Shot Heard Round the World

I love large community events. I think it is important for a school, company, or city to effectively cease operations so that everyone can go out and enjoy themselves. These types of events tend to happen in the spring, when the weather first starts to warm up and people are itching to get out of their winter hideouts. In college, on the last Friday of the spring semester we celebrated Georgetown Day. While classes were not cancelled, professors were understanding of the fact that is was Georgetown Day and generally didn't assign tests or papers. Students, staff, and faculty flocked outdoors to enjoy burgers, drink, and sunbathe. Similarly, when Georgetown made a run to the Final Four in 2007, the whole university came together to celebrate, charging down M St cheering and making friends with everyone around them.

When I arrived in Boston Sunday afternoon, the city already had this sense of community. Patriots' Day is arguably the best holiday in Massachusetts for any kid who goes to public school. You get a week off from school, the weather is usually nice (at least compared to the previous few weeks), and you don't have the obligations of travel and family gatherings that surround most holidays. I had never spent Patriots' Day in Boston but I grew up watching the marathon every year and that sense of community and local pride radiated from the television or computer screen.

For those non-Bay Staters reading this, Patriots' Day is a holiday celebrated in Massachusetts and Maine (and, per wikipedia, Wisconsin). While Patriots' Day officially celebrates the Battles of Lexington and Concord (19 April 1775), the date coincides with the Pratt Street Massacre (19 April 1861) when the Massachusetts militia was attacked by a mob, drawing the first casualties of the American Civil War. Outside of the Bay State and Maine, it is best known as Marathon Monday, or the day on which the Boston Marathon has been run since 1897.

Even our state quarter
commemorates the Revolution
(via theus50.com)

Bay Staters take incredible pride in their state and, based on the history curriculum taught in schools, believe that the rest of the country would not exist were it not for the revolutionaries who kicked the British out and established the United States of America. After all, much of the ramp up to the Revolution occurred in the Boston area and the first battles were fought there. The region produced founding fathers such as John Adams, his cousin Sam Adams, Paul Revere, and John Hancock. Patriots' Day celebrates the fact that a bunch of colonists from Massachusetts got fed up with the way the British were treating them and did something about it. They didn't just start shooting and behaving irrationally; they developed a plan of attack and eventually took down one of history's largest empires. This spirit of taking action even continued after the Revolution when Daniel Shays led a raid on the Springfield Armory in an act that historians believe played a role in demonstrating the need for a strong federal government.

Patriots' Day allows most people to take the day off and enjoy life; go out in the sun, hang out with friends, just relax and appreciate the fact that you live in a great commonwealth that allows you to take the day and celebrate life. Watching the marathon was the most similar experience I've had to Georgetown's run to the Final Four. Everyone knows something about the event, people come together to celebrate the participants and the fans, and it is a very positive experience (although I do believe that there were a few choice words about Ohio State flying around after the thrill of beating UNC wore off). The town was plastered with posters celebrating the marathon, runners were everywhere, and drunk college kids (and some not quite college aged) abounded. It was my first Patriots' Day in Boston and I was hooked.

I arrived at the 24 mile marker Monday morning. The lead wheelchair racers had already gone by but there were still athletes passing us. People were cheering for everyone, celebrating something that these athletes had worked very hard to achieve. I stayed at mile 24 for almost two hours; once a friend of mine ran past I decided to see just how crazy these crowds could get. I wandered the course up towards the finish line. The crowds got louder and louder the closer I got. The finish line was a great time. The runners were happy to be there, spectators were cheering for everyone coming through, and the bars were full of people enjoying the day. I stood there, soaking it all in, until my true New England roots showed and I left to get an ice cream.


When the bombs went off I didn't think anything was wrong. Sure, the sound wasn't normal, but I figured it was a construction site, or something happening at Fenway Park which I was passing. I was walking back down the course, towards mile 24, when the police started clearing spectators. Again, seemed a little strange to me but for all I knew someone was sick inside a house and emergency responders needed to enter. Eventually I pulled out my cell phone to check the time and saw several text messages, all along the lines of, "please tell me you're alive." At this point I started to put things together and realized that what was going on was not normal. I still didn't have any idea what was happening but I had an inkling that it was bad so, given the lack of cell service, I managed to get a note on facebook and then focused on trying to find my way back to my cousin's house.

It was this type of situation where I realize how important it is to have non-cell phone dependent plans. When I was in Asia I had to rely on paper maps and getting directions ahead of time. Fortunately I had made a mental note of where my cousin lived so I wasn't affected by the fact that I couldn't access google maps. I made it back to her house, still unsure of what was happening, only to discover that the T was closed. I grabbed my bags, put on my trusty FiveFingers, and set off on my hike to North Station where I hoped the commuter rail was running and I could get out of the city and to my grandmother's house.

