In the prior two installments, I discussed applying a Japanese visual management principle called Mieruka in which elements are laid out in a way that they are all visible so that you know what you have and can quickly select what you need.

Second Post Describing Freezer Organization

First Post Describing Mieruka and Pantry Organization

I applied this to the pantry, the freezer and showed how I applied this without knowing the term to my wood shop. Today, I want to introduce the next element: The Hayame ni taberu or Eat Me First zone.

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The USDA estimates that between 30 and 40% of the food supply in the United States is thrown out or goes uneaten. That’s like buying a dozen apples and just throwing four of them in the trash before you get to the car. With an overall rate of food price inflation of 3% (Bureau of Labor Statistics), this adds up.

Why do we waste food?

• Food is sold in humungous units. I’m looking at you Costco.

• Aspirational shopping. The you that goes shopping is not the you that eats food at home. My ego ideal shops for spirulina protein at GNC. The real me wants Fruit Loops.

• Convenience. In the post on freezer organization (see link above), I discuss separating the large portion of frozen vegetables (I’m looking at you, Costco) into individual portions. I have both large and small sizes so that I can easily throw a portion either into a dinner/stir fry or into a soup/ramen. I’m much more likely to do that than take the extra effort of getting the bag out, measuring the item, and finally putting the bag back. The same goes with the fruit pre-measured for smoothies.

• Out of sight, out of mind - Hayame ni taberu

  • I began searching for this solution when I was cleaning out the refrigerator. Several produce items had turned into science experiments. You know what I’m talking about. Fresh figs sporting 1950’s buzzcuts. Cucumbers lovingly raised in my garden now reduced back to compost. Bags of spinach swimming in … something.

  • 

• • Hayame ni taberu or the Eat It Now tray is meant to sit at eye level and be the first thing you see when you open the refrigerator. It should be a clear or translucent container so you can see the contents. What should go into this container?

    • Any protein or produce that is near its expiration date.

    • Any fruit that has ripened or is starting to “go soft”

  • Ideally, you should cook from this tray or plan meals around its ingredients.

  • The Eat it First tray should be inspected daily because anything that actually slips into the “Shame” category needs to be purged. I’m looking at you, Spirulina.

TLDR

• Mieruka is a visual management system making all elements visible so that you know what you have and can easily access them

• Too much food is wasted and that’s expensive.

• Use a tray to identify food you want to eat soon.

• Build your meals around this tray.

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I’ve been unsuccessfully meditating since 10th grade. Anyone can do something they have natural talent for. It takes a rare person to stick with something that they have almost no talent for for half a century. I have that rare talent.

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Recently I’ve been using the Waking Up app by Sam Harris. Waking up is different from every other meditation app and approach I’ve worked with because it focuses on the nonduality of meditation. In most meditation you see yourself as the person meditating observing your mind. Two separate things. You… your mind. Nonduality means there is no separation. “You” are as much a construction of your mind as anything else that your mind creates. It’s a heavy concept but that’s not the focus of this blogpost. I’ll write more about nondualism another time, I hope.

Today, Sam Harris, the creator of Waking Up, talked about The Last Time. Harris explains that there is always a last time for everything. When you die, it’s the last time for you for everything. But there have been many last times prior to that. Some you were aware of and others you weren’t.

• The last time you camp in the woods on the ground.

• The last time you pick up your child.

• The last time you fly in an airplane.

Many of these last times are good times but even some of the “bad” experiences carry their own sense of poignancy and nostalgia.

Being mindful, fully present in your life, allows you to be aware of your experience rather than being distracted and this awareness increases the appreciation of the unique experiences you have, the goodness of the good times and perhaps it even eases the suffering of some of the bad times.

I began to think of many of my own “last times”

Experiences that definitely are my last:

• Last graduation from school for me.

• Last patient seen.

• Last dog.

• Last (and only) marriage.

Experiences that are my last that I did not realize were my last at the time they occurred:

• Last ride on a motorcycle.

• Last time I hitchhiked.

• Last time I bounced a check.

• Last time I got punched in the face.

• Last time I saw my grandmother, father, cousin.

Experiences that probably are my last that I can’t quite believe will never happen again:

• Running a marathon.

• Enjoying staying up all night and watching the sunrise.

• Sleeping through the night.

• Riding a roller coaster.

• Reaching my ideal weight again.

• Finding a silver dime or quarter in change again.

Experiences I am taking for granted I will do again that I shouldn’t

• Visit with my friends from college.

• See my childhood home once more.

• Visit my sister.

• See the birth of my second grandchild.

• Make a new friend.

Experiences I always thought I would do that I now realize I will never get to

• Drive a motorcycle

• Ride a bicycle through Italy and France

• Run the Boston Marathon

A guy posts on Facebook…

I used to post on Facebook every time I entered a race that it was my last race and I was “hanging them up” after this one. Everyone was in on the joke and it was pretty funny in my early 50’s. But sometime in my early 60’s people started taking it seriously. It seemed reasonable. Eventually I had to stop posting it.

I didn’t realize at the time but there was a last time that I made a joke about it being the last time.

I was being meta on Meta.

Lesson Learned?

What do I take from this? I can’t bear the existential burden of thinking of every single thing as possibly being the last version of it. The last blog. The last sandwich. The last breath, and again, and again. But I can selectively apply this.

Since I listened to Sam Harris talk about the last time I’ve had Memento Mori on my mind a lot. And it has helped me to appreciate a variety of things great and small more and even to tolerate some of life’s small burdens with a greater sense of gratitude.

Maybe you will too.

Are there things on your list of lasts you want to share? Put them in the comments.

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Raising Testosterone without TRT - Behavioral and Psychosocial NO-GO’s.

It seems like everyone and his endocrinologist has advice for raising Testosterone (T) levels these days. And there has been a great deal of teeth-gnashing about plummeting levels of T in the male population.

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Seth Capehart did a video suggesting several nonpharmacological ways to increase T. It’s a good video. You can view that video here (note-Skip the Blowtorch) :

Boosting Testosterone - Capehart’s Suggestions

1. Decrease belly fat. Belly fat aromatizes testosterone into estrogen. That’s a big problem. He suggests reasonable steps there.

   1. Eat real food

   2. Focus on Protein

   3. Eliminate processed sugar

   4. Do aerobic and strength training

2. Sleep better. Most T is produced when you sleep so

   1. Wake up at the same time daily to set your circadian clock

   2. Sleep in a cold dark and quiet place

   3. No screen on hour before bed. (This probably has more to do with mental arousal than blue light exposure)

3. Eat right. You need cholesterol in your diet.

   1. Capehart makes pretty reasonable suggestions here for eggs, salmon, beef and olive oil

4. Do Man Things

   1. Challenge

   2. Competition

   3. Hard lifts

   4. Cold Showers

5. Spend time outdoors

   1. Sunlight exposure

   2. The outdoors is good for your mental health

So, eating small amounts of salmon that you cook over heavy rocks that won in competition and then carried to your campsite right before you sleep … you’re covered.

Two additional behavioral and nutritional factors to consider

1. Don’t consume alcohol heavily, especially chronically. A review by Smith, Lopresti and Fairchild (2023) in the Expert Review of Endocrinological Metabolism found that

   1. Low to moderate alcohol levels boosted T. The bad news. The body suspended the breakdown of T because it was busy trying to stop you from dying because you consumed a toxin (alcohol).

   2. High volume alcohol led to decreases in Serum T levels. After you drink a lot, your HPA axis gets out of kilter and that along with oxidative stress and inflammation significantly reduce T levels.

Smith concludes “When alcohol is consumed in excess, particularly chronically, it negatively affects testosterone production in men”

2. Don’t be submissive. This is not an invitation to start watching Andrew Tate videos and be a jagoff.
   
   Maner, Miller, Schmidt and Eckel (2008) in Psychological Science write that

   1. Socially Anxious men demonstrated decreases in T levels (saliva) after rigged competitions.
      

Terburg, Syal, Rosenberger, Heany, Stein and VanHonk (2016) in Psychoneuroendocrinology (37 Scrabble Points for that word) write that administration of sublingual testosterone eradicated behavioral signs of submission in social anxiety. Subjects did not look away from subliminal images of angry faces.

Because both studies looked at socially anxious men, you might want to be cautious about applying this to all men. But there have been other studies finding that T levels rise in victorious versus losing teams.

So what’s the TLDR?

• Testosterone is important for health and well being.

• Trying to optimize testosterone is probably counterproductive. Optimization-Anxiety ironically is a chronic stress that will reduce T levels, and especially so if you are unsuccessful at optimizing it.

• But do reasonable things

  • Eat right

  • Lose excess weight and especially belly fat

  • Sleep better

  • Exercise

  • Expose yourself to challenges

  • Spend more time outdoors

  • If you use alcohol at all, use it sparingly and 1-2 times a week. Maybe 1.

  • In general be mindful of submissiveness, hopelessness, defeatism. When you can reality check this and feel better, do so.

  • But if you can benefit from mental health support to deal with anxiety or particularly social anxiety ( as well as alcohol addictions), seek that support.

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Maner, J. K., Miller, S. L., Schmidt, N. B., & Eckel, L. A. (2008). Submitting to defeat: Social anxiety, dominance threat, and decrements in testosterone. Psychological Science, 19(8), 764–768. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9280.2008.02154.x

Smith, S. J., Lopresti, A. L., & Fairchild, T. J. (2023). The effects of alcohol consumption on testosterone in men: A systematic review. Expert Review of Endocrinology & Metabolism, 18(2), 187–196. https://doi.org/10.1080/17446651.2023.2183842

Terburg, D., Syal, S., Rosenberger, L. A., Heany, S., Stein, D. J., & van Honk, J. (2016). Acute effects of sublingual testosterone on social anxiety and submissive behavior. Psychoneuroendocrinology, 65, 30–38. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.psyneuen.2015.12.008

Capehart, S. (2023). How to naturally increase testosterone without TRT [Video]. YouTube. https://youtu.ly/l3L3M9sQMrc

Vision relies on edges.

When you look at anything, special cells in your optical cortex pick out the edges… the contours and then fill in what is inside. The picture above looks like a forest scene until you look more closely and begin to see the contours and outlines of a person. (You can look up the article I’ve referenced below from Science Daily for a more technical explanation.)

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Thinking relies on edges

It’s inefficient to sit down and expect your brain/mind to be able to focus when you have just had a double helping of high stimulation from the internet, or a stressful conversation. You need a period of quiet before and after your episode of focused concentration. It’s analogous to dynamic stretching and cooling down before and after an intense 5K run. If you sit down to read, or study, or learn, or create or meditate and your mind was just previously wading in the cesspool of angertainment on Facebook or Youtube, then even as you intend to focus, your mind flicks back to that stupid, stupid quote and what you would like to say to that dimwit. You know who I’m talking about.

This is what Leroy (2009) referred to as attention residue. According to Leroy, “people need to stop thinking about one task in order to fully transition their attention and perform well on another. Yet, results indicate it is difficult for people to transition their attention away from an unfinished task and their subsequent task performance suffers.” It’s like the aftertaste of that cherry soda on the straw of your big-ass Stanley mug… Hard to rinse away.

Limit stimulation before and during periods of intense focus

Andrew Huberman during his 2026 conversation with Chris Williamson credits James Clear with the idea that what you think about and what you choose has a lot to do with not only what you are currently thinking but also what you thought in the past hours or even days. It is crucial to set the stage correctly in order to make the most of your Deep Work time.

What Distracts You?

James Clear suggests that what we have been thinking or exposed to during the past hours and days affects what we are currently thinking.

During the time you read this blog, did you think about

• other blogs you just read?

• Email you wrote or read?

• Social media posts?

Were you distracted by other titles and blogs you want to read next or right now?

How to Limit Stimulation

1. Before Deep Work, limit exposure to intense or stimulating information or entertainment.

2. During Deep Work, limit your sensory environment.

   1. Use noise canceling earphones or a white noise generator

   2. Get rid of as many visual distractions as you can from your workspace.

Using Temporal Orienting and The CLOSE system.

Temporal Orienting refers to providing START and STOP cues for the work session. It lets you know that you are

Create some kind of cue to yourself that you are in a Deep Work session. Train yourself to work as long as the signal is on. It can be as simple as the timer I use

I have slightly adapted this START-ACT-STOP system into the following.

C – Cue (Cued Start)

L – Locate (Orient to Project)

O – Occupied Focus (Focus)

S – Summary Trail (Summarize & Leave Breadcrumbs)

E – Exit Signal (Terminate)

• With the CUE, I start working.

• In the first minute, I orient myself to my task by looking at my notes about what I need to do and quickly conceptualizing what my task is. This is LOCATE

• The bulk of the time is spent on OCCUPIED FOCUS

• In the final minute, I summarize where I am and leave a note specifying where to pick up. I try to write this note in a way that a stranger would understand because I might pick the work up immediately or after a long delay. “Finish note on CJ” probably won’t be intelligible.

• The EXIT SIGNAL tells me it is time to stop and change focus.

Huberman says the type and quality of rest is essential. He recommends “boring rest.” Breathe, walk, close your eyes, have a drink of water. Just not all at the same time. Don’t open email or check TikTok if you intend to return to work. This gets whole sections of your mind working and unfortunately working at cross purposes to your goals.

Focus, Visual Focus and Narrowing Focus

During Deep Work, there is nothing more important than intense uninterrupted focus. Interruptions come in two basic forms. There are internal interruptions caused by thoughts, feelings and physical sensations arising in the body such as hunger. And there are external interruptions caused by noise, odors and, because we are primarily visual animals, visual cues.

It is extremely important to narrow your visual field of attention. Part of this is simply by eliminating the obvious distractions. Don’t have eye-catching photo displays or televisions or screens nearby. Don’t have your phone flashing notifications. Be careful even of sitting in front of a window if the scene in front of you is busy and distracting.

But part of this is also visual training. You can train yourself to focus your gaze on what you want to concentrate on. The better you become at noticing when your gaze wanders off and correcting this, the better you will become at elongating your concentration span and improving your attention.

What you focus on becomes the focal point of your attention. Let me expand on this. I like photography. When you look at a scene, your eyes can take in approximately a 180-220 degree wide field of vision. When you look through a camera’s viewfinder, the field is substantially narrowed to perhaps 45 degrees. When you look through the viewfinder, you focus on what is in the viewfinder. This is a helpful analogy for learning to focus your attention elsewhere.

An exercise to practice narrowed focus of attention.

One exercise to help you appreciate focus of attention is what I call the “Instant Instamatic Index Card”. It’s pretty simple. Take a 3 X 5 index card and cut out a box about ½ inch wide. Draw a black frame around the box to cut down glare. Then see what the world looks like when you put it up to your eye.

Suddenly, your field of vision is drastically narrowed. You focus on what is in the frame.

It can be interesting looking at a YouTube video or even Television through that frame. You instantly concentrate more. What is in focus becomes more salient.

Of course you can’t walk around with an index card in front of your face, but you can take that main idea with you. Your focus and specifically your visual focus is important. So,

• Look at people talking to you

• Look at the television when it is on.

• Don’t look at your phone when you want to talk to someone.

• 45-55% of viewers report “Always” or “Almost Always” having a second screen (their phone) on when watching their TV. Don’t be one of those people.

• If you want to remember what is happening during the baseball game, then look at the baseball game, not the running Pierogies

One of the tips Huberman provides for increased focus is to put a red dot on what you want to focus on and make sure your focus is on that.

Output >> Input. The role of creation.

When it comes to learning, output is more important than input. People can repeatedly read a book and even feel familiar with the book but still be unable to independently recall the names of the main characters or understand anything about the themes of the book. This is why students can read and highlight and re-read their text and then fail a test. Learning requires operating on the information in your head in order to create a new mental map.

Once you have read or studied or thought about something, do something with it. It’s not enough to just take notes. The information must be actively synthesized and organized.

What can you do with the information you have been exposed to? It all depends on the information and you. But you can

• Draw something

• Rehearse an action, dance, operation

• Summarize it into an essay

• Teach someone about it

• Create a model or a prototype

• Practice a conversation in that foreign language

Reality Check your Output

And once you create that product… PUT IT OUT THERE!

This remains one of my motivations for this blog. It’s not enough for me to read things. I want to synthesize that reading into an essay.

But it’s not enough to create an essay and store it in the digital purgatory of my hard drive. Publish it. Make it real. Let other people see and comment and complement or criticize your work.

When possible, solicit feedback on your work from a mentor or associate. But also, let that work out into the wild and see who responds.

The world has a way of reality testing and correcting our excesses and misperceptions, especially if we distribute it to a wide enough audience. Distribution only in your “echo chamber” or only to your AI Bot tends to just amplify your message back to you.

After Deep Work: Making it sticky

Test yourself

In the classic paper by Dunlosky, self-testing is one of the strongest methods of ensuring learning. Self-testing helps us retain information, assess what we know well and poorly, and motivates us to learn at a deeper level. When you use a well-constructed test, you are able to accurately see your strengths and weaknesses. But even the most rudimentary self test is better than none.

• Without looking at the text/video

  • What was it about?

  • What are three important points I would tell somebody about this book/movie/presentation?

  • Who was the presenter and why are they credible or not?

  • What is the next question based on this video/text?

Spaced Repetition

Dunlosky also talks about spaced repetition. To remember something, you need to periodically review it. How often? It depends on how long you want to remember the information.

A common practical rule of thumb for spaced repetition (based on memory research and the 10%–20% rule of target retention) follows this progression:

• To remember for a day: Review 1 to 2 hours after first learning it (or once before sleep).

• To remember for a week: Review 1 day later (and once mid-week).

• To remember for a month: Review 1 week later.

• To remember for a year: Review 1 month later (and again every 2–3 months).

• To remember long-term (multi-year): Review every 6 months to 1 year.

Fade the Prompt

Finally, Dunlosky talks about the importance of providing less and less structure so that you need to provide a more well-developed response independently. For instance, you can begin by self-quizzing:

• The first five presidents were

• W_______

• A_______

• J_______

• Ma______

• Mo______

And fade the prompt to: name the first five presidents of the United States.

Level Up

Cal Newport, in his Podcast Deep Questions tackles the question about Learning Hard Things. Newport emphasizes the importance of getting better by having deliberate appropriate next steps. This involves knowing how to make the next step of learning or performance that little bit harder so that it challenges you but still stays in the Goldilocks Zone of difficulty. Not so easy that you are not challenged, but no so hard that you consistently fail and don’t learn or experience reinforcement.

Newport emphasizes getting guidance from an expert and this can be a teacher, mentor, coach or a formal coach.

Get a Life

Finally, it’s easy to assume that we learn hard things and do Deep Work because we want to wade in the cesspool of hustle culture. Do more. Get better. Optimize yourself. Wrong.

After you are done with Deep Work. After you are finished with reviewing and writing your note about what the next step is, do one last habit recommended by Cal Newport.

Shutdown Complete

We all need a life.

In the words of the great Cindi Lauper “Girls Just Want to Have Fun.” So go have fun.

Fun is the background that makes everything else possible and meaningful.

So go have it.

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Summary/TLDR

• To learn and focus optimally, sandwich Deep Work between quiet periods.

• Use Temporal Orienting to signal the onset and end of Deep Work

• Output >> Input. Create something to make your learning sticky.

• Reality Check - Put your work out there and get feedback. Make it real.

• Test yourself - It’s the best way to learn and know you have learned.

• Spaced Repetition and Fading the Prompt. To retain your learning, review at increasingly longer intervals and with fewer and less structured prompts.

