a difference you made! Newly (financially) destitute from being the co-owner of a not-yet-profitable small business, I quickly found myself rich in community and adventure.

Something changed for me in 2014. All my life I’ve been a hack–smart, but listless and lazy. Maybe too smart for my own good–to the extent that I never really had to work hard for anything. I’ve skated by far more often than I’ve done things right. Without my deserving it, life and luck have nevertheless blessed me with opportunities, and I’ve been smart enough to never say “no.” But saying “yes” and succeeding on an above-average quantity of underutilized, directionless intelligence is a different thing from setting one’s course in life.

January 2014 found me running a small business by day, and slinging burgers and fries in the hot kitchen of a nearby bar at night. My hours between were spent daydreaming and sketching concepts, menus, and floorplans for restaurants. Bored of medical billing, I cast about for “what next,” and found myself flirting seriously with the idea of opening a restaurant in a mountain community, becoming a pizziaolo, and settling into the rest of my life as a committed ski bum.

A well-timed visit from a friend ripped me from my mountain-town torpor. Without intending to (or having any idea of the impact it would have), Bri reminded me of the world outside the snowy mountains. In a way, I appropriated her grad school and worldly aspirations, picking up studying for the GMAT about the time she left off. I studied for the GMAT through the summer while beginning, for the first time, to conceive of a path of my own in life.

Running the Rim Rock Marathon on November 1st, 2014 marked a change of epoch. My previous marathon attempts had been about as intentional as everything else in my life to that point–saying “yes” to opportunities, and then trying to skate by on natural ability. I didn’t finish my first marathon, and walked much of the last six miles of my second marathon.

The thing about marathons is that you can’t run a marathon on pure natural ability. One must train, be disciplined, intentional. And in the months leading up to the Rim Rock Marathon, perhaps for the first time in my life, I was. Disciplined. Intentional. The last six miles were (and remain) the toughest thing I’ve done–but I ran them in good time and finished because I’d trained and prepared for those last six miles. That day marked a manifestation of a change in myself long in the making, from my listless and lazy former self to someone who sets goals and works hard to achieve them. (It’s hard to be happy in life when you have a poor image of yourself. Call it the environment I was raised in, but I’ve always disdained lazy people. What a relief of burden, then, to finally cast off this self-loathing of my lazy self!)

My first year of grad school has brought its own attendant hardships (mostly the stress of working harder than I’ve ever worked before), but also the reward of learning, and the sense that–ha!–for once, I’m actually working hard for something I’m excited and care about. My happiness in grad school hasn’t necessarily been, say, equal to the three weeks spent rafting in the Grand Canyon last May–but my contentment with life these past eight months has been off the charts.

Well, that’s a long tangent. Back to my income data. Reflecting on the last fourteen years (reviewing the notable events on my timeline), I assigned a subjective “happiness” score to each year. I then plotted these points against my income data:

Well, there you have it. A completely subjective (but seemingly scientific by virtue of there being “data” and a graph!) affirmation of the idea that money doesn’t buy happiness.

Searching for other quantities of self, I dug up a few others. For example, I’ve tracked my number of ski days per season in recent years:

It was also easy to pop into my photo library and count how many photos I’ve taken each year over the past number of years. Photos are a proxy for adventures and other memorable events. The data from 2014 on is skewed, however, since I bought a “real” camera in 2014 and have taken considerably more photos ever since:

How does this all add up? Let’s take a look at the correlations:

Measure vs. Happiness Pearson Correlation Coefficient
Days Skied vs. Happiness 0.47
Income vs. Happiness -0.63
Photos Taken vs. Happiness 0.19

Unsurprisingly, perhaps, we see that the number of days spent skiing are strongly correlated with happiness. Income, as it happens, is strongly negatively correlated with happiness (in fact, the correlation is stronger than the skiing effect)!