As I walked from Brookline to North Station I saw plenty of runners who were walking home from the race. They were wrapped in blankets, trying to stay out of the wind, but no one was openly complaining or fighting in the street. People were out running along the Charles, BU students were still out and about; when I passed Mass General, there wasn't a sense of panic in the air. Despite everything that had transpired in the previous few hours, people were still courteous, emergency personnel were treated with respect, and runners, still in their racing clothes, were walking home without complaint.

I could tell that whatever had happened must have been terrible when I arrived at North Station. Police were searching every bag on the way in, and the Bruins game that night was cancelled. Still, despite everything that was going on, the police were firm but smiled after they checked my bag (although they did keep mistaking me for a runner) and people were calm. I saw that same spirit as I watched the news on Friday during the man hunt; people able to see the bigger picture and step back to allow law enforcement to do their jobs as safely as possible.

Watching the rest of the week unfold while I was below the Mason Dixon line was much less comforting than being up north. Here people made remarks about how the US is the laughing stock of the world for shutting a whole city down for the day; they imagined that Bostonians must wish they had guns at home. Neither of these thoughts ever crossed my mind, and from what I can tell, they didn't cross many Bay Staters'.

If anything good is to come of this, people who needed a little push to start running have done so. More people are getting off the couch and learning how healing it can be to get outside and move. Even people who have no real connections to the marathon or the city have been inspired to train for a marathon, or simply, put on a pair of sneakers and go for their first run. If any city has the ability to ensure a positive legacy from a tragedy it is Boston. Now, we just have to wait and see.

Heyden Observatory

The Heyden Observatory at Georgetown University is the third oldest observatory in the country. The observatory was the site from which the city of Washington was surveyed, and was the home of some of the nation's most influential astronomers until the second half of the twentieth century when the program was shut down.

On a personal note, I managed this observatory while I was in school and I believe that it is one of the most underrated gems on campus. Please vote for the observatory to receive funds from Partners in Preservation using the link below.

https://www.preservedmv.com/competitors/heyden-observatory

Redheads on TV

Patti Stanger, the star of one of my favorite guilty pleasures, Millionaire Matchmaker, has never been shy about the fact that she hates redheads. I recently watched this season's redhead episode, hoping it would be favorable to redheads.
Despite all the girls at the mixer having red hair, very few were real redheads. If the guys actually wanted a redhead, my guess is that the hair color isn't what they are after; there is the whole complexion and whatever stereotypes go along with that. Very few of the non-redheads even had the complexion to pull off the color and just looked ridiculous.

Thankfully I still see some positive examples in the media. During the redhead Millionaire Matchmaker episode, I saw this ad.
 
The little red haired girl is not only operating her own business, she is shown as being physically strong, pulling the delivery truck out of the ground and across the field.

(via http://tv.broadwayworld.com)

I then followed Millionaire Matchmaker with Suburgatory, starring Jane Levy. Levy's character in Suburgatory is a high school student who is uprooted from Manhattan to the suburbs. She lands in a town where everyone appears to be the same; the fact that she is a redhead makes her not quite fit in. The writers of the show are able to use this to make a point, but I think it is one of the reasons that my non-redhead friends and family do not quite understand my sensitivity to the subject.

Many brunettes and blondes that I know change their hair color without much thought. People routinely get highlights and change their hair color seasonally. Hair color does not become an essential part of their self identity. Even in the most homogeneous community, every red haired child has stuck out. Their hair attracts attention, both positive and negative; it always makes one unique.

While there is some debate on the internet over whether Levy is a natural redhead, she has the complexion to pull it off. Emma Stone is not a natural redhead but she has the complexion to pull it off and has embraced her identity as a red haired actress. I certainly want people to see being a redhead as a good thing so I am normally not one to publicly call out dyed redheads; if the person is willing to commit to being a redhead and not just use it as a publicity stunt, as Stone has, I have no problem. However, there are plenty of dyed redheads who go around doing stupid things and calling themselves redheads, making it necessary for redheads to counter the claims made by the crazy dyers.

(via http://omelete.uol.com.br)

***SPOILER ALERT*** The 2011 film Crazy, Stupid, Love stars two red haired actresses: Stone and Julianne Moore, who plays Steve Carell's wife. The film's multiple story lines converge when a twist is revealed: Stone is the daughter of Moore and Carell. I watched the film with my mom and nana, both brunettes. They seemed genuinely surprised at this revelation. I had to point out that the only reason films ever seem to cast two redheads is to establish a blood relationship.