• Level up - Learning new skills involves deliberate selection of appropriate “next harder steps”

• Have a good life. It’s not all about work

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References

Coull, J. T., & Nobre, A. C. (1998). Where and when to pay attention: The neural systems for directing attention to spatial locations and to time intervals as revealed by both PET and fMRI. Journal of Neuroscience, 18(18), 7426–7435. https://doi.org/10.1523/JNEUROSCI.18-18-07426.1998

Dunlosky, J., Rawson, K. A., Marsh, E. J., Nathan, M. J., & Willingham, D. T. (2013). Improving students’ learning with effective learning techniques: Promising directions from cognitive and educational psychology. Psychological Science in the Public Interest, 14(1), 4–58. https://doi.org/10.1177/1529100612453266

Huberman, A. (Host). (2022, September 5). Focus toolkit: Tools to improve your focus & concentration (No. 88) [Audio podcast episode]. In Huberman Lab. Scicomm Media. https://www.hubermanlab.com/episode/focus-toolkit-tools-to-improve-your-focus-and-concentration

Leroy, S. (2009). Why is it so hard to do my work? The challenge of attention residue when switching between work tasks. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 109(2), 168–181. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.obhdp.2009.04.002

Newport, C. (Host). (2024, January 1). Ep. 281: Learning hard things (No. 281) [Audio podcast episode]. In Deep Questions with Cal Newport. The Deep Life. https://www.thedeeplife.com/podcasts/episodes/ep-281-learning-hard-things/

University of California - Berkeley. (2007, August 22). The brain doesn’t like visual gaps and fills them in. ScienceDaily. https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/08/070820135833.htm

Williamson, C. (Host). (2026, January 2). It’s painful, but will make you way more productive - Dr Andrew Huberman [Video]. YouTube.

”Others were of the opinion that in total war, as carried on in Japan, there was no difference between civilians and soldiers, and that the bomb itself was an effective force tending to end the bloodshed, warning Japan to surrender and thus to avoid total destruction. It seems logical that he who supports total war in principal cannot complain of a war against civilians. The crux of the matter is whether total war in its present form is justifiable, even when it serves a just purpose. Does it not have material and spiritual evil as its consequences which far exceed whatever good might result? When will our moralists give us a clear answer to this question?” - Hiroshima Page 117-118

Every year on August 6, the anniversary of the first use of the atomic bomb in human warfare in 1945, I read the book Hiroshima by John Hersey. I’ve read the book too many times to count at this point, but each time I read it, I can’t quite wrap my head around everything that happens in the book. I read it for the first time when I was in high school, around 1976. It was only 31 years after the bomb had been dropped but as teenagers do, I saw this as ancient history. Something so far from me that it might as well have been the Civil War. 1945 is now 81 years ago, but still, these stories and memories move me.

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John Hersey does not write a political book or a technical book or a moralizing book, but instead a deeply human book. The story of Hiroshima is told through the stories of five survivors of very different backgrounds and outcomes. You develop deep empathy by seeing their everyday lives, their families, their choices. You see heroism in their selfless actions helping others after a catastrophe the proportions of which you and I can’t possibly know and hopefully won’t ever know.

Hersey takes you from the moments right before 8:15 A.M. on August 6, 1945 through the detonation of the bomb, the subsequent bombing of Nagasaki, the surrender of Japan and the one year anniversary.

It’s not a book for the squeamish. Hersey pulls no punches describing the physical wreckage, the carnage and the psychological trauma suffered by those at Hiroshima. And by extension, you will come away from reading this book with certain images seared into your mind the way that images of people vaporized at the moment of detonation were forever imprinted on the surfaces right below them.

This is a book everyone should read. It’s a humanizing experience.

Metrics.

Ah, Metrics. We love them and hate them. Are they chimera? They hold the promise of a better self and a better life but then become a cruel master who is chiding and mocking us when we fail to meet their demands. Eventually we turn on them. We rip them up. Cross them out. We shred them. We push <delete> and confine them to the eternal netherworld of digital purgatory.

Why measure?

Why do I do this to myself? I hope they will make me more mindful. By setting a target, I hope to become more aware of that target. And by setting a target I hope to increase the chance that I will reach it. I also hope that my measurements, the diaries I keep become a kind of testament. A way for me to remember my life. I always find that looking back on old records helps me to remember episodes and epochs in my life that would otherwise be lost. And finally, it helps me to appreciate myself. Especially at times when it seems that time has passed and nothing has changed, I can look at my metrics and see just how much I’ve done. Maybe it’s not everything, but it’s more than I often give myself credit for, especially when I’m feeling particularly uncharitable towards myself.

Why not measure?

At times I can see that the data I’ve meticulously gathered was not helpful for one reason or another. It was a waste of time and effort. Memento Mori. Time is finite. Sometimes it was worse than a waste of time because it actively set me off on the wrong course. But that’s not the main reason. The main reason is that measurement almost instantly turns the action into a self-conscious action. It’s hard to get into the flow of things when your focus is on yourself instead of outside yourself. Closely related, It can make my actions performative. I’m no longer doing an action because I love it or because I want to, but instead my motivation is to “check the box.”

Measuring Leading versus Lagging Indicators

Should you measure leading or lagging indicators? Let me illustrate this with one of my own metrics, weight. Weight per se is measured as the average of morning weight taken on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. It is a lagging indicator. In other words, it is an outcome or a result that happens once the work is done. I have two leading indicators for weight as well. The first is no junk food. This is in my control and should predict weight loss. The second is Oryōki or 応量器 which is a Zen term for “that which holds just enough.” This is a traditional Zen practice to stop eating when you feel 80% full.

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I think you want a mixture of both indicators and here is why. Some indicators predict change and they are in your control. I can control whether I stop eating at 80% full. I can avoid eating junk food. But, as many will attest, there are just some weeks when I can do all the right things and I still gain weight. You can put other outcomes in as well. You can’t control outcomes ranging from acceptance into a specific school to living to a specific age. You can control many of the actions that will make these outcomes more likely. You can, for example, avoid smoking, drinking, and driving without a seat belt. But there is a problem with only focusing on these kinds of variables.

You risk becoming focused on pseudo-productivity. For example, one of my metrics is to publish an essay as a blog on one of my platforms twice a week. I could have selected writing for 45 minutes, or research for the same amount of time. It’s easy to focus on and check the box on those targets but that is not the same thing as focusing on a finished product going out the door.

Measurement Bloat and Overoptimization

One way to destroy the usefulness of any measurement scheme is through measurement bloat or Overoptimization. Measurement Bloat refers to the process of selecting so many metrics that you no longer can track them or make sense of the information you collect. I’ve done that. You’ve done that. We’ve all done that. I feel the way about Metrics the way Winston Churchill felt about alcohol:

There have been times when I’ve collected data on more than 20 metrics. It was easy to do. Some came from automatic sources like my Apple Watch. Some came from my Substack Feed. Others reflected my work, finance, reading, family, and even my dog.

I measured everything.

Why? Computer scientist and author Cal Newport suggests this has to do with confusing the possibility of changing a metric (and my life) with reflecting on its importance. If you create a metric for everything that is important, then you create a lot of metrics. You don’t want to leave anything out. If you only create metrics for what you reasonably believe you have the time and energy to actually work on and change then I tend to create only a few more metrics than I really should.

Cal Newport and Brad Stulberg recently had a discussion on Overoptimization and they discussed how important it was to select the right number and type of metrics. They conclude that when you begin to collect data for its own sake rather than in the service of living well, then you are Overoptimizing and you are denigrating instead of augmenting your life.

How High To Set The Bar?

Newport and Stulberg also discussed how to set thresholds for success. In a previous blog, “In Praise of Mediocrity: If You’re Not Sucking, You’re Not Trying,” Link To If You’re Not Sucking… I talked about Hal Elrod’s book “The Miracle Morning. In that book Elrod suggests that

“Even achievers, who are highly successful in one area, such as business, tend to settle for mediocrity in another area, such as their health or relationships.” (Page 2)

And then,

“You can become one of the few people that actually achieve extraordinary success in EVERY area of your life, simultaneously. Happiness. Health. Money. Freedom. Success. Love. You really can have it all.” (Page 3)

Elrod suggests that you can have 10/10 scores in every area of your life. Newport, Stulberg and I would beg to disagree.

Stulberg specifically said that focusing on any area of your life and trying to maximize it to a 10/10 is going to break other parts of the system. And that is demoralizing.

A much more human goal, and one that ultimately is going to drive higher performance is to focus on goals that can be reached 70% of the time but consistently. Of course there are exceptions. Drive while sober 100% of the time. Don’t hit my wife 100% of the time. Take my insulin 100% of the time. But in my “Code” I have built in the 70% rule where I strive to meet my goal 70% of the time or more.

The Optimal Optimum

1. Tracking should take less than 5 minutes per day

2. You should track 1-5 domains. (I track 5)

3. These domains should sample different life domains such as health, family, education, spirit.

And Don’t Forget To Review and Revise

One final thought. Build time into your system to review your metrics. Like fish and fashion, it has a limited shelf life. Sooner or later, you will want to drop or add or tweak a metric. If you are not changing your life and your decisions based on your metrics, they probably aren’t of much use anyway.

What are your personal metrics and what has your process been to build your code? Please feel free to leave your comments below!

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As always thanks for reading and please consider commenting or subscribing. It’s free! And it’s the only way that I actually know that people are reading and care about what I write. That means a lot to me!

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As the 2026 World Cup came to a dramatic end, millions of international visitors left the United States with a striking, collective impression: the sheer scale of American food culture.

“No wonder the people here are double the size—there’s no such thing as considerate sizes. Everything is just big, ginormous, extra large... From this one meal alone I’m probably chomping on 6,000 calories.” — European visitor reacting to restaurant meals.

“I asked for a child portion, and it’s still as big as an adult portion back home. That is insane.” — British tourist reacting to an American diner breakfast.

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These visitors noticed what we have become blind to: America has systematically dismantled the boundaries around moderate eating. We are facing a public health crisis. According to the CDC, 31.7% of Americans are overweight, and a staggering 40.3% are clinically obese. Among our children, those numbers sit at 15% and 21% respectively. Type 2 diabetes cases in youth nearly doubled between 2002 and 2018. Today, one in ten Americans is disqualified from serving in the US Military solely due to weight.

Rounding Up the Usual Suspects

When looking for a culprit, we usually point to a familiar, accurate lineup:

• Engineered Foods: Highly manufactured with sugar, salt and processed carbohydrates and fats to bypass our natural fullness signals.

• Portion Inflation: Servings designed to equal two or three meals at a time.

• Sedentary Lifestyles & Sleep Deprivation: Screen time replacing outdoor time, and stress-induced exhaustion spiking hunger hormones.

Every one of these suspects plays a role. But there is a silent accomplice we rarely talk about: the architecture of our homes and our time.

The Psychology of the “Open Kitchen”

Think about how the geography of the home has changed. In my first house, we had a typical 1920s galley kitchen. It was strictly a workspace—a stove, a sink, a fridge, and a counter. There were no chairs, and there was no table. You prepared food there, and then you left to eat it in the dining room.