My retrospective assessment of 1-10 scale happiness in years prior is interesting, but too subjective. There may be an art to happiness–if so, paying attention to it seems like a logical first step toward getting better. From this month, I’ve set up a Google-Form-based “Satisfaction With Life Scale” survey, which I’ll complete for myself monthly. So, the next time I get an unexpected letter with data about myself in the mail, I’ll have a slightly more objective basis from which to measure it.

Top Albums of 2015

For the sake of procrastinating, I’ve compiled my annual list of my top 25 albums for the previous year. If you’re looking for some new tunes, dig in! I present, my top 25 albums of 2015:

  1. Grimes – Art Angels
  2. Jason Isbell – Something More Than Free
  3. Best Coast – California Nights
  4. Purity Ring – Another Eternity
  5. Mew – + –
  6. Dave Rawlings Machine – Nashville Obsolete
  7. Punch Brothers – The Phosphorescent Blues
  8. Brandi Carlile – The Firewatcher’s Daughter
  9. Courtney Barnett – Sometimes I Sit and Think, and Sometimes I Just Sit
  10. Kendrick Lamar – To Pimp a Butterfly
  11. Ryan Adams – 1989
  12. Foals – What Went Down
  13. BADBADNOTGOOD & Ghostface Killah – Sour Soul
  14. Florence + The Machine – How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful
  15. Beirut – No No No
  16. The Chemical Brothers – Born in the Echoes
  17. CHVRCHES – Every Open Eye
  18. Ryan Bingham – Fear And Saturday Night
  19. Low – Ones and Sixes
  20. My Morning Jacket – The Waterfall
  21. Calexico – Edge of the Sun
  22. Wavves – V
  23. Neon Indian – VEGA INTL. Night School
  24. Lana Del Rey – Honeymoon
  25. Grace Mitchell – Raceday

2015 Year In Review

2015 just had a nice ring to it–probably because I like numbers that end in five. Upon reflection, it happened to be pretty durn good year. Some highlights, in more-or-less sequential order:

2015 was book-ended by trips to Bozeman with our annual cabin to celebrate the New Year with friends from Quad E and Quad D. Games, snow, food, drink, and good friends.

Two ice-climbing trips to Ouray (both with great groups of people). I’m nowhere near a badass ice climber, but I’m getting closer to having the skillset for some long-term objectives (a ski-descent of Mount Rainier via Liberty Ridge, in particular). I’m now pretty comfy leading / soloing grade 3 ice, and can strongly recommend Orvis hot springs (a bit of a trek from Ouray, but the vast, hot, quiet outdoor pool is 100% worth the drive).

Raced the Grand Traverse with TJ. The Grand Traverse is a 40-mile backcountry ski race from Crested Butte to Aspen. At the crack of midnight we raced up Crested Butte resort into darkness among a crowd of 400 lyrca-clad, headlamp-wearing, skinny-skied athletes under a cold thin moon and abundant stars. By 6:30 am we climbed up Taylor Pass among the alpenglow-kissed peaks of the Elk Mountains, and by 11:00 am bombed down the thrilling 4000′ vertical descent down Aspen mountain slashing slush turns under the finish line.

Finagled a 50-day ski season, with a good dose of Colorado backcountry days with friends (a.k.a. “training”),  Arestua Hut cabin trips, beach days, hut days at Loveland, and early-morning skimo races.

Celebrated Gaper Day in fine style (e.g. with a monoski and a mohawk)

Drank way too much (and did a little skiing) for a weekend in Wolf Creek, CO

Played too much slappy cup (and did a little skiing) for a weekend in Crested Butte, CO

Rafted the Grand Canyon with a really great group of people. Incredible beyond words.

Said farewell to Golden and packed my bags for Africa

Saw the pyramids in Egypt

(My Cairo taxi driver said to me, “I take your picture! Go stand on rocks! Pretend to touch pyramid!”)