Suburgatory resorts to this trick when they introduce a red haired Malin Akerman as Levy's mother. There is no reason that a red haired child must have a red haired parent; to the best of my knowledge, my great-grandma is the only red haired relative that I have met.

Team Coco!
(via eonline.com)

(via craftyiscool.blogspot.com)

I have only touched on female redheads so far. As much as I may get riled up about the portrayal of female redheads, they exist. There are very few male red haired celebrities, and it is not a color that men tend to choose when dying their hair. Conan O'Brien is arguably the most famous red haired male on television right now. Even people who aren't fans of Conan are probably aware of his Tonight Show conflict. While this seemingly had nothing to do with his hair, it played out as the new redhead in town being bullied around by everyone else. Conan's supporters gathered together as Team Coco. Suddenly you could find t-shirts and nearly anything else covered in a splash of red hair. I respect O'Brien's career on the whole, but I really respect the fact that he has made it as a red haired comedian, who uses his hair as a rally cry, without resorting to dumb redhead jokes. My favorite red haired comedian is Louis CK and he generally just avoids the subject entirely. This is in contrast to comedians like Carrot Top whose entire persona is centered on their hair.

In closing, I will allow Tim Minchin to sum up this post.


If you've made it this far, thank you for tolerating my red haired ranting of the week :-)

Marathon Training: One Month Down and I Can Still Walk

The focus of this first month was to start building up my mileage. I started with fifteen, then did four weeks of around 23 miles. I've never been good about sticking to rigid schedules so I didn't try to force myself into one. I always did one long run on the weekend. One week the weather was kind of gross so I only did one other long run. The other weeks I did two or three shorter runs. I didn't do any specific speed work, but I tried to make the short runs a little faster than my long runs.

Below are a few lessons that I've learned over the past five weeks.

Lesson #1: Minor Imbalances Will Be Exaggerated
When riding I always unclip with my left foot. I never thought anything of this until I started doing my weekend long runs. Once I'd hit the point where my form began to fade, I started noticing that my ankles felt noticeably different. I started getting a twinge just behind the bump on the inside of my left ankle. Once I noticed this sensation I couldn't ignore it. I'm still not sure whether the clip in factor is relevant; I'm trying an experiment for the next month where I use my right foot to clip in. On my commute in this morning, when I managed to time my lights pretty well, I clipped out seven times; when I don't time it well the count is closer to a dozen. I'll post more about the results of this experiment in next month's update.

Lesson #2: Running More Frequently is Less Stressful than Running Long
One week, because of gross weather, I did two long runs and no other running. It took me awhile to recover from these runs and that's the week I began to notice the tweak in my ankle. The other weeks, when I ran more frequently, I was able to get in better quality runs since I could keep my form up for the whole run, and I generally felt fine the next day, albeit a little stiff in the legs.

Lesson #3: You Can't Discount Your Bike Miles
For the past few years, I've taken a dichotomous approach to cycling: I have my commute miles and my fun miles. I know that they all count, but if you were to ask me how many training miles I do, I'd give you the total less commute miles. Since coming back, most of my bike miles have been for commuting. My round trip commute is now almost twenty miles so I am getting quite a bit of riding in without even counting it. When I started adding some runs in, I was still discounting my bike miles. I would be stuck at work, late for a group run so I'd sprint the ten miles home on my bike, change clothes, and run to the meeting spot. When we'd start running I would notice that my legs were heavy and I felt similar to how I do at the end of my long runs. It wasn't until this happened a few times that I realized that I cannot discount my commute.

Lesson #4: Run With Good Runners
This isn't necessarily something that everyone has the luxury to do, but several of my friends are very good runners who know a lot about the sport. I tend to run with them when I want to go faster than usual as they'll hold me to a pace that I can sustain but would be too lazy to do if I were running on my own. The biggest advantage of running with people who are good runners is that they can spot poor form quickly. As a newbie, bad habits are easy to fall into, but they are also easy to fix. If someone can spot these for you early on and help you fix it, it'll be more comfortable in the long run. As a side note, my bike handling skills improved significantly once I started doing more group rides. Just make sure that you're imitating people who know what they are doing :-)

Lesson #5: Work On Good Form
This is a follow up to running with good runners. I try to spend one run every week where I really focus on keeping good form. Right now my primary focus is my hand placement. I tend to run with my hands near my shoulders. I believe it's a bad habit I picked up when I played field hockey. I learned to run with a stick in my hand and teammates around me; it was safer to keep the stick more vertical than horizontal. However, ever since high school I have dealt with a right shoulder that feels like it is getting pinched the longer and faster I run. So, I ask people that I run with to point out to me if they notice my hands creeping towards my shoulders, and I dedicate one run each week to actively work out these bad habits.