My next house had a 1940s kitchen. It was larger, with room for a small breakfast table, but formal meals still happened elsewhere.

Eventually, we did what most modern homeowners do: we knocked down the walls. We “opened up” the space. Today, many modern homes feature a single, giant room where the kitchen, dining room, and living area are completely merged.

It feels spacious. It looks beautiful. But it means the kitchen is never closed.

The visual cues are constant. Whether you are watching TV, reading, or working, the refrigerator and the snack cupboards are always in your direct line of sight. Your brain is subjected to an endless, passive advertisement for food.

The Power of Compartmentalization

When people used to ask me how to stop worrying about their ongoing legal litigation cases, I gave them a simple piece of advice: Get a box.

Put everything from the case inside it. When it’s time to work on it, take the box out. When you’re done, put it all away, slide the box into the closet, and close the door. No visual cues. You need time to work, and you need time to rest.

Your stomach requires the exact same compartmentalization. But the modern layout of our time and our houses is actively conspiring against our autonomy and our anatomy.

Reclaiming the Eating Rhythm

We have developed an environmental eating dysrhythmia. We eat on demand, anywhere, at any hour. Our cars have cup holders built for massive jugs; our clothing and backpacks feature specialized pockets for pre-packaged snacks.

It wasn’t always this way. Historically, human cultures relied on strict structural boundaries to create a rhythm of rest:

• The Blue Laws: Decades ago, cities completely shut down commerce on Sundays. Life was forced to slow down.

• Shabbos: From Friday sunset onward, observant Jews step into a different world where cooking and business stop completely, creating a sacred rhythm of pause.

• The Mid-Century Diet: Before modern snacking took over, Americans ate three meals a day, together, at specific times. Between those hours, children were given a strict warning: “Don’t eat that now, you’ll ruin your appetite.”

Between meals, the kitchen was understood to be functionally closed.

Close Your Kitchen, Reclaim Your Joy

You might not be able to remodel your house, but you can stage a radical act of personal protest: Set the hours of your establishment.

When a meal is over, politely but firmly declare to yourself and your household: The kitchen is closed.

• Stake your territory: Spend your downtime in areas of the house that don’t have a direct line of sight to the refrigerator.

• Create food-free zones: Declare your car, your bedroom, and your living room dining-free spaces. If you don’t have a formal dining room, create a context cue: use a specific place mat that only comes out during meals and is immediately washed and hidden away when done.

This isn’t about joyless self-denial. In fact, closing the kitchen makes the food taste better. When the kitchen is open, go all in. Turn off the television, put away the phone, set the table with your best vintage silverware, and focus entirely on the ingredients, your friends, and your family.

By enforcing the boundary of the close, you protect the magic of the open. As Seneca famously wrote in his Letters from a Stoic:

“Above all, my dear Lucilius, make this your business: learn how to feel joy... I do not wish you ever to be deprived of gladness. I would have it born in your house; and it is born there, if only it be inside of you.”

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Miles Since Last Camp on May 25 - 55.8

Total Miles - 315.2

Number of States Visited - 3 (PA, OH, WV)

Prior Camp- Marietta, OH

Current Camp - Spencer, WV

National Parks Visited: 1/51

Next Park: New River Gorge, WV (55.8 Miles)

Weight: 173.0 (-7.0)

Injuries: None

Nags - None

June 26 2026

A Map of the Virtual Journey

Welcome to the Eighth Installment of the Virtual Run to 51 National Parks! For this project, I am using my actual real-world mileage to plot a continuous course starting in Pittsburgh and visiting every National Park in the continental United States.

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(Note: You can read the previous installments here)

Virtual Run 1st Installment - Pittsburgh to Volant, PA

Virtual Run 2nd Installment Volant to Leavittsburg, OH

Virtual Run 3rd Installment Leavittsburg to Cuyahoga Valley National Park

Virtual Run 4th Installment to Canton, OH

Virtual Run #5 - Canton to Newcomerstown, OH

Virtual Run 6th Installment - To Caldwell, Ohio

Virtual Run 7th Installment - To Marietta, Ohio

Greetings from Spencer, WV!

Spencer WV is the County Seat of Roane County WV and named after Spencer Roane, a Jurist from Virginia.

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History

Spencer was famous for the bloodless surrender by Union Colonel Rathbone to Confederate General Jenkins and his Mocassin Raiders when in 1862 Rathbone surrenders his entire garrison of four companies without firing a single shot.

Spencer would also house the Spencer State Hospital. A Massive quarter mile long brick mental asylum. Shuttered in 1989, it still houses 850 unmarked graves on the grounds.

The Annual Black Walnut Festival

Home to the annual West Virginia Black Walnut Festival. Once a year residents and visitors gather for music, rides games, agricultural displays and a beauty pageant.

Home to the Robey Theater, built in 1907. It is the oldest continuously operating movie theatre in the United States!

Famous Residents

Col. Ruby Bradley: Born nearby, Bradley was one of the most decorated women in U.S. military history. A surgical nurse in the U.S. Army, she was captured by the Japanese in WWII and spent over three years as a POW in the Santo Tomas Internment Camp, where she became known as the “Angel of Bataan” for performing smuggling operations and field surgeries under captivity. She later served in the Korean War and became a full Colonel.

Walking Around Spencer

Roane County also contains a 100 foot long natural bridge made of Appalachian sandstone that was carved out by rainwater passing underneath it. While horsecarts and even cars once drove over this wonder, now hikers can traverse it and take in the beauty of the surrounding woods.

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I hope that you will join me for this next leg (Virtual and Real). And if you go on your own real or virtual journey, please let me know! I’d love to follow you on your ride.

Please consider subscribing. It’s free. No matter what the next page says.

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Read May-June 2026 in Pittsburgh and Boston. Book #10 of 2026.

Rating +2/2

This has been the best book I’ve read so far in 2026 for many reasons.

1. Frazier writes beautifully. The book has this flow that carries you along. The chapters are structured initially with alternating characters until the end when their paths converge.

2. The characters you are introduced to are all memorable, fully-formed and each feels like a separate adventure. It was fun to follow Inman, the protagonist’s journey, as he met, interacted with, was changed by and then left the various people he met.

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3. It is a re-telling of the Odyssey. Although not a 1:1 carbon copy, the elements are there and you can see the outlines of the plot and the characters.

4. I had to read with a dictionary. And there just aren’t many books that force me to do that. Try these on:

   1. Toper

   2. Anchorite

   3. Malandered

   4. Sordor

   5. Menhir

   6. Moiled

   7. Dolmen; and for extra credit

   8. Gudgeon and pintle

5. The imagery in the book of the mountains, the rivers, the passing seasons is captivating. And he doesn’t pull punches describing the Civil War.

6. War is not glorified. Unlike the Odyssey, war is portrayed as horrible, brutal and corrosive. The people leading the war are portrayed as self-interested. There is neither glorification of the struggle against northern invasion nor demonization of either southerners or northerners per se.

7. And while I can’t say that the book left me happy and uplifted, I still felt that the message was optimistic, resilient and hopeful. I think we need this kind of message now, when it is so easy to feel so mired in the confusion and chaos. Characters like Inman and Ada remind us that self-sacrifice, growth and hope bring us forward. Characters like Ruby remind us that self-sufficiency and grit are the engine of our dreams. Characters like Stobrod remind us that even the most broken and degenerate of us can achieve humanity and divinity when we are touched by beauty. And all of them remind us that without Love, none of these is worth much anyway.

Favorite Quote:

“To live fully in a place all your life, you kept aiming smaller and smaller in attention to detail.” (388)

I’d like to dedicate this blog to the memory of Joseph Anthony Pegnato, who passed away at the age of 101 on May 31, 2026. May his memory be a blessing to his family.

Whenever I walk along the street I see discarded things. Bags. Bottles. Pieces of clothing. Newspapers. Lots of cigarette butts. Sometimes bigger things. Tires. Appliances. Pieces of cars that fell off during collisions.

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And I think that every single one of these things had an owner.

At one point in time somebody would have objected if I tried to take that thing away from them. Hey, give me that sock! I want your car bumper! Can I have your cigarette? But little by little over time these things are discarded and lost.

How? Maybe they are unintentionally lost. Like the glove that slips out of your pocket. Maybe they are carelessly thrown away like the gum wrapper tossed out of the car window. Maybe they end up on the road after a vehicular collision. But at one point all of them held value for somebody. Somebody created them, or sought them out, paid for them but now they are discarded.

Some of the things I see discarded are heart-breaking. I occasionally go to estate sales. Everything must go! And I mean everything. Things that seem too personal to be sold must go. Combs with hair in them. A handmade book with drawings by a child in second or third grade for her mommy. Pocket knives sharpened over the years until both the blade and the handle hold the indelible marks of the hand of the user. Dentures.

The Golden Verses of Pythagoras reminds us

“And that the goods of fortune are uncertain; and that as they may be acquired, so may they be likewise be lost.”

And likewise Elvis Costello

“Yesterday’s news is tomorrow’s fish and chip paper”

“Fish ‘N’ Chip Paper” from his 1981 album, Trust.

Even our body gets recycled.

Cells that are constantly exposed to harsh environments, friction, or are designed to fight off pathogens have incredibly short lifespans. They are programmed to replicate, do their job, and die quickly to prevent damage or DNA mutation. For example the cells lining your digestive tract have a lifespan of 2-5 days.

Red blood cells can live about 4 months. Your bones are constantly being broken down and rebuilt, going through complete rebuild cycles every ten years.

And then there are lifetime cells like nerve cells, cells in your eye lens and heart cells that last your lifetime.

And then, the champion of them all is the Ovum. The egg cell. The cell that became you was developed in your mother when she was a 20-week old fetus inside your grandmother.

Our Memories Get Recycled

We like to think of our memories like photographs or videos but they are not. Our memories are constant recreations and remixes. They are different every time, but we don’t notice it because they retain core similar elements that trigger identification. The same way your face has changed dramatically since you were a baby but not day to day. You recognize yourself every morning, although you don’t look exactly the same.

