Best not live on a prayer

How distinct are the shapes of hope and despair for you? How do these emotions appear in your body?

Personally - hope has a lift and arch to it, the chest comes up and the upper back tilts back, an upward tilt of the chin and a slight tautness in the stomach; like I am a baby looking to an adult to be taken up into their arms. It feels like a light, but weak position.

Despair is a collapse forwards of the upper torso, softening of the stomach, a drop of the head. This feels like a heavy, weak position.

My personal experience is that hope easily segues to despair - an arch to a collapse. There's a very seductive flow to it (I think of the transition happening during a crescendo like in Swan Lake).

Something I suspect: if one hopes that something is going to happen, it's exceedingly likely that they don't believe it will happen; they just haven't accepted it yet. And/or they feel powerless to affect the outcome (I am reminded of gamblers). They're holding on to a prayer; Onto a bit of Deus Ex Machina.

I'd go as far as positing:

Despair can only arise out of hope

For resilience's sake, best to be aware of when there is too much hope, then;

1. Relax the stomach and lower back; Raise the crown of the head and tilt the chin a degree or two towards your chest (I think both actions happen together, but I'm not sure); Adjust the weight  on your feet so that is over the arches of the feet.¹
2. Look around and see what can be done and/or who can help.
3. Or if it's time to cut losses and step away.

-----------

¹ Or any centring practice you know or googling can provide ;)

Full Moon

I went meditating,
On the other side of the river,
In the dark,
The Moon and the city before me.

I went meditating,
Searching for peace and stillness,
In the dark,
I found myself emptying my heart...

I went meditating,
Gently scourging where desire lay,
In the dark,
Soon it was picked and polished clean.

I felt empty, a mirror to the world outside,
I felt peace that hurt.

Was it always there, hidden under desire?

marathon week 5 (7)

As a sequel to my marathon two years back, I'm doing three Antwerp one again. This time I'm training fit it though. Following a program and everything.

It's a 17 week program. Mondays are cross training. Tuesday interval.Wednesday easy lope (ostensibly marathon pace). Thursdays are a hard pace. Friday is a rest. Saturday is long. Sunday is rest. Gradually the distance/difficulty on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday increase. My last long run was 19.5km in 91:54 -which is more or less the peace I want for the marathon "simply a matter of" telescoping that out over the next few weeks to the longer distances.*

Tonight I did ladder intervals. I managed: 200, 400, 800, 400, 200, 400, 800, 400, 200, 400, 200m (I was done after the last 400, so just another 200 to cap it off).

200s in 35-37 s, 400s in 1:25-1:33, 800s were the same at 3:11.

The 200s were exhilarating, I felt like Kate Winslet when she was on the prow of the Titanic (you know, because she was in the company of one of the best actors of his generation).**

The 400s were kind of soothing; like prison institutionalisation.

The 800s were horrible.
__________________
*The distances over the half marathon distance (21km) will tell [obviously]. But right now it's looking like 3:15-3:25 to finish.
**His performance in Wolf of Wallstreet was the best I have seen of him.

Aluminium parallettes

A year or two ago, I tried to make parallettes using PVC 1 1/2" plastic tubing. I used standard plumber glue for setting them in place. They didn't last long; within a couple of days they fell apart. (sad face)

Since one of my "training-bros" (technical term) recently made his own ones, I was prompted to re-action. This time, I pulled out all the stops and went for threaded alumnium 3/4" tubing, t-pieces and 90 degree bends. The cost came out as ±€70, so it is a bit on the steep side; it's metal so I am expecting them to last long enough, but we'll see. The plastic tubing I got to cover the base support of the parallettes [to protect my apartment floor] was about €18 for 4m, so that's a fair chunk of the cost right there.

If the threading holds out, I might make more things, like a free standing chin-up frame.

Materials list:

1. 4 x 50cm 3/4" threaded-end pipes
2. 2 x 1m 3/4" threaded-end pipes
3. 4 x t-pieces 3/4"
4. 4 x 90° bends
5. 4m of 1" silicone tubing
6. Teflon tape
7. (Hacksaw, box-cutter knife and cutting block)

 Steps

1. Cut four of the 50cm pipes in half
2. Teflon tape is wrapped round all of the threaded ends to give a snug fit (not sure if it is actually necessary, but my habits of working with leak-free tubing systems are hard to kick).
3. Fit the other 50cm pipes to the middle holes of the t-pieces
4. Fit the 25cm lengths to other two branches of the t-pieces
5. Fit the bends to the other end of the 50cm pipes
6. Fit the 1 m pipes between two of the elbow bends
7. Screw everything as tightly as possible, while still having the bases of the legs perpendicular to the 1m bar
8. Take 1" 4m tubing and cut into four 60cm lengths, eight 20 cm lengths
9. Cut down the length of the tubings
10. Fit the short tubings around the supports of the parallettes
11. Fit the long tubings over the whole length of the bases
12. Give them a go!

Step 1 - cutting the 50cm pipe

Steps 3-5 - End result

Step 6 - Assembled parallette

Step 10 (a)

Step 10 (a)

Step 10 (a)

 Finished product

"Giving them a go" with tuck planche (Step 12)