I'm running a half marathon this coming weekend for a friend's birthday (yes, I have some odd friends) and then heading to Boston to watch the marathon. I'll write about that when I come back; this is my first time in Boston on Patriots' Day. Growing up in Massachusetts I always had school off so I watched the marathon every year through high school; in college some MA friends and I would watch the marathon and pretend we had the day off :-)

If you have any questions or ideas for me to play with in the next month, feel free to leave me a note in the comments, or email me directly.

Welcome to My Summer of Marathon Training

Earlier this year, when I decided to start running, I started searching the internet for some articles for beginner runners. However, after a lot of searching I couldn't find many articles for people like me: already relatively fit but with no real running background. Most of the beginner articles I found were "couch to 5k" type advice. I wasn't just getting off the couch; I had no problem going for a five mile run, but I knew that I probably shouldn't just go from not running at all to running thirty miles a week if I wanted to stay injury free.

Malaysia

My week in Malaysia was probably the most stressful and painful of my whole trip. If I've been able to talk with you in person I'm sure you've already heard about the beach incident, but I'll recount the whole week here.

I was looking forward to traveling to Malaysia. I had heard great things about the country as a whole. Because of seasonal rains and a lack of planning, I decided against visiting the eastern peninsula and the Borneo side. Looking at a calendar, I figured I had about two weeks before I needed to be in Phuket to take a freediving course so I decided to take my time and just go without a plan. I had a rough idea that I would travel by bus up the west coast, stopping in Melaka, Kuala Lumpur, and Penang before finally hitting the beach in Thailand.

One redeeming quality of Malaysia

I basically had to be kicked out of Singapore. I don't know whether I truly loved Singapore or whether it was a welcome change of pace after six weeks in SE Asia, but I ended up staying almost twice as long as I had planned. One of the owners of the hostel I stayed at eventually put me on a bus headed for Johor Baru where I would pass through immigration on my way to Melaka. The border crossing was in two stages, both requiring disembarkation. We first had to pass through the Singapore side, get back on the bus, then get off at the Malaysian side. As soon as I got my passport stamped, the chaos of SE Asia returned. Without any signs indicating where to go, I ended up following a group of people from my bus who were not going where I needed to. I tried to go back but the corridor was one way so a police officer (who spoke perfect English) stopped me. He informed me that I needed to go a different way but that would spit me out in no man's land so I would have to go back through immigration. I did this, but the non-English speaking immigration officer did not understand what had happened. My passport indicated I had already entered Malaysia and that I hadn't left. Finally a supervisor was able to figure out what happened and waved me through.

I went to the bus terminal to pick up the bus to Melaka. The bus was an hour late but Malaysia has a very good road network so the ride was not terribly dusty or bumpy. Eventually I made it to Melaka, found the bus that took me into town, and found my hostel. The dorm did not have any windows; I found this to be the case in every hostel I visited in Malaysia but nowhere else.

An abandoned building in Melaka

Melaka is a former Dutch and British colony; the old part of town consists of buildings from this period. In my wanderings, I found an abandoned building, just behind the heavily trafficked historic buildings, that appeared to be the same style architecturally. Without any regard for my personal safety, I wandered inside. I discovered that the building had been an art gallery as recently as five years ago but was no longer in use. No one else was around and I had a great time exploring.

Doorway blocked with debris

I am able to recognize it now, after documenting my daily activities for three months, but I have a tendency to explore places that are abandoned, the highest point in the area, and the lowest. In this case, the building was near the top of the hill so I was able to get two things out of my system in one go.

Melaka waterfront, trees undewater

I also rented a bicycle and rode around for a morning. This was the first and only time I have ever had to ride on the left side of the road. This didn't cause any problems, but I had to remember to look over my right shoulder instead of instinctively looking over the left. On my wanderings, I headed right to the water. I never realized it before this trip but I find being around water to be very calming. The two years since I graduated were the first two in my life where I wasn't swimming on a regular basis. I didn't notice it at the time but I believe that I by not swimming I had unintentionally removed a key component of my stress management system from my life. It wasn't until I was in Asia that I realized that any time I got stressed I naturally ended up at the beach. This will be discussed in much greater detail later in this post.