Your brain does not store memories in one neat little file like an MP3. Instead different elements live in different places in your brain. Visual parts live in the visual cortex. Sounds and words are in the auditory cortex. Emotions are in the amygdala.

Each time you remember something your brain reconsolidates or reconstructs the experience. If a part of the memory has faded… what exactly did mom say… was it raining?.... Then your brain just seamlessly fills in the details (fabulation). Each time you do this, you store the memory. Over time you have memories of memories of memories. Elements move in. Elements move out. It’s like a stalagmite that has layer upon layer added to it so after a while you can’t even tell the original shape.

It’s quite vexing really. Because some of your most cherished memories might not be some of your most accurate memories.

You might have instances where you look at journals or actual photographs of an event and see that it was at odds with your memory of the event.

You might read the lyrics of a song you misremember and hear the actual lyrics and hear the song accurately for a while before you slip back to hearing the wrong lyrics again.

“I don’t want to achieve immortality through my work; I want to achieve immortality through not dying. I don’t want to live on in the hearts of my countrymen; I want to live on in my apartment.” - Woody Allen

As an undergraduate I was in a class where the assignment was to write your obituary and then say whom you would like to deliver it and why. I chose myself for the speaker because then I would not actually be dead. I got an A on that assignment.

Prague Guide - Prague Tours

In the old Jewish Cemetery in Prague Jews have been buried since the 15th century. When they ran out of land, they were not allowed to buy more. So they bought soil, covered the land and buried more bodies on top of the original graves. Today there are some 12,000 tombstones jostling for space and some 100,000 bodies interred in layers upon layers of earth.

The cemetery sits several feet above the surrounding street.

Some things are not thrown away.

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“Don’t be so humble. You’re not so great.”

— Golda Meir, Fourth Prime Minister of Israel

I’ve been a big fan of techno-doomsayers for as long as I can remember.

When I was a kid, my parents warned me not to sit too close to the TV because of possible radiation poisoning. Later, the year 2000 became a banner year for doomsday preppers. Because early computers were designed to handle years as two digits, 93 meant 1993, 99 meant 1999, and 00 meant 1900 - not 2000.

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The public was told the Y2K bug meant airplanes would fall from the sky and people would be stranded in elevators (and on escalators, unless they thought quickly). You were supposed to wake up on January 1st and see 100 years of interest deducted from your bank account. Store up your toilet paper and gold, everyone!

-Yawn -

Sorkin’s First Law of Software

I got my first computer around 1986. It had dual floppy drives. A couple of years later, I got my first hard drive. It boasted an unbelievable 5 megabytes of storage.

Even though that felt like an infinite amount of space, I read that I could make my machine run faster by using a program called a “defragmenter.” This software would read my disk and rewrite the data so all the memory was stacked next to each other, saving the computer from seeking information all over a huge, noisy contraption that sounded more like an Apache attack helicopter readying for takeoff..

So, I went to the Egghead Store at the mall, bought the program, brought it home, and installed it. It took about an hour to run, and then...

-Yawn -

My computer ran no faster. That was the day I developed Sorkin’s First Law of Computer Software: Everything you do to optimize your computer will slow it down by the exact amount you hoped to improve it.

To be fair, certain things actually did improve computing. Google made searching faster and better. I could enter terms using normal language, and most of the time, I got results that made sense.

Then came the new dawn. I started accessing A.I. through ChatGPT in early 2023. Initially, I was wary about entering my data. It was scary because I thought it was genuinely superintelligent and would soon turn its vigilant, voracious cyber-eye on me. But soon…

- Yawn -

The Emperor Has No Clothes

In Cal Newport’s email newsletter, he cites an anecdote involving Notre Dame philosopher Meghan Sullivan. While attending a meeting at the Vatican, she met an AI executive. The executive, who was not Catholic, attended Mass the next morning. When Sullivan asked him why, he answered:

“We’re building something that is going to change life as we know it. I want to make sure I keep in touch with what humans have always cared about. This is a place that takes care of those values.”

Newport’s reaction to this wasn’t, “That’s beautiful,” or, “How refreshing to see this level of self-awareness.”

It was more like:

- Yawn -

Why? Because Newport has been one of the lonely voices crying out in the wilderness that the AI King has no clothes - that AI just isn’t “all that.”

Of course, one of the big differences between Newport and me is that he is a fully tenured PhD Computer Science professor at Georgetown, and I’m just a person who reads a lot of Newport.

Newport encourages a reality check:

“Leave religion to the Pope; I want my technology executives focused on building things people actually want.”

The Myth of the Rival Intelligence

Still, pervasive and accepted myths about AI persist. People look at it as being smarter, having better judgment, and being far more “human” than it actually is. That humanity is exaggerated in both directions.

• The Lover: People exaggerate AI’s ability to care for them. They feel like their AI girlfriend or boyfriend is genuinely attracted to them or turned on by them. It isn’t.

• The Terminator: People feel deeply threatened by AI. They see it as a rival intelligence that will inevitably become self-conscious and strive to protect itself at all costs. Like HAL-9000 in 2001: A Space Odyssey, they worry it’s going to lock us out of the spaceship.

Fortunately, there are signs that sanity is creeping back into the discussion. AI executives are growing much more cautious about claiming AI will imminently replace all blue- and white-collar workers. Newport even noted that Sam Altman admitted he was “pretty wrong” about how fast AI would automate jobs.

Perhaps the best summary of our current AI reality comes from a recent book, The Future of Truth: How AI Reshapes Reality by Steven Rosenbaum. The book features a quote about AI attributed to tech journalist Kara Swisher:

“The most sophisticated AI language model is like a mirror that reflects our own morality back at us, polished and articulate, but ultimately empty behind the surface.”

It’s a beautiful, poetic quote. The only problem? When contacted by The New York Times, Kara Swisher said she never said it. The AI writing the book had hallucinated the quote entirely.

Swisher added that the fake quote made her “sound like I have a stick up my butt.”

- Yawn -

Has AI eaten your face? If so, share your sad tale of woe here:

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Miles Since Last Camp on March 15 - 27.4

Total Miles - 259.4

Number of States Visited - 2 (PA, OH)

Prior Camp- Caldwell, OH

Current Camp - Marietta, OH

National Parks Visited: 1/51

Next Park: New River Gorge, WV (91 Miles)

Weight: 175.0 (-5.0)

Injuries: None

Nags - R knee hurts and is stiff.

May 21 2026

Welcome to the Seventh Installment of the Virtual Run to 51 National Parks! For this project, I am using my actual real-world mileage to plot a continuous course starting in Pittsburgh and visiting every National Park in the continental United States.

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(Note: You can read the previous installments here)

Virtual Run 1st Installment - Pittsburgh to Volant, PA

Virtual Run 2nd Installment Volant to Leavittsburg, OH

Virtual Run 3rd Installment Leavittsburg to Cuyahoga Valley National Park

Virtual Run 4th Installment to Canton, OH

Virtual Run #5 - Canton to Newcomerstown, OH

Virtual Run 6th Installment - To Caldwell, Ohio

I’m not in WV but I can see it from here

It’s close. It’s real close. I’ve run 259.4 miles from Pittsburgh and it’s taken me to Marietta, OH. I’m 1.2 miles from WV. This has been a weird and uncomfortable fortnight since the Pittsburgh Half Marathon. I’ve kept my mileage low because next Sunday I run a Half Marathon in Boston, MA. And after that, I begin training for the shorter races while keeping the big picture of the Corning Wineglass full Marathon in early October in mind. So you could say that my plate is full.

Marietta, Ohio

The New York Times calls Marietta The Town Where The West Began for good reasons. NYT Article on Marietta, OH. It was the first chartered city in the Northwest Territory, the massive wilderness region that was the first expansion of the United States.

The town was first settled in 1788 by General Rufus Putnam and 47 former Revolutionary War officers and Mound Cemetery is the final resting place of more Revolutionary War officers than any other graveyard in the nation!

Marietta birthed distinguished citizens including governors, senators and even a vice president. Charles Dawes would become Coolidge’s VP. Dawes would go onto win the Nobel Peace prize for his work on WW1 reparations. Marietta’s citizens also stepped up for the cause of civil rights. Ephraim Cutler cast the vote that prevented Ohio from becoming a slave state. Marietta College would become part of the Underground railroad that helped move slaves to freedom during the Civil War.

Marietta is also the home of luminaries from Pirates Kent Tekulve and manager Jim Tracy. Terry Mulholland, who threw a no-hitter with the Phillies is from Marietta. So are the Black Crowes.

The Haunted Embalming Table:

The William Root House is one of the oldest surviving homes in the area. Its most unusual attraction is a highly detailed Victorian Funeral Exhibit. The museum features mourning jewelry meticulously woven from actual human hair and an authentic, fully restored 1800s wooden embalming table. Visitors frequently report strange drafts, moving latch-locks, and the distinct feeling of being watched near the exhibit.

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I hope that you will join me for this next leg (Virtual and Real). And if you go on your own real or virtual journey, please let me know! I’d love to follow you on your ride.

Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami

467 Pages. Fiction. 2006. Vintage Books.

Read between 5/12/26-5/19/26 while in Pittsburgh, PA. Book #9 of 2026

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(I don’t know if I would describe my summary as containing spoilers, but I thought I came close enough to begin with this disclaimer)

I finished Murakami’s book What I Talk About When I Talk About Running: A Memoir last week and I liked it so much that I immediately ordered one of his novels. The title seemed familiar so I went with this one and I’m glad that I did.

At first, I wasn’t sure what I was getting into. The storytelling was confusing. There were multiple narratives going on and I was not sure if one was real and one fantasy, both fantasy or both real. One narrative was written in a more or less straightforward third person style while the second took on the characteristic of a military intelligence report.

It reminded me of how in Japanese animation like Spirited Away, there is an unseen spirit world presumed to be operating in parallel to our own. If you only know the secret you can tap into it.

Spirited Away. Directed by Hayao Miyazaki, Studio Ghibli, 2001. Promotional poster.

Craig Mod in his book Things Become Other Things talks about Japanese gods in Shinto. Everything is imbued with divinity. The rocks, clouds, mountains. And if you stand back and look at it the right way you can appreciate that divinity. Christianity too holds that we should not limit ourselves to seeing the world as it is but see the holiness underlying everything. See God’s world and God’s order.

