Four Complaints About Racing Where You Are

Photo from a local race, by Wes Peck.

Starting a map-based race calendar (even typing that feels weird) brings up a lot of questions from people who are used to finding races the old way.  Here are a few complains, and my rebuttals:

I’m too badass for the races near me.

I get it–you’re a badass, and you don’t want to waste your time.  You travel far and pay big money to do races against other badasses.  How did those races attract all those badasses?  For the most part (well, for grassroots races I enjoy), it’s because some badass took a chance and entered it, even knowing he or she would win.  If you’re a badass, you most likely know other badasses from racing them, repeatedly, at your regular badass races (which also happen to be far away).  Take a chance on your local race and raise the bar–invite your badass friends to stay at your place (you get to sleep in your own bed), then get up and race.  You’re adding to the local sport, and that’s a good thing.

I’m not good enough for the races near me.

So you’re a new athlete, or a “slow” athlete–or maybe you really are slow, by all measures (and I’m okay with that if you are).  If you like racing for the sake of racing, doing something “above and beyond” what you’re used to is a great, fantastic way to get pumped beforehand and then go out and test yourself.  Before you ran a mile, you’d never run a mile before.  Use a nearby race as a way to try something new without having to shell out for the privilege.

The races near me are too expensive.

I struggle with this one, because it’s become a problem in the last several years.  Races that used to cost $15 and included food and prizes now cost $40 (or $100) and include food, prizes, a band at the finish, a fancy shirt, and a bunch of other stuff.  I’ve outgrown wanting all that other stuff, but it’s okay if you like it–there are plenty of races out there that will gladly take your money and give you stuff in return, then tack on a race.

Local competition (meaning other, cheaper nearby races) ought to be the answer, but sometimes that’s not possible (or else you wouldn’t be asking this question).  You may have to travel if you want to race on a certain date and can’t find anything local, but the key here is to tell the race why you aren’t entering.  Race directors tend to only get positive feedback, and only then from people who actually did the race.  If you would do it “except it costs too much,” drop them a line and tell them so (nicely).  It’s only through this type of feedback that RD’s can learn that most of those pint glasses end up being donated to Goodwill at the end of the year.

There aren’t any races where I live.

A lot of times, there just isn’t a race that’s local, or near enough to be called local.  The best way to fix this?  Put on a race!  Work with local clubs (running, cycling, whatever you have) to get something going.  Maybe your local government will even chip in some money if it brings people to town.  It will take some work, but you can start with informal events and go from there.

Good luck folks!

Dealing with many “Mail Delivery Failed” addresses

When spammers sign up for your website, you get a lot of junk email addresses.  If you then institute a newsletter module, you may get several hundred “mail delivery failed” messages.  

In Apple mail, you can select all the individual messages and click “forward” to compile them into a single email.  (If you use conversations, first do View->Expand All Conversations in order to select individual messages.)  Then copy that, paste into http://eel.surf7.net.my/, and you’ll get a list of the email addresses that bounced, which you can then bulk unsubscribe.  This works for me with the Drupal Simplenews module.

How do we know what other people know? (rough cut)

…without talking to them, of course.  [Note: This has been sitting in my queue since September; I’m going to publish it as-is so it counts as “done.”]

  1. Papers (external)
  2. Reports (internal)
  3. Blogging

Blogging is like talking to them, but what’s the impetus to get a blogging (internal or external) program going?  The NSF problem: how do you know it will work (i.e., help everyone know what everyone else is good at) without doing it first?  Blogging as a fun part of work, not as a chore.

Purpose:

  • to help make skills more widely known in-house
  • internal development
  • internal culture
  • not aimed at promotion of organization

    • however, good bloggers are good ambassadors to the public and future partners
    • external blogging is useful to draw in experts from outside the organization
  • Good points: https://blogin.co/
  • More good points: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_blog#Internal_blogs
     

Time commitments and return.

Personality of bloggers and readers–some people like to write, some like to read, some are a mix.  Some would rather just talk to you.

Do some searching on this, maybe case studies are out there?

This is not what I am talking about (internal blogging for an external blog).

http://humancapitalist.com/the-future-of-corporate-learning-must-include-the-internal-blog/
 

Light Pollution Resources

Mostly for my own edification.  I’ve been living in town for almost nine years, and the excess light is starting to get to me.  I can’t be the only one.  I will try to grow this resource as I read more.

Overview

  • http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Light_pollution
  • Ornamental LED lighting/LEDs vs. HPS http://www.universetoday.com/107372/leds-light-pollution-solution-or-night-sky-nemesis/
  • Brief slideshow http://www.slideshare.net/CarmenLucindaAustin/light-pollution-kinds-consequences-solutions

Why Reduce Light Pollution?

  • Biology http://ottawacitizen.com/news/local-news/bright-idea-new-ottawa-street-lights-will-cause-more-light-pollution-physicist
  • Biology http://e360.yale.edu/feature/bringing_back_the_night__a_fight_against_light_pollution/2681/
  • Astronomy http://cosmicmatters.keckobservatory.org/2006/dec/06dec_2.htm

Fixture Design Solutions

  • http://www.gizmag.com/led-streetlamp/27246/
  • http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Light_pollution#Improving_lighting_fixtures
  • http://www.powerhousegrowers.com/reducing-light-pollution-urban-cities/
  • Engineering aspects http://ecmweb.com/lighting-amp-control/latest-light-pollution

Behavioral/Policy Solutions

Philosophy

Busy with a Side of Traffic

When I was still in grad school (was that over a year ago?) the common theme was that everyone was too busy to do anything except what they were doing (or what they decided they wanted to do).  “Busyness” is of course the way Academia likes to define its worth, and that trickles down fairly rapidly to the proletariat.  Advisors are so busy they have no time to meet with grad students; grad students are so busy they have no time to meet with undergrads they are teaching…and everyone talks about it all the time.  I’ve seen this since I’ve started my current job, but only tangentially, and I blame circumstances more than culture (maybe more on this later).  In many places, chronic busyness is a badge of honor, because if you aren’t scrambling, you aren’t trying to do all the things.

This brings me to bicycle commuting, of course.  I ride to work every day, year round, and have done so for at least five years now.  It’s not a long commute.  For the record, I had a vehicle during grad school, and now we have a family vehicle, but I don’t use it to commute.  What I’ve noticed about commuting (and speaking with other commuters) is a similar badge of honor: how much your ride here sucked.  This can be expressed in number of drivers (“there was so much traffic”), as quality (“man, I saw so many bad drivers today”), or as machine bringers of death (“I almost died so many times last year”).  

The problem with all that is the difference between talking to fellow commuters about this (“I feel your pain”) and talking to the rest of your social circle (or strangers).  It’s a mixed message, especially when speaking with people who don’t commute by bicycle.  On one hand, you’re trying to convince them (aren’t we all?) by telling them how wonderful it is (the exercise! the sights and sounds!  the freedom!  the savings!)…and on the other hand you’re complaining about how much it sucks.  That’s right–all that “poor me, I almost died” is turning people off to commuting!  Isn’t that crazy?  If you were listening to this, which side would you believe?

Race Registrations are Live

Photo by Wes Peck, used with permission.

It’s early, but Northern Plains Athletics is officially hosting online race registration for .  If you’re in the Grand Forks/East Grand Forks area in February, you should check it out.

Some details and history: Although this is a first for NPA, I’ve been running online event registration for two organizations since January of 2013: ENDracing and Ground Up Adventures (including GUP subdivisions Northern Heights Rock Gym and Boathouse on the Red).  This isn’t necessarily to brag or even try to sell you on using NPA for online registration–just to reassure you that I know what I’m doing.  That being said, these are all in addition to a “regular” job–and so handling (many) additional race registrations at this time would detract from the quality of service I’m able to provide.

I’m providing online registration for Bikecicle as a way to help out the Northern Star Cycling Club, and because I think some of the other online registrations end up charging more than small events want to handle.  Doing this as a hobby, I don’t have to worry about overhead as much, so I can charge a little less.

New Preprint: Comparing size of morphospace occupation among extant and cretaceous fossil freshwater mussels using Elliptical Fourier Analysis

A new preprint of some of the work from my Master’s thesis is now available at PeerJ, authored by myself and my MS and PhD advisor, Joseph Hartman.  We’re looking for honest, science-y feedback in order to improve the paper before publication, so please check it out!

Burton-Kelly M, Hartman JH. (2014) Comparing size of morphospace occupation among extant and cretaceous fossil freshwater mussels using Elliptical Fourier Analysis. PeerJ PrePrints 2:e626v1 http://dx.doi.org/10.7287/peerj.preprints.626v1