Grab Bag vol. 7
Things I found interesting lately, what I’ve been up to, and whatever else comes to mind.
I’m a few months late here but I did want to mention the Barkley Marathons. I follow this every year out of morbid curiosity and also because I really just want to see a woman finish all 5 loops, a feat that had previously never been done. After two previous attempts, Jasmine Paris became that woman this year. I’ve ready many thoughts on this, but I most like the words written by 3rd time finisher John Kelly, on the teamwork required to get an unprecedented 5 finishers this year:
“I also get more seeing a finish from Jasmin, Ihor, Greig. I've got mine. There's marginal value to more. You don't get to the top & stay there by knocking everyone else down. Pull them up w/ you. Then when you inevitably slip they're right there to catch you.”
In short, the beauty of these wild and insane events is the proof of human connection and teamwork.
The running motivation was necessary, because honestly, it’s been a rough few months mentally. Running has felt like more of a slog. And while I know I don’t have to do this, I don’t have to run, I also can’t give up because things got hard. I’ve had to really dig deep, to get myself up and out the door in the dark, to run when I really haven’t wanted to. There are signs to pull back (and I did, eventually, listen to those too) but there are also times to push through when you don’t want to just to know that you can. So I’m just going to pat myself on the back now for doing hard things.
Last month after a particularly stressful few days (I don’t recall the nature of the stress. Again, it’s been a rough few months.) I decided that I needed to do something truly mindless, so I somewhat blindly loaded up the game Hades. The only thing I really knew was that it was “good”. It’s very different from other games I’ve played! There is a lot of beating up monsters and, oh, when you die you go back to the beginning which might be my least favorite game dynamic ever. And yet. I’m hooked. Every few days, I try another run or two. And the beauty is that this style of game (rogue-like) means that my character is barely getting better every run, but I, me, the player smashing the buttons- I am the one improving.
Searching for Hades advice is also how I came across https://www.leereamsnyder.com, which probably has my favorite home page I’ve ever seen on a personal website. Gotta step up my game. His guide on Hades builds has been fairly helpful, but I’m also adding this to my random blog rotation.
Annnddd speaking of good content on the internet - I have a new favorite Substack.
Cheers,
April
No music today, I’m in the middle of Utah and the internet is slow.