Similar to his book on running, Murakami weaves in several big themes familiar to students of Japanese literature and philosophy. He addresses fate and destiny. He talks about impermanence and change.

Two existential themes struck me as being quintessentially different from American sensibilities. Murakami handles sex and death differently. Death is seen as a transition. It is handled with greater acceptance and inevitability. There is a sense that it’s OK to die because it has to happen to propel the story forward. It seems like a Buddhist sensibility to me. We are not done with our work. We need to move on. So we die and do more in the next version of our life.

And the sex is explicit but never seems vulgar. Still we are talking about descriptions of sex with someone that is underage (even in Japan, where the age of consent is 16). So there’s that.

Throughout the book there are mythological references and cultural references that really refine and add to the book. Everything is useful. Nothing is an ornament. And in the end, Kafka’s journey is an Odyssey. He grows, changes and ultimately returns home.

I gave this book at +2/2 and intend to read more of this author.*

Next book up: Cold Mountain.

*My rating system uses a -2 to +2 system. Most material gets a 0. This is considered average. +1 is for pretty good material and only about 10% of things get that rating. +2 is reserved for truly outstanding material and only 5% get that. -2 is reserved for truly horrible content, like Nickelback.

Have you read this book? Others by Mr. Murakami? What did you think?

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Haruki Murakami - What I Talk About When I Talk About Running. 2008. Penguin. 180 Pages.

Read May 2026 in Pittsburgh, PA.

Book #8 of 2026

Nonfiction

Memoir

There are so many books on running and most of them are forgettable.

I’ve read many of them. Some of them can be read in the bookstore. They contain a good introductory chapter and then a mind-numbing set of charts and illustrations. Or a good introductory chapter and then some desultory chapters before completely trailing off.

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Many of these have been written by very good/famous runners. Or at least they were supposedly written by them. I suspect many were ghost written.

Murakami’s book is completely different. It is so different that sometimes you ask yourself, Is this book about running or about life? And maybe all the best books are about something else.

Murakami certainly talks about running throughout the book and he talks about writing. He is brutally honest about running and about himself.

I’m not sure if this kind of honest introspection is part of being an author or Japanese culture. But it’s bracing. Take his assessment of his popularity as a best-selling author:

“I’m not a very social person... People don’t, I assume, like authors. Or at least they don’t have friendly feelings toward them.”

Throughout the book Murakami will drop a beautiful image or metaphor, seemingly out of nowhere. He just leaves it there and then returns to the point he was making.

“Once Halloween is over, winter, like some capable tax collector, sets in, concisely and silently.”

It reminds me of the beautiful scenes you might miss in an animation in Studio Ghibli

Film Title: My Neighbor Totoro (1988)

Director: Hayao Miyazaki

Studio: Studio Ghibli

There are other places in the book where his writing reflects distinctly Japanese Zen philosophical themes such as in Chapter 5 where he repeatedly touches on Impermanence.

’The surface of the water changes from day to day: the color, the shape of the waves, the speed of the current. Each season brings distinct changes to the plants and the animals that surround the river.”

And later…

“…I’m struck by an obvious thought: One generation takes over from the next. This is how things are handed over in this world, so I don’t feel so bad if they pass me.”

Humility and Muga (No-Self)

A central concept in Zen is that our concept of “self” is a core illusion. You will repeatedly come across the metaphor of the “empty mirror” and the question, “Who knows the knower?” Murakami does not directly address Muga, but consider how he describes the end of a marathon race:

”The end of the race is just a temporary marker without much significance. It’s the same with our lives. Just because there’s an end doesn’t mean existence has meaning. An end point is simply set up as a temporary marker, or perhaps as an indirect metaphor for the fleeting nature of existence.”

And perhaps even more poignantly…

“I’m just a replaceable natural phenomenon, like the water in the river that flows under the bridge toward the sea.”

Inspired by Katsushika Hokusai’s The Great Wave off Kanagawa (c. 1831).

Murakami’s book, What I Talk About When I Talk About Running did not make me want to run like Murakami. I’m not sure it even made me want to run more. But in some way, it made me want to live better.

Miles Since Last Camp on March 15 - 41.2

Total Miles - 232

Number of States Visited - 2 (PA, OH)

Prior Camp- Newcomerstown, OH

Current Camp - Caldwell, OH

National Parks Visited: 1/51

Next Park: New River Gorge, WV (111 miles)

Weight: 172.0 (-8.0)

Injuries: None

Nags - L calf tight

May 03 2026

Welcome to the Sixth Installment of the Virtual Run to 51 National Parks! For this project, I am using my actual real-world mileage to plot a continuous course starting in Pittsburgh and visiting every National Park in the continental United States.

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(Note: You can read the previous installments here)

Virtual Run 1st Installment - Pittsburgh to Volant, PA

Virtual Run 2nd Installment Volant to Leavittsburg, OH

Virtual Run 3rd Installment Leavittsburg to Cuyahoga Valley National Park

Virtual Run 4th Installment to Canton, OH

Virtual Run #5 - Canton to Newcomerstown, OH

The Heart of Noble County: A Glimpse into Caldwell, Ohio

Nestled in the rolling foothills of the Appalachian Mountains, Caldwell, Ohio, serves as the steady, historic anchor of Noble County. If you find yourself driving through Southeastern Ohio, this village offers a unique blend of quiet rural life and a surprisingly loud historical footprint.

The Town Today

Caldwell is the county seat of Noble County, positioned along the banks of Duck Creek. As of 2026, the population is estimated at approximately 1,955 residents. The village square is dominated by the majestic Noble County Courthouse, a structure that has stood since the late 1880s as a testament to the town’s central role in local governance.

A Brief History: From Salt to Oil

Caldwell’s origins are tied to the Caldwell family—specifically Samuel Caldwell, who donated the land for the town site in 1857. His father, Robert, had cleared the land decades earlier after moving from Pennsylvania. Because of this generous donation, the commissioners named the new county seat in his honor.

Interestingly, Caldwell sits in Ohio’s youngest county (Noble County, formed in 1851). The area’s history is inextricably linked to the “black gold” that lies beneath it. In 1814, while drilling for salt, settlers Silas Thorla and Robert McKee accidentally struck oil at the Thorla-McKee Well. This is recognized as the first oil-producing well in North America, predating the famous Drake Well in Pennsylvania by nearly half a century.

Notable and Bizarre Events

Caldwell and the surrounding Noble County area have played host to events ranging from the heroic to the supernatural.

1. The Crash of the USS Shenandoah (1925): Perhaps the most famous—and tragic—event in the area’s history occurred just outside Caldwell. In September 1925, the USS Shenandoah, the U.S. Navy’s first American-built rigid airship, was torn apart by a violent storm. The wreckage fell in three main sections across the county. To this day, locals report seeing mysterious shadows cast on the ground from an empty sky, which many believe to be the “ghost” of the great dirigible.

2. General Morgan’s Raid (1863): During the Civil War, the area was the site of high-stakes military drama. Confederate General John Hunt Morgan led a daring raid through Ohio, and his eventual capture occurred in the vicinity of Noble County, marking the northernmost point ever reached by a Confederate force.

3. The Haunted McDonald’s: In a modern twist on local folklore, the Caldwell McDonald’s is whispered to be haunted. Employees on the midnight shift have reported hearing a little girl laughing over their headsets. Legend says the restaurant was built on the site of an old stable where a young girl was tragically killed by a horse, and her spirit remains, occasionally tossing kitchen equipment through the air.

4. The “Sea Monster” of Seneca Lake: Just a short drive from Caldwell is Seneca Lake, where rumors persist of a submerged farm that was never torn down before the valley was flooded. Divers have reported eerie sightings of underwater structures, and some claim to have seen a ghostly figure walking along the north shore.

Back in the Real World… The Pittsburgh Half Marathon

Today was the Pittsburgh Marathon and Half Marathon. This is the event I have been training for since Christmas Day. First, the numbers:

I covered the course in 2 hours, 20 minutes, and 2 seconds. This comes to 10 minutes and 42 seconds per mile. My goal was 10 minutes and 15 seconds per mile. I failed to reach that. Compared to all other runners, I’m average: 52% of runners finished before me, and 63% of men finished before me. But when you look at my age group, I was 40th out of 109 men (ages 65–70) to finish. That puts me in the top 37%. Not too shabby.

The next race up is the Run to Remember Half Marathon in Boston on May 24. This is a fast turnaround, but I’ve done it before.

What is my plan moving forward? I’m completely overhauling my training to a structured, three-day-a-week plan involving:

1. A long run incorporating a race-pace mile or two-mile segment.

2. A tempo run based on the specific race I’m training for.

3. Track sessions.

This will be complemented by non-running cardio (cycling and rowing) and heavier-weight training. This approach comes from Bill Pierce and Scott Murr’s book, Run Less, Run Faster (3rd Ed). (The title was so similar to my doomed idea for a running program called “Run Less, Eat More.”)

It is a radical departure from my current understanding, which is to increase miles in order to deal with the stress of a marathon. Pierce and Murr present both a compelling rationale and data to support it. But ultimately, it comes down to a single-subject design—with me as that subject. Either it works or it doesn’t.

There simply isn’t time to judge this fairly for Boston, but I will be putting it into play for the summer training season as I transition into training for the Corning Wineglass Marathon on October 4, 2026.

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I hope that you will join me for this next leg (Virtual and Real). And if you go on your own real or virtual journey, please let me know! I’d love to follow you on your ride. Also, if you have any experience with the Run Less, Run Faster program, I’d love to hear about it.

In this series, I guide you through all the details you should be obsessing about. Not worried yet? Keep reading.

We’ve come to the final piece in our pre-race worry series. So far, we’ve fretted over race outfits, second-guessed our hydration choices and agonized over imaginary aches and pains. Now I want to introduce you to a topic that will keep you up at night… insomnia.

Links to all the articles in this series:

Worry About Insomnia

Worry About Imaginary Aches and Pains

Worry About Drinking Too Much or Too Little Water

Worry About Your Race Outfit

Pittsburgh Half Marathon Countdown: What to Worry About Today— Insomnia

There is a special and horrible kind of silence that exists at 3:00 AM on race morning. It’s the silence of thousands of runners staring at hotel ceilings, calculating exactly how many hours of sleep they’ve lost and how much it will cost them on the course.