Petronas Towers on NYE

After two nights I was ready to continue onto Kuala Lumpur. KL is where I was turned off to Malaysia. After getting off the bus, I walked a short distance to the train to get into the city. There were no signs anywhere. The platforms were not labeled and no transit system map existed in the station. There was no indication that I was the only person who was confused because in every station I went to in KL there were transit system employees stationed next to each fare machine to help you buy the proper fare for your destination (which may include transfers between different transit systems). I had instructions that my hostel was only a few blocks from the subway station, but due to a lack of maps and signage, it took me nearly an hour just to orientate myself.

Celebrating the end of 2012 in KL

Disorientation was the theme of my time in KL. Generally, I am able to figure out where I am quickly and draw a mental map of the city in my head. KL and Phuket both really turned me around. Phuket was not difficult, I just couldn't wrap my head around it for whatever reason. KL seemed to have grown up too quickly. There are several places where major roads don't have pedestrian crossings for at least a kilometer. The subway was so crowded on New Year's Eve that I chose to walk back to my hostel after watching the fireworks from the Petronas Towers. What should have been a forty minute walk turned into just over two hours because I kept getting turned around and stuck on the wrong side of roads without pedestrian crossings.

Batu Caves

This confusion regarding the transit system continued when I tried to go to Batu Caves. I tried to buy a ticket to Batu Caves but the operator of the train I was at isn't the same as the one that goes to Batu Caves. The transit map is fully integrated so there was no way to know where I had to go to for a connecting train that sold the correct tickets. The guy whose job it is to help people buy fares told me which station to go to, and after getting there, I still wandered around for about twenty minutes as there are two physical buildings at the station, each of which sell different tickets, and I couldn't find the appropriate one. The caves were worth the trip, especially as I was able to climb a long staircase to go up to the cave, and then descend deep into another, satisfying my desire to climb things and descend.

Although I had heard good things about the Cameron Highlands and I still had some time to play around in Malaysia, I was getting very frustrated and wanted to get to the beach in Thailand as quickly as possible. When entering Thailand by land Americans are granted a fourteen day visa. Given my schedule, I still had a few days that I needed to spend in Malaysia so that I wouldn't run into visa problems.

Hiking through the park in Penang

I decided to leave KL and headed to Penang. The main tourist spot in Penang is George Town which is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. At this point I was on an island and I wanted to go to the beach. I took the bus out to a park where there are hiking trails that lead to several beaches. I set out for a hike, ready to give Malaysia one last chance to impress me.

Due to beach and trail closures, my route was already picked for me. Hike out past two beaches, stop for a swim at the third, and depending on the weather/time I could continue onto a final beach. I passed the first two beaches and the rain was holding off. It was a pretty quiet day but there were several other hikers out so I felt comfortable going into the water for a swim whenever I made it to the third beach where I had planned my swim.

Doesn't the beach look so inviting?

I found a small area, surrounded by rocks and out of sight to hide my bag and clothes. I hopped into the ocean and felt so comfortable. It was the first time I had been in the water since my scuba trip over a month earlier and I was desperate for a good swim. I swam half way down the beach when I stopped to tread water for a minute and look where I was going. As soon as my legs dropped below my torso I felt a familiar pain in my lower left leg and foot. The only other time I have been stung by a jellyfish I nearly blacked out in the water, so, given that the beach was nearly deserted and I didn't know how many minutes behind me the other hikers were, I tried to stop moving entirely and drift onto the beach.

The tentacle wrapped around
my leg, creating a nice band

Fortunately this sting was nothing compared to the last one I had, but I didn't know how severe it was. I slowly limped back to the rock encircled area I had left my bag and sat on the beach to soak the sting and scrub it with some sand. At this point, the monkeys who lived on the beach decided to hit me up for some food (of which I had none). They climbed onto the rocks which surrounded me and began to bare their teeth. I've been around other animals in attack mode before, but staring the head monkey in the eyes scared me more than almost any other time in my life. I didn't know what to do as I was still in pain from the sting, I wasn't thinking clearly, I couldn't escape, and I had nothing with me with which to distract the monkeys. Eventually I got fed up with the situation, started screaming at the monkeys, they slowly realized I had no food, and left one at a time.

Once the monkeys were gone, I grabbed my stuff and ran off the beach, leg still stinging, and into the jungle. Finally clear of the monkeys, I put my shoes back one and started hiking as fast as possible back to the park entrance and the bus. I tried to explore a little more of George Town that night but I was unsuccessful in cleaning out the sting and new venom kept being released when I would walk. So, I mustered up the strength to walk to the ticket office and bought a ticket to Phuket. The beach was Malaysia's last chance to win me over and she blew it.