Author: davecriswell

NH transplant living in CO. Husband, Dad, cyclist, Ironman triathlete, runner, Digital Marketing Director for @Avid4Adventure. Dark chocolate is my weakness.
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Cicero quote on pain

“There is no one who loves pain itself, who seeks after it and wants to have it, simply because it is pain, but because occasionally circumstances occur in which toil and pain can procure him some great pleasure. To take a trivial example, which of us ever undertakes laborious physical exercise, except to obtain some greater advantage from it? But who has any right to find fault with a man who chooses to enjoy a pleasure that has no annoying consequences, or one who avoids a pain that produces no resultant pleasure? ” 

Marcus Tullius Cicero (106 BC – 43 BC)

 

Posted on the Marathon Finishers group on LinkedIn

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Obama’s State of the Union on Wordle.net

I was introduced to Wordle.net from a school project my son was working on. Below is the top 100 words from President Obama’s State of the Union speech on January 28, 2010.

President Obama’s State of the Union top 100 words from Wordle.net

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2010 in 2010 and a few more things to shoot for

Despite my recent post that referenced Bike Snob NYC’s perspective on New Year’s resolutions, I have been going through the process of creating my own goals for 2010. The ones that are pertinent to this blog I’ve posted below in hopes of it being a way to keep me accountable.  If you are one of the three or four people who regularly read ;-), keep checking in with me this year to make sure I’m on track..

 

  1. Run 2,010 miles in 2010. I’m keep track with others working towards the same challenge on DailyMile.com
  2. Complete a 50k ultramarathon
  3. Complete a 50 mile ultramarathon
  4. Reach a race weight of 185 pounds for both races (I’m 195 pounds now)

 

They’ll be regular updates on how all of these are going as the year progresses.

A quick update on number 1, I only have 2,000 miles to go after my 10 mile run on New Year’s Day!

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A Perspective on New Year’s Resolutions

I’m a big fan of the Bike Snob NYC blog. While his perspective can sometimes be controversial, this was written in a recent blog post, and I think it’s a truer way way to position “new year’s resolutions” than many want to admit.

“Change is a cumulative process and it consists of subtle gradations; it’s not something that happens annually at the stroke of midnight. Nonetheless, just as the bicycle industry releases new models every year, we undertake “resolutions” as though we can change ourselves in annual increments. Ultimately, whether it’s a bike or ourselves, the result is the same: we wind up with a bunch of hastily-applied “improvements” of dubious value which will most likely be phased out by the time the next model year rolls around. Still, it’s human nature to create reference points and plant metaphorical staff gages in the river of time, and so as the new year approaches we find ourselves reflecting on all that has passed.”

The message to me is it is good to have a long term perspective on your goals, look at them often and set a goal when it seems approprite, not only at the end of each year.