If you are awake right now, you are in the majority. Research suggests that up to 70% of endurance athletes report significant sleep disturbances during race week, with over 60% suffering from acute insomnia the night before the event. Interestingly, studies have shown that half-marathoners often screen positive for sleep problems at higher rates (38.3%) than full marathoners (28.4%). This is likely because the “half” often attracts a larger pool of first-timers, for whom the “performance-anxiety-to-experience” ratio is at its peak.

The Good News: You are Physically Fine

As a psychologist and a runner, I want to offer you a “permission slip” to stop worrying. The seminal research by Reilly and Edwards (2007) provides a vital distinction between physiological capacity and subjective appraisal. Their data demonstrates that one night of poor sleep has no significant impact on objective markers like leg strength, heart rate, or lung capacity.

The real danger is the “Negative Placebo” effect: the belief that because you didn’t sleep, you must perform poorly. In reality, while your “Perceived Effort” (RPE) might feel higher, your body is still a primed machine. Knowing you are physically “okay” is often the very thing that lowers your arousal enough to finally drift off.

The Architecture of a Restful Taper

To give yourself the best chance at rest, we have to move beyond simple “sleep hygiene” and look at the biological levers of the body.

What Actually Works:

• The Saturday Reset: Wake up extra early on the Saturday before the race. Ensure you are physically and “adenosine-tired” by 8:00 PM.

• The Thermal Trigger: Take a hot bath 90 minutes before bed. It sounds counterintuitive, but the vasodilation caused by the heat helps your core body temperature fall rapidly once you get out—a biological prerequisite for deep sleep.

• Environment: Keep the room “cave-like”—cool, dark, and utilize a fan or white noise generator to mask hotel hallway sounds.

• Early Fueling: Eat your final large meal early in the day to prevent metabolic heat and digestion from keeping you awake.

The Blue Light Myth

We’ve been told to fear our screens, but Dr. Merijn van de Laar, author of How to Sleep Like a Caveman, offers a much-needed correction. He argues that the blue light from a smartphone is often too low in intensity to truly suppress melatonin. The real culprit isn’t the light; it’s the psychological impact of the content. Checking your “split” goals, engaging in “rage bait” on social media, or provocative news stories puts your brain in an alert, problem-solving state. It’s the “engaged mind,” not the glowing screen, that keeps the switch turned to “on.”

The “Recovery Tax”: Alcohol and Melatonin

When sleep is elusive, many reach for a “nightcap” or a “natural” supplement. Both are metabolic traps.

Alcohol: The Sedation Trap

Even a single serving of alcohol is a recovery disaster. While it acts as a sedative, it is not a sleep aid.

• Sleep Fragmentation: As alcohol is metabolized, it causes “micro-wakeups” throughout the night.

• REM Suppression: Alcohol is a potent blocker of REM sleep. This leads to a “REM rebound” in the morning, characterized by vivid, restless dreams.

• The Physical Cost: One drink elevates your resting heart rate, suppresses your Heart Rate Variability (HRV), and blunts the nocturnal release of Growth Hormone necessary for muscle repair.

Melatonin: The Hormonal Hammer

Similarly, I advise caution with melatonin. It is a potent hormone, and one of the few hormones sold over-the-counter that affects the HPG (reproductive) axis.

• Dosage Chaos: Research in the Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine found that the content in supplements can vary from the label by 10% to 478%.

• Supraphysiological Doses: Most OTC pills provide 10–100 times what the brain naturally produces. While it may help you fall asleep, it rarely helps you stay asleep, often leading to 3:00 AM awakenings and a heavy “fog” the next morning.

The Huberman Stack: A Better Alternative?

If you are looking for a “biological buffer,” Dr. Andrew Huberman suggests a non-hormonal cocktail:

1. Magnesium Threonate (145mg): Crosses the blood-brain barrier to quiet the nervous system.

2. Apigenin (50mg): A chamomile derivative that acts as a mild sedative (Caution: can act as a mild estrogen blocker, so discuss this with your healthcare provider).

3. L-Theanine (100–400mg): Promotes alpha brain waves for “relaxed alertness” (Note: can cause very intense dreams in some).

BOLD WARNING: If you are going to try this, do it now. Do not experiment with new supplements the night before your marathon. Huberman repeatedly warns that both Magnesium Threonate and L-Theanine can cause intense vivid dreams in some. Test it during your taper to see how you react. As always, consult your healthcare provider before starting a new regimen. Also, some people get diarrhea with any kind of Magnesium. Know your supplement!

Behavioral “No-Demand” Methods

• Box Breathing: Inhale for 4, hold for 4, exhale for 4, hold for 4. This mechanical override signals the vagus nerve to switch from “fight-or-flight” to “rest-and-digest.”

• NSDR (Non-Sleep Deep Rest): Non-sleep Deep Rest is a term coined by Stanford Neurobiologist Andrew Huberman. It is essentially a secular form of Yoga Nidra. You are guided through deep breathing and body scanning. Specifically, you breathe in through your nose and then do slow exhalation through pursed lips. This induces a parasympathetic nervous system tone shift. You then focus on scanning through the body. Although you are not asked to focus on sleep, it often helps transition you into sleep. Perhaps because of the non-demand aspects. I have included links to both a 10-minute and a 20-minute version of this and both are on YouTube. I would recommend practicing them starting today to get some experience doing them. I personally find this to be the “magic bullet” for sleep and relaxation.

The Finish Line

At the end of the day, remember that the marathon isn’t won in the eight hours before the race; it was won in the hundreds of hours of training you’ve already put in. If you find yourself awake tonight, don’t fight it. Lean into the quiet.

Your legs don’t know you’re tired; only your head does. And your head is usually a liar when it’s 3:00 AM and you’re 26.2 miles away from glory.

References

Book

Van de Laar, M. (2025). How to sleep like a caveman: Ancient wisdom for a better night’s rest. William Collins.

Podcast Episode

Huberman, A. (Host). (2021, January 11). Master your sleep & be more alert when awake (No. 2) [Audio podcast episode]. In Huberman Lab. Scicomm Media. https://www.hubermanlab.com/episode/master-your-sleep-be-more-alert-when-awake

Huberman, A. (Host). (2022, August 8). Sleep toolkit: Tools for optimizing sleep & sleep-wake timing (No. 84) [Audio podcast episode]. In Huberman Lab. Scicomm Media. https://www.hubermanlab.com/episode/sleep-toolkit-tools-for-optimizing-sleep-and-sleep-wake-timing

Huberman, A. (Host). (2022, August 22). What alcohol does to your body, brain & health (No. 86) [Audio podcast episode]. In Huberman Lab. Scicomm Media. https://www.hubermanlab.com/episode/what-alcohol-does-to-your-body-brain-and-health

Newsletter

Huberman, A. (2024, May). Toolkit for sleep. Huberman Lab Neural Network. https://www.hubermanlab.com/newsletter/improve-your-sleep

Video/Audio

10-Minute Version (YouTube) Huberman, A. [Huberman Lab]. (2021, September 10). NSDR (Non-Sleep Deep Rest) with Dr. Andrew Huberman [Video]. YouTube.

20-Minute Version (Spotify) Huberman, A. (2023, July 24). NSDR (Non-Sleep Deep Rest): 20 minute protocol [Audio podcast episode]. In Huberman Lab. Spotify.

Journal

Reilly, T., & Edwards, B. (2007). Altered sleep–wake cycles and physical performance in athletes. Physiology & Behavior, 90(2-3), 274-284.

Walker, M. (2017). Why we sleep: Unlocking the power of sleep and dreams. Scribner.

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In this series, I guide you through all the details you should be obsessing about. Not worried yet? Keep reading. So far, we’ve fretted over race outfits and second-guessed our hydration.

Links to all the articles in this series:

Worry About Insomnia

Worry About Imaginary Aches and Pains

Worry About Drinking Too Much or Too Little Water

Worry About Your Race Outfit

Today, we go hardcore: Hypochondriasis. It is “Five Days and a Wake-Up” until the Pittsburgh Marathon. For many of you, the “5K-Myalgia” has officially set in.

• Everything hurts.

• Everything is tight.

• Every twinge portends a ruptured tendon.

• Every cough signals a DNF-level bout of Covid.

  Subscription is Free, no matter what the next screen says

You tell yourself that final shakeout run was a catastrophic mistake. You think: If I feel this “off” on a 5K, how am I going to survive 13.1 (or 26.2)?

This is Runner’s Hypochondriasis. All of us go through it; some of us just do it at a PhD level. While last-minute injuries are real, how many times have you felt “broken” on a Tuesday only to feel like a superhero on Sunday?

The Mechanics of the “Taper Tantrum”

Why is your brain lying to you? It comes down to two psychological traps:

1. Somatic Hypervigilance & Amplification Usually, you rely on exteroception (watching the road, checking your watch). But as the race nears, your brain switches to interoception—an intense, microscopic monitoring of everything inside the skin.

Your brain is a priority machine. It highlights what is rewarding or threatening. Because the marathon is a high-stakes “threat,” your brain promotes every minor sensory blip to the top of your consciousness. Once you focus on a spot, you amplify it. It’s the “Finger Prick Effect”: the more you watch the needle, the more it hurts.

2. Malignant Labeling Once you perceive a sensation, you assign it a narrative. A tight hamstring isn’t just a feeling; it becomes a tragedy where you’re limping across the Birmingham Bridge while the sweep bus looms behind you. With that guy from 8th grade shouting insults from a megaphone on top. The “PhD Brain” knows that whether you label a sensation as THREAT or NON-THREAT changes your entire physiology. If you can label it “Taper Noise,” your nervous system shifts from sympathetic (fight or flight) to parasympathetic (rest and digest).

The Internal Jury: How Your Brain Decides

Your brain is running a high-stakes “discrimination algorithm” to decide if a pain is “Good” (fatigue) or “Bad” (injury):

• The Thalamus (The Filter): It’s trying to distinguish signal from noise. If the pain is sharp and localized, the Thalamus cranks the volume.

• The Amygdala (The Alarm): It is biased toward “threat” because the cost of ignoring a stress fracture is higher than the cost of a missed run. It’s what fuels those “I forgot my shoes” marathon nightmares.

• The Prefrontal Cortex (The Logic): This is your executive center. It asks: Does this change my gait? Is it symmetrical? Have I felt this before? If the answer is “No,” it’s likely just the Taper talking.

The Protocol: Managing the Panic

1. Don’t Overmedicate Avoid the “Pill for Every Ill” trap. Inappropriate NSAID use leads to sour stomachs or gastric bleeds, and “taking the edge off” with alcohol or other substances just leaves you sluggish at the starting line.

2. Counter-Regulate with Box Breathing If anxiety raises your cortisol, fight back with patterned breathing. It’s used by Navy SEALs and elite athletes for a reason.

• Inhale for 4 seconds.

• Hold for 4 seconds.

• Exhale for 4 seconds.

• Hold (empty) for 4 seconds.

3. Use ACT (Acceptance & Commitment Therapy)

• Acknowledge: Don’t suppress the butterflies. Say: “I am noticing pre-race adrenaline.”

• Accept: The jitters are just your body “priming the engine.” Don’t fight them; let them ride shotgun.

• Commit: Reconnect with your “Why.” Focus on your purpose—whether it’s a PR or a Smiley Cookie at the finish—not the noise in your nerves.

A Little Tenderness

We are running in Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood, after all. Be kind to yourself. Hypochondriasis hits those of us who like control the hardest.

I have found that running hypochondriasis happens to the people that tend to want to exert the most control and who deal most poorly with lack of control.

I find in meditation that my mind constantly chatters. Its as if my mind thinks that if it stops talking, or creating images, whether good or bad, that something horrible will happen. Maybe the only thing that makes the world real is my mind and if it stops generating thoughts the whole world will just go away. Cease to exist. What a cosmic existential burden!

Surprise: The world doesn’t end.

And surprise! Aches and pains or not, you have trained in ice and snow and dark and rain and wind and hills and potholes. And you have a club and family and a whole city that has your back if you fall.

Five Days and a Wake-Up Call. See you out there.

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In our last installment, I encouraged the wisdom of fretting over your race-day kit. Today, I want to increase your anxiety about water.

Links to all the articles in this series:

Worry About Insomnia

Worry About Imaginary Aches and Pains

Worry About Drinking Too Much or Too Little Water

Worry About Your Race Outfit

Most runners hold these three statements as sacrosanct:

1. Drink until your pee is clear.

2. Stay ahead of your thirst.

3. You can’t drink too much water.

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I want you to consider changing your mind. Our understanding of hydration has evolved. While water is essential, “excess” is a biological gamble.

EAH: The Hidden Danger of Over-Hydration

Exercise-Associated Hyponatremia (EAH) is a condition where sodium levels in the blood drop to dangerously low levels. It isn’t caused by a lack of salt; it’s caused by a surplus of water.

In his book Waterlogged, Dr. Timothy Noakes explains that over-consuming fluid forces water out of the blood and into the cells. In most tissues, this is a nuisance. In the brain, it’s a crisis. Swelling in the cranial vault can lead to symptoms ranging from a dull headache and confusion to seizures—and in extreme cases, death.

The Math of the “Safety” Myth: Many runners assume sports drinks are a shield against this. They aren’t.

• Human Blood: 135–145 mEq/L of sodium.

• Standard Sports Drink: ~18–20 mEq/L.

• Tap Water: < 0.1 mEq/L.

Even with a sports drink, if you “bolt” massive quantities, you are still diluting your blood. Noakes’ advice is simple but profound: Drink only to quench thirst.

The Diagnostic Trap

One factor that complicates race-day medicine is that the symptoms of hyponatremia mimic its opposite: dehydration. Both present with headaches, nausea, confusion, and wheezing.

In major races like Pittsburgh, medical tents use specialized lab equipment to check sodium levels before acting. Attempting to “fix” a runner with a low-sodium IV when they are actually hyponatremic can be catastrophic.

Who is at Risk?

Statistically, the risk is higher for:

• Slower runners: You have more time to hit every single aid station.

• Smaller-framed runners: It takes less volume to dilute your total blood supply.

Between 1985 and the mid-2010s, roughly 12–15 deaths were attributed to hyponatremia in marathons. While that percentage is minuscule, it is entirely preventable. Notably, there are virtually no recorded cases of a runner dying from dehydration in a marathon. Your body is designed to handle a 1–3% loss in body weight (about 3–9 lbs for a 175 lb runner); it is not designed to handle a flooded brain.

The Protocol: How to Hydrate Right

1. The Three-Day Lead-In Start increasing water intake 72 hours before the start. Drop the alcohol now; your body cannot store water at an optimal rate if it’s playing catch-up from a Friday night beer.

2. The Morning “Pee Test” Check your second urination of the morning. You aren’t looking for clear water—you’re looking for light lemonade.

• Clear: You’re over-drinking. Back off or add electrolytes.

• Apple Cider/Maple Syrup: You’re dehydrated. Drink up.

• Tomato Juice: This isn’t always a kidney crisis, but it’s a “see a doctor immediately” signal.

3. The Night Before Observe the Two-Hour Rule: No significant fluids two hours before bed. This increases the odds of sleeping through the night without a 3:00 AM bathroom trip—though “race-day jitters” may have other plans for your sleep.

4. During the Race This is personal, but here is my practice: I carry two 10-ounce flasks. I take about 5 ounces every 15 minutes. By refilling at the one-hour mark, I avoid the congestion and “cup-throwing” chaos of the aid stations. It keeps the water in my mouth and off my clothes.

5. The Recovery It ain’t over til it’s over. Replace lost fluid weight slowly over 48–72 hours, not all at once. Use a replacement fluid with a 4:1 carbohydrate-to-protein ratio. The carbs don’t just refuel your muscles; they trigger the insulin response needed to help your kidneys reabsorb the sodium you lost.

Salut!

Summary Checklist

• Pre-load: Hydrate well 3 days out.

• Trust your thirst: Don’t drink on a schedule; drink when you’re thirsty.

• Monitor: Know the signs of EAH (confusion/headache).

• Recover: Slow, steady rehydration with protein and carbs.

Reference List

Noakes, T. D. (2012). Waterlogged: The serious problem of overhydration in endurance sports. Human Kinetics.

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“Tattaglia is a pimp. He never could have outfought Santino. But I didn’t know until this day that it was Barzini all along.”

My washing machine is a jagoff. Let me explain.

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In my last post, I mentioned that tomorrow is my marathon dress rehearsal. The plan was simple: launder the kit tonight, run the miles tomorrow. But as I stood before the porcelain beast, I decided to finally test a deep-seated suspicion.

Marathon Dress Rehearsal

I became assiduous. I turned every single item of clothing right-side out. Every tech-shirt. Every pair of running shorts. Every single sock. I spared only the washcloths. Clemenza was in my ear: “Turn the underwear. Leave the washcloths.”

Then, I let the cycle run. When the chime sounded, I opened the lid to find total Infamità.

All this time, it had been the one pulling the strings. The machine wasn’t just washing my clothes; it was gaslighting me. I was just a mammalucco in its little game. Upon inspection:

• 25% of the shirts: Inverted.

• 30% of the underwear: Inside out.

• 0% of the socks: These remained untouched. Maybe a little bit too untouched.

But the machine couldn’t help itself—it still had to “wet its beak”. It sent one lone running sock to that parallel universe where single hosiery and Pilot G2 pens migrate to, never to be seen again.

Bastardo!

It thinks it has weakened me before the big run. It thinks that by flipping my liners and hiding my socks, I’ll lose my focus. But now I know who the real enemy is.

Tomorrow, I run the dress rehearsal. The clothes might be clean, but the relationship is soiled.

Keep your friends close. Keep your washing machine closer.

It is 11 days until the start of the Pittsburgh Half Marathon. If you haven’t started worrying yet, you are woefully unprepared.

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Links to all the articles in this series:

Worry About Insomnia

Worry About Imaginary Aches and Pains

Worry About Drinking Too Much or Too Little Water

Worry About Your Race Outfit

Many runners know how to train and how to endure, but they lack the one skill that separates the mid-pack from the elite: the high-performance worry. This is where I come in. I may not be the fastest, and I may not have the greatest endurance, but when it comes to self-doubt and pre-race angst, I’m Meb Keflezighi with a tailwind and a 6% downhill grade.

Today’s focus: The Race Day Outfit.

Today is the day I select exactly what I will wear. Why now? Because there is a cold, hard logic to this madness.

I need to launder this specific kit so it’s ready for Sunday’s Dress Rehearsal Run. I’ll be doing a five-miler with my club, Fleet Feet, and I will be wearing exactly what I plan to wear on race morning. This includes:

• The Full Load-Out: Hydration system, every single gel, and all the fluid I’ll carry for the 13.1 miles even though I won’t actually consume it.

• The Lube Protocol: I will lube up as if I were heading to the starting line. A minor irritation at mile five of a training run becomes a “banger” of a raw spot at mile ten on Forbes Avenue. If you’re prone to chafing, carry a small packet of lubricant—better to have it and not need it than to have your gait ruined by a friction burn.
  

• The Tech: My playlist will be set, and my watch will be locked onto the specific metrics I plan to track during the race. I will even practice having my watch and phone charged to 100%.

The Goal: No Surprises. You do not want to discover at mile three that your shorts bounce, your zipper sticks, or your keys doing the battle rattle in a way that drives you insane.

After Sunday’s run, I will come home, launder everything in the same gentle detergent I’ve used for years (no new chemicals allowed this close to the start!), and put it all away until Saturday night. I’ll also pack a compression long-sleeve in case of a Pittsburgh spring chill, and a “throw-away” shirt for the starting corral.

From Monday on, I’ll wear my “B-list” gear. The race kit stays in sanctuary.

The Takeaways for Your Sunday Rehearsal:

1. Test the System: An outfit isn’t just clothes; it’s a gear system.

2. Audit the “Hot Spots”: If it rubs for five minutes, it will bleed for an hour.

3. Manage the Cargo: Know exactly where your gels, credit card, and keys are. Fumbling costs mental energy.

4. Tech Check: Ensure your playlist and watch settings are intuitive.

The goal is to be as focused as possible on race day. Take care of the small details now so they don’t take care of you on the course.

What do you do to prepare for the big day? Have you picked out your outfit yet?

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