Chaos Practice

Detail 1-35327, by Roman Opalka "The problem is that we are, and are about not to be" Roman Opalka 16 km  1:23:54 / 5.15 pace 7.20 pm start. 22C. Windy.  I used to say - to myself and anyone who would listen - that when I have nothing to say or write I just write or talk about what someone else wrote or said. It's something about this need I referred to the other day about sharing personal obsessions, or perhaps it's just about fearing silence, or the idea of silence.  Today, however, I am not falling back on this simple technique, although so far it seems like I am in fact doing quite a good job of filling space with nothing. No, I thought about Roman Opalka - quoted above, with an example of his attempt to paint numbers from 0 to infinity - because I have just done the calculations for the end of the month and I found myself jotting down a lot of numbers on Post-It notes. Like this: September & October: 631.70 km. 54.97 h...

Rippled sand on Santos beach 12 km 1:05:31 / 5.27 pace   Night beach run, 22C. Tired.  Felt fine tonight, but understandably tired after recent exertions and two days of revising a 200-page thesis. My task was to revise the English, as it had been written for a doctorate by a non-native speaker of the language. Given that I understood nothing of the subject, I simply had to ignore my lack of comprehension and focus on the language itself. The overall impact was very tiring and very strange, reading page after page of stuff that made no sense to me but making sure it was in good English. I felt like a robot and I suppose if I had the time and inclination that experience would be an interesting basis for a comment on whether or not Artificial Intelligence will ever achieve consciousness. Luckily for you I don't and won't.  This was slow but there was a sweet moment in the middle when I felt I could just run all night, and that running was in fac...

My 16 km run this afternoon along the Santos beach. I noticed the rockabilly profile of the island of Santos for the first time today.  16 km 1:23:22 / 5mins 12 secs per km 23C, overcast afternoon I planned to go long and slow today. Long, it was, at 16 km (or ten miles, more of which in a minute), but I don't claim this is a slow pace, not for me. It’s medium, I’d say, at least for now. I set out thinking I would do at least 16 km at 5.30 pace – that is, five minutes thirty seconds per kilometer. After two kilometers I decided that 5.30 was too slow, but longer than 16 km would not be on, mainly because I have work to do tonight. So, I thought about 5.20 pace. Then it struck me that 16 km might be too far at that pace. It was then that I decided to look at it as a 10-mile run, rather than 16 km. And so it was. Every 1.6 km / mile I mentally chalked off 10% of the run and, before I knew it, I was at 80% (12.8km / 8 miles) and feeling fine. In the ...

The sea, Santos, Brazil - most of my running is done along this shoreline  12 km beach run, 33C late afternoon at sunset. 1:02:42  Felt great. Easy pace – very fluffy sand in parts. What comes first – thought or language? What makes us disgusted by something or attracted to it? Is love real? Are vultures onto something? Is being fit any better, or worse, or just the same, as being unfit? Why do so many people watch sports? How can anyone take any government seriously as long as cigarettes are legal? If I die in my sleep tonight, so what? When did the first human being evolve and how; and would it make much difference if I could understand that, anyway? Should I get a tattoo? These questions are just examples of the thoughts I have when I am running. I make neither apology nor claim for them.  They just appear. Same thing happens in the great creative center of my life  - and probably yours ...