June
10th to 19th June we were in Austria with a very familiar group of cycling friends (Ondra and David). On Sunday we saw the MTB World Cup in Zell am See/Kaprun and the rest of the week we were cycling almost every day. I managed to squeeze in a few swims as well; in a wonderful outside pool. Last day we went for the classic Queen Stage, this time to Großglockner, and drove back home on the same day to have full Sunday for recovery.
Week later, on 26th June, I finished my first Ironman. 3.8km swim, 180km ride, and 42km run. It was long, exhausting, hard, but most importantly fun.
Suprisingly, the swim went smoothly. My worst discipline improved a lot in last 4 months and I came out of the water fresh and ready for the 2 stronger disciplines which might have been a mistake. I pushed hard (too hard) on the bike for the first half of the 180km and the rolling terrain with a lot of steep small hills took its toll. On 100th kilometer I already knew that it will be a painful day. I spent the rest of the bike in damage-control mode and tried to conserve as much energy as possible for the run.
The run went horrendously. I started slowly at 4:50 pace and hoped to increase it slightly over the course but that didn’t pan out. At 16th km I completely bonked, I didn’t have energy, my stomach hurt, and it was very hard to consume any calories. I spent next 12km walking (even short jogs were impossible) until I recovered at least a little bit. Last 12km were finally something one could call a run.
I finished in 11:34:42. The heat made it one hell of a race as my heat tolerance is really low and I am still trying to figure it out and get used to it. On the other hand, it was an invaluable experience. I tried nutritioning on a really long endurance events. I tested out how fast can I go on the bike (went too fast). And I gained some confidence in the water. Still, the event left me a little bit dissatisfied so I decided to sign up for Ironman Barcelona in October.
Now some recovery and off to Spain for Ultratrail Val d’Aran in 12 days.
Reading
The problem is that firefighting is thrilling and addictive and makes you feel needed–and installing smoke detectors is boring. The problem is that you’re really good at fighting fires.
Everyone complains about how short life is, but that perspective is broken. Life is not short. The real issue is that we waste so much of it.
- Why didn’t Gandalf own a Colt .45?
- They’re Made out of Meat
- How to fuck up an airport; i.e. how the BER Airport came to be
Watching
- Stranger Things are back with 4th season and whatever, I will admit it, I enjoy it.
This month I learned
I read a bunch of articles on value of personal time and ended up on tool called What is your time really worth to you? - that helps you estimate how much money each hour is worth to you. My estimated value of free time is €39 per hour which seems about right or slightly lower than if I tried to estimate it without the tool.
It is very useful to know the value of your free time. It helps you make informed decisions in many situations such as:
- deciding whether to order groceries online (with premium and delivery) or go to store
- whether to take more expensive but shorter option of transport when traveling
- whether to take additional part-time work
and much more. This all needs to be taken with a grain of salt as personal preferences come to play. Some people for example enjoy grocery shopping while others (🇬🇧) don’t mind waiting in a queue. Either way, the worth of your time if an interesting data point in decision making and it might make you reconsider a few decision here and there.
More on the value of time and life
Things you’re allowed to do by Milan Cvitkovic is a list of things that can done or bought that you might have never considered. A few points that stand out to me: Treat fines like payments, e.g. park illegally and consider the (expected value of the) fine to be the price of the parking. If you have the money: buy clothes for appearance or comfort instead of just the lowest price, buy your way out of advertising on e.g. Spotify or YouTube, use cleaning/laundry services. And couple more points related to career and decision making.Listening
After a long time I had a few hours for podcasts while driving to Frankfurt, these two were the best:
No groundbraking music discoveries this month. Gleb (SK) release a new album that is… underwhelming. Anyway, here’s one of the songs I enjoyed this month: