Tag: running

Oh, Georgia vol. 77

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Part of my morning routine is reading the local news.  Yeah, I know the world is full of enthralling stories on a daily basis, but the AM hours are a time in which the days are young, so why should I expand the wings so early in the morn, when there’s still so much time ahead of me?  Needless to say however, the local news is sometimes all that I need in order to find an impetus to write something.

And in days like today, sometimes I get a couple of things that catch my fancy, that aren’t necessarily enough to justify warranting an entire wall of text, but combined, make for a hearty post nonetheless.

Another day, another MARTA fight recorded – you know how people believe that as people grow up, they tend to leave certain behaviors behind, like judging people irrationally based on nothing more than physical differences?  Yeah, not so much in this particular case.

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In regards to the Warrior Dash

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Over the weekend, I embarked on my first-ever Warrior Dash. I’m by no means a veteran of the obstacle/mud course scene, but from what I understand the perception of the Warrior Dash is that it’s the novice or entry-level obstacle course of the supposed big three franchises, between it, the Spartan Race and Tough Mudder.

I haven’t had the ambition to run in Tough Mudder yet, but I have now done two Spartan Races, and if I had to make a comparison, Warrior Dash was definitely, noticeably easier than the Spartan Race. That does not mean I did not enjoy it, or regret doing it by any stretch of the imagination, but when the day was over, it was kind of a no-brainer that Warrior was not as difficult as Spartan. I’m not even sore anywhere, a day after doing it.

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Photos: Spartan Race, CHDK tests

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Because I’m stubborn, I don’t want to give up on my point-and-shoot camera just yet.  I’m clearly not as competent as I wish I were when it came to digital camera technology, so until if the day ever comes that I do, it’s a matter of trial and error when it comes to playing around with the massive number of CHDK hack settings, to find something that generates decent results in both outdoor and indoor settings.

That being said, I figured taking my beater camera to the Spartan Race would be a good opportunity to take a couple of snaps to see how they came out.  Oddly enough, I’m not entirely sure how/why a toy camera-like corner shading kept occurring on some of these, as I do not recall ever having such a setting engaged.

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Piece of cake

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

In spite of the pre-race anticipation, the Spartan Race went well.  Possibly very well; I am not entirely sure, since race times haven’t yet been released.  But regardless of what my time is, I can confidently say that I had a great time running it again, and that I might very well want to do this again next year.

I’d like to think my time this year was better than last year’s time, for no other reason than that I messed up on two fewer obstacles this year, and cut my total burpee count from 150 to 90.  Last year’s Spartan Race revealed some physical weaknesses in my gym regimen, and I vowed to rectify them as best as I could, and it turns out that I did a pretty good job of doing such.  The eight-foot wall that proved too difficult last year was something that I was able to overcome this year.  The spear toss, however, still eludes me, as did the peg wall.  The rope climb is something that I’m pretty sure I could do if the base weren’t in ball-freezing cold water, and it wasn’t pretty much the second-to-last obstacle on the course.

As for everything else, the mud crawl at the end has been made harder, by virtue of roughing it up with dips and pools and rises, eliminating the exploit everyone in prior years figured out, by simply rolling on their sides through it all.  Needless to say, my knees and forearms are looking like raw hamburger while I’m writing this, and I’m going to be in a world of hurting tomorrow morning probably.

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That was a meta dream

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

In a few hours, I’m doing the Spartan Race again.  I’m giddy with anticipation and nerves a little bit.

I’m also well-rested, since I just slept for like nine hours, which isn’t something that occurs often, unless it’s the 3 a.m. til whenever variety.  I went to bed at like 10 p.m. on a Friday night which is kind of unheard of for me, but it’s not like Friday nights are of the teenage dream variety, where parties and socialite events are mandatory.

But anyway, man did I just have a surreal dream.  That in spite of all the rest I granted myself, that I still managed to oversleep.  Just enough to where I didn’t miss my run, but was precariously close to possibly not being allowed to run it.

And man, was I furious.  Screaming in the car over and over again, with my poor dog riding shotgun, trying his best to no-sell it, but I knew it was agitating him.  I knew this, but I was still so angry that I was screaming my lungs out.  Screaming at everyone that I thought was an inadvertent contributor to my oversleeping, and naturally myself for being the fucktard that let it all happen.  All while I was getting red light after red light, trying to make it to the race site, while I was totally illegally checking my phone while driving, so I could see emails and try and punch in map directions.

Then I woke up.  It wasn’t quite the wake up in cold sweats, sitting up like the Undertaker kind of wake up snap, but it was pretty close.  I checked the clock, and it was just 6 a.m.; about 45 minutes before my alarm was scheduled to go off.

I didn’t think twice about it – I got out of bed.  And I had time to write this, because I thought it was kind of surreal, kind of funny, but definitely brog-worthy.

The nerves are good.  It means I’m really excited.  Going to own this run.  Domination is the only option.

Is commitment the key to greatness?

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Generally, when I think about myself and what I’m doing with my life, I like to think of myself as a pretty versatile person.  My interests are pretty varied, and I like to think that having versatility in my knowledge, talents and things I like to do is a good thing, and I still do think such holds to be true.

But at the same time, I don’t particularly think I’m necessarily the greatest at any one thing I do on a fairly regularly basis.  I work out every day, but I’m not massively muscular, chiseled or have unlimited stamina.  I play League of Legends on a fairly regular basis, but I’m not going really reach a level where I could become a professional or anything.  I make stuff for a living, but aside from the attempts to be humble about it, I know I’m not the greatest graphic designer on the planet.  I’m a pretty involved baseball fan, and still do a decent bit of baseball-related writing on a regular basis, but I’m not really going to get to a point where I could brog about baseball for a living, or make my own publications.

Long story short, I’m involved with several things, dabble in many, but I don’t necessarily think I’m truly great at anything in particular.  And sometimes I wonder if I want to be great at something, I need to fully commit to it, and give it my primary and majority attention and effort.

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Photos: The Color Run

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

The Color Run was pretty much everything I had expected it to be – non-competitive, more relaxing and recreational, fun, and messy as all hell.  It took place at Atlanta Motor Speedway, which to anyone who isn’t aware, is actually practically 50 miles south of the actual city.  But the 3.1 mile 5K course essentially was a gigantic circle around the parking lot of the track, with portals of people throwing and squirting colored, corn-starch based powder everywhere, which at the end made most people this grayish-greenish zombie color.

Regardless, it was a lot of fun, the weather couldn’t have possibly been any better on this particular day, and the fact that there was actual good company to spend it with made it all the best.  Even if we were all filthy and were blowing odd colored stuff from our noses for the rest of the weekend.

Oh yeah, it should be worth noting that I kept my camera out pretty much the whole time, uncovered.  As a result, it was obliterated with powder, and the resulting pictures have a lot of them hazy, dust-covered, or pretty grainy.  I did what I could, but only so much can overcome actual lens interference.

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