Went in safari in Kenya

Went snorkeling and searching for new Commandments in the Sinai peninsula

Drank a beer on top of Mount Kilimanjaro

A video posted by Mark Egge (@markegge) on Jul 19, 2015 at 3:41am PDT

Went diving in Zanzibar (and got my PADI Open Water Diver cert)

Hiked Table Mountain in Cape Town

Sold Atlas, moved to Pittsburgh, and started grad school for data science at Carnegie Mellon University. Made the acquaintance of a ton of dear friends. Won the Deloitte Case Competition and the DiscoverCMU Case Competition. It’s been really fun exploring Pittsburgh (especially the weekend when Sagar and Curtis came to visit)

Raced in my first cross-country mountain bike event

Taking advantage of Winter Break, I moved all of my skis into my car and took off on a 5500 mile road trip back to the Rocky Mountains and along the northern United States:

And, finished the year back in Colorado, in the mountains, with good friends and snow:

So, yeah. Lots of skiing, mountains, friendship, snow, and adventure. I also managed to squeeze in reading a bunch of books, a few good movies (and The Wire!), a lot of mountain bike miles, distilling, pizza and bread making, and photography. I once again failed to think even so much as a single interesting or original thought, but nevertheless succeeded in enjoying myself thoroughly. I’m grateful for the friends and family I got to enjoy 2015 with, and the new friends made along the way.

On the Martini

I’m here to tell you something important, and something that you might not know if you don’t spent your evening reading books about spirits and foodie blogs. I’m bringing you some advice that you’re not going to get elsewhere. They’re not teaching this in school. This is information that your bartenders know, your foodie friends know, but you may not. And it’s this: a martini is a GIN drink.

Yes—a martini is a cocktail made of gin and vermouth, served chilled in the V-shaped stemmed glass that has come to share its name. The martini is a timeless and a sophisticated cocktail, favored by the likes of Alfred Hitchcock, Winston Churchill, Earnest Hemmingway, and many among others.

Now, let me ask you: Would you make a martini with rum? – NO. Would you make a martini with bourbon? – of course not. Would you make a martini with vodka? Ah–some of you perhaps are saying yes. But no—that vodka-based cocktail you’re thinking of is called a kangaroo, or maybe even vodka-tini, but certainly not a martini. (And if I say martini and apples or chocolate come to mind, that’s right out!)

Let’s consider the facts. First, the history of the drink. Origin stories for the martini vary, but what is certain is that it was invented in more than 100 years ago as the combination of gin and vermouth, and sometimes bitters. The martini survived World War I, prohibition, the great depression, and World War II before the first bonehead mixologist had the audacity to publish a cocktail guide combining vodka and vermouth and calling it a vodka-tini.

Second, consider the gustatory fact of the beautiful harmony between vermouth and gin. Vermouth (as you may or may not know) is wine fortified with brandy and infused with botanicals and aromatics. It is slightly sweet and very floral. Gin’s primary ingredient is the juniper berry, which gives gin its pine-tree smell and slightly astringent taste. But gin is more than just juniper berry–it’s a whole bouquet of botanicals that gives gin its subtlety and intrigue.

The miracle of the martini is the interplay between the gin and the vermouth. The sweetness of the vermouth neutralizes the astringency of the juniper, resulting in a drink that combines more than a dozen botanicals into a drink that’s mysterious, intriguing, and subtle–a drink where curiosity and pleasure draw you from one sip to the next.

Vodka, on the other hand, is a tasteless, odorless, and flavorless spirit. When you combine vodka and vermouth, what you get is diluted vermouth–hardly the sort of drink to send poets into ecstasies.

H.L. Mencken once described the martini as “the only American invention as perfect as the sonnet.” But, just as a sonnet is a poem of fourteen lines, a martini is only a martini if it follows a specific format. So please, next time you’re in the cocktail bar, spare yourself the embarrassment and your taste buds the unpleasantness of vodka-diluted vermouth and instead order a true martini. What you’ll get is a drink as beautiful and sophisticated as you!