Lately I find myself mixing my PascalCase with my camelCase, calling alloc init instead of new, using [ ] instead of (), and writing awfully verbose method names all over the place. I justify my errors with a glimpse at my average day here lately:
This is my second summer of road bicycling thanks largely due to my friend and coworker Chris Leon’s influence. Since I began cycling, I’ve had it in my head that I’d like to do a du/triathlon at some point, but never really did too much to make it happen, other than buy some fancy running shoes.
A couple of weeks ago, I began (very) casually running. A couple of times per week, just a few miles around my neighborhood. Due to some pretty intense unrelated exercise I’ve been doing over the past month or two (more to come on that at a later time), running has been much more approachable this time around. I dare say I’ve been enjoying it!
Unfortunately, I told my brother as much, and he promptly signed us up for a 5k race that was scheduled for the same weekend I had planned to visit him for the 4th of July. With 3 days of fever preceding race day, I(mostly) ran it and finished it. My practice track (neighborhood) is flat, so the hilly parts of the race track proved to be the biggest challenge. My time was far worse than I had hoped at ~31:30. Nonetheless, it was my first 5k, so I’m proud to have finished it.
The most interesting part of the race, however, was a guy that stood next to me at the starting line. He had no shoes! None. Nada. Not even those shoe/sock things that are just supposed to protect your feet. I thought, “Man, that guy’s nuts!” and forgot about him…
…until two days later, when my ankles and shins were killing me from the run. I attribute this abnormal post-run pain to my quicker-than-normal pace and all of the hills. So I decided to do a little googling about the barefoot thing, fully expecting to find some niche communities of believers. Sure enough, I found lots of them. Some for the idea, some adamantly against the idea. I saw a number of accounts from runners claiming switching to barefoot running solved many of the aches and pains in their feet that I was having after this run.
The most compelling article I came across was an interview of Ken Bob Saxton by LJWorld.com. Kenny B, as I choose to call him, has been called the “godfather of barefoot running.” As can be seen in the article, he is clearly a believer in the benefits of running barefoot. He didn’t seem to be trying to convince me that it was better though. He did convince me that it was worth trying.
And so I decided to try it. Last night after my normal workout, I walked outside and ran to the end of my neighborhood and back. It was just a couple of blocks – there was no sidewalk, just asphalt. We’d received a light rain a couple of hours before, so the road was wet and (relatively) cool. Afterwards, I noticed my calves were a bit tighter, but the tops of my ankles and the lower parts of my shins weren’t hurting at all. I think this was because I was taking smaller, faster strides. I’m not entirely sure, but I plan to experiment more. My feet didn’t hurt, I didn’t step on any rocks (because I was aware and scanning the terrain), and I didn’t have any of my pesky neighbors waving at me like I was a friendly neighborhood jogger (instead, they stared at me like a homeless person that had just robbed someone and was trying to get away).
Brody Ashton Gholson
Born: 5-7-07 at 9:31
7 lbs 11 oz.
20.5 inches long
Never has any day brought about as much respect for women in my mind as today. To any of you ladies reading this, I humbly bow. You truly are the superior sex. I am forever in debt to my wife Jen for the 12 hour day she worked today to bring our adorable little boy into this world. It was a long hard road beginning at 6 AM when we arrived. A couple of hours in the doc broke her water and shortly thereafter began what seems to be long term bruising to my hand. She worked hard all morning long breathing through contractions. Not once did I hear a four letter word. In fact, rarely did we even hear a peep from her. She calmly took each contraction at a time one by one with hardly the slightest utterance. For that alone, I’m beyond proud of her. It wasn’t until almost 2 that afternoon that she received the magic injection. The true impression was made beginning around 8 PM when the real pushing could finally begin. Hooray! It’s almost over– or so we thought. This girl pushed, and pushed, and pushed for an hour and a half. By golly I’ve never counted to 10 so many times, so hard, or so loud as I did tonight. I was exhausted. I was exhausted… from counting… to 10. How she felt afterwards, I will never understand. We should all pat her on the back for a job well done the next time we see her. I’ll be doing so for years to come.
I suppose most of you would like to see the little fruit of her/our labor. I’ve created a photo album on Flickr. The link is below. I don’t think any of the pics have caught it yet, but he has a well defined dimple on both cheeks.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/gholson/sets/72157600190539898/
^ This link goes to the specific album for “Brody’s birth.” I’ll be updating it more as I get more people’s cameras from them.
So I’ve recently come to the conclusion that I like children. I’m not just saying that because I’ve accepted the fact that I’m going to have one very soon, and I’m not meaning it in a weird father-of-15-home-schooled-kids kind of way. Little people are just so freakin’ funny. Now, I don’t mean that to offend anyone. I’m talkin about the kiddies here, folks.
As I was walking in the house after work yesterday evening Jen greeted me with the always wonderful hug and kiss. But the thing she said next was what broke from the routine.
“Garrison named our baby for us!”
This wouldn’t be terribly big news if, for instance, Garrison was somehow involved in the parenting of the baby, rather than being only 5 years older than the baby. Garrison is our 4 year old nephew, not Jen’s baby daddy. Now, in case you’re not familiar with family traditions, the name of a newborn is generally picked by the baby’s mother and father, not the mother and her nephew. I was sure that hilarity would follow.
“If it’s a girl, Booger Friday.”
What a whopper it was. Booger Friday. Wow. I love kids.
On a side note, Booger Friday is undoubtedly a boy’s name. What was he thinking? I mean, c’mon, the kid’s initials would be BFG. Of course, either way, any offspring of mine is going to dominate with the